Christa Lang, an actress known for her roles in French New Wave films and movies like What’s Up, Doc?, as well as a writer and muse to her late husband, Samuel Fuller, has passed away.
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Lang died Friday at her Los Angeles home following a brief period of declining health, her daughter, Samantha Fuller, announced via The Hollywood Reporter.
Lang was 82 years old.
Christa Lang (original name Langewiesche) was born on December 23, 1943, in Winterberg, Germany. She moved to France at 17 and worked as an au pair. She later modeled, including for sculptor Paul Belmondo, to pay for acting classes.
She began acting in stage productions before making her screen debut in 1963’s L’Assasin connait la musique. This led to connections with notable Parisian talents like Roger Vadim and Jean-Luc Godard, who cast her in his 1965 classic Alphaville.
Not long after, Lang met American filmmaker Samuel Fuller, director of Hell and High Water and House of Bamboo. The couple soon relocated to the U.S. and married in 1967. Lang’s Hollywood career began shortly after with a small role in the Elvis Presley film Charro!
Her next role was in Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 comedy What’s Up, Doc? starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. That same year, after graduating from UCLA with a master’s degree, Lang landed her first starring role. Lang played a con woman in Fuller’s Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street. The film first aired as an episode of the German police drama Tatort before its theatrical release in the U.S.
Christa Lang Appeared in Most of Samuel Fuller’s Films
Lang went on to appear in most of Fuller’s films. One of her most notable roles was playing a rebellious German countess in his 1980 war epic, The Big Red One. She also acted in several films by their friend, Wim Wenders.
Her other credits include the 1975 film The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, where she appeared alongside Anthony Hopkins and her infant daughter, Samantha. Lang continued her acting career well into the 2010s, per IMDb.
In the late 1970s, Lang and Fuller formed their production company, Chrisam Films. They produced White Dog (1980), based on Romain Gary’s novel.
In 1981, the family moved to Paris so Fuller could pursue European film opportunities. They lived there until 1995. Before returning to the United States, they traveled to the Amazon jungle to meet with the Karaja Indians for the 1994 documentary Tigrero.
After Fuller died in 1997, Lang edited and posthumously published his autobiography, A Third Face. In 2013, she produced A Fuller Life, a documentary about Fuller directed by their daughter, Samantha.
Her final onscreen appearance was in a 2025 documentary about Fuller’s last feature film, Street of No Return (1989).
She is also survived by her granddaughter, Samira.