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Thomas Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare was a British military officer and mercenary who fought during the Simba rebellion and was involved in carrying out the 1981 Seychelles coup d'état attempt.
Wolfgang Staudte, born Georg Friedrich Staudte, was a German film director, script writer and actor. He was born in Saarbrücken.
The Wild Geese is a 1978 war film starring an ensemble cast led by Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Krüger. The film, which was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, was the result of a long-held ambition of producer Euan Lloyd to make an all-star adventure film in the vein of The Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare. The plot concerns a group of European mercenaries fighting in Africa. The screenplay by Reginald Rose was based on Daniel Carney's unpublished novel The Thin White Line.
Andrew Victor McLaglen was a British-born American film and television director, known for Westerns and adventure films, often starring John Wayne or James Stewart.
Karl Michael Vogler was a German actor, probably best known for his appearances in several big-budget English language films. In The Blue Max (1966), he co-starred with George Peppard and Ursula Andress as the squadron commander, and in Patton (1970), he portrayed General Erwin Rommel. In between, he was in Robert Redford's Downhill Racer (1969) as a ski company owner.
Erwin C. Dietrich was a Swiss film director, producer and actor, often regarded as one of the most influential cinematographers in Switzerland.
Jack Watson was an English actor who appeared in many British films and television dramas from the 1950s onwards.
Like piracy, the mercenary ethos resonates with idealized adventure, mystery, and danger, and appears frequently in popular culture. Many are called adventurers, filibusters, soldiers of fortune, gunslingers, gunrunners, ronin, and knights errant.
Constantin Film AG is a German mini-major film production and distribution company based in Munich. The company, which belongs to Swiss media conglomerate Highlight Communications AG, is a large independent German maker and distributor of productions in the entire field of audio-visual fiction and non-fiction. Company activity is based on the five pillars of film production/procurement of rights, TV production, film distribution, home entertainment and licence trading/TV exploitation. Constantin Film AG has released 36 of the 100 most successful German films of the last 20 years, including four of the Top 5: Manitou's Shoe, Traumschiff Surprise – Periode 1, Fack ju Göhte and Fack ju Göhte 2. The Fack ju Göhte trilogy was concluded in 2017 with Fack ju Göhte 3 and is now the most successful German film series of all time. Internationally, Constantin Film is best known for the successful Resident Evil film franchise, which has earned US$1.2 billion worldwide to date and is also known as the highest-grossing film series based on a video game. Most recent successes include TV series Shadowhunters, which won four People's Choice Awards in 2018, and the live-action Resident Evil television series. Constantin has also been involved in 20th Century Fox's Fantastic Four film franchise. Other productions include bestseller adaptation The Silence and Monster Hunter.
Dark of the Sun is a 1968 British adventure war film starring Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Jim Brown, and Peter Carsten. The film, which was directed by Jack Cardiff, is based on Wilbur Smith's 1965 novel, The Dark of the Sun. The story about a band of mercenaries sent on a dangerous mission during the Congo Crisis was adapted into a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall. Critics condemned the film on its original release for its graphic scenes of violence and torture.
Siegfried Friedrich Heinrich Müller, referred to as "Congo Müller" (Kongo-Müller), was a German-born mercenary who served as an officer with 5 Commando during the Congo Crisis. A former officer-candidate in Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht who continued to wear his Iron Cross, Müller acquired particular notoriety in West and East Germany in the mid-1960s amid extensive press coverage of his involvement in war crimes in the Congo and overt nostalgia for the Nazi era.
Luciano Pigozzi, also known professionally as Alan Collins, was an Italian character actor. A long-time staple of Italian genre cinema, Pigozzi was noted for his resemblance to Peter Lorre and appeared in such films as Human Cobras, Yor, the Hunter from the Future, Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman, Blood and Black Lace, Libido and perhaps his goriest role in Baron Blood.
Dietmar Otto Schönherr was an Austrian film actor. He appeared in 120 films between 1944 and 2014. He was famous for playing the role of Major Cliff Allister McLane in the German science fiction series Raumpatrouille. He was born in Innsbruck, Austria. He was married to the Danish actress Vivi Bach from 1965 until her death in 2013. In 2011 he was awarded with the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class.
Horst Janson is a German actor.
Rolf Steiner is a German retired mercenary. He began his military career as a French Foreign Legion paratrooper and saw combat in Vietnam, Egypt, and Algeria. Steiner rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel commanding the 4th Commando Brigade in the Biafran Army during the Nigerian Civil War, and later fought with the Anyanya rebels in southern Sudan.
Euro War, also known as Macaroni Combat, Macaroni War, Spaghetti Combat, or Spaghetti War, is a broad subgenre of war film that emerged in the mid-1960s. The films were named Euro War because most were European co-productions, most notably and commonly by Italians, as indicated by the subgenre's other nicknames that draw parallels to those films within the mostly Italian Spaghetti Western genre.
Werner Pochath was an Austrian film actor. He worked in Germany, Italy and the United States, and then in the 1980s he began a second career as a Hollywood agent. He had been the partner of the ballet director of the Hamburg State Opera, John Neumeier.
Hannjo Hasse was an East German actor. Over his nearly four decade career, he was best known for his roles in the films of Lebende Ware (1966) and Walter Defends Sarajevo (1972), as well as the television series Rote Bergsteiger (1968) and Archiv des Todes (1980).
Ian Yule was a British born South African actor and soldier. He had a film career that commenced in the late 1960s and lasted to around the early to mid 2000s. Many of the roles he has played are that of a soldier. The films he has appeared in include Killer Force, in 1976, One Way also released in 1976, Golden Rendezvous in 1977, The Wild Geese in 1978, —Safari 3000 in 1982, City of Blood in 1983, and many more. He was also a stuntman in a few films. He also was a screenwriter and wrote some screen plays including Shamwari in which he starred opposite Ken Gampu. He was a well known actor in South Africa.
The 5 Commando was a mercenary unit of the Congolese National Army formed in response to the Simba rebellion. They were trained to be commandos, and had their own air support unit. 5 Commando was active from 1964 to 1967.