Otto Sander is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 film, theater, and voice actor.

Sander grew up in Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

, where he graduated in 1961 from the Friedrichgymnasium. After leaving school he spent his military service as a navy reserve officer and then studied theatre science, history of art and philosophy. In 1965 he made his acting debut at the Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

er chamber plays. After his first film work in the same year he abandoned his studies in 1967, and went to Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 to become a full-time actor.

He is married to the actress Monika Hansen and is stepfather to the actors Ben Becker

Ben Becker

Ben Becker is a German film and theatre actor.- Life and work :Becker is the son of actress Monika Hansen and actor Rolf Becker. He is the brother of actress Meret Becker and the stepson of Otto Sander. His grandmother was the comedian Claire Schlichting...

 and Meret Becker

Meret Becker

- Life and career :Becker was born in Bremen, the daughter of the actors Monika Hansen and Rolf Becker. She is the sister of Ben Becker, stepdaughter of Otto Sander and granddaughter of Claire Schlichting....

.

His career is closely connected with the Schaubühne theatre in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 under the direction of Peter Stein

Peter Stein

Peter Stein is a critically acclaimed German theatre and opera director who established himself at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, a company that he brought to the forefront of German theatre....

. Because of his warm, strong voice, which earned him the sobriquet "The Voice" (the English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 term is used), he has been used frequently as narrator

Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

 for television documentaries, and numerous talking books in the 1990s.

In 1990, he was a member of the Jury at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival

40th Berlin International Film Festival

The 40th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from February 9 to 20, 1990.-Jury:* Michael Ballhaus * Margaret Ménégoz * Vadim Abdrashitov* Suzana Amaral* Steven Bach* Roberto Benigni* Lívia Gyarmathy...

.

Among his best-known film roles are the angel

Angel

Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...

 Cassiel

Cassiel

Cassiel is the Latin name of an archangel in post-biblical Judeo-Christian religion, particularly that of the Kabbalah. Unlike many other angels, Cassiel is known for simply watching the events of the cosmos unfold with little interference...

 in Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire is a 1987 Franco-German romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress...

and its sequel Faraway, So Close!

Faraway, So Close!

Faraway, So Close! is a 1993 film by German director Wim Wenders. The screenplay is by Wenders, Richard Reitinger and Ulrich Zieger. The film is a sequel to Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire. Actors Otto Sander and Bruno Ganz reprise their roles as angels visiting earth. The film also stars...

by Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...

, and a shell-shocked U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

 commander, Kapitänleutnant Philipp Thomsen, in Wolfgang Petersen

Wolfgang Petersen

Wolfgang Petersen is a German film director and screenwriter. His films include The NeverEnding Story, Enemy Mine, Outbreak, In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, Troy, and Poseidon...

's Das Boot

Das Boot

Das Boot is a 1981 German epic war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann...

. Sander also appeared in Comedian Harmonists

Comedian Harmonists (film)

Comedian Harmonists is a 1997 German film by Joseph Vilsmaier. It is a biopic about the popular German vocal group Comedian Harmonists...

, a biopic about the musical group of the same name

Comedian Harmonists

The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II...

. He has two brothers, the lawyer Adolf Sander, the scientist Christian (Chris) Sander, and a sister, the book dealer Marianne Sander.
He also played a professor in the movie: The Promise about the division of Berlin by the wall.

External links