03 August 2018

Sascha Hehn

German actor and he-man Sascha Hehn (1954) participated in many feature films including a dozen sexploitation films. He is best known for two long-running TV shows, but he also acted on stage and dubbed international films. His is the German voice of Shrek in the famous animation films.

Sascha Hehn
German autograph card by Honda. Photo: Gabowicz, München. Publicity still for the TV series Das Traumschiff/The Dreamboat (1981-1991).

Sascha Hehn
German autograph card by Karstadt. Caption: Sascha Hehn trägt Globetrotter von KARSTADT.

Film debut at five


Alexander Josef Alberto ‘Sascha’ Hehn was born in 1954 in Munich. He is one of the four sons of film actor Albert Hehn from his fourth marriage to Gardy Artinger, a former beauty-queen and assistant director.

After the divorce of his parents, he lived with his mother in the Munich suburb of Grünwald. At the age of five he made his film debut in the Heimatfilm Hubertusjagd/Hubertus Castle (Hermann Kugelstadt, 1959) starring Wolf Albach-Retty and Angelika Meissner in her final role.

More film roles for Hehn followed soon. He had parts in the melodrama Ein Student ging vorbei/A student passed by (Werner Klingler, 1960) with Luise Ullrich, and the Schlager and Heimat film Drei weiße Birken/Three White Birches (Hans Albin, 1961), starring Erika Remberg. As a pupil, he was so busy with his acting career that he left school before he reached the middle school.

During the 1960s he could be seen in many TV films, such as Der doppelte Nikolaus/The Double Nicholas (Rainer Erler, 1964), and the TV series Alarm in den Bergen/Alarm in the mountains (1965) with Armin Dahlen.

In 1971, Hehn returned to the cinema in the softsex film Schülerreport/Fresh, Young and Sexy (Eberhard Schröder, 1971), based on the schedule of the Schulmädchen-Report genre which was very successful in the early 1970s.

In the following years, the handsome teenager starred in a dozen German sexploitation films with such titles as Mädchen beim Frauenarzt/Girls at the Gynecologist (Ernst Hofbauer, 1971), Die Klosterschülerinnen/Sex Life in a Convent (Eberhard Schröder, 1972), and Junge Mädchen mögen’s heiß, Hausfrauen noch heißer/Crackajacks (Eberhard Schröder, 1973) with Birgit Bergen.

To avoid military service, Hehn falsely announced his first residence in West Berlin and later he had to serve a five-week prison sentence. In 1982 he was a soldier for several months with the mountain hunters in Landsberg am Lech.

Sascha Hehn
German autograph card by Bravo, 1979.

Sascha Hehn
German autograph card by Möbelhöhn. Caption: Ein herzliches Dankeschön für ihren Besuch am 25. September 1988 bei Möbelhöhn (A heartfelt thank you for your visit on 25 September 1988 at Möbelhöhn).

German Exorcist Rip-off


In the following years, Sascha Hehn also made non-sex films including a new version of Schloss Hubertus/Hubertus Castle (Harald Reinl, 1973) with Robert Hoffmann, and the German Exorcist Rip-off Magdalena – vom Teufel besessen/Beyond the Darkness (Walter Boos, 1974).

He also turned up in popular TV Krimi’s like Der Kommissar/The Commissioner (1975), Der Alte/The Old Fox (1979-1982) and in six episodes of Derrick (1979-1986) with Horst Tappert and Fritz Wepper.

In 1976 he played Pete Jarrett, a young man following his grandfather (Andrew Kier) throughout ‘down under’ in the 13-part Australian-German TV series The Outsiders. Later, he had another role in an international production as Baron Gottfried von Cramm opposite Farrah Fawcett in Poor Little Rich Girl – The Barbara Hutton Story (Charles Jarrott, 1987).

Hehn also played theatre. In 1972, he went on tour with O.W. Fischer in the comedy The Glass of Water by Eugène Scribe. In 1980 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Orlando in William Shakespeare's As you like it, as a partner of Barbara Sukowa. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he explained why he broke off his promising stage career: "Intendant Ernst Haeusserman wanted to get me to the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, but I said: No, Professor, that's not my way. I want to earn money in commerce. That's the only excuse I'm allowing, he said."

So, Sascha Hehn became best known in Germany for two long-running TV series. In Das Traumschiff/The Dreamboat (1981-1991), he played chief steward Viktor and in Schwarzwaldklinik/The Black Forest Clinic (1985-1989), he played doctor Udo Brinkmann opposite Klausjürgen Wussow. In 2014, he succeeded Siegfried Rauch in Das Traumschiff as captain Victor Burger. The series still continues. In the same role, he also appears in the spin-off Kreuzfahrt ins Glück/Cruise to happiness (2014-2018).

Hehn also dubbed several international films. He gave his voice to Shrek for the German versions of the films Shrek (Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson, 2001), Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, 2004), Shrek the Third (Chris Miller, Raman Hui, 2007) and Shrek Forever After (Mike Mitchell, 2010).

Sascha Hehn lives with his girlfriend in Mittergars, a small village in Bavaria.

Sascha Hehn
German autograph card.


Who the f--k is Sascha Hehn? Source: Der Batz (YouTube). Sorry, no subtitles.


German trailer for Shrek Forever After (2010). Source: xtreamproductionz (YouTube).

Sources: Malte Herwig (Süddeutsche Zeitung - German), Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

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