GENEVA • Bruno Ganz, the Swiss actor who gave masterful performances as Adolf Hitler in Downfall (2004) and as an angel seeking mortality in divided Berlin in Wings Of Desire (1987), died last Saturday aged 77, his agent said.

Ganz, who was suffering from cancer, died "in the early hours of the morning" at his home in Zurich, the agent added.

Considered one of the greatest German-speaking actors in the post-World War II era, Ganz had a distinguished career on screen and on stage before his appearance in Downfall, which unfolds over the final, suffocating days inside Hitler's underground bunker.

For many critics, his nuanced portrayal of the fascist tyrant that veers between explosive and sombre was unparalleled.

Hitler is a figure that German-speaking actors have historically been reluctant to take on and Zurichborn Ganz conceded that being Swiss provided a necessary buffer.

He won acclaim and some criticism for a performance shaped by historical records that showed a complex Hitler - at once unhinged and quivering as he berated his defeated generals, but who later displayed tenderness towards a frightened aide.

Ganz told British arts journalism website The Arts Desk that he was amused by those who chastised him for "humanising" the Nazi leader instead of portraying a caricature of evil.

People "need an intact icon of the evil itself", he said. "I don't know what evil itself is."

When asked if he approached the part with the mindset that Hitler was, in the end, a human being, Ganz said: "Of course he is. What else should he be?"

Before the Oscar-nominated Downfall, which vaulted Ganz into new levels of global fame, he had already been acknowledged as one of the most important Germanlanguage actors.

In 1996, he was given the Iffland-Ring, a jewel owned by the Austrian state, but held successively by the most significant performer in German theatre of the time.

His fame was based on theatrical performances such as a landmark starring role in Goethe's Faust. He played the part in a 21-hour production mounted by director Peter Stein that ran at the beginning of the century.

On-screen, his most prominent role before Downfall was in Wings Of Desire, in which he starred as the angel Damiel, who eavesdrops on ordinary, melancholy moments around pre-unification Berlin.

He also starred in American films such as The Boys From Brazil (1978), about Nazi war criminals and starring Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier; and The Reader (2008), starring Kate Winslet.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE