Wilhelm von Homburg

Norbert Grupe Jr. ( born August 25, 1940 in Berlin, † March 10, 2004 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico ) was a German professional boxer and actor.

Grupe started his footballing career in the 1950s at the side of his father in wrestling shows. With appearances in the U.S., he lay down the name of this Prince Wilhelm von Homburg to, among other things, because his German name was pronounced in English groupie. In 1962 he moved over to professional boxing. From 46 professional fights, he won 29; However, the light heavyweight could never win a World Cup or European Championship title.

Legendary is his appearance on 21 June 1969 at the current sports club of the ZDF, after his defeat in the third round against Óscar Bonavena, as Grupe in the course of the interview did not reply to questions of the presenter Rainer Günzler. Background was a previous post Günzlers for the ZDF broadcast sports mirror in which Günzler took a critical look with the athletic achievements Grupes and rather disparagingly left out to Grupes sometimes bizarre public appearances. Then Grupe said to have sworn in front of friends: "This gets back! ". Because of this behavior, he was assigned by the Association of German professional boxer with a life ban against whom he was going legally.

In his penultimate fight Grupe defeated by Jürgen Blin on points. Blin expressed very impressed with Grupes clout after the fight.

Because of criminal activities he had to serve a total of five years in prison.

During his sporting career Grupe began a career as an actor. In 1965, he played under the direction of Bernhard Wicki in Morituri alongside Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner, 1966 a cameo role (man on the bus ) in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and 1969 alongside Mario Adorf in the men in the white waistcoat ( Grupe played here a criminal Boxer ). However, large successes were denied him. In 1977, he was a pimp in the film Stroszek by Werner Herzog. The best-known supporting roles were probably the appearance as dark prince Vigo the Carpathian in the film Ghostbusters II and a terrorist in Die Hard.

His German dubbing voice comes from Helmut Krauss.

In 2000, the German filmmaker Gerd Kroske turned the award-winning documentary The Boxprinz, where he drew a portrait of the dazzling life Norbert Grupes. Grupe last lived in Los Angeles. On 10 March 2004 he died in Mexico from lung cancer.