Born into a hotelier family in Bad Ischl, Austria, he completed secondary school, briefly trained in the family trade, then moved to London at eighteen to work odd jobs while taking acting lessons, later studying languages before settling in Rome. A 1964 encounter with Luchino Visconti gave him his first screen role in Le streghe (1967) and propelled him to fame as Martin von Essenbeck in The Damn…
