Sometimes in life there are those happy moments when everything falls into place. For Senta Berger and Michael Verhoeven it must have been the filming of the comedy “Jack and Jenny” in 1963. Because acting together on the film set – including the kiss scene – grew into a deep love that would last more than 60 years. Saying goodbye must now be all the more difficult. Michael Verhoeven died on Monday after a short, serious illness, as the filmmaker’s family announced in Munich.
“A world has been lost. It’s unimaginably painful,” said director Simon Verhoeven. In a few weeks, on July 13th, the charming director, producer and actor with great curiosity about life and other people would have turned 86 years old. A long time – and yet not as Verhoeven felt last summer on the occasion of his big birthday. “How short 85 years are and how rich and full my life was and is,” he said at the time.
Don’t be afraid of controversy
In fact, the Berlin native was one of those people who are tireless, also because they are passionate about their cause. In the case of Verhoeven, it was a critical spirit and a keen mind that fueled him and often allowed him to tackle film projects that were difficult, depressing and often controversial. For example, his anti-war drama “OK” about the rape of a girl by US soldiers in Vietnam. In 1970 the film caused heated controversy and the Berlin Film Festival was canceled. He still received the Federal Film Prize.
National Socialism as a big topic
The filmmaker repeatedly dealt with Germany during the Nazi era. His own father, the actor and director Paul Verhoeven, made entertainment films during the Nazi era. “That was a problem for my father, he just didn’t see any guilt in it. “In fact, he saw it as great luck that he was able to make comedies and music films while others had the task of making endurance films,” Michael Verhoeven once told Deutschlandfunk.
Nevertheless, the family relied on openness. “My parents were very alert and also very critical; everything was discussed at the table,” Verhoeven once described. It was different at school: “Everything was kept quiet in history lessons. I graduated from high school in 1957 and we didn’t reach the Third Reich, we stopped with the Weimar Republic.”
Verhoeven wanted to break this silence, for example with the 1982 film “The White Rose” about Sophie Scholl and the resistance group against the Nazis. “I wanted this look at German history and I felt the need for it to not just stay in the books,” explained the director. This was followed in 1990 by the award-winning satire “The Terrible Girl” about the attempt to cover up Nazi crimes, which also attracted international attention and was even nominated for an Oscar.
Medicine or acting?
Verhoeven became an important voice in German film – but one that almost wasn’t heard. To his father’s horror, he began studying medicine as a young man. “How can you, if you have opportunities as an actor and are wanted, want to be a doctor? “That’s a total misstep,” said Verhoeven, describing his reaction.
But the fear was unfounded. The son became a doctor, but also continued as an actor and later as a director and producer. And so that filming happened in 1963. He knew Senta Berger and had already met her at the 1960 Berlinale. Now he saw his colleague again, who was just about to get started in Hollywood. And should he kiss this vivacious, attractive woman in front of the film crew? “I liked her and that’s why I couldn’t kiss her,” Verhoeven admitted. But it had to be done and it became clear to both of them: “Then we were a couple.”
Family happiness with love without scandals
Verhoeven followed Berger to the USA and worked as a doctor in Boston for some time. At some point they both moved back to Munich, where their sons Simon and Luca were born. The couple also teamed up professionally and founded Sentana Filmproduktion, which produced, among other things, the ZDF entertainment series “The Fast Gerdi”, with Senta Berger as a Munich taxi driver.
No scandals and just a sky full of violins? Not quite, as Senta Berger once made clear: “Everyday life wears on every couple, ridiculous little things keep coming up, even though you know you can’t change the other person.” But that didn’t shake the foundations of the relationship. “We found each other. It seems we were meant for each other,” said Berger confidently.
It seems that there was an open, warm atmosphere with a good culture of debate at home in Grünwald. This is also suggested by Simon Verhoeven’s farewell words to his father: “He was our hero without ever wanting to be a hero. My mother and he walked their path together for over 60 years. He was all her happiness and she was his.”