Hans Baur

Sophisticated manner, rich voice and ironic delivery made Hans Baur an immensely popular character actor in his native Bavaria. A single role led to television stardom: his magistrate August Stierhammer in Königlich Bayerisches Amtsgericht (1969), a comedy set in a fictitious small Bavarian town, just prior to the outbreak of World War I. Presiding over diverse, often mundane cases, Baur would deliver endless Solomonic judgments with both wit and wisdom. When the final season had run its course, the actor found himself less able than hitherto to pick and chose his roles, instead they chose him. For the remainder of his career, Baur was destined to be typecast as straight-laced judges, bureaucrats or police superintendents (with a notable recurring role in the ever-popular crime series Tatort (1970)). Baur's voice, capable of a wide range of emotional expression, was also a regular mainstay for radio plays and used in audio-books for children. Hans Baur arrived on screens while already in his mid-forties. After a failed start as an actor, he had to take drama classes for two years before finally qualifying for a theatrical debut in 1934. During the next two decades, he honed his skills at stages throughout Germany in classical plays by Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller and Kleist. Then, with advancing years, he became a celebrated interpreter of the folksy, Bavarian-themed works of Ludwig Thoma. His film roles, however, never amounted to much. Baur toiled for many years as a small-part player in TV movies, until his undoubted acting talents were finally recognised late in life and he received his career-defining part in "Königlich Bayerisches Amtsgericht".