Wolfgang Petersen died of pancreatic cancer on August 12, 2022, at the age of 81 at his home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, United States.
Wolfgang Petersen was a German film director, producer and screenwriter.
Born on March 14, 1941, in Emden, Germany, Petersen attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg from 1953 to 1960.
After studying theater in Berlin and Hamburg, Petersen attended the Film and Television Academy in Berlin between 1966 and 1970.
Petersen began his directing career with short films and TV movies in the 1960s and ’70s. His first theatrical pic was One or the Other (1974), and he followed that with The Consequence in 1977, for which he also wrote the adapted screenplay.
He was nominated for six Academy Awards for the World War II submarine warfare film Das Boot (1981). Two of those went to Petersen for adapted screenplay and directing, and he also was nominated for a BAFTA Award and DGA Award.
Petersen’s other films include The NeverEnding Story, Enemy Mine, In the Line of Fire, Outbreak, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, Troy, and Poseidon.
Wolfgang Petersen is survived by his second wife Maria-Antoinette Borgel, a German script supervisor and assistant director whom he married in 1978, and a son by Sieg, Daniel Petersen, writer-director.