Oscar nominee Wolfgang Petersen, dead at 81

Editor

Wolfgang Petersen, the director of films such as Outbreak and Air Force One, has passed away. He was 81.

The German filmmaker, who garnered two Oscar nominations for writing and directing 1981’s World War II epic Das Boot, died peacefully in the arms of his wife of 50 years, Maria Antoinette, on Friday at his Brentwood home from pancreatic cancer, his publicist announced.

Following the success of Das Boot, Petersen moved to Hollywood, where he worked with stars such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Glenn Close, Harrison Ford, and Morgan Freeman, to mention a few.

Director Wolfgang Petersen holds up his directors cut of the movie "Das Boot " , circa 1997.

He directed 1984’s The NeverEnding Story, 1993’s In the Line of Fire, 1995’s Outbreak, 1997’s Air Force One, the 2000s The Perfect Storm, 2004’s Troy, and the 2006 Poseidon remake with Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss.

Looking back on his career during a 2016 interview with German outlet DW, Petersen admitted he “probably should not have done” Poseidon.

“I was on a roll at that time. In the Line of Fire, Outbreak, Air Force One, Perfect Storm, Troy — I did all these films in a row, and each one was more successful than the one before. Five in a row,” he said at the time. “So they said, ‘Wolfgang can do anything. Just give him all the money, and we’ll be fine.’ But it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done it, because it just doesn’t work like that. At some point you fail. … I haven’t told anybody that before.”

Petersen added that he was “very proud” of Perfect Storm, which had a cast that included Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, and Diane Lane.

“That was a concept that was very difficult to get through the studio system because it was very expensive. It was the biggest storm ever shown. And the story— I mean six guys on the Andrea Gail boat, who, in the end, as we all know, die,” he said. “We got a lot of calls from people who said, ‘Wolfgang, don’t be crazy. This can’t work. This is a summer movie, a $150-million movie. And they all die at the end? Are you nuts? Can you at least have one, like Mark Wahlberg, survive at the end?’ But we did it.”

Petersen was married to German actress Ursula Sieg until their divorce in 1978.

He is survived by his second wife Maria-Antoinette Borgel, a German script supervisor and assistant director whom he married in 1978, and a son by Sieg, writer-director Daniel Petersen.