Dan van Husen


Dan van Husen was a German actor. He started his career in the 1960s, playing in a number of spaghetti westerns, and also performed in Italian and German films by renowned directors including Frederico Fellini and Werner Herzog and in German TV series. Starting in the 2000s he performed in Hollywood films, and in 2008 had a role in a Dutch World War 2 movie, Winter in Wartime. He died in 2020 of COVID-19.

Career

Dan van Husen was born in Gummersbach. He was first discovered by Italian producers while working as a club disc jockey in Spain and began working increasingly seriously as an actor in the late 60s. He appeared in twenty Italo Westerns in six or seven years and before branching out to diverse roles and genres. In the years 1968-1974 he participated in more than 24 Italo Westerns, amongst others directed by Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Martino, Enzo G. Castellari etc. In 1977, he was also involved in the play Courage at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, directed by Jérôme Savary. He was cast as the bad guy in 90% of his films.
Van Husen was credited for numerous further film appearances such as Fellini Casanova, by Federico Fellini, in Salon Kitty by Tinto Brass and Nosferatu the Vampyre directed by Werner Herzog, amongst others.
He also worked in German TV series such as The Old Fox, Derrick, Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei and many more. He was often cast as a rogue as in the television disaster film Tsunami or in the '80s cult film Ritchy Guitar of Michael Laux, and in the film Cold and Dark directed by Andrew Goth.
In 2001 he worked on Band of Brothers, a Steven Spielberg production, Perfect Strangers directed by Stephen Poliakoff and in Enemy at the Gates directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, as well as Hart's War directed by Gregory Hoblit in 2002.
In 2006, he acted in the German television film Karol Woityla directed by Gero von Boehm and in 2007 in Gellert, a motion picture film under the direction of Ayassi with Ken Duken and the German TV crime series SOKO Wismar.
In February/March 2008 he worked on Winter in Wartime a Dutch movie based on the hit novel by the same name, written by Jan Terlouw and directed by Martin Koolhoven. In June and July 2010, he worked in southern California on the American Western film Scarlet Worm, in the role of the antagonist Heinrich Kley, directed by Michael Fredianelli.
In 2011, he worked on the American film production Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, directed by Jo Kastner, and got invited to the Spaghetti Western Film Festival in Los Angeles on 19 March of that year. He attended the Almería Western Film Festival from 8 to 11 September 2011, and received a lifetime achievement award in the western film genre. He then got invited to the Lund International Fantastic Film Festival in Sweden, from 15 to 24 September 2011. He attended the Cinefest 2011, VIII, and Internationales Festival des deutschen Film-Erbes Hamburg from 12 to 20 November 2011.
Dan van Husen died at Ilminster, Somerset, England in May 2020 of Covid-19 at age 75.

Selected filmography

Van Husen played in film including: