Departures of note

Werner Enke was born on April 25, 1941, in Berlin and grew up in Göttingen. After being rejected by acting schools in Berlin and Munich in 1960, he took private lessons and studied theater sciences, French, and German at the University of Munich. In 1965, he met director May Spils, who became his lifelong partner and directed most of his major films.

Enke achieved fame with the comedy "Zur Sache, Schätzchen" (1968), in which he starred alongside Uschi Glas and wrote the screenplay. The film became one of the highest-grossing German films of 1968 and earned him a German Film Award for Best New Actor and a special award for dialogue. His follow-up "Nicht fummeln, Liebling" (1970) was also a major commercial success and won the Ernst-Lubitsch-Preis. Several phrases from his films entered German colloquial language.

Enke continued collaborating with Spils on films including "Hau drauf, Kleiner" (1974), "Wehe, wenn Schwarzenbeck kommt" (1979), and "Mit mir nicht, du Knallkopp" (1983). Beyond acting and screenwriting, he was also a painter and published collections of his cartoons. He withdrew from public life after 1985 but occasionally resurfaced for exhibitions and interviews. Enke died on July 20, 2026, in Munich at the age of 85 after a long illness.