Udo Kier, the German actor and cult icon who collaborated with artists ranging from Andy Warhol to Lars von Trier to Madonna, died Sunday morning in Palm Springs, his partner and artist Delbert McBride announced. He was 81 years old.
Among his vast body of work, over 200, his groundbreaking collaborations with Kier and Warhol are among the most famous. Keir starred in both 1973’s Flesh for Frankenstein and 1974’s Blood for Dracula. The films, both directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Warhol, are subversive and steamy reimaginings of classic Hollywood monsters, with Kier giving the title character a haunting but comically inappropriate twist.
These two films made Kier famous, and he spent the next two decades working in Europe, collaborating with legendary writer and director Rainer Werner Fassbinder on films such as The Stationmaster’s Wife, The Third Generation, and Lili Marlene. Later, at the Berlin Film Festival, Kier met director Gus Van Sant, who would later become a two-time Oscar nominee. Kia credits him with helping it obtain an American work permit and SAG card.
In 1991, Van Sant introduced Kier to American audiences in the coming-of-age drama My Own Private Idaho, loosely based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Keir appeared in a supporting role alongside stars River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.
Around the same time, Kier began a lifelong collaboration with von Trier. Starting with Epidemic in the late 1980s, she appeared in the 1991 film Europa, and then appeared in several episodes of von Trier’s long-running horror-thriller series The Kingdom in the 1990s and 2000s. Their other film collaborations include “Breaking the Waves,” “Dancer in the Dark,” “Dogville,” “Melancholia” and “Nymphomaniac: Vol. II.”
In the 1990s, Kier played several supporting roles in major Hollywood productions, including Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Armageddon, and Blade. He also appeared in Madonna’s book Sex in 1992 and appeared in the music videos for “Erotica” and “Deeper and Deeper” from her album Erotica.
Most recently, Kier starred in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s award-winning film The Secret Agent. The film’s star, Wagner Moura, won the Best Actor award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
Born Udo Kierspe in an Allied bombed hospital in Cologne, Germany, he moved to London at the age of 18 after meeting Fassbinder in a bar.
“I became an actor because I liked the attention,” he told Variety’s Peter DeBrugge in a 2024 interview. After decades of working between Europe and America, Kia settled in Los Angeles and Palm Springs, where he lived in what was a midcentury library and developed an interest in art, architecture, and collecting. He was a regular at the Palm Springs Film Festival and received warm praise from fans.
