Director. Writer. Producer. Has studied history, literature and theatre, but hasn't finished it. Founded his own production company in 1963. Has staged several operas, besides others in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has won numerous national and international awards for his films.
Herzog is being admired for being the only director who was able to work with the late and very eccentric Klaus Kinski. Herzog once promised to eat his shoe if a young American film student went out and actually made the film he was always only talking about. The young student was Errol Morris, who met the challenge with his off-beat 1978 pet cemetery documentary Gates of Heaven (and went on to make The Thin Blue Line and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control ). Herzog makes good on his promise in the film "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe", directed by Les Blank. Worked nights in a steel factory in 1961 to raise money for his films. In 1966 he was employed by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Educated at the University of Munich, as well as Duquesne University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brother of Lucki Stipetic. Father of Rudolph Herzog and Hanna Mattes. When he was thirteen years old he and his family lived in an apartment in Munich which they shared with several other people. One of them was an actor named Klaus Kinski. Was voted the 35th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Claims to have walked by foot from Munich, Germany to Paris, France (a distance of about 500 miles) in 1974 to prevent the very sick film historian and good friend Lotte Eisner from dying (as, applying his logic, she wouldn't dare to die until he visited her on her deathbed). Eisner indeed went on to live for 8 more years after Herzog's journey. Biography in: John Wakeman, editor. "World Film Directors, Volume Two, 1945-1985". Pages 422-429. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1988. Said in commentary to Incident at Loch Ness that his first book was a Marshall Plan copy of Winnie the Pooh, and it remains one of his favorites. Joaquin Phoenix was in car accident on a winding canyon road that flipped his car over. Shaken and confused, Phoenix heard a tapping on his window and a voice say, "Just relax". Unable to see the man, Phoenix replied, "I'm fine. I am relaxed". Then managed to see that the man was Werner Herzog, and Herzog replied, 'No, you're not'. After helping Phoenix out of the wreckage, Herzog phoned in an ambulance and vanished. In late 2005, during an interview with journalist Mark Kermode regarding Grizzly Man, a sniper opened fire with an air rifle towards them. Kermode panicked when Herzog calmly said, "someone is shooting at us". Shortly thereafter, a bullet hit Herzog. An unmoved Herzog insisted on continuing the interview and said, "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid." Herzog claims in a 2006 Bloomberg interview that he had the chance to direct both Brokeback Mountain & One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Invited to join AMPAS in 2006