HOWARD VERNON

Howard Vernon (15 July 1908 – 25 July 1996), born Mario Walter Lippert, was a German-Swiss stage and film actor who appeared in films by Jean-Pierre Melville, Sacha Guitry, Fritz Lang, Roger Vadim, Jean-Luc Godard and Jesús Franco.

Vernon was born Mario Lippert in Baden-Baden, Germany, to a Swiss father and a German mother. Originally a stage and radio actor, he played Nazi officers, gangsters and psychopaths in French and American films after World War II. In the 1960s, he became a favourite actor of Spanish film director Jesús Franco, starring in many low-budget horror and erotic films produced in Spain and France. He died in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, 10 days after his 88th birthday.