Roger Fritz

b.1936 - d.2021

Roger Fritz was a renowned German actor, director, producer, and photographer.

Born in 1936 in Mannheim, he began his career as an amateur photographer in the 1950s. He won the Photokina prize in 1954 and again in 1956 and co-founded the arts and culture magazine Twen in 1959. During this period his photography was featured regularly in magazines like Vogue, Stern, and Life, to name only a few.

Roger studied at the UFA direction school in Berlin. He directed his first short film, Verstummte Stimmen, in 1963. His first feature, Mädchen, Mädchen, followed in 1966. Both films achieved great commercial and critical success, including awards from the Bundesfilmpreis.

A friend of noted Beatles photographer Astrid Kirchherr and her mentor Reinhard Wolfe, he was first introduced to the Beatles in Hamburg in 1960. Then, through further connections in the art and music industries, he met Brian Epstein who, knowing of his experience in film as well, personally invited him to visit the set of Help! in Austria in 1965.

In 1982 he published a book of on-set photographs that he took while making Querelle, one of three films he worked on with Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

His photographs have been featured in several museum exhibits including at the Kunsthalle Mannheim in 2004 and 2006, and the German Film Museum in 2006.

In 2007 he was honored with the Lead Award for his documentary feature on Hamburg's St. Pauli District. In 2011 he received the German Independence Honorary Award.

In 2014 we debuted a special collection of Roger Fritz photographs of the Beatles, taken on location in Austria during the making of Help! in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the British Invasion.

Sadly, Roger Fritz passed away in 2021.