Kier received widespread praise for his leading role in the 2021 film “Swan Song”, in which he played Pat, a gay hairdresser living in a nursing home who gives his all for one last important job.
Friendship with Lars von Trier
Kier had a close working relationship with Danish director Lars von Trier. They first collaborated on the Iron Age epic “Medea” in 1988, and Kier later joined von Trier in his hit productions “Melancholia” (2011) and “Nymphomaniac” (2013).
Dane trusted Kier so much that the actor was reportedly able to choose any role from the script. Kier told a German newsmagazine that he often chose characters that created humor der spiegel in 2014.
a lucky man
Keir once said that he had to thank fate for his acting career – and the fact that he even survived infancy.
Kier and his mother were buried under debris in a World War II bombing raid shortly after he was born in Cologne in 1944. Miraculously, their mother was able to free both of them from the debris.
After leaving school, Keir trained as a wholesale clerk and then worked on the assembly line at the car manufacturer Ford.
With the money he earned, Kier decided to move to London, where in a bar he met Italian director Luchino Visconti and actor Helmut Berger – his first contacts in the film industry.
In 1966, Kier made his first film appearance as a lovelorn seducer in the British comedy “Road to St. Tropez”. He became well known in the early 1970s with lead roles in Andy Warhol’s famous horror films “Blood for Dracula” and “Flesh for Frankenstein”.
work with fassbinder
In Germany, Kier worked closely with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with whom he was also friends and lived with him for a time in Munich. Together they created the crime miniseries “Berlin AlexanderPlatz” (1980) and the feature film “Lili Marlene” (1981). Fassbinder’s sudden death in 1982 affected Kier deeply.
In the 1980s, Kier worked frequently with Christoph Schlingensief. In 1986, he appeared in Schlingensief’s “Egomania: Island Without Hope”, and in 1996, he played a gay United Nations general in Africa in “United Trash”.
His breakthrough in Hollywood came in 1991 with “My Own Private Idaho”, a film about the lives of two hustlers, Mike (River Phoenix) and Scott (Keanu Reeves).
Director Gus Van Sant contacted Kier in Berlin. The actor once revealed that he generally did not ask for roles from directors himself.
Kier is also known for the diversity of his film roles, ranging from the lead role in the 1998 blockbuster superhero film “Blade” to an appearance in 2012’s “Iron Sky” – a low-budget pulp film about Nazis colonizing the dark side of the Moon.
patron of arts
Kier’s other passion was art, he grew up in Cologne when artists Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and Rosemary Trockel were emerging. David Hockney was one of his best friends.
Kier was one of the few people who knew the anonymous street artist Banksy personally. At his home in Palm Springs, California, he collected works by Joseph Beuys, Peter Lindbergh, and Wolfgang Tillmans – some with the dedication “For Udo.”
But he also collected inexpensive paintings simply because he liked them. The documentary “Artaholic” (2014, directed by Hermann Waske) was a cinematic memorial to Kier as a great art lover, portraying him in encounters with works of art and artists including Trockel and Jonathan Meese.
old times, new stories
Kier worked well into his old age. In 2020, he created the series “Hunters” with Al Pacino, and in 2021, the fantasy horror thriller “The Blazing World.” The following year, he shot “AEIOU – A Quick Alphabet of Love” with his good friend, director Nicolette Krabitz.
Even at nearly 80, Kier was drawn to new narrative forms, playing a character in Hideo Kojima’s upcoming video game “OD,” which explores the boundaries between film and gaming. In 2025, he appeared in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s neo-noir thriller, “The Secret Agent”.
Kier died on November 23 at a hospital in Palm Springs, California, at the age of 81.
This article was originally written in German.
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