Biography
Raab was born in Bergreichenstein, Sudetenland, what is now Kašperské Hory, Czech Republic. He made his cinema debut in Fassbinder's Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (Love Is Colder than Death) in 1969. Over the next few years, he made numerous films with Fassbinder, including Warum läuft Herr R. Amok? (Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?) and Der Amerikanische Soldat (The American Soldier) in 1970, Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte (Beware of a Holy Whore) in 1971, and Der Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (The Merchant of Four Seasons) in 1972.
He also worked as a production designer, assistant director, producer, and a screenwriter.
On 28 June 1988, at age 46, Raab died of AIDS related complications. Before Raab died, he worked to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in Germany. In 1987 he discussed his illness in Herbert Achternbusch's Wohin?, a film about AIDS-hysteria. In 1988 he made Mitten im Leben, a documentary about AIDS, for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen. However, the illness remained poorly understood and Raab was placed in quarantine-like conditions in the Hamburg Tropical Institute. Prejudice about AIDS was also evident when Raab's body was refused burial in the Lower Bavarian town in which his family had settled in 1945.
He is buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg.
Read more about this topic: Kurt Raab
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)