biography of Peter Lorre

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Jun 3, 2025 - 19:26

Jun 22, 2025 - 11:32

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Lorre in 1940
Born	László Löwenstein June 26, 1904 Rózsahegy, Hungary, Austria-Hungary
Died	March 23, 1964 (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	Celia Lovsky (m. 1934; div. 1945) Kaaren Verne (m. 1945; div. 1950) Anne Marie Brenning (m. 1953)
Children	1

Peter Lorre

(German: [ˈpeːtɐ ˈlɔʁə]; born László Löwenstein, Hungarian: [ˈlaːsloː ˈløːvɛ(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, his appearance, and accented voice, he was frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner. He has been caricatured throughout his life and his cultural legacy remains in media today.

He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before moving to Germany, where he worked first on the stage, then in film, in Berlin during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre, who was Jewish, left Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. Lorre caused an international sensation in the Weimar Republic–era film M (1931) where he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls. His second English-language film was Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), made in the United Kingdom.

Eventually settling in Hollywood, he later became a featured player in many Warner Bros. crime and mystery films. He acted in Mad Love (1935), Crime and Punishment (1935), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Passage to Marseille (1944), and My Favorite Brunette (1947). During this time he acted in several films acting alongside actors Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet.

Lorre played Mr. Moto, the Japanese detective, in a series of B-pictures from 1937 to 1939, and was the first actor to play a James Bond villain as Le Chiffre in a TV version of Casino Royale (1954). He later starred in films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Silk Stockings (1957), and The Comedy of Terrors (1963). Some of his last roles were in horror films directed by Roger Corman. In 2017, The Daily Telegraph named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Early life

Lorre was born László Löwenstein (Hungarian: Löwenstein László) on June 26, 1904, the first child of Alajos Löwenstein and his wife Elvira Freischberger, in the town of Rózsahegy in Liptó County, Kingdom of Hungary (German: Rosenberg; Slovak: Ružomberok, now in Slovakia). His parents, German-speaking Jews, had recently moved therefollowing his father's appointment as chief bookkeeper at a local textile mill. Alajos also served as a lieutenant in the Austrian Army Reserve, and was often away on military maneuvers.

László's mother died when he was four years old, leaving Alajos with three very young sons. He soon married his wife's best friend Melanie Klein, with whom he had two more children. However, Lorre and his stepmother never got along, and this colored his childhood memories. Anticipating that he might be conscripted following the outbreak of the Second Balkan War, Alajos moved the family to Vienna. He served on the Eastern Front during the winter of 1914–15, before being put in charge of a prison camp due to heart trouble.

mini bio :

Peter Lorre was born László Löwenstein in Rózsahegy in the Slovak area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son of Hungarian Jewish parents. He learned both Hungarian and German languages from birth, and was educated in elementary and secondary schools in the Austria-Hungary capitol Vienna, but did not complete. As a youth he ran away from home, first working as a bank clerk, and after stage training in Vienna, Austria, made his acting debut at age 17 in 1922 in Zurich, Switzerland. He traveled for several years acting on stage throughout his home region, Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich, including working with Bertolt Brecht, until Fritz Lang cast him in a starring role as the psychopathic child killer in the German film M (1931).

After several more films in Germany, including a couple roles for which he learned to speak French, Lorre left as the Nazis came to power, going first to Paris where he made one film, then London where Alfred Hitchcock cast him as a creepy villain in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), where he learned his lines phonetically, and finally arrived in Hollywood in 1935. In his first two roles there he starred as a mad scientist in Mad Love (1935) directed by recent fellow-expatriate Karl Freund, and the leading part of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1935), by another expatriate German director Josef von Sternberg, a successful movie made at Lorre's own suggestion. He returned to England for a role in another Hitchcock film, Secret Agent (1936), then back to the US for a few more films before checking into a rehab facility to cure himself of a morphine addiction.

After shaking his addiction, in order to get any kind of acting work, Lorre reluctantly accepted the starring part as the Japanese secret agent in Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937), wearing makeup to alter his already very round eyes for the part. He ended up committed to repeating the role for eight more "Mr. Moto" movies over the next two years.

Lorre played numerous memorable villain roles, spy characters, comedic roles, and even a romantic type, throughout the 1940s, beginning with his graduation from 30s B-pictures The Maltese Falcon (1941). Among his most famous films, Casablanca (1942), and a comedic role in the Broadway hit film Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).

After the war, between 1946 and '49 Lorre concentrated largely on radio and the stage, while continuing to appear in movies. In Autumn 1950 he traveled to West Gemany where he wrote, directed and starred in the critically acclaimed but generally unknown German-language film The Lost Man (1951), adapted from Lorre's own novel.

Lorre returned to the US in 1952, somewhat heavier in stature, where he used his abilities as a stage actor appearing in many live television productions throughout the 50s, including the first James Bond adaptation Casino Royale (1954), broadcast just a few months after Ian Fleming had published that first Bond novel. In that decade, Lorre had various roles, often to type but also as comedic caricatures of himself, in many episodes of TV series, and variety shows, though he continued to work in motion pictures, including the Academy Award winning Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and a stellar role as a clown in The Big Circus (1959).

In the late 50s and early 1960s he worked in several low-budget films, with producer-director Roger Corman, and producer-writer-director Irwin Allen, including the aforementioned The Big Circus and two adventurous Disney movies with Allen. He died from a stroke the year he made his last movie, playing a stooge in Jerry Lewis' The Patsy (1964).

Acting career :

Lorre began acting on stage in Vienna aged 17, where he worked with Viennese Art Nouveau artist and puppeteer Richard Teschner. He then moved to Breslau and later to Zürich. In the late 1920s, the actor moved to Berlin, where he worked with Bertolt Brecht, including a role in Brecht's Man Equals Man and as Dr. Nakamura in the musical Happy End.

The actor became much better known after director Fritz Lang cast him as child-killer Hans Beckert in M (1931), a film reputedly inspired by the Peter Kürten case 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. He also stated that the actor gave his best performance in M and that it was among the most distinguished in film history. 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."

In 1932, Lorre appeared alongside Hans Albers in the science fiction film F.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 by Ivor Montagu, associate producer for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), who reminded the film's director, Alfred Hitchcock, about Lorre's performance in M. They considered him to play the assassin, but wanted to use him in a larger role despite his limited command of English, which Lorre overcame by learning much of his part phonetically. In The Guardian, September 2014, 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."

Lorre and his first wife, actress Celia Lovsky, boarded the Cunard-White Star Liner RMS Majestic in Southampton on July 18, 1934, to sail for New York a day after shooting had been completed on The Man Who Knew Too Much, having gained visitor's visas to the United States.

After his first two American films, Lorre returned to England to feature in Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936)

TRIVIA :

According to Vincent Price, when he and Lorre went to view Bela Lugosi's body during Bela's funeral, Lorre, upon seeing Lugosi dressed in his famous Dracula cape, quipped, "Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?".
He convinced Humphrey Bogart to marry Lauren Bacall, despite the age difference. He did so by saying, "Five good years are better than none!".
Was the very first James Bond villain; he played Le Chiffre in a 1954 version of Casino Royale on the television series Climax! (1954).
During the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of alleged Communist infiltration of Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s, he was interviewed by investigators and asked to name anyone suspicious he had met since coming to the US. He responded by giving them a list of everyone he knew.
When he arrived in Great Britain, his first meeting with a British director was with Alfred Hitchcock. By smiling and laughing as Hitchcock talked, the director was unaware that Lorre had a limited command of the English language. Hitchcock cast him in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). Lorre learned much of his part phonetically.
About 1977, his daughter Catharine Lorre was almost abducted in Los Angeles by the serial killers known as the Hillside Stranglers. She was stopped by Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who were impersonating policemen. When they realized she was Lorre's daughter, they let her go because the actor was famous and they realized her death would draw a lot of attention from law enforcement. She did not discover that they were killers until after they had been arrested.
Immediately after M (1931), he received 310 film offers that all contained a similar role. However, he refused most of them in order to try not to get pigeonholed as a psychopath. unfortunately, it didn't always work out that way for him.
In the early '50s he became seriously ill with a malady that affected his glands, causing a metabolic change. After recuperating, he gained almost 100 pounds, which aggravated a chronic high-blood-pressure condition that permanently altered his appearance and necessitated constant treatment.
Remained friends with all his wives. His third wife's ashes are combined with his, despite their being separated at the time of his death.
It was reported that Joseph Goebbels himself warned Lorre to flee Germany.
As a young man in Vienna, he was a student of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler.
He established his own production company, Lorre Incorporated. The company was mismanaged and Lorre filed for bankruptcy.
Alfred Hitchcock was reputed to have said that one of Lorre's nicknames was "The Walking Overcoat". This was given to him because he used to rehearse in a floor-length overcoat, no matter what the season of the year was.
Was a favorite characterization for the famed Warner Bros. cartoonists, as he tangled several times with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He was also portrayed as a fish in a Dr. Seuss Warner Bros. cartoon, Horton Hatches the Egg (1942).
Sold Alfred Hitchcock the screen rights to Secret Agent (1936) in addition to co-starring in the film. The actor liked to collect valuable story properties, which were estimated to value $350,000 by 1944.
His performance as Hans Beckert in M (1931) was ranked #94 on "Premiere" magazine's list of 100 Greatest Film Performances of All Time (April 2006 issue).
Separated from wife Annemarie Brenning in October 1962; a divorce hearing had been scheduled for the day Lorre passed away, 3/23/64.
Was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of Gomez Addams in The Addams Family, when they were published in "The New Yorker "in 1938. He was 34 years old at the time.
His distinctive voice gave him a successful career in radio. He guest-starred on all of the comedy/variety series from the mid-1930s into the 1950s, as well as thrillers such as "Inner Sanctum Mysteries" and "Suspense", and had three radio series of his own: "Mystery in the Air", "Nightmare", and for the Armed Forces Radio Services, "Mystery Playhouse".
Appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Casablanca (1942) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and a Best Picture nominee: The Maltese Falcon (1941).
He suggested to Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures that they make a film version of Crime and Punishment (1935) with him in the role of Raskolnikov. Cohn agreed to the project if Lorre would agree to be loaned out to MGM for Mad Love (1935).
In an interview, he said that he and his early friends invented and popularized the slang word "creep" meaning "a creepy, annoying person", though when they invented it, it was spelled "kreap", and did not have the same negative connotation.
Was unhappy when 20th Century-Fox assigned him to the first "Mr. Moto" film, but as he had recently been discharged from rehab for his morphine addiction, he accepted the role with reluctance.
He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942).
Had one daughter: Catharine Lorre (b. 6/22/53). She passed away on 5/7/85 in California.
Is mentioned in the lyrics of Al Stewart's 1976 song "Year of the Cat" ("In a morning from a Bogart movie / In a country where they turn back time / You go strolling through the crowds like Peter Lorre / Contemplating a crime").
John Kricfalusi, creator of the animated series The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991), has said that Lorre inspired the character Ren.
Spoke English, French, German and Hungarian.
His performance as Hans Beckert in M (1931) was ranked #79 on "Premiere" magazine's list of 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time (April 2004 issue).
Was the inspiration for the ghost mascot of the General Mills cereal, Boo Berry.
Had been signed to reprise his role of Strangdour, from Muscle Beach Party (1964), in the next beach film of the series: Bikini Beach (1964). However, he passed away before production began.
In 1936 Universal proposed starring him in a remake of Lon Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), but the project never progressed beyond the discussion stage.
On 8/24/ 2018, he was honored with a day of his film work during the TCM Summer Under The Stars.
Seems to be the object of tribute in many animated works, such as N. Gin in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001), the Ceiling Lamp in The Brave Little Toaster (1987), Ren Hoek in The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991), the Maggot in Corpse Bride (2005) and a mad scientist and gangster in several Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.
Appeared with John Carradine in eight films: Nancy Steele Is Missing! (1937), Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937), I'll Give a Million (1938), Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Hell Ship Mutiny (1957), The Story of Mankind (1957) and The Patsy (1964).
Interred at Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood, CA, in the Cathedral Mausoleum.
Appeared with Vincent Price in five films: The Story of Mankind (1957), The Big Circus (1959), Tales of Terror (1962), The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and The Raven (1963).
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6619 Hollywood Blvd. on 2/8/60.
A copy of his life mask--made at Don Post Studios in the 1960s--is part of the story line in Hollywood Mouth (2008). Lorre's residence on Hollywood Boulevard is also shown in the film.
Spike Jones had a hit record with his wacky cover version of "My Old Flame" with voice actor Paul Frees doing a Lorre impression for the vocal. When Lorre appeared on Jones' radio show he had to learn the "Paul Frees" way of being Peter Lorre, as Peter himself was not quite the madman that Paul had made him out to be. Also imitated by Mel Blanc in a handful of Warner Bros. cartoons, and the vocal inspiration for the character Flat Top in The Dick Tracy Show (1961).
Appeared with Humphrey Bogart in five films: The Maltese Falcon (1941), All Through the Night (1942), Casablanca (1942), Passage to Marseille (1944) and Beat the Devil (1953).
Is the subject of a 1986 song by the British indie pop group The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.
Appeared with Sydney Greenstreet in nine films: The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Background to Danger (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Conspirators (1944), Hollywood Canteen (1944), Three Strangers (1946) and The Verdict (1946).
While residing as an expatriate in Paris, he lived in the same shabby rooming house as future Hollywood luminaries Paul Lukas, Oscar Homolka and Franz Waxman.
Host/performer of NBC Radio's "Mystery in the Air" (1947).
Appeared in two science-fiction submarine movies: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).
In the early 1990s, his famous accent was parodied yet again on the animated series Mega Man (1994) as the robot henchman Cutman (possibly a wordplay on Sydney Greenstreet's Gutman in The Maltese Falcon (1941)).
His speech and mannerisms provided the inspiration for the villainous character Rocky Rococo in the Firesign Theater's radio play "The Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye" (1968).
Was sought for a role in The Black Sleep (1956), but when the cost-conscious producers deemed his salary request too high, he was replaced by Akim Tamiroff.
His likeness and an impression of his voice were presented three years after his death as the puppet character "Yetch" in Mad Monster Party? (1967) as voiced by Allen Swift, who also voiced the hero of the piece Felix Flankin (with Swift for that character invoking an impression of a living actor at that time, James Stewart), as well as voicing many of the classic monsters of movie history appearing in the animated Rankin/Bass feature, notably the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, the Hunchback (presumably of Notre Dame), the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a band of zombies, and a giant ape referred to as "It" which turns out to be an obvious representation of King Kong. Interacting with those monsters as well as Dr. Frankenstein (as actually voiced by one of Lorre's past legendary horror co-stars, Boris Karloff), the comedic story element that qualified the Lorre character as being a monster himself was that his head would keep falling off, no doubt a reference to Lorre having in another movie played a man who claims to have been decapitated but that his head was restored to life when transplanted onto a different body, in Mad Love (1935), and also perhaps related to another of the actor's films, regarding the sightings of a disembodied living and murderous hand in The Beast with Five Fingers (1946).
Appeared with Cedric Hardwicke in five films: Invisible Agent (1942), The Cross of Lorraine (1943), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), The Story of Mankind (1957) and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962).

Is the subject of a stage show and album by the World/Inferno Friendship Society called "Peter Lorre's 20th Century: Addicted to Bad Ideas". The music is meant to outline Lorre's life, and the show is narrated with monologues and dialog between band members.

Film

Year	Title	Role	Director
1929	The Missing Wife	Dentist's patient	Karl Leiter
1931	M	Hans Beckert	Fritz Lang
1931	Bomben auf Monte Carlo	Pawlitschek	Hanns Schwarz
1931	Die Koffer des Herrn O.F.	Redakteur Stix	Alexis Granowsky
1932	Fünf von der Jazzband	Car thief	Erich Engel
1932	Schuß im Morgengrauen	Klotz	Alfred Zeisler
1932	Der Weisse Damon	Hunchback	Kurt Gerron
1932	Stupefiants	Hunchback	Roger Le Bon
1932	F.P.1 antwortet nicht	Bildreporter Johnny	Karl Hartl
1933	Was Frauen Traumen	Otto Fuesslli	Géza von Bolváry
1933	Les Requins du Petrole	Henry Pless	Henri Decoin
1933	Unsichtbare Gegner	Henry Pless	Rudolph Cartier
1933	Du haut en bas	Beggar	G. W. Pabst
1934	The Man Who Knew Too Much	Abbott	Alfred Hitchcock
1935	Mad Love	Dr. Gogol	Karl Freund
1935	Crime and Punishment	Roderick Raskolnikov	Josef von Sternberg
1936	Secret Agent	The General	Alfred Hitchcock
1936	Crack-Up	Colonel Gimpy	Malcolm St. Clair
1937	Nancy Steele Is Missing!	Professor Sturm	George Marshall Otto Preminger
1937	Think Fast, Mr. Moto	Mr. Kentaro Moto	Norman Foster
1937	Lancer Spy	Major Sigfried Gruning	Gregory Ratoff
1937	Thank You, Mr. Moto	Mr. Kentaro Moto	Norman Foster
1938	Mr. Moto's Gamble		James Tinling
1938	Mr. Moto Takes a Chance		Norman Foster
1938	I'll Give a Million	Louis 'The Dope' Monteau	Walter Lang
1938	Mysterious Mr. Moto	Mr. Kentaro Moto	Norman Foster
1939	Mr. Moto's Last Warning		Norman Foster
1939	Mr. Moto in Danger Island		Herbert I. Leeds
1939	Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation		Norman Foster
1940	Strange Cargo	M'sieu Pig	Frank Borzage
1940	I Was an Adventuress	Polo	Gregory Ratoff
1940	Island of Doomed Men	Stephen Danel	Charles Barton
1940	Stranger on the Third Floor	The Stranger	Boris Ingster
1940	You'll Find Out	Fenninger	Fred Fleck
1941	The Face Behind the Mask	Jamos 'Johnny' Szabo	Robert Florey
1941	Mr. District Attorney	Paul Hyde	William Morgan
1941	They Met in Bombay	Captain Chang	Clarence Brown
1941	The Maltese Falcon	Joel Cairo	John Huston
1942	All Through the Night	Pepi	Vincent Sherman
1942	Invisible Agent	Baron Ikito	Edwin L. Marin
1942	The Boogie Man Will Get You	Dr. Arthur Lorencz	Lew Landers
1942	Casablanca	Signor Ugarte	Michael Curtiz
1943	The Constant Nymph	Fritz Bercovy	Edmund Goulding
1943	Background to Danger	Nikolai Zaleshoff	Raoul Walsh
1943	The Cross of Lorraine	Sergeant Berger	Tay Garnett
1944	Passage to Marseille	Marius	Michael Curtiz
1944	The Mask of Dimitrios	Cornelius Leyden	Jean Negulesco
1944	Arsenic and Old Lace	Dr. Einstein	Frank Capra
1944	The Conspirators	Jan Bernazsky	Jean Negulesco
1944	Hollywood Canteen	Himself	Delmer Daves
1945	Hotel Berlin	Johannes Koenig	Peter Godfrey
1945	Confidential Agent	Contreras	Herman Shumlin
1946	Three Strangers	Johnny West	Jean Negulesco
1946	Black Angel	Marko	Roy William Neill
1946	The Chase	Gino	Arthur Ripley
1946	The Verdict	Victor Emmric	Don Siegel
1946	The Beast with Five Fingers	Hilary Cummins	Robert Florey
1947	My Favorite Brunette	Kismet	Elliott Nugent
1948	Casbah	Slimane	John Berry
1949	Rope of Sand	Toady	William Dieterle
1950	Quicksand	Nick	Irving Pichel
1950	Double Confession	Paynter	Ken Annakin
1951	The Lost One	Dr. Karl Rohte, a.k.a. Dr. Karl Neumeister	Peter Lorre
1953	Beat the Devil	Julius O'Hara	John Huston
1954	20,000 Leagues Under the Sea	Conseil	Richard Fleischer
1956	Meet Me in Las Vegas	Himself	Roy Rowland
1956	Congo Crossing	Colonel John Miguel Orlando Arragas	Joseph Pevney
1956	Around the World in Eighty Days	Japanese Steward on the S.S. Carnatic	Michael Anderson
1957	The Buster Keaton Story	Kurt Bergner	Sidney Sheldon
1957	Collector's Item: The Left Fist of David	Mr. Munsey
1957	Silk Stockings	Brankov	Rouben Mamoulian
1957	The Story of Mankind	Nero	Irwin Allen
1957	The Sad Sack	Abdul	George Marshall
1957	Hell Ship Mutiny	Commissioner Lamoret	Elmo Williams
1959	The Big Circus	Skeeter	Joseph M. Newman
1960	Scent of Mystery	Smiley	Jack Cardiff
1961	Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea	Commodore Lucius Emery	Irwin Allen
1962	Tales of Terror	Montresor	Roger Corman
1962	Five Weeks in a Balloon	Ahmed	Irwin Allen
1963	The Raven	Dr. Adolphus Bedlo	Roger Corman
1964	The Comedy of Terrors	Felix Gillie	Jacques Tourneur
1964	Muscle Beach Party	Mr. Strangdour	William Asher
1964	The Patsy	Morgan Heywood	Jerry Lewis

SOURSEV : wikipedia ,,,,,,,, imd

biography of Peter Lorre