Hans von Borsody

During his decades-long career, Austrian-German film, TV and stage actor Hans von Borsody (1929-2013) was seen in the war drama A Bridge Too Far (1977) and many other films. On stage, he starred as Faust and Cyrano de Bergerac.


German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 2657. Photo: Lilo / Dörfler /Bavaria.

Jeune Premier

Hans Eduard Herbert von Borsody was born in Vienna, Austria in 1929. His parents were the film director Eduard von Borsody and the concert pianist and violinist Maria Hochreiter. When Borsody was three, his family moved to Berlin and obtained German citizenship.

Von Borsody came early into contact with the film business, but at his father's request, he started a photography study. From 1950 to 1952, he studied acting at the Max-Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. Later he stood on stage in many German and Austrian cities such as Munich, Vienna, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Berlin and Hamburg.

He made his film debut in Don Giovanni/Don Juan (Walter Kolm-Veltée, 1955) featuring Cesare Danova. This musical swashbuckler follows closely the plot of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.

Thanks to his roles as a jeune premier in films like the Heimatfilm Der Schandfleck/The Disgrace (Herbert B. Fredersdorf, 1956), Hans von Borsody quickly made a name.

He starred in the crime thriller Das Rätsel der grünen Spinne/The Mystery of the Green Spider (Franz Marischka, 1960) and the Austrian drama Sturm am Wilden Kaiser/Mountain Wind (1963), written and directed by his father Eduard von Borsody.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2204, 1964. Retail price 0.20 DM.

Stylish, flamboyant giallo-thriller

During the 1960s, Hans von Borsody played in several pan-European co-productions. He had supporting parts in the war films Marcia o crepa/Commando (Frank Wisbar, 1962), set during the Algerian War and starring Stewart Granger, and Sette contro la morte/The Cavern (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1964) with John Saxon. The latter is a claustrophobic WW II war drama, which chronicles the five months which six soldiers and one woman spent trapped within a deep cave in the Italian mountains.

He rode as a cowboy across the prairie in the Italian Spaghetti Western Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west/Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West (Mario Costa, 1965) featuring Gordon Scott.

In Germany, he played Volker von Alzey in the two-part epic sword-and-sorcery fantasy Die Nibelungen (Harald Reinl, 1966-1967), a remake of the silent classic directed by Fritz Lang in 1924. He became a household name in German-speaking countries as detective Cliff Dexter in the Krimi series Cliff Dexter (1966-1968), which kept millions of European TV viewers spellbound.

In Italy, he also appeared in Omicidio per appuntamento/Date for a Murder (Mino Guerrini, 1966). At AllMovie, Robert Firsching describes the film as a "stylish, flamboyant giallo-thriller clearly influenced by the striking work of genre pioneer Mario Bava".

Von Borsody fought as a rebel against the Romans in Hermann der Cherusker - Die Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald/Massacre in the Black Forest (Ferdinando Baldi, Rudolf Nussgruber, 1967), a historical drama film set in the German frontier in AD 9. The film centres on Hermann, a chieftain of the Cherusci tribe (in what is now Hesse), who drew three Roman legions into an ambush in the Teutoburg Forest, known as the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. His co-stars were Antonella Lualdi and Cameron Mitchell.


German collectors card by J & M Serienbilder Produktion Saar, no. 55. Photo: Gloria Film. Hans von Borsody in Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west/Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West (Mario Costa, 1965). Caption: "Captain Hunter zerrt verzweifelt an den Fesseln. Der mutige Freund Buffalo Bills muss zusehen, wie im Lager der skalpgierigen Sioux-Krieger die Tochter seines Colonels gemartert werden soll." (Captain Hunter drags desperately at the chains. The courageous friend of Buffalo Bill must watch how the daughter of his colonel will be martyred in the camp of the scalp greedy Sioux Warriors.)

His role of a lifetime

During the 1970s and 1980s, Hans von Borsody played in several German TV films and series and in a few international films.

Among these films were the war epic A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977) and the thriller Bloodline (Terence Young, 1979), based upon the novel by Sidney Sheldon, and starring Audrey Hepburn.

His role of a lifetime was Cyrano de Bergerac, which Von Borsody performed on stage in Vienna and Andernach. It was the role about which he had already dreamed during his studies at the Max-Reinhardt Seminar.

Hans von Borsody died in Kiel, Germany in 2013. He was 84. He was survived by his fourth wife Karin and his daughters Suzanne and Cosima. After his first marriage with actress Rosemarie Fendel ended, he was married to actresses Alwy Becker and Heide Keller.

Suzanne von Borsody, his daughter with Rosemarie Fendel, is an award-winning actress. Her half-sister Cosima von Borsody, Von Borsody's daughter with Alwy Becker, also works for the camera.


German collectors card by J & M Serienbilder Produktion Saar, no. 46. Photo: Gloria Film. Publicity still for Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west/Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West (Mario Costa, 1965). Caption: "Der erste Schurke, Big Sam, ist gefasst. Buffalo Bill hat bei ihm die Schiesseisen für die Rothäute gefunden. Big Sam gehört zu den Banditen, auf deren Konto die neunen Kämpfe zwischen Sioux und Weissen kommen." (The first villain, Big Sam is taken. Buffalo Bill has found at his place the firearms for the Redskins. Big Sam is one of the bandits, on whose account comes the new fighting between Sioux and whites.)

Sources: Robert Firsching (AllMovie), T Online (German), AllMovie, Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 15 July 2023.