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Biography

Heinz Petruo

Overview

  • Born
    June 11, 1918
  • Died
    November 12, 2001 · Coburg, Germany

Biography

  • Petruo was one of the most popular German radio announcers during the Cold War (RIAS Berlin, 1951-1981) and even a famous dubbing actor (e.g. Yul Brynner, "Darth Vader", Lee van Cleef). His son Thomas (1950-2018) was the German Voice of Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson and later became best known for providing the voice of Plankton in the German dub of 'SpongeBob SquarePants', and Petruo's granddaughter Vanessa is a singer in the German pop group "No Angels".
    - IMDb mini biography by: ikuschk@stud.uni-goettingen.de

Trademarks

  • Distinctive deep and gravelly voice.
  • Was famous for voicing movie villains. His most notable performance was the voice of Darth Vader in the german dubbed version of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).

Trivia

  • He was the German dubbing voice of Darth Vader in Episodes IV-VI of "Star Wars".
  • Father of Thomas Petruo, Grandfather of Vanessa Petruo.
  • During the World War II, while he was a prisoner of the Soviets, he received a facial wound when a tree branch scraped his face. This caused him to step back from screen acting after he returned to Germany, and he focused on voice acting for radio instead.

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