Franz Xaver Kroetz

Vocation

German author, playwright, actor and film director. His plays have been translated and performed internationally. Kroetz attended an acting school in Munich and the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna. He worked as a day-laborer and was active in the German political party DKP, Germany Communist Party, from 1971 to 1980. He became famous when in 1971 the premiere of his plays Heimarbeit (House-work) and Hartnäckig (Persistent) were disrupted by neo-fascists. His plays in the 1970s portrayed people who had been rendered speechless by their own social misery. He wrote a libretto based on his play Stallerhof (1971) for an opera of the same name which Gerd Kühr composed in 1987/88. It was premiered at the first Munich Biennale in 1988. Kroetz wrote for the television series Tatort, Spiel mit Karten in 1980 and Wolf im Schafspelz in 2002. He is also known for his role as the gossip columnist 'Baby' Schimmerlos (roughly 'Baby Clueless') in the television series Kir Royal. Kroetz was awarded several prizes, including in 2005 the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. From 1992 to 2005, Kroetz was married to the actress Marie-Theres Relin. They have three children. Link to Wikipedia biography