A strikingly handsome blond German actor, Helmut Griem has appeared in scores of international films but had his breakthrough role in Luchino Visconti's striking "The Damned" (1969), as Aschenbach, scheming to keep his cousins from supplying arms to the Nazi storm troopers. He reunited with the director to portray Durcheim, an officer loyal to the mad Bavarian king "Ludwig" (1972). But undoubtedly his best-known role in the USA remains the elegantly debauched aristocrat Maximillian, who romances both Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) and Brian Roberts (Michael York) in Bob Fosse's Oscar-winning "Cabaret" (1972).
