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With an almost unpronounceable surname and a thick Austrian accent, who would have ever believed that a brash, quick talking bodybuilder from a small European village would become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, marry into the prestigious Kennedy family, amass a fortune via shrewd investments and one day be the Governor of California!?

The amazing story of megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger is a true "rags to riches" tale of a penniless immigrant making it in the land of opportunity, the United States of America. Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born July 30, 1947, in the town of Thal, Styria, Austria, to Aurelia Schwarzenegger (born Jadrny) and Gustav Schwarzenegger, the local police chief. From a young age, he took a keen interest in physical fitness and bodybuilding, going on to compete in several minor contests in Europe. However, it was when he emigrated to the United States in 1968 at the tender age of 21 that his star began to rise.

Up until the early 1970s, bodybuilding had been viewed as a rather oddball sport, or even a mis-understood "freak show" by the general public, however two entrepreneurial Canadian brothers Ben Weider and Joe Weider set about broadening the appeal of "pumping iron" and getting the sport respect, and what better poster boy could they have to lead the charge, then the incredible "Austrian Oak", Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over roughly the next decade, beginning in 1970, Schwarzenegger dominated the sport of competitive bodybuilding winning five Mr. Universe titles and seven Mr. Olympia titles and, with it, he made himself a major sports icon, he generated a new international audience for bodybuilding, gym memberships worldwide swelled by the tens of thousands and the Weider sports business empire flourished beyond belief and reached out to all corners of the globe. However, Schwarzenegger's horizons were bigger than just the landscape of bodybuilding and he debuted on screen as "Arnold Strong" in the low budget Hercules in New York (1970), then director Bob Rafelson cast Arnold in Stay Hungry (1976) alongside Jeff Bridges and Sally Field, for which Arnold won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture". The mesmerizing Pumping Iron (1977) covering the 1975 Mr Olympia contest in South Africa has since gone on to become one of the key sports documentaries of the 20th century, plus Arnold landed other acting roles in the comedy The Villain (1979) opposite Kirk Douglas, and he portrayed Mickey Hargitay in the well- received TV movie The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980).

What Arnold really needed was a super hero / warrior style role in a lavish production that utilized his chiseled physique, and gave him room to show off his growing acting talents and quirky humor. Conan the Barbarian (1982) was just that role. Inspired by the Robert E. Howard short stories of the "Hyborean Age" and directed by gung ho director John Milius, and with a largely unknown cast, save Max von Sydow and James Earl Jones, "Conan" was a smash hit worldwide and an inferior, although still enjoyable sequel titled Conan the Destroyer (1984) quickly followed. If "Conan" was the kick start to Arnold's movie career, then his next role was to put the pedal to the floor and accelerate his star status into overdrive. Director James Cameron had until that time only previously directed one earlier feature film titled Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), which stank of rotten fish from start to finish. However, Cameron had penned a fast paced, science fiction themed film script that called for an actor to play an unstoppable, ruthless predator - The Terminator (1984). Made on a relatively modest budget, the high voltage action / science fiction thriller The Terminator (1984) was incredibly successful worldwide, and began one of the most profitable film franchises in history. The dead pan phrase "I'll be back" quickly became part of popular culture across the globe. Schwarzenegger was in vogue with action movie fans, and the next few years were to see Arnold reap box office gold in roles portraying tough, no-nonsense individuals who used their fists, guns and witty one-liners to get the job done. The testosterone laden Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), Predator (1987), The Running Man (1987) and Red Heat (1988) were all box office hits and Arnold could seemingly could no wrong when it came to picking winning scripts. The tongue-in-cheek comedy Twins (1988) with co-star Danny DeVito was a smash and won Arnold new fans who saw a more comedic side to the muscle- bound actor once described by Australian author / TV host Clive James as "a condom stuffed with walnuts". The spectacular Total Recall (1990) and "feel good" Kindergarten Cop (1990) were both solid box office performers for Arnold, plus he was about to return to familiar territory with director James Cameron in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The second time around for the futuristic robot, the production budget had grown from the initial film's $6.5 million to an alleged $100 million for the sequel, and it clearly showed as the stunning sequel bristled with amazing special effects, bone-crunching chases & stunt sequences, plus state of the art computer-generated imagery. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was arguably the zenith of Arnold's film career to date and he was voted "International Star of the Decade" by the National Association of Theatre Owners.

Remarkably, his next film Last Action Hero (1993) brought Arnold back to Earth with a hard thud as the self-satirizing, but confusing plot line of a young boy entering into a mythical Hollywood action film confused movie fans even more and they stayed away in droves making the film an initial financial disaster. Arnold turned back to good friend, director James Cameron and the chemistry was definitely still there as the "James Bond" style spy thriller True Lies (1994) co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold was the surprise hit of 1994! Following the broad audience appeal of True Lies (1994), Schwarzenegger decided to lean towards more family-themed entertainment with Junior (1994) and Jingle All the Way (1996), but he still found time to satisfy his hard-core fan base with Eraser (1996), as the chilling "Mr. Freeze" in Batman & Robin (1997) and battling dark forces in the supernatural action of End of Days (1999). The science fiction / conspiracy tale The 6th Day (2000) played to only mediocre fan interest, and Collateral Damage (2002) had its theatrical release held over for nearly a year after the tragic events of Sept 11th 2001, but it still only received a lukewarm reception.

It was time again to resurrect Arnold's most successful franchise and, in 2003, Schwarzenegger pulled on the biker leathers for the third time for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Unfortunately, directorial duties passed from James Cameron to Jonathan Mostow and the deletion of the character of "Sarah Connor" aka Linda Hamilton and a change in the actor playing "John Connor" - Nick Stahl took over from Edward Furlong - making the third entry in the "Terminator" series the weakest to date.

Schwarzenegger married TV journalist Maria Shriver in April, 1986 and the couple have four children.

In October of 2003 Schwarzenegger, running as a Republican, was elected Governor of California in a special recall election of then governor Gray Davis. The "Governator," as Schwarzenegger came to be called, held the office until 2011. Upon leaving the Governor's mansion it was revealed that he had fathered a child with the family's live-in maid and Shriver filed for divorce.

Schwarzenegger contributed cameo roles to The Rundown (2003), Around the World in 80 Days (2004) and The Kid & I (2005). Recently, he starred in The Expendables 2 (2012), The Last Stand (2013), Escape Plan (2013), The Expendables 3 (2014), and Terminator Genisys (2015).

Klaus Maria Brandauer was a music student and studied drama at Stuttgarter Hochschule. He was a true stage actor and therefore didn't like to work in movies except for two small parts in The Salzburg Connection (1972) and Októberi vasárnap (1979). This changed when Hungarian director István Szabó gave him a leading part in Mephisto (1981). Brandauer received the actors award in Cannes and that opened door to international films. Together with the movies Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988), all directed by István Szabó, these three movies formed the 'German trilogy' of Brandauer. He received a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination for his role of Bror Blixen in Out of Africa (1985). The first movie he directed himself was Georg Elser - Einer aus Deutschland (1989). He also played the leading role in this movie.

Born in Austria to a French mother and a German father, young Christine Kaufmann conquered the hearts of post-war German movie audiences in movies like Der schweigende Engel (1954), Ein Herz schlägt für Erika (1956) and, most famously, Rosen-Resli (1954). Discovered at the tender age of six, Christine was soon the breadwinner for her family. This quickly changed when puberty destroyed her blooming career as "the sweet innocent child" in West Germany. Her ambitious mother, by now Christine's manager, relocated to Rome with her. In Italy, her Lolita-like qualities were appreciated and used in movies like The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) in which, at age 13, she played the love-interest of "Mr. Universe" Steve Reeves (then 32). Due to her hard work as a child (between 1952 and 1959 she starred in 18 films!), she was never able to attend school; yet, by the age of 14, young Christine was fluent in German, French, Italian, Spanish and English.

In 1959, Christine headed to London to audition for the role of Karen in Exodus (1960). Director Otto Preminger chose Jill Haworth over Kaufmann but was still so impressed with her that he recommended her for a substantial part in Gottfried Reinhardt's courtroom drama Town Without Pity (1961). The movie, which starred Kirk Douglas, E.G. Marshall and Robert Blake, became an international success and earned Kaufmann a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer. After a string of rather forgettable movies in West Germany, France, and Italy, she flew to Argentina to co-star alongside Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis in Taras Bulba (1962). Curtis, who was already 36, fell immediately for the 16-year-old German starlet, left his wife Janet Leigh and his two daughters and started to live with Christine in both Europe and in Los Angeles. (In the US, they had to keep their relationship on the DL because Christine was still underage and therefore jail bait.) Shortly after her 18th birthday, Curtis and Kaufmann got married in Las Vegas. Kirk Douglas was their best man. One of Curtis' demands was that she would retire from acting after the wedding, and Christine gladly acquiesced to his request; actually she had been dreaming of retiring since her success with Rosen-Resli (1954) which had ended her once-peaceful childhood abruptly. She later claimed that she'd never really been interested in becoming an actress in the first place and was more or less forced into it by her parents: "I was an obedient girl and wanted to make my mother happy, so I simply did what I was being told. Unfortunately, once you are famous, there's no way back, and since I didn't have a formal school education, I could not fulfill my dream of studying archaeology and art history."

Her last movie, a droll comedy titled Wild and Wonderful (1964), was released in June 1964 to mixed reviews. In July, she gave birth to her first daughter, Alexandra Curtis. Christine was 19. Two years later, a second daughter, Allegra Curtis, arrived. Her husband, who already had two daughters with his first wife, had wanted a son and was unable to hide his disappointment. By late 1966, Tony Curtis was pretty much spending his time with other women, while Christine, living the life of a 40-year-old Hollywood matron at the age of 20, was slowly growing up. In 1968, she left Curtis and filed for divorce in Mexico, because she didn't want any of his money. She took her daughters and moved back to Europe.

By the early 1970s, Christine worked steadily in theatre, on TV and occasionally in movies: "I worked with discipline, but without any interest." Art house directors like Werner Schroeter, Percy Adlon, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder cast her in sometimes interesting, but mostly forgettable movies. In 1971, she did another American movie (filmed in Madrid), the tepid, too-artsy-for-its-own-good Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971) with Jason Robards and Herbert Lom, and in 1987 she was offered a wonderfully written part in Bagdad Cafe (1987) with Marianne Sägebrecht, CCH Pounder and Jack Palance which became one of the most enchantingly beautiful movies of the decade. But Christine's real passion belonged to the theatre where she acted under maverick directors like Peter Zadek and Michael Bogdanov.

She made a lasting impression on German television with her hilariously witty portrayal of Olga Behrens in Monaco Franze - Der ewige Stenz (1983), written by Patrick Süskind.

In the 1990s, now approaching 50, Christine took up writing, publishing several books on beauty, health, and fame, including three autobiographies. She also became a business woman with her own line of cosmetics which made her a fairly wealthy woman. Generous as she was, she financed (with the help of ex-stepdaughter Jamie Lee Curtis) her grandchildren's education.

After Curtis, Christine Kaufmann re-married three times, all marriages ending in divorce. She lived all over the world, including five years in Morocco. In March 2017, shortly after her 72nd birthday, Christine died of leukemia (like her mother) in Munich. She wanted to be buried next to her mother and grandmother in Vernon, just outside Paris, a wish that was granted by her older brother and her daughters.

Tyron Ricketts has been an artist in Germany since 1995, and is an accomplished actor, television host, film maker and spokesperson. He has leading acting credits in over 25 film productions and in 24 separate television series, including as a starring series regular on one of Germany's most highly rated shows. He has been profiled by leading newspapers, industry trades and magazines, and because of his celebrity he was selected to headline a highly promoted racial tolerance initiative by the German government.

His recent starring title role was in the acclaimed, live action short film, The Roar of the Sea. The film was selected by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences among nine other film finalists to compete for inclusion in this years Oscar for best live action short film at the 84th Academy Awards on February 26, 2012.8 In likely his most famous role, Mr.Ricketts' starred for three (3) seasons as detective "Patrick Diego Grimm" in SOKO Leipzig, one of Germany's highest rated television series that boasts an average audience of over five million viewers per episode. The popular crime series SOKO Leipzig is similar to that of CBS' NCIS: Miami and NCIS: Los Angeles franchise series in the U.S. SOKO Leipzig airs on Germany's national public television broadcaster, ZDF.

To point, Mr. Ricketts' high-profile role of "Detective Grimm" in SOKO Leipzig made him the obvious choice to use his notoriety to lead the German government's highly promoted Respect 2010 campaign for racial tolerance. As an artist in the in the public eye since 1995, Mr. Ricketts has enjoyed sustained interest in his work and has been the focus of numerous articles in notable publications such as Westdeutsch Zeitung, Ex-Berliner, Cast, Playboy, Frau Aktuell, Berliner Morgenpost and many other articles published both in Germany and abroad.

Gina Belafonte, the producer of HB09s documentary, Sing Your Song, that profiled her famous father, has assisted Tyron Ricketts in coming to the US to continue his valuable work also on this side of the ocean. Tyron Ricketts expended his career as a film maker, producing and directing content for Harry Belafonte's organization Sankofa.org and is working on other valuable documentary projects.

Christian Rub was born on 13 April 1886 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He was an actor, known for You Can't Take It with You (1938), Peter Ibbetson (1935) and Girls' Dormitory (1936). He was married to Amy. He died on 14 April 1956 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.

Gerhard Liebmann was born on 20 April 1970 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He is an actor, known for M - A City Hunts a Murderer (2019), Murer: Anatomy of a Trial (2018) and Wenn du wüsstest, wie schön es hier ist (2015).

Marie Kreutzer was born on 4 December 1977 in Graz, Styria, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Corsage (2022), The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019) and The Fatherless (2011).

Hans Sigl was born on 7 July 1969 in Rottenmann, Styria, Austria. He is an actor, known for Der Bergdoktor (2008), SOKO Kitzbühel (2001) and Klarer Fall für Bär - Gefährlicher Freundschaftsdienst (2011). He has been married to Susanne Kemmler since June 2008.

Joseph Egger was born on 22 February 1889 in Donawitz, Styria, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor, known for A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965) and Das alte Försterhaus (1956). He was married to Erna. He died on 29 August 1966 in Gablitz, Lower Austria, Austria.

Johannes Silberschneider was born on 13 December 1958 in Mautern, Styria, Austria. He is an actor, known for The Red Violin (1998), Life Eternal (2015) and Hamlet_X (2003).

Eva Reuber-Staier was born on 20 February 1951 in Bruck, Styria, Austria. She is an actress, known for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983). She is married to Brian Cowan. She was previously married to Ronald Fouracre.

Joe Rabl is an producer, actor, director, writer, and stuntactor from Graz, Austria.

He moved to the United States to continue his acting studies attending schools in Los Angeles (Harry Mastrogeorge, Stella Adler) & New York (Lee Strasberg Institute)

Starting in TV on 'The Visitor' & 'Brooklyn South', he then appeared in short films 'Ice Cream Sundae' with Tippi Hedren (written and directed by Désirée Nosbusch, music by Harald Kloser) & 'A.W.O.L.' with David Morse & John McGinley (written by Shane Black) and then made his feature debut in 'Godzilla' (TriStar Pictures, Roland Emmerich, Dean Devlin) followed by 'Breakdown' with Kurt Russell. (Paramount Pictures, Dino de Laurentiis, Jonathan Mostow)

Back in Europe he has continued to perform in both Hollywood productions: 'U-571' (Universal) & 'Spectre' (Eon) & independent films: 'Snakebite' & 'Schilf' and he has gained wide-spread recognition in the German-speaking world becoming a well-known face both in TV series' and as a commercial model at home and abroad. He has appeared in photo campaigns, TV and print commercials and magazines for clients and networks in Germany & Austria: 3Austria, EnBW, Sixt Germany, DEKRA, Bang & Olufsen, Mercure Hotels Germany, Best Western, Sixt, EnBW, Siemens and Mercedes Benz, Raiffeisen Bank Austria and Porsche, Württemberger Wine, Pro7, Sat1, Arte, ARD and ORF.

He has created his production company 'Pelican Pictures' to work on his own projects and also to foster international collaboration with other creative talent. He is developing his own feature projects: 'Solar Storm', 'In The Shadow Of The Red Salamander" & 'Merka 'and Kolo.

Her mother Olga, née Buchner, came from the Viennese upper middle class. Her father Friedrich Jelinek was a chemist and of Jewish-Czech descent. Jelinek spent her childhood and youth in Vienna. There she initially attended a monastery school. She then began studying theater studies and art history at the University of Vienna until she was forced to stop studying in 1967 due to anxiety and lived at home in complete isolation for a year. Meanwhile, she began her life as a professional writer. The first novel "bukolit" (1968) remained unpublished until 1979. In the 1960s, Jelinek experimented with texts, approaching the "Vienna Group" in her stylistic expression. In 1970 she wrote the first German-language pop novel with the title "we are decoys baby!", which she assembled from ordinary set pieces.

After that, her works, which included novels as well as radio plays and theater works, became more socially critical. She also completed organ and piano training at the conservatory, which she completed with the organist examination in 1971. In 1972 she married Gottfried Hüngsberg. Her literary breakthrough came in 1975 with the novel "The Lovers", the Marxist-feminist caricature of a local novel. Her main topics now included women in a male-dominated society and the sexual oppression of women. In presenting her themes, Jelinek uses a special language technique: she uses different types of text, such as from advertising or Schubert songs, or she uses stereotypical formulations in an ironic way to reveal their true meanings.

The novel "The Piano Player" was published in 1983. The biographical interpretation predominated in the reviews; the discussion of the text faded into the background. In general, the author uses language in the literal sense in many of her pieces in order to question social ways of thinking. This is represented by novel titles such as "The Lovers" (1975), "The Piano Player" (1983), "Lust" (1989) as well as the plays "What happened after Nora left her husband" (among others 1979), "Clara S. " (including 1982) or "Illness or Modern Women" (premiered in 1987).

Jelinek packaged the diversity of her literary themes in the major novel "The Children of the Dead" (1995), in which she addresses motifs such as home, mother-daughter relationships, life and death. The play "Sportstück", which premiered in 1998, is also about death. As a Marxist-oriented author, according to her critics, she tried, in the tradition of Berthold Brecht, to further develop the enlightenment function of art using modern literary means. Jelinek became an award-winning writer. Her prizes and awards include, among others, the Austrian State Scholarship for Literature (1972), the Script Prize of the Ministry of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany (1979), the Heinrich Böll Prize of the City of Cologne (1986), the Literature Prize of the State of Styria (1987) and Germany highest literary award: the Georg Büchner Prize (1998). The novel "Greed. An Entertainment Novel" was published in 2000.

In 2004, Elfriede Jelinek received the Nobel Prize in Literature for "the musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and dramas that, with unique linguistic passion, reveal the absurdity and compelling power of social clichés." On November 28, 2008, her play "Rechnitz" (The Strangling Angel) premiered at the Munich Kammerspiele under the direction of Jossi Wieler. In 2012, the premiere of the work "The Street. The City. The Übefall", directed by Johan Simons, followed at this location. In 2018, her play "Am Königsweg" was named "Play of the Year" by the magazine "Theater aktuell".

Elfriede Jelinek lives in Vienna, Munich and Paris.

Carl Meyer was the son of a stock speculator who committed suicide. He had to leave school at 15 to work as a secretary. Mayer moved away from Graz to Innsbruck and then Vienna, where he worked as a dramatist. Meanwhile, the events of the First World War turned him into a pacifist.

In 1917 he went to Berlin, where he worked at the small Residenztheater. He befriended Gilda Langer, the leading actress of the theatre and probably fell in love with her. He was tired of his job at the theatre when he wrote the script for "Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari" (1920) together with Hans Janowitz. It is thought that Gilda Langer was supposed to star in the movie, but she suddenly engaged herself with director Paul Czinner and then died unexpectedly early in 1920. Mayer took care of her tombstone and notes from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" were engraved in it (this was found out by Olaf Brill who rediscovered the tombstone in 1995).

"Das Kabinett" made Mayer famous and soon he was a leading film writer, working with the best directors in Germany. He worked with F.W. Murnau on "Der Letzte Man" (1924, known as "The Last Laugh" in the USA) and he also wrote the scenario for Murnau's "Sunrise" (1927). But he was a perfectionist who worked slowly and this frequently resulted in conflicts or financial trouble.

Being a Jew as well as a pacifist, he had to flee Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power. He went to England, where he worked as an adviser to the British film industry. In London he became friends with director Paul Rotha.

In 1942 he was diagnosed with cancer. Near the end of his life he wanted to make a documentary on London, but due to anti-German sentiments he was unable to find a producer. His illness was maltreated and he died in 1944, poor and almost forgotten. All he left was 23 pounds and two books. He was buried at Highgate Cemetery and his epitaph reads 'Pioneer in the art of the cinema. Erected by his friends and fellow workers.' The city of Graz named a prize after him.

Thomas Stipsits was born on 2 August 1983 in Leoben, Styria, Austria. He is an actor and writer, known for Love Machine (2019), Love Machine 2 (2022) and Braunschlag (2012). He is married to Katharina Straßer. They have one child.

Julian Weigend was born on 27 August 1971 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He is an actor, known for R.I.S (2007), Schimanski (1997) and Angélique (2013).

Jack Unterweger was born on 16 August 1950 in Judenburg, Styria, Austria. He was a writer, known for Fegefeuer (1988) and The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer (2010). He died on 29 June 1994 in Graz, Styria, Austria.

Andreas Kiendl was born on 31 December 1975 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He is an actor, known for Four Women and a Funeral (2005), SOKO Kitzbühel (2001) and Janus (2013).

Antonia Reininghaus was born in 1954 in Graz, Styria, Austria. She was an actress, known for Theodor Chindler - Die Geschichte einer deutschen Familie (1979), Die Eroberung der Zitadelle (1977) and Der Mädchenkrieg (1977). She died in October 2006 in Graz, Austria.

A lively brunette, dimple-cheeked actress with a tom-boyish, unaffected manner who briefly flirted with stardom in a string of romantic comedies during the mid-1930's. The daughter of a factory owner, Jenny was educated at a convent school in Austria. A short-lived marriage to the Italian actor Emo Jugo brought her to Berlin where she was spotted by the distinguished film producer Erich Pommer and subsequently signed to a contract with Ufa. Her comedic talents were not fully recognised until the first of her eleven films (Wer nimmt die Liebe ernst...? (1931)) under the direction of Erich Engel, who henceforth became her mentor. Jenny's forte was playing feisty, determined characters who tended to excel at oneupmanship. Her performance as Eliza Doolittle in Engel's adaptation of Pygmalion (1935) so enthused the author George Bernard Shaw that he offered her the opportunity to act in all of his plays on the stage in England.

Jenny remained in Germany, nonetheless, and made several more hugely popular films with Engel, including Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1936), as a young Queen Victoria; The Night with the Emperor (1936) (several years later marrying her co-star, the actor Friedrich Benfer) and the musical comedy Nanette (1940). Though flourishing briefly as one of Ufa's top box office attractions, her star declined as the Third Reich began to favour Germanic-looking blondes. Jenny made only a couple of films after the war before retiring to her farm in Schönrain in Upper Bavaria. She was eventually honoured by the prestigious Filmband in Gold in 1971 for her contributions to German cinema. Confined to a wheelchair for the last two decades of her life, Jenny Jugo died in September 2001 at the respectable age of 97.

Dominik Hartl was born in 1983 in Schladming, Styria, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016), The Washing Machine (2020) and Beautiful Girl (2015).

Born on December 18, 1863, the eldest son of Archduke Karl-Ludwig von Habsburg and his wife, Princess Annunziata di Borbone, Franz Ferdinand was third in line to the thrown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire upon his birth. After his cousin Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide in 1889 and his father died in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became the heir of his aging uncle Emperor Franz Josef. He eloped with Countess Sophie Chotek in 1900, but this marriage was considered unequal and they were forced to renounce rights of rank and succession for their three children. A radical reformist, Franz Ferdinand had a number of new ideas he planned to implement when he became Emperor, one of them giving Slavs an equal voice in the empire. After the annexation of Bosnia by Austria, he decided to go on a tour of his new province in 1914 in hopes of fostering good will with his new subjects. A Serbian terrorist group called The Black Hand sent three of its members to murder Franz Ferdinand and his wife as they visited Sarajevo. Their first assassination attempt, throwing a bomb at the Archduke's car, failed, though a number of bystanders were wounded. The assassins almost gave up their plans, and one of them, Gavrilo Princip, wandered off down the street. Meanwhile, the Archduke and Archduchess decided to visit the wounded in the hospital, but their driver took a wrong turn and they ended up on the same street as Princip. Seizing his chance, Princip stepped forward and fired several times into the car, fatally wounding both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. They were raced to the governor's mansion where they were pronounced dead. Not only did this act of violence orphan their three young children, it also set off a series of events that led directly to World War I.

Renate Muhri was born on 24 July 1951 in Graz, Styria, Austria. She is an actress, known for Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006).

Wolfram Berger was born on 12 October 1945 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He is an actor, known for Rider Jack (2015), Alle meine Töchter (1995) and Oben ohne (2007). He is married to Nives Widauer.

Stefan Müller was born on 29 June 1984 in Graz, Styria, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for Jenseits (2006), Biest (2014) and The Trail (2024).