Christian Oliver, the German actor known for his roles in Speed Racer and Valkyrie, among others, died on Thursday (4 January) in a plane crash in the Caribbean. He was 51.
Oliver’s two young daughters, Madita Klepser, 10, and Annik Klepser, 12, were also killed when their small plane went down.
According to authorities, per Deadline, their single-engine plane took off from Becquia, a tiny island in St Vincent and Grenadines on Thursday afternoon and was headed to nearby St Lucia when it crashed.
Oliver was born Christian Klepser in Celle, West Germany in 1972. He grew up in Frankfurt.
As a young man, Oliver relocated to America to work as a model and started taking acting classes.
His early roles included playing Brian Keller on the teen sitcom Saved by the Bell: The New Class and Luca in The Baby Sitters Club (1995).
Christian Oliver promoting his film ‘Subject Two’ in 2006— (Mark Mainz/Getty Images)
From 2002 to 2004, Oliver starred as a detective in the popular German cop show Alarm for Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei.
In 2006, he landed the role of Emil Brandt in Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir crime film The Good German, in which he appeared opposite Cate Blanchett and George Clooney.
Two years later, he played the shady, snakeskin-clad racer Snake Oiler in the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer, part of a cast led by Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci and John Goodman.
In 2009, he played Sergeant-Major Adam in Brian Singer’s World War II thriller Valkyrie, which starred Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a German army Colonel who conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
In 2015, he reunited with the Wachowskis for their science-fiction series Sense8.
Most recently, in 2020, Oliver appeared as Wilhelm Zuchs in Hunters, the Amazon Prime Video series about Nazi hunters led by Al Pacino.
Oliver had only just completed filming for his latest movie, Nick Lyon’s Forever Hold Your Peace, which co-stars Bai Ling.
On social media. Ling wrote: “Dear Christian Oliver... with tears in my eyes I cannot express the sorrow I felt when our direct Nick called me not long ago, that the plane he took had crashed , including his beautiful 2 daughters and the pilot had all passed!”
Two days before his death, Oliver posted on Instagram for the final time. An image showing a Carribean beach scene was overlaid with the text: “Let Love Rule, Wishing you all the best for 2024!”
Oliver captioned the post: “Greetings from somewhere in paradise! To community and love …2024 her we come !”
