Heinz Drache

This actor's chief claim to fame lies in being the most in-vogue screen cop of post-war German cinema. He first established his reputation in the role of the charismatic Inspector Yates in Francis Durbridge's miniseries Das Halstuch (1962), which hit an impressive eighty percent in TV ratings. He continued in the same vein (same part, same crew cut, different names) apprehending villains in a series of Edgar Wallace potboilers with lurid titles evocative of the genre: The Avenger (1960), The Indian Scarf (1963), Coffin from Hong Kong (1964), Again the Ringer (1965) and The Monster of Blackwood Castle (1968), among others. After his contract with Constantin Filmverleih expired, he took a sabbatical from the screen and returned to the stage. Drache was smitten by the performing arts from childhood (at the age of fourteen, he could recite Goethe's "Faust" by heart). He started acting on stage as an extra in his senior year at high school. Though intended for flight training in the Luftwa