Michael Ballhaus(1935-2017)

His uncle Carl Balhaus appeared in the classic M - Il mostro di Düsseldorf (1931) as the man who marked Peter Lorre with the sign "M".

[in 2016, on how his difficult collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder prepared him for his career in the U.S.] It helped a lot because he was not an easy director. He was very hard on me and he was very pushy. He always cracked the whip to be fast and not to spend too much time. So I learned to be fast and still tried to be good. That was a big help later when I started shooting in the States. It was also a big help because he was so temperamental that from then on I knew I could handle every director in the world.