Rainer Werner Fassbinder, German actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1982)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (German: [ˈʁaɪ̯nɐ ˈvɛʁnɐ ˈfasbɪndɐ] (listen); 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, actor, playwright, theatre director, composer, editor, and essayist. He is widely regarded as a prominent figure and catalyst of the New German Cinema movement.
His first feature-length film was a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969); he scored his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and his first international success with Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), both of which are considered masterpieces by contemporary critics. Big-budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen and Lola (both 1981) followed.
His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II. Other notable films include The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976), In a Year with 13 Moons (1978), and Querelle (1982), all of which focused on gay and lesbian themes.
Fassbinder died on 10 June 1982, at age 37, from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates. His career lasted less than two decades, but he was extremely prolific; he completed over 40 feature films, two television series, three short films, four video productions, and 24 plays.