Peter Lorre | |
|---|---|
 Lorre in 1940 | |
| Born | László Löwenstein (1904-06-26)June 26, 1904 Rózsahegy, Hungary,Austria-Hungary |
| Died | March 23, 1964(1964-03-23) (aged 59) Los Angeles, California, US |
| Resting place | Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles, California, US |
| Citizenship | US (from 1941) |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1922–1964 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 1 |
Peter Lorre (German:[ˈpeːtɐˈlɔʁə]; bornLászló Löwenstein,Hungarian:[ˈlaːsloːˈløːvɛ(n)ʃtɒjn]; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, active first in Europe and later in the United States. Known for his timidly devious characters, appearance, and accented voice, he was frequentlytypecast as a sinister foreigner. He was caricatured throughout his life and his cultural legacy remains in the media today.
He began his stage career inVienna, in theAustro-Hungarian Empire, before moving to Germany, where he worked first on the stage, then in film, inBerlin during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre, who was Jewish, left Germany afterAdolf Hitler and theNazi Party came to power. Lorre caused an international sensation in theWeimar Republic–era filmM (1931), where he portrayed aserial killer who preys on little girls. His first English-language film wasAlfred Hitchcock'sThe Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), made in the United Kingdom.[1][2]
Eventually settling in Hollywood, he later became a featured player in manyWarner Bros. crime and mystery films. He acted inMad Love (1935),Crime and Punishment (1935),The Maltese Falcon (1941),Casablanca (1942),Arsenic and Old Lace (1944),Passage to Marseille (1944), andMy Favorite Brunette (1947). During this time he acted in several films alongsideHumphrey Bogart andSydney Greenstreet.
Lorre playedMr. Moto, the Japanese detective, in a series of B-pictures from 1937 to 1939, and was the first actor to play aJames Bondvillain asLe Chiffre in a TV version ofCasino Royale (1954). He later starred in films such as20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954),Around the World in 80 Days (1956),Silk Stockings (1957), andThe Comedy of Terrors (1963). Some of his last roles were in horror films directed byRoger Corman. In 2017,The Daily Telegraph named him one of the best actors never to have received anAcademy Award nomination.[3]
Lorre was born László Löwenstein (Hungarian:Löwenstein László) on June 26, 1904, inRózsahegy, a town inLiptó County, Kingdom of Hungary,Austro-Hungarian Empire. The town, now known by Ružomberok, is part of the present-dayŽilina Region inSlovakia. Lorre was the first child of German-speaking Jews Elvira (née Freischberger) and Alajos Löwenstein. The couple had recently moved there[a] following Alajos's appointment as chiefbookkeeper at a localtextile mill. Alajos also served as alieutenant in Austria'sreserve force[4] and was often away on military maneuvers.[5]
Elvira died when Lorre was four years old, leaving Alajos with three very young sons. Alajos soon married her best friend Melanie Klein, with whom he had two more children. However, Lorre and Melanie never got along, and this colored his childhood memories.[5] Anticipating that he might be conscripted following the outbreak of theSecond Balkan War in 1913, Alajos moved the family toVienna.[6] Following the outbreak ofWorld War I, he served on theEastern Front during the winter of 1914–1915 before being put in charge of a prison camp due toheart trouble.[7]
Lorre began acting on stage in Vienna at age 17, working with VienneseArt Nouveau artist andpuppeteerRichard Teschner. He then moved toBreslau and later toZürich. In the late 1920s, the actor[8] moved to Berlin, where he worked withBertolt Brecht, including a role in Brecht'sMan Equals Man and as Dr. Nakamura in the musicalHappy End.
Lorre became much better known after directorFritz Lang cast him aschild-killer Hans Beckert inM (1931), a film reputedly inspired by thePeter Kürten case.[9] Lang said that he had Lorre in mind for the part and did not give him a screen test because he was already convinced Lorre was perfect for the part.[10] He stated that the actor gave his best performance inM and that it was among the most distinguished in film history.[11] Sharon Packer observed that Lorre played the "loner, [and] schizotypal murderer" with "raspy voice, bulging eyes, and emotive acting (a holdover from the silent screen) [which] always make him memorable."[9]
In 1932, Lorre appeared alongsideHans Albers in the science fiction filmF.P.1 antwortet nicht about an artificial island in the mid-Atlantic.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Lorre took refuge first in Paris and then London, where he was noticed byIvor Montagu, associate producer forThe Man Who Knew Too Much (1934),[12] who reminded the film's director,Alfred Hitchcock, about Lorre's performance inM. They considered him to play theassassin, but wanted to use him in a larger role despite his limited command of English,[13] which Lorre overcame by learning much of his part phonetically. In 2014, inThe Guardian, Michael Newton wrote, "Lorre cannot help but steal each scene; he's a physically present actor, often, you feel, surrounded as he is by the pallid English, the only one in the room with a body."[14]
Lorre and his first wife, actressCelia Lovsky, boarded theCunard-White Star LinerRMS Majestic in Southampton on July 18, 1934, to sail for New York a day after shooting had been completed onThe Man Who Knew Too Much, having gained visitor's visas to the United States.[15][16][17]
After his first two American films, Lorre returned to England to feature in Hitchcock'sSecret Agent (1936).[18]
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Lorre settled in Hollywood and was soon under contract toColumbia Pictures, which had difficulty finding parts suitable for him. After some months of research, Lorre decided onCrime and Punishment byDostoevsky as a suitable project with himself in the central role. Columbia's headHarry Cohn agreed to make the film adaptation on the condition that he could lend Lorre toMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer, possibly as a means of recouping the cost of Lorre not appearing in any of his films.[19]
For MGM'sMad Love (1935), set in Paris and directed byKarl Freund, Lorre's head was shaved for the role of Dr. Gogol, a demented surgeon who replaces the wrecked hands of a concert pianist with those of an executed knife murderer. An actress who works at the nearbyGrand Guignol theater, who happens to be the pianist's wife, is the subject of Gogol's unwelcome infatuation.[20] "Lorre triumphs superbly in a characterization that is sheer horror",The Hollywood Reporter commented. "There is perhaps no one who can be so repulsive and so utterly wicked. No one who can smile so disarmingly and still sneer. His face is his fortune".[21]
Lorre followedMad Love with the lead role inCrime and Punishment (also 1935) directed byJosef von Sternberg. "Although Peter Lorre is occasionally able to give the film a frightening pathological significance," wroteAndre Sennwald inThe New York Times on the film's release, "this is scarcely Dostoievsky's drama of a tortured brain drifting into madness with a terrible secret."[22] Columbia offered him a five-year contract at $1,000 a week (equivalent to $22,934 in 2024), but he declined.[23]
Returning from England after appearing in a second Hitchcock picture (Secret Agent, 1936), he was offered and accepted a 3-year contract with20th Century Fox.[23] Starring in a series ofMr. Moto movies, Lorre playedJohn P. Marquand's character, a Japanese detective and spy. Initially positive about the films, he soon grew frustrated. "The role is childish," he said, and eventually tended to dismiss the films entirely.[24] He twisted his shoulder during a stunt inMr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939),[25] the penultimate entry of the series. In 1939, he attended a lunch at the request of some visiting Japanese officials; Lorre wore a badge that read "Boycott Japanese goods."[26]
Late in 1938,Universal Pictures wanted to borrow Lorre from Fox for the top-billed titular role ultimately performed byBasil Rathbone inSon of Frankenstein (1939) starringBoris Karloff asFrankenstein's monster andBela Lugosi asYgor. Lorre declined the role because he thought his menacing parts were now behind him, although he was ill at this time.[27] He tested successfully in 1937 for the role ofQuasimodo in an aborted MGM version ofThe Hunchback of Notre-Dame, according to a Fox publicist one of two roles Lorre most wanted to play, the other wasNapoleon.[28] Frustrated by broken promises from Fox, Lorre managed to end his contract.
After a brief period as a freelance, he signed for two pictures atRKO in May 1940.[29] In the first of these, Lorre appeared as the anonymous lead in the B-pictureStranger on the Third Floor (1940), reputedly the firstfilm noir.[30] The second RKO film, also in 1940, wasYou'll Find Out, a musical comedy mystery vehicle for bandleaderKay Kyser in which Lorre spoofed his sinister image alongside horror stars Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.[31]
In 1941, Lorre became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[32] DirectorJohn Huston saved him from more B-pictures by casting him inThe Maltese Falcon.[33][34] AlthoughWarner Bros. was lukewarm, Huston was keen for him to play Joel Cairo, observing that Lorre "had that clear combination of braininess and real innocence, and sophistication... He's always doing two things at the same time, thinking one thing and saying something else."[34] Lorre himself reminisced fondly in 1962 about the "stock company" he now found himself working with:Humphrey Bogart,Sydney Greenstreet andClaude Rains. In his view, the four of them had the rare ability to "switch an audience from laughter to seriousness."[35]
Lorre was contracted to Warner on a picture-by-picture basis until 1943 when he signed a five-year contract, renewable each year, which lasted until 1946.[33]
In 1942, he portrayed the character Ugarte inCasablanca. While Ugarte is a small part, it is he who provides Rick with the "Letters of Transit", akey plot device. Lorre made nine movies with Sydney Greenstreet countingThe Maltese Falcon andCasablanca, a team which came to be called "Little Pete-Big Syd", although they did not always have much screen time in joint scenes.[36]
Most of these motion pictures were variations onCasablanca, includingBackground to Danger (1943, withGeorge Raft);Passage to Marseille (1944), reuniting them with Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains;The Mask of Dimitrios (1944);The Conspirators (1944, withHedy Lamarr andPaul Henreid);Hollywood Canteen (1944);Three Strangers (1946), a suspense film about three people who are joint partners on a winning lottery ticket, with third-billed Lorre cast against type by directorJean Negulesco as the romantic lead, also starringGeraldine Fitzgerald.
Greenstreet and Lorre's final film together, suspense thrillerThe Verdict (1946), was directorDon Siegel's first feature, with Greenstreet and Lorre billed first and second respectively.
In 1944, Lorre returned to comedy with the role of Dr. Einstein inFrank Capra's version ofArsenic and Old Lace, starringCary Grant andRaymond Massey. Writing in 1944, film criticManny Farber described what he called Lorre's "double-take job", a characteristic dramatic flourish "where the actor's face changes rapidly from laughter, love or a security that he doesn't really feel to a face more sincerely menacing, fearful or deadpan."[37]
In 1946, Lorre's last film for Warner wasThe Beast with Five Fingers, a horror film in which he played a crazed astrologer who falls in love with a character played byAndrea King. Daniel Bubbeo, inThe Women of Warner Brothers, thought Lorre's "wildly over-the top performance" had "elevated the movie from minor horror to first-rate camp."[38]
Lorre said his continuing friendship with Bertolt Brecht, in exile in California since 1941, had led studio headJack L. Warner to 'graylist' him, and his contract with Warner Bros. was terminated on May 13, 1946. Warner was a "friendly" witness at his appearance before theHouse Un-American Activities Committee in May 1947.[39] Lorre himself was sympathetic to the short-livedCommittee for the First Amendment, set up by John Huston and others, and added his name to advertisements in the trade press in support of the committee.[40]
After World War II and the end of his Warner contract, Lorre's acting career in Hollywood experienced a downturn.[41] He concentrated on radio and stage work. In 1949, he filed for bankruptcy.[42] In the autumn of 1950, he traveled toWest Germany to make the film noirDer Verlorene (The Lost One, 1951) which Lorre co-wrote, directed and starred in. According to Gerd Gemünden inContinental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933–1951, with the exception ofJosef von Báky'sDer Ruf (The Last Illusion, 1949), it is the only film by an emigrant from Germany which uses a return to the country "addressing questions of guilt and responsibility; of accountability and justice." While it gained some critical approval, audiences avoided it and it did badly at the box office.[43]
In February 1952, Lorre returned to the United States,[43] where he resumed appearances as a character actor in television and feature films, often parodying his "creepy" image. He was the first actor to play aJames Bond villain[18] when he portrayedLe Chiffre in a 1954television adaptation ofIan Fleming's novelCasino Royale, oppositeBarry Nelson as an AmericanJames Bond referred to as "Jimmy Bond".
Lorre starred alongsideKirk Douglas andJames Mason in20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) around this time. Lorre appeared inNBC's espionage dramaFive Fingers (1959), starringDavid Hedison, in the episode "Thin Ice", and, in 1960, inRawhide as Victor Laurier in "The Incident of the Slavemaster" and inWagon Train as Alexander Portlass in "The Alexander Portlass Story".
Lorre appeared in six episodes ofPlayhouse 90[44] as well as two episodes ofAlfred Hitchcock Presents broadcast in 1957 and 1960, the latter a version of theRoald Dahl short story "Man from the South" starringSteve McQueen,[41] Lorre and McQueen's wifeNeile Adams. He had a supporting role in the filmVoyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).
In Lorre's last years, he worked withRoger Corman on several low-budget films, including two of the director'sEdgar Allan Poe cycle:Tales of Terror (1962) withVincent Price andBasil Rathbone; andThe Raven (1963), again with Price, as well as Boris Karloff andJack Nicholson. He again worked with Price, Karloff and Rathbone in theJacques Tourneur-directedThe Comedy of Terrors (1963). He also appeared in a memorable 1962 episode ofRoute 66, "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing", withLon Chaney Jr. and Boris Karloff.
Lorre was married three times: toCelia Lovsky (1934 – March 13, 1945, divorced), toKaaren Verne (May 25, 1945 – 1950, divorced), and to Anne Marie Brenning (July 21, 1953 – March 23, 1964, his death). In 1953, Brenning bore Lorre's only child, Catharine. Anne Marie Brenning died in 1971.
His daughter later made headlines after serial killerKenneth Bianchi confessed to police investigators that he and his cousin and fellow "Hillside Strangler"Angelo Buono, posing as undercover police officers, had stopped her in 1977 with the intent of abduction and murder, but let her go on learning that she was the daughter of Peter Lorre. It was only after Bianchi was arrested that Catharine realized whom she had met.[45] Catharine died of complications from diabetes, on May 7, 1985, aged 32.[46]
Lorre had suffered from chronicgallbladder troubles, for which doctors had prescribedmorphine. Lorre became trapped between the constant pain and addiction to morphine to ease the problem. It was during the period of the Mr. Moto films that Lorre struggled with and overcame his addiction.[47] Having quickly gained 100 lb (45 kg) and not fully recovering from his addiction to morphine, Lorre suffered personal and career disappointments in his later life.[44]
He died in Los Angeles on March 23, 1964, from a stroke.[48] His body was cremated and his ashes were interred at theHollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood.Vincent Price read the eulogy at his funeral.[49]
Lorre was inducted into theGrand Order of Water Rats, the world's oldest theatrical fraternity, in 1942.[50] Lorre was honored with a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame at 6619 Hollywood Boulevard in February 1960.
BeingWarner Bros. cartoonists' favorite characterization, Lorre was regularly caricatured in numerousLooney Tunes andMerrie Melodies animated film shorts, includingHollywood Steps Out (1941),Horton Hatches the Egg (1942),Hair-Raising Hare (1946), and many more through the 1940s and 1950s.[51] Future caricatures of Lorre have persisted in film and television for decades afterwards, including live-action and animated bit characters in numerous films and television programs.[51] Vocal impressions of Lorre have been used to create the voices of cartoon characters such asMorocco Mole onThe Secret Squirrel Show in the 1960s,[51]Ren Höek inThe Ren & Stimpy Show in the 1990s,[52] andKamek the magician inThe Super Mario Bros. Movie in 2023.[53]
Actor Eugene Weingand, who was unrelated to Lorre, attempted in 1963 to trade on his slight resemblance to the actor by changing his name to "Peter Lorie", but his petition was rejected by the courts. After Lorre's death, however, he referred to himself as "Peter Lorre Jr.", claiming to be Lorre's son.[54] He obtained a few small acting roles as a result, including a brief uncredited appearance as a cab driver inAlfred Hitchcock'sTorn Curtain (1966) starringPaul Newman andJulie Andrews.
Filk songwriterTom Smith (1988) wrote a tribute to Lorre's acting called "I Want to Be Peter Lorre", which was nominated for the "Best Tribute"Pegasus Award in 1992 and 2004, and which won the award for "Best ClassicFilk Song" in 2006.[55]
Punk cabaret bandThe World/Inferno Friendship Society's 2007 albumAddicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's Twentieth Century is a concept album written as a tribute to Lorre, focusing on the transition from Weimar Germany to theThird Reich, and Lorre's later career and death. The World/Inferno Friendship Society's lead singerJack Terricloth describes Lorre as "a strangely charismatic, extremely creepy person, which I think most punk rockers can identify with ... It's the lure ofthe other. He's the underdog, the outsider."[56]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | Climax! | Le Chiffre | S1:E3 "Casino Royale" |
| 1955 | Climax! | Mr. Vorhees | S2:E10 "A Promise to Murder" |
| 1957 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Tomas Salgado | Season 3 Episode 10: "The Diplomatic Corpse" |
| 1960 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Carlos | Season 5 Episode 15: "Man from the South" |
| 1960 | Wagon Train | Alexander Portlass | Season 3 Episode 23: "The Alexander Portlass Story" |
| 1960 | Rawhide | Victor Laurier | S3:E5, "Incident of the Slavemaster" |
| 1962 | Route 66 | Peter Lorre | S3:E6, "Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing" |
| 1963 | The Jack Benny Show | Peter Lorre | S13:E17, "The Peter Lorre andJoanie Sommers Show" |
