Alfred Müller

Alfred Müller (4 July 1926 – 2 December 2010) was a German stage and screen actor. His career peaked in the German Democratic Republic during the 1960s and 1970s, but he was still making frequent appearances – increasingly, by this time, on the small screen – in film dramas through the 1980s. He was 63 when the wall came down and, unlike many performers who had built their careers in East Germany (1949–1989), he successfully transitioned in reunified Germany, continuing to appear in stage musicals and television dramas long after his seventieth birthday. As a result of his starring role in the 1963 East German espionage film For Eyes Only he was burdened, over many decades, with the labels, the "James Bond of the East" and "007 of the East": he detested the epithets.

Life Provenance and early years Alfred Müller was born and grew up in the Wedding district of central Berlin. His father worked sometimes as a casual labourer and sometimes as a taxi driver: his mother worked as a secretary. Müller attended school in the adjacent Berlin district of Humboldthain. Here his debut performance was as Faust in "Urfaust", as the earlier version of Goethe's "Faust" is known in the German-language. A succession of further minor film roles followed. It was only in 1990, as the East German dictatorship collapsed that Das Kaninchen bin ich was distributed to cinemas.

The many other films in which Müller featured during his DEFA years include Kurt Maetzig's production of Banner of Krivoi Rog"("Die Fahne von Kriwoj Rog", 1967), Herrmann Zschoche's screen comedy Life in pairs ("Leben zu zweit", 1968) and Roland Gräf's film for young people, My Dear Robinson ("Mein lieber Robinson", 1970). and Adolf Hitler in Shatrov Das Ende. His stage roles no doubt pleased contemporary theater audiences and the authorities at the time. However, due the transitory nature of the medium, along with the facts that the many plays in which he appeared were those by politically acceptable Soviet dramatists and that East Germany remained culturally isolated from the west through from the 1950s until the end of the 1980s, and except within the confines of "Ostalgie", sources created post-reunification, many of which were published only in 2010, to mark Müller's death, tend to overlook those theatre performances. He also teamed up with Helga Hahnemann for live shows, notably in a number of reviews at Berlin's "Palast" review theatre.

According to one source, by the end of his career Alfred Müller had played over 100 roles. Beyond the world of acting, he also worked during the 1980s as presenter-moderator on the East German television game show "Quizmühle".

Later years After the collapse of the East German dictatorship and the reunification that followed, Müller continued to pursue his acting career through what might have been considered his old age. When it came to stage roles, his appearances were for the most part restricted to the so-called "Neue Bundesländer" (formerly East Germany), since he was little known to western audiences, and for at least ten years there was little appetite in the west for re-runs of old East German television variety shows. There were various guest stage appearances in Dessau, Dresden and also (in the west) Hagen. In Berlin he was on stage at the Kurfürstendamm variety theatre and at the Theater des Westens. His stage appearances, by this time, tended to be restricted to variety shows, for which he sometimes teamed up with surviving long-term stage partners from the past such as Gisela May or Solveig Müller (no relation). Musical stage shows in which he appeared in supporting roles during the 1990s included the 1994 review "Blue Jeans" and Berlin revivals of "Anything Goes" and "Hello, Dolly!". Although he would continue taking minor roles in television dramas through the 1990s and (with less frequency) during the first decade of the twenty-first century he was by this stage generally content to leave the major roles to others. An exception was the television series Sherlock Holmes and the seven dwarves ("Sherlock Holmes und die sieben Zwerge"). Intended to appeal to children and their parents, the eight episodes were first screened across Germany during May and June 1992 during Sunday afternoons, but more recently screenings usually feature all eight episodes, cut together into a single 90-minute film. Alfred Müller took the lead, as Criminal Commissioner Hans Holms whose longed-for retirement has to be deferred, to participate in a somewhat fanciful narrative that starts with a visit from Fairyland of seven dwarves, invoking his help through a series of adventures triggered by the kidnapping of Snow White. Fortunately the armchair that his police colleagues had given him as a retirement present turns out to be a well-disguised secret portal into Fairyland.)

While he was alive, Alfred Müller liked to visit the North Sea island of Usedom when his schedule permitted it. Usedom was where his wife Eva had been born and grown up. The couple had acquired a holiday home there.

Alfred Müller died of Pancreatic cancer in Berlin on 2 December 2010. His partner Solveig Müller was with him when he died.

His body was disposed of in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Usedom in accordance with his wishes.