Karlheinz Böhm, Son Of Karl Böhm And Thea Linhard, Passes Away

Karlheinz Böhm (center) with his wife Almaz (left) and daughter Aida (right).

Böhm played opposite Romy Schneider in Sissi.

"Karlheinz Böhm (March 16, 1928 – May 29, 2014), sometimes referred to as Carl Boehm or Karl Boehm, was an Austrian actor. He took part in 45 films and became well known in Austria and Germany for his role as Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in the Sissi trilogy and internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell. He was the founder of the trust 'Menschen für Menschen,' which helps people in need in Ethiopia. He also received honorary Ethiopian citizenship in 2003. Having two citizenships, he saw himself as a world citizen: His father was the Austrian conductor Karl Böhm, his mother the German-born soprano Thea Linhard. He was an only child, and spent his youth in Darmstadt, Hamburg and Dresden. In Hamburg he attended elementary school and the Kepler-Gymnasium (a grammar school). A faked medical certificate enabled him to

His father, Karl Böhm, stands at right while
composer Richard Strauss plays the piano

emigrate to Switzerland in 1939, where he attended the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, a boarding school. In 1946, he moved to Graz with his parents, where he graduated from high school the same year. He originally intended to become a pianist but received poor feedback when he auditioned. His father urged him to study English and German language and literary studies, followed by studies of history of arts for one semester in Rome after which he quit and returned to Vienna to take acting lessons with Prof. Helmut Krauss. From 1948 to 1976 he acted in about 45 films and also in theater. With Romy Schneider, he starred in the Sissi trilogy as the Emperor Franz Joseph,
which limited him to one specific genre as an actor. He made three American films in 1962. He played Jakob Grimm in the 1962 MGM-Cinerama spectacular The Wonderful World of

His parents Karl Böhm and Thea Linhard

the Brothers Grimm and Ludwig van Beethoven in the Walt Disney film The Magnificent Rebel. (The latter film was made especially for the Disney anthology television series, but was released theatrically in Europe.) He appeared in a villainous role as the Nazi-sympathizing son of Paul Lukas in the MGM film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a Technicolor, widescreen remake of the 1921 silent Rudolph Valentino film. During 1974 and 1975, Böhm appeared prominently in four consecutive films from prolific New German Cinema director Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Martha, Effi Briest, Faustrecht der Freiheit , and Mutter Küsters' Fahrt zum Himmel. Böhm's voice acting work included narrating his father's 1975 recording of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and in 2009 as the German voice for Charles Muntz,

A young portrait of Karlheinz Böhm.

villain in Pixar's tenth animated feature Up. From 1981, when he founded 'Menschen für Menschen,' Böhm was actively involved in charitable work in Ethiopia, for which in 2007 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Humanity, Peace and Brotherhood among Peoples. In 2011 Karlheinz Böhm and his wife Almaz were awarded the Essl Social Prize for the project Menschen für Menschen. He married Almaz Böhm, a native of Ethiopia in 1991. They had two children, Nicolas (born 1990) and Aida (born 1993). Karlheinz had five more children from previous marriages, among them the actress Katharina Böhm (born 1964). In February 2013 it was reported that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, he lived in Grödig near Salzburg until his death in May 2014. [Source]

An early photo of the Böhm family: Almaz, Aida, Nicolas, and Karlheinz.