- Born
- Died
- Corpulent German character actor, often seen in menacing or unpleasant roles. Trained under Lina Carstens (1935-1937), Peters initially started out as a comedian. After military service in World War II, he reinvented himself as a serious dramatic actor, resident for some time at the Munich Kammerspiele and at the Deutsches Theater. From 1948 onwards, he was signed as a character player by the East German film company DEFA, where he became noted for several exceptional performances in films like The Affair Blum (1948) and, as the obsequious, power-hungry Dietrich Hessling, in the controversial Der Untertan (1951) (a starring role which won him an East German National Prize).
Peters moved to the West in 1955 to portray Nazis, corrupt establishment figures, sinister spies and reprehensible philistines (as well as the odd police inspector or victim) in local and international films. He hit the apex of his career with Robert Siodmak's The Devil Strikes at Night (1957), as a uniformed minor Nazi functionary. His dark screen image also made Peters a perennial favorite as protagonist for the ever-popular "Dr. Mabuse" films and the Edgar Wallace series of potboilers. In addition to his work in front of the camera, Peters set up a dubbing studio in 1958 (Rondo Films) for which he himself supplied German voice-overs for international stars like Donald Pleasence and Rod Steiger.- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
- SpouseUrsula Burow(1966 - March 30, 1971) (his death, 1 child)
- Peters set up the Berlin-based dubbing studio "Rondo-Film" in 1958 where he also worked as a dub voice actor and lent his voice to Hollywood stars like Rod Steiger, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasance, or Orson Welles (in "The Third Man").
- He died of a heart attack on a promotion tour for his latest film in Wiesbaden, Germany.
- Peters continued to be one of the most active and most productive actors of German cinema. Between 1960 and 1969 alone, he starred in more than 50 national and international movie productions.
- With the start of World War II, his acting career was temporarily interrupted - Peters who was already drafted for military service in 1939 -, served as a soldier.
- Peters appeared in two episodes of the 1966 American television espionage drama Blue Light. These were edited together with two other episodes to create the theatrical film I Deal in Danger, released in December 1966, which included his role.
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