Karl Gerhart Fröbe, known as Gert Fröbe, was a German actor. Considered one of the most important character actors in his country's cinema during his lifetime, he became an international star after portraying the titular villain Auric Goldfinger in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. He subsequently played such roles as Baron Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), General Dietrich von Choltitz in Is Paris Burning? and Colonel Manfred von Holstein in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.

Auric Goldfinger is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's 1959 seventh James Bond novel, Goldfinger, and the 1964 film it inspired. His first name, Auric, is an adjective meaning "of gold". Fleming chose the name to commemorate the architect Ernő Goldfinger, who had built his home in Hampstead next door to Fleming's; he disliked Goldfinger's style of architecture and destruction of Victorian terraces and decided to name a memorable villain after him. According to a 1965 Forbes article and The New York Times, the Goldfinger persona was based on gold-mining magnate Charles W. Engelhard, Jr.