Peter Lorre

• Born: June 26, 1904
• Birthplace: Rószahegy, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Ružomberok, Slovakia)
• Died: March 23, 1964
• Place of death: Hollywood, California

Actor

A Hungarian-born stage actor in 1930’s Europe, Lorre fled Germany for England, then Hollywood, playing supporting roles in renowned British and American films. Lorre’s physical appearance and ability to convey quiet menace made him skilled at combining elements of comedy and of horror in his performances.

Early Life

Peter Lorre (LOH-ree) was born László Löwenstein in Rószahegy. His father, Alois, was an army lieutenant and bookkeeper; Lorre’s mother Elvira died unexpectedly in 1908, and Alois remarried. The family moved to Vienna, Austria, in 1910. In middle school Lorre was invited to appear in a little theater production in Vienna, inspiring him to become an actor. Alois insisted Lorre also prepare for a more conventional career, so at fourteen he enrolled in business school; he worked briefly as a bank clerk, promising Alois he would not quit, but he behaved disrespectfully toward his supervisor and was fired.

The teenage Lorre was essentially homeless, but he enjoyed socializing with other aspiring actors and artists, talking about the arts and about psychiatry, which he studied independently. He joined the Stegreiftheater, an improvisational theater group; he was also able to attend plays for free by acting as a shill, cheering and applauding to create excitement in the audience.

Lorre soon began to win stage roles. After playing many small parts, he won his first major role in the 1929 Berlin production of Marieluise Fleisser’s Pioniere in Ingolstadt (1928; Pioneers in Ingolstadt), directed by Bertolt Brecht, with whom Lorre maintained a long personal and professional association. Lorre’s performance as a sexually naïve teenager was critically acclaimed and led to more prominent roles.

While appearing in Pioniere in Ingolstadt Lorre met the Austrian actor Celia Lovksy. She introduced Lorre to film director Fritz Lang, who promised Lorre a role in his first sound film. Lorre waited two years for Lang to start filming; meanwhile, Lorre continued to work in theater. His first film appearance was as an extra in the silent film, Die verschwundene Frau (1929; The Missing Wife).

Life’s Work

In Lang’s film M (1931) Lorre played Hans Beckert, a Berlin man compelled to murder young children. The film follows the sometimes plodding police investigation, the impact of the unsolved crimes on average people, and the frustration of criminal gangs as increased police vigilance interferes with their business. The film was well received and made Lorre a star. He made several more German films, but in 1933, as Adolf Hitler’s Nazi government began to threaten Jews working in film and theater, Lorre moved with Lovsky to Paris. Lorre later said he informed the German film company, Universum Film Ag (UFA), that there was “no room in Germany for two murderers” such as Hitler and himself. He was invited to meet film director Alfred Hitchcock in England and made his first film for Hitchcock, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), learning English for the role of a quiet but cruel criminal mastermind. Lorre and Lovsky were married in England in June, 1934.

On the strength of his work with Lang and Hitchcock, Lorre was offered an American film contract, and he and Lovsky moved to California. Unlike many Germans fleeing the Nazi regime, Lorre adapted happily to American life. However, he had hoped to play a wider variety of film roles, and American studios had difficulty casting him. After several months he agreed to play a psychopathic villain in Mad Love (1935) if he could star in a film version of Fyodor Dostoevski’s novel, Prestupleniye i nakazaniye (1866; Crime and Punishment, 1886). Between 1935 and 1941, Lorre appeared in twenty-one more films; in eight of these he starred as Mr. Moto, a Japanese detective.

Lorre had the opportunity to play a more interesting supporting role as Joel Cairo, a slightly effeminate, cutthroat treasure-seeker in The Maltese Falcon (1941), directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart. After two minor comedy-horror films, Lorre again worked with Bogart and British actor Sydney Greenstreet (who had also appeared in The Maltese Falcon) in Casablanca (1943), playing Ugarte, a soft-spoken but murderous dealer in stolen documents. He then had a supporting character role in the comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), directed by Frank Capra and starring Cary Grant. From the 1930’s through the 1950’s, Lorre also made countless radio appearances, acting in horror stories or as a guest on variety shows, and he guest-starred on television dramas and comedy programs.

Lorre wrote and directed one film, Der Verlorene (1951; The Lost One), a dark comment on guilt and denial in postwar Germany. Shot in Germany, the film stars Lorre as Karl Rothe, a doctor who worked for the Nazis, murdered his fiancé, and escaped prosecution, but has forgotten the crime. Years later, when a Gestapo agent reminds Rothe that he owes his freedom to Nazi intervention, Rothe’s subconscious compels him to murder more women rather than face the truth. Lorre’s plans for an English version were aborted after the film was poorly received in Germany.

Lorre and Lovsky separated in 1940; they divorced in 1945 so Lorre could marry actor Karen (Kaaren) Verne. Lorre and Verne separated five years later. They divorced in July, 1953, and Lorre married Annemarie Brenning, with whom he already had an infant daughter, Catharine, his only child. Brenning filed for divorce in 1963; the two were still legally married when Lorre died of a stroke at his Los Angeles home in March, 1964.

Significance

Lorre appeared in seventy-nine films and in numerous stage, radio and television productions. Known for his small stature, protruding eyes, and soft voice, he was physically and emotionally versatile and a dedicated professional, able to collaborate with writers and directors to create a range of distinctive, complex characters. Although he performed alongside horror film stars such as Vincent Price and Boris Karloff, he was also cast in classic dramas, mysteries, comedies, and spoofs of the horror genre. Lorre often appeared in key supporting roles and worked with such lions of classic film and theater as Lang, Capra, Hitchcock, Huston, and Brecht. Lorre’s superb talent combined with his spooky appearance and voice to make him an enduring cultural icon. His public image was so distinctive it was still recognizable in 2005, when he was caricatured as a talking maggot in director Tim Burton’s animated film Corpse Bride.

Bibliography

Svehla, Gary J., and Susan Svehla, eds. Peter Lorre. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee Press, 1999. Critical survey of Lorre’s films also includes chapters on his radio performances and on cartoon versions of him.

Thomas, Sarah. “A ’Star’ of the Airwaves: Peter Lorre, ’Master of the Macabre’ and American Radio Programming.” The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media 5, nos. 2/3 (2007): 143-155. Argues that radio drama had a greater impact than film on the public’s perception of Lorre.

Youngkin, Stephen D. The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005. Draws on a wide range of sources to examine Lorre’s life in great detail, from his early stage career, critical success in films, and personal life, through his declining health and later disillusionment with the film industry.

Youngkin, Stephen D., James Bigwood, and Raymond G. Cabana, Jr. The Films of Peter Lorre. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1982. Biography and comprehensive look at Lorre’s film appearances, with credits, plot summary, brief commentary, and excerpts from reviews for each film.