When I was a child and saw for the first time the Karl May Films with Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand and Pierre Brice as Winnetou, I knew I would become an actor and sometime play Old Shatterhand, too.

Beside Karl Mays heroes I also loved ERB's Tarzan and James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking.  These were the heroes of my childhood. I began drawing and read a lot of the books. I collected them (and I still do). And I collected all I could find about the actors who played Tarzan and my other heroes. So Lex Barker became my great idol. There's no other actor who played such a lot of well-known heroes: ERB's Tarzan, JFC's Deerslayer, Robin Hood, Karl May's Old Shatterhand, Kara Ben Nemsi and Dr. Karl Sternau, Emilio Salgaris Tremal Naik and Enrico di Ventimiglia di Roccabruna, the Son of the Red Corsair . . . .  I collect the books and the film adaptations. Other Tarzans played other heroes and so I know a lot about adventure-literature, their adaptations and the actors and actresses who played the heroes and heroines.

I am still collecting but now I am an actor myself. I started my career as a stuntman. And now that's good for action roles. I also made a lot of fight choreographies for stunt shows, for the Karl May Festival in Weitensfeld in Austria and for some other actors (Ben Becker, Heinz Hoenig). In addition to this I started modeling and because photographing is one of my favourite hobbies, I worked sometimes as a photo designer called Fotodesign Juri Lee. When I lived in Munich I made a lot of application and Setcard photos for actors/actresses and models. 

In 1999 I visited the DSA -- the German Actors Academie. There I did synchronizing, radio plays, moderating, etc. During this time I realized some short films I had written previously. Now I've written a script for a feature film which I am trying to sell -- and I've had excellent critical feedback on the script. But the story is a crime drama with much action, brutality and some nude scenes. One agent told me that the style is that of an American story and Germans don't produce such films. Unfortunately my English is not perfect enough for translating the script. So I'm still trying to find a German producer.

First and foremost, however, I am an actor. I have had some excellent stage roles in which I've played Karl May's "Old Shatterhand" and "Dr. Karl Sternau" and Alexandre Dumas "Aramis." I have done some good film roles but I want to play in even better films than I've done up to now. And I still would like to play Tarzan!

I've prepared some photo and art galleries that reflect some of my consuming interests in film and on stage: Karl May's Shatterhand and other heroes ~ Westerns ~ The Three Musketeers ~ Robin Hood ~ My Sketches ~ Tarzan ~ Action Dramas, etc. I hope they will be of interest to ERBzine readers and the fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

~ Jurgen Lill