Christian David Kinski. Die Biographie (Kinski: The Biography) Aufbau Verlag, September 2006, 447 pp ISBN: 3-351-02634-X Klaus Kinski, the 'Irre vom Dienst' or 'Resident Madman' as the German press liked to call this famous film actor, was born Nikolaus Gunter Karl Nakszynski in 1926 in the now Polish town of Zoppot. Later he was to describe his own and his three siblings' childhood as impoverished and hard, but in fact it seems to have been rather ordinary. Shortly before the Second World War the family moved to Berlin. During the war the future madcap was a member of the Wehrmacht and spent two years in a P.o.W. camp, where he garnered his first stage experience. Then, back in Berlin, he started his theatre career with rather minor parts in small productions. Soon he discovered his talent for reading, exploring the particular qualities of his voice, and started to perform on his own. In the 1950s he thought he'd achieved his big breakthrough in Vienna, where he gave a solo performance of Torquato Tasso at the famous Burgtheater. Plans for a longer engagement fell through, however, and he was devastated. In the 1960s he returned to Germany and started acting in a series of Edgar Wallace films. Then came the start of his collaboration with the German director Werner Herzog, a very special love-hate relationship that led to five great films, from Aguirre (1972) to Cobra Verde (1987). Herzog later made a documentary film about their working relationship aptly entitled 'My Best Fiend'. Kinski was well-known for his escapades and egomaniacal behaviour which not only made working with him a nightmare at times but also destroyed his three marriages. The last years of his life in California were marked by loneliness, declining fame, and an obsession with his project for a film on Paganini, a musician who had always fascinated him. The film was a flop, received highly adverse reviews, and only increased his feelings of isolation. He died in 1991. Kinski's last wife, Minhoi Loanic, tried to sue the publishers of this book on the grounds that parts of it infringed upon her right to privacy. She failed in her suit, and the reader is thus enabled to see, through the eyes of an experienced and eminently fair-minded author, this multi-faceted and outstandingly talented actor in his habit as he lived.