Pierre Brice (* February 6th 1929 in Brest, France, was born Baron Pierre Louis de Bris) is a French actor, mainly known to the audience for his role as fictional Apache-chief Winnetou in German Karl May movies.

With 19 he enlisted as volunteer to the French army and was fighting in the war at Indochina.

From 1962 to 1968 Brice acted in, at all, eleven German western-movies after novels by German author Karl May, where he played the fictional red Indian chief Winnetou of the Mescalero Apache-tribe aside to Lex Barker or Stewart Granger as the white heroes. After the movies he also acted in this role at the open-air-theatre of Bad Segeberg, Germany, from 1988 to 1991 and there also worked till 1999 as director of several open-air theatre-productions (the open-air-theatre in Bad Segeberg is dedicated only to productions of Karl May-shows).

Besides the theatre-productions he was mainly to be seen in various TV-series of a soft boulevard-style, like "Ein Schloss am Wörthersee" (A castle on the Woerthersee) or "Die Hütte am See" (The shack at the lake). In 1979 he was again playing Winnetou in a 14-part TV-series called "Mein Freund Winnetou" (My friend Winnetou - Winnetou le Mescalero), that did not originate in Karl May-material. In 1997 he again acted in a 2part-TV-miniseries "Winnetous Rückkehr" (The return of Winnetou), that earned devastating critics by the fans, as the Winnetou-character died in the movie "Winnetou III" and now suddenly returned to the living (of course, this one also didn't originate in a story by Karl May).

Pierre Brice tried to escape the Winnetou-character in the 1976-TV-series "Die Mädchen aus dem Weltraum" (Star Maidens) and in several movies for the big screen, e.g. as Zorro in the Italian "Zorro contro Maciste" (1963). He also worked with Terence Hill (there still called Mario Girotti) in "Schüsse im Dreivierteltakt" (Shots in 3/4 Time) (1965), again with Lex Barker in a non-Karl May-movie "Die Hölle von Manitoba" (A Place Called Glory City) (1965) and in "Gern hab' ich die Frauen gekillt" (Killer's Carnival) (1966) finally Stewart Granger, Lex Barker and Pierre Brice worked together in one movie.

Singer Pierre Brice

Like Lex Barker (who recorded only two tracks as singer) Pierre Brice tried to sing by the help of German composer Martin Boettcher, and even managed several singles and CDs. Most of the songs were in German, and, as Brice didn't understand it at the time of recording, he had to sing it phonetically.

• PIERRE BRICE: Ich steh' allein / Ribanna - DECCA D 19 557 (mono)

• PIERRE BRICE: Wunderschön / Keiner weiß den Tag - Decca, D 19 560

• PIERRE BRICE: Winnetou, Du warst mein Freund / Meine roten Brüder - Barclay

• PIERRE BRICE: Du fehlst mir / Der große Traum - CBS

• Winnetou du warst mein Freund - 1996, sampler-CD, Bear Family Records
  contains the above songs and also the singing-merits of Lex Barker.

Weblinks

• The movies of Pierre Brice
• Homepage of Pierre Brice (in German)