Bruno S.

The life of Bruno Scheleinstein –his full name– was quite miserable and clearly cinematographic. Born on June 2, 1932 in Berlin, according to some sources he was the son of a prostitute who mistreated him to the point that when he was 3 years old she hit him and left him temporarily deaf. The boy was admitted to a mental institution, where he became the subject of horrible Nazi experimentation on mentally challenged boys.

Bruno spent 23 years in mental hospitals, prisons, etc. where no one visited him or made friends with the other inmates. When he went out he used to break the locks of a vehicle to keep out of the cold. As an adult, he worked as a truck driver, among other occupations, although he ended up earning a living with what he earned singing on the street.

The director Werner Herzog discovered Bruno S. in a documentary about street musicians. Although he had never acted before, he knew he was the ideal person to play the lead in The Enigma of Gaspar Hauser , from 1974, where he played a 19th-century autistic man discovered after living his entire life in a cave. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, and its lead actor gained some popularity.

Fascinated with his discovery, Herzog decided to write a film, Stroszek , based on his life, with sequences to be shot in his own apartment. The tape narrates his release from a prison, and how he makes a living as a street musician. He befriends a prostitute whose pimp ends up beating them up.

The rest of his life, Bruno dedicated himself to continuing his career as a musician and painter, and came to mount “underground” exhibitions with his works. In 2002 the German filmmaker Miron Zownir shot the documentary about his life From him Bruno S. Estrangement is Death , in which the actor defended Herzog, accused of having exploited him, and having taken advantage of him. “I have my pride, and I’m smart enough,” explained Bruno S. As far as is known, he has left no wife or children after his death.