Herbert Grönemeyer

Herbert Arthur Wiglev Clamor Grönemeyer (born 12 April 1956) is a German musician and actor, popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He starred as war correspondent Lieutenant Werner in Wolfgang Petersen\'s movie Das Boot, but later focused on his musical career. His fifth album 4630 Bochum (1984) and his 11th album Mensch (Human) (2002) are the third and first best-selling records in Germany respectively, making him the most successful artist in Germany with combined album sales over 13 million.\n', 'Grönemeyer was born on 12 April 1956 in Göttingen, Germany. He often refers to his personal roots as living in Bochum though, where he spent most of his childhood, youth and early adulthood. Grönemeyer\'s interest in music was sparked at the age of eight, when he started to take piano classes.\n', 'Piano classes formed the basis for his work as a pianist and composer at the local theatre Schauspielhaus Bochum. In 1979, at the City of Cologne Theatre (Schauspielhaus Köln), he performed as Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice. Although never having attended an acting school he soon appeared in several TV productions. During one of the shootings he met his later wife, the actress Anna Henkel. Additionally, Grönemeyer published an album he had recorded with the jazz formation "Ocean Orchestra" in 1978, a year in which he also composed the music for the film Uns reicht das nicht by Jürgen Flimm, together with Jens-Peter Ostendorf. His first solo album Grönemeyer, which was published in 1979, was awarded the Golden Lemon for the ugliest album cover of the year. His second album Zwo was released in 1981. Neither managed to chart. In the same year he starred in Wolfgang Petersen\'s successful movie Das Boot as Lieutenant Werner. For the role of composer Robert Schumann in the German-German coproduction Frühlingssinfonie (co-starring Nastassja Kinski and Rolf Hoppe), for which he also composed the film score, Grönemeyer spent six months in East Germany. During the early 1980s Grönemeyer put his main focus on his music; the next two albums Total egal (1982) and Gemischte Gefühle (1983) flopped and most concerts of the planned tour had to be cancelled.\n', '