Hidden behind a strip of gay bars in downtown Palm Springs, an unmarked door opens into a modern speakeasy called The Evening Citizen. The walls are black, with touches of dark velvet, and the lighting is dim, except for a spotlight behind the bar that illuminates a portrait of a man who could be the devil, or Dracula, or Hitler.

In fact, the German actor Udo Kier – whose face glows from the wall – has played each of these monsters, as well as countless other villains, in a career that spans more than 200 film credits. From his work, he believes that “100 films are bad, 50 films you can watch with a glass of wine and 50 films are good”. How many actors can claim so many good ones?

Kier just turned 80 and he chose this venue to celebrate with a small group of friends. He may look like some sort of satanic gangster in this photo, but his guests (including three couples whose weddings he officiated) know his secret: Udo is a total sweetheart.

She’s also a bit of a diva, but that comes with the territory. What else would you expect from a cult superstar – in the Andy Warhol sense – who has collaborated with everyone from Gus Van Sant to Lars von Trier, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Madonna? (He’s the one who plays the singer’s swinger husband in her scandalous 1992 book “Sex.”)

I came into Kier’s orbit a decade ago at the Palm Springs Film Festival, where the openly gay and unapologetically camp actor is a fixture. He’s not only the classiest presence at the event’s cheesy opening gala, but also a voracious and curious movie buff throughout the week. Kier has worked with directors around the world, preferring international cinema over Hollywood fare – although you may recognize the actor with piercing pale blue eyes from hit films such as “Armageddon,” “Blade” and “Ace Ventura : Pet Detective”.

Every year, Kier invites filmmakers to visit his house, a former public library that he transformed into a minimalist home. In 2014, I followed suit, soaking up the stories of a quick-witted underground icon who vividly remembers his encounters with some of the most transgressive artists of the 20th century, many of whom shone but faded. are inflamed very early. Those who remain are reclusive, which makes his memories even more tantalizing.

Kier’s house is a tangible compendium of a life lived among these iconoclasts. His art collection includes a hand-decorated leather jacket by Keith Haring, a sketch (of Kier) by David Hockney, a photo (of Kier) by Robert Mapplethorpe and a copy of Interview magazine signed by Warhol on each page.

Whenever I’m in town, I report on Kier, who still works regularly — most recently in Brazil, where “Bacurau” director Kleber Mendonça Filho created a role for him in “The Secret Agent.” . This year, he traveled to Syria to film “OD,” an interactive horror hybrid co-written by Jordan Peele and video game legend Hideo Kojima. Such risks are well within Kier’s reach.

When he’s not on set, Kier’s days in Palm Springs are split between gardening and searching for designer ties at thrift stores. He also has a dog named Liza and a giant turtle named Hans. And then there’s Max von Sydow, a horse (life-size plastic) that he raises on his ranch in Morongo.

The oasis has always attracted Hollywood royalty like Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe. These celebrities have migrated to Palm Springs to avoid being noticed, while Kier craves attention, relishing the big-fish-small-pond dynamic he doesn’t get in Los Angeles. If we go out for a meal and someone recognizes him, I watch him act charming, regaling his audience with his wicked German accent.

On Kier’s 80th birthday, I travel to the desert to talk to him about his career, including how he played roles in the early Eurotrash films (movies like “Spermula” and “Doctor Jekyll and His Wives » who pushed the boundaries of sex and gore) in such a sui generis work. It’s an improbable journey that began in wartime Cologne, where Kier was nearly crushed to death in the maternity ward when a bomb brought down the hospital walls around him.

At 16, he met Fassbinder (a few months his junior, still new in town) in a popular bar frequented by taxi drivers and transvestites. At the time, neither of them had any connection to theater or cinema, and since both were still minors, they were fired at 10 p.m. “Just when it got interesting!” » said Kier.

Kier actually returned home twice last month: to accept a lifetime achievement award from the Cologne Film Festival and to open a career-spanning exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, featuring props, posters and even the sherbert green suit he wore. “The swan song.”

On opening night, the museum screened a new documentary, “Der wunderbare Udo Kier,” as well as “Staging Death,” a 2002 short film by Jan Soldat that brings together all the ways the adventurous actor was disintegrated, dismembered or otherwise shipped. “I die 69 times in 10 minutes,” says Kier, who found the montage too gruesome to sit through. That’s one of the benefits of playing so many villains: they die in style. (In John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns,” he feeds his intestines through a film projector.)

Even more impressive: “I’m the only actor who was born on screen,” Kier says, and while it’s not entirely true, no life-size actor has come out of the womb in such a way. more flamboyant than Kier in “von Trier”. “The Kingdom” miniseries – one of 10 projects the two have done together.

“I’ve never asked a director, ‘I’d like to work with you,’” Kier says. And yet, the roles came to him. It all started in London, where he moved when he was 18.

“And then I started meeting people,” Kier says shyly, recalling the night Luchino Visconti spotted him at Danny La Rue’s, a trendy London nightclub. The Italian director invited Kier to sip champagne with ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev.

“What can I say?” he shrugs. “I was a very photogenic boy.”

The actor’s cheekbones are always sharp, his gaze unsettling. It’s easy to understand how stunning he must have been six decades earlier, so much so that people were propositioning him on the street.

“That’s how I was discovered,” he says, describing how Michael Sarne (a popular British singer who later directed “Myra Breckinridge”) approached him in a London cafe – nothing superficial, but which ultimately changed his life.

“I liked the attention, so I became an actor,” says Kier, who traveled to France to play a young gigolo in Sarne’s mock satirical travelogue “Road to Saint Tropez.” His job was to look good and deliver the dialogue, which was then re-recorded in French by someone else.

Many of Kier’s early roles – from “The Story of O” to “Suspiria” – were dubbed, although he didn’t mind that. “I knew it could only be better because they were professional. This is not the case,” he said flatly. “So if I look good on screen and have a professional actor with a great voice dubbing me, that would only help me.”

The X-rated “Flesh for Frankenstein” was Kier’s first role to feature his real voice. Landing on this 1973 film was serendipitous: on a plane from Rome to Munich, he happened to be next to the director. Paul Morrissey (died last week at age 86). The American told Kier: “I make films for Andy Warhol” and asked for his number, which he wrote down on the last page of his passport. “A few weeks later, I got a call: ‘Hey, it’s Paul. I’m making a ‘Frankenstein’ movie in 3D and I have a small role for you.’

The role was that of Dr. Frankenstein, filmed at the Cinecittà studios in Rome. According to Kier, “Paul went to the producer Carlo Ponti and said, ‘I can make you a movie for $300,000,’ and Carlo Ponti said, ‘Then make me two!'” They were irreverent takes on classic monster movies, Green Light with only the loosest scripts. After the first film was completed, Morrissey intended to cast Srdjan Zelenovic (who had played the creation of Frankenstein), but passport issues prohibited him, so the director told Kier: “I guess we have a German Dracula.

Kier was paid next to nothing (a few thousand dollars) for playing the title roles in “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula,” but those films made him famous. After coming across an article in Stern magazine calling Fassbinder a “genius director,” Kier reconnected with his old bar buddy. They made several films together and even lived for a time as roommates (but not as lovers).

“I never had any money,” says Kier, who at one point crashed on the couch of John Waters conspirator Cookie Mueller in New York. Kier spent the next 15 years in Europe, but he credits Van Sant for getting him a U.S. work permit and his SAG card, allowing him to settle here.

Udo had met Van Sant at the Berlin Film Festival, where the young director told him: “I have here a little film that I made for $20,000, ‘Mala Noche.’ But my next movie is “My Own Private Idaho” and I’d like you to star in it.

Turns out Madonna was a fan of the film. With her blessing, photographer Steven Meisel decided to take a series of naughty photos for a book. “We did the photo shoot and then I got a call from his office asking if I would be willing to do hardcore. And I said, “Finally!” “, Kier says with a laugh. Taken in a strip club, the first photos were “harmless”. For the next shoot, they went to a real sex club. “I said to Madonna, ‘How far can I go?’ And she told me: ‘Do what you want.’

Kier is not one to shy away from such an invitation. “On the bar was a beautiful pair of high-heeled shoes,” he recalls, offering a window into the workings of his mind. “I looked at them and said, ‘I have an idea. Could you put some lemonade in the shoe? It must look like piss. And I’m in the harness, drinking it.’ Not only did this shot make it into the book “Sex,” but it landed him a starring role in Madonna’s “Deeper and Deeper” music video.

“I don’t calculate it, but I want to do something in a film that people will remember,” says Kier – which is the most unforgettable ingredient in everything he does. “I’m not an actor who just gets a script and does exactly what’s written. That would be boring. I have to bring something of my own personality into the film.

Multiply that by over 200 roles and you have a recipe for immortality.