After the war, Kinski lived on the streets and did theater in Berlin. He was a self-taught actor of merciless discipline. He was a self-taught actor who exercised merciless disciplines on himself; Herzog describes him climbing into a closet and doing strenuous vocal exercises for 10 hours in a row. Kinski began doing films in 1948; by the mid-'60s, he was a recognizable star in America because of "Dr. Zhivago" (1965) and "For a Few Dollars More" (1965).

From "Kinski Uncut":

"What they teach in the acting schools is incredible, hair-raising crap. The Actor's Studio in America is supposed to be the worst. There the students learn how to be natural -- that is, they flop around, pick their noses, scratch their balls. This bullshit is known as 'method acting.' How can you 'teach' someone to be an actor? How can you teach someone how and what to feel and how to express it? How can someone teach me how to laugh or cry? ... What poverty and hunger are? What hate and love are? ... No, I don't want to waste my time with these arrogant morons."

His first great triumph was his solo performance as the woman in Cocteau's "La Voix Humane." He never had much respect for acting and often said he'd have "rather been a whore" and sold his body instead of his feelings.

"At a performance everything works out on its own. I've solved the mystery: You have to submit silently. Open up, let go. Let anything penetrate you, even the most painful things. Endure. Bear up. That's the magic key! The text comes by itself, and its meaning shakes the soul ... You mustn't let scar tissue form on your wounds; you have to keep ripping them open in order to turn your insides into a marvelous instrument that is capable of anything. All this has its price. I become so sensitive I can't live under normal conditions. That's why the hours between performances are the worst."

To relieve his offstage anguish, he was a bona fide, compulsive sex fiend, an addict of the most depraved water. He describes becoming sexually involved with a female doctor, her mother and her sister simultaneously during his "Voix Humane" stint. After ingesting some pills that were "the wrong ones," the enraged doctor admitted Klaus to the hospital as an attempted suicide; he ended up in a straitjacket in Berlin's infamous Wittenau insane asylum.

"My headache gets so unbearable ... the pains get worse and worse. With every shriek from a fellow sufferer ... With every punch from the fists of these slavedrivers. With every dull blow that hits a Jesus Christ. With every gagged and weeping mouth. ... I pray to God. Yes! I pray to God to increase my pains, make them worse and worse! We'll see whether my head bursts. That was how Jesus must have prayed in Gethsemane: 'My God, if you want me to endure all this, then give me the strength!' He gives me the strength. I do not go crazy. I visualize Idea, a linocut by Frans Masereel: A man in prison is illuminated by the idea of freedom coming to his dungeon as a naked woman and squeezing her breasts through the bars so that he may drink and gain strength."

He must have visualized this salvation through the better part of his life, if his autobiography is to be at all trusted -- lust was his main vice and pleasure. At the beginning of the book, he describes being a small child with his mother:

"I inhale her arousing smell ... my lips graze her hot belly and her small, impudent tits until my mouth is on hers."

Later in the book he discusses an adolescent sexual encounter with his sister. Later still, he hints at an incestuous event with daughter Nastassja, who was so aghast she sued him for libel.

"Why am I a whore? I need love! Nonstop! And I want to give love because I have so much of it. No one understands that the sole purpose of my whoring is to spend myself totally!"

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