Cheerful Sam Hawkins from the movies about Vinnetou celebrates! Slowly approaching a hundred – PRAVDA.sk

German actor Ralf Wolter, who turns 95 on November 26, became famous for his role as Sam Hawkins in the 60’s Vinnetou films.

Ralf Wolter as Sam Hawkins and Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand in 1965.

In total, he starred in more than a hundred films and was also successful on the boards of Berlin’s theaters and cabaret. Wolter last appeared in front of the camera in 2012 in the German comedy “Bis zum Horizont, dann links!”.

Born in an artistic family in Berlin, Wolter’s father was a cabaret and variety actor, singer and acrobat. After studying acting, he began in the theater, and in front of the camera he first drew more attention to himself in Billy Wilder’s American comedy One, Two, Three (1961). A year later, he first appeared in his most famous role, in the first Mayan Treasure of Silver Lake. Sam Hawkins, a funny civilian veteran wearing a wig, played him because he was scalped by the Indians. He was also the first teacher of Old Shatterhand in the Wild West, and from him also comes Old Shatterhand’s name, which means “Crushing Hand.”

He played Hawkins in six Mayas and other television films and series, but Wolter was also present in the film Žut (1964) as Hajží Halef Omar, a loyal servant of Old Shatterhand in the Oriente, where the hero of the Wild West performed under the name Kara ben Nemsí. And in 1972, he appeared alongside Lisa Minnelli and Michael York in the successful musical Cabaret.

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He showed his averted face to the life of a popular actor in 2002, when Wolter caused the deaths of three people in an accident. On the motorway between Hamburg and Berlin, Wolter got stuck in a traffic jam caused by a narrowing of lanes due to construction on the road. But he did not want to wait and turned the car in the opposite direction. The oncoming vehicles had to brake hard and a Polish truck drove into one car. Three elderly people were left dead in the vehicle. In 2003, the court sentenced him to ten months’ probation for this.