German stage and motion-picture actor.

He was a journalist who entered the theatre at the urging of an actress whom he was interviewing, and thereafter he worked steadily in the German theatre and in German and English films, making more than 150 of them. International recognition followed his performance as the Teutonic villain in Des Teufels General (1955; The Devil's General), for which he was honoured at the Venice Film Festival. In the following year he received the Ciné-Revue Award.

Jurgens' English-language motion pictures include The Enemy Below (1957, his first American film), The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), Lord Jim (1964), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Golden Girl (1979). His memoir, Und Kein bisschen weise (1976; “And Not At All Wise”), chronicles, among other things, his incarceration in a Hungarian concentration camp (1944–45).