Udo Kier, one of the most beloved genre film stars of all time, has passed away at 81. The news was confirmed to the trades by his longtime partner, Delbert McBride. Throughout his more than fifty-year career, Kier appeared in more than two hundred films, many of them absolutely iconic. He’s perhaps the only actor I can think of who seemed as at home in an Andy Warhol movie as in something like 1998’s Blade. He was beloved by fans of both the highbrow and lowbrow, and everything in between, and no matter what the role, Kier always embellished it with his own unique brand of gallows humour and total commitment.
I vividly remember my first encounter with Udo Kier in films. It was when I saw Ace Ventura: Pet Detective at twelve years old, in which he played Ron Camp, a suspect in the kidnapping of the dolphin Snowflake. Over the years I’d see him pop up in tons more films, including Johnny Mnemonic, Blade, Armageddon, Barb Wire, and End of Days. It wasn’t until I was in film school that I learned he also had a long career in avant-garde art films, including an association with Andy Warhol, who cast him in Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula, both of which were directed by Paul Morrissey. He worked with everyone from Dario Argento, to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, to Werner Herzog, to Lars von Trier (multiple times), to—yes—even Uwe Boll.
I actually had numerous encounters with Kier over the course of my career, with him a frequent guest at the Fantasia Film Festival here in Montreal. He would often come out to party with the volunteers, staff, and journalists after screenings, but I never approached him as—for some reason—I expected him to be haughty. Yet, when I interviewed him around the time he made Alexander Payne’s Downsizing and S. Craig Zahler’s Brawl in Cell Block 99, I discovered he was anything but. He was an extremely kind man who, just before our interview, was FaceTiming his dogs back home. He was extremely friendly, and every time I’d ask him a question, he’d ask one about me, and actually be legitimately interested in my answers. We hit it off so well he actually asked for my email address, although sadly, I never got an email.
Nevertheless, I always hoped I’d be able to chat with him again. He had a great sense of humour about himself and loved his cult status, as well as his fans. He was one of a kind and will be missed. Lucky for us, we’ve got one more cool role to see him in, with him appearing in Neon’s The Secret Agent, which is getting strong Oscar buzz. He certainly deserved to go out on a high note.
