Klaus J. Behrendt
German actor
Klaus Johannes Behrendt (born 7 February 1960) is a German actor. Since 1992 he has starred in the Westdeutscher Rundfunk version of the popular television crime series Tatort; he also starred in the 2008 film Die Bienen – Tödliche Bedrohung.
Life and education
Behrendt was born in Hamm, North Rhine-Westphalia, the son of a pediatrician, he grew up in Ibbenbüren in North Rhine-Westphalia, where he trained as a mining mechanic. After completing his civil service, he then took acting lessons from 1981 to 1984 at the Hamburg drama school stage studio with Hedi Höpfner (another actress) and then joined a festival engagement at the Theater Bremen. He performed there until 1988 in various works, including Danton's Death (by Georg Büchner), The Seagull (Chekov), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare) and Three Sisters (Chekov).
Career
Behrendt launched his television career in 1989, with a role in the television series Rote Erde as Jupp Kowalla.
Behrendt gained great popularity from 1992 to 1994 and then from 1997 onward with his role as investigator Max Ballauf in the WDR crime series Tatort. He was initially an assistant to Kommissar Flemming (Martin Lüttge) in Düsseldorf, later he was an investigative unit leader with his colleague Freddy Schenk (Dietmar Bär) in Cologne. In the 1990 Tatort episode 234 (Schimanski's weapon) Behrendt previously had a supporting role as Erwin Spilonska.
From 1995 to 1997, Behrendt appeared in the Sat.1 series A.S. the leading role of private investigator Alexander Stein, in 29 episodes.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Klaus J. Behrendt” is german actor. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Klaus, Behrendt and German, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q87322. VIAF identifies the subject as 221144656. The Library of Congress control number is no2013036561. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 1992, 2008 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Klaus J. Behrendt” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.