Peter Lorre

Lorre in 1946

Peter Lorre (born was Ladislav (László) Löwenstein, June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian-American actor.

Biography

Lorre's family was Jewish. Lorre was born in Rózsahegy (Rosenberg) in a country called Austria-Hungary. Now the place where he was born is in the country Slovakia. He began acting in theaters in Vienna, Breslau, and Zürich. In the 1920s, he moved to Berlin to work as an actor. In 1931, the movie director Fritz Lang chose Lorre to act in a movie about a serial killer who kills children called M. Lorre got married three times: Celia Lovsky (1934 - 13 March 1945, divorced); Kaaren Verne (25 May 1945 - 1950, divorced) and Annemarie Brenning (21 July 1953 - 23 March 1964, his death). He had his only child with Brenning, a daughter named Catharine (1953-1985).

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Lorre had to leave Germany. Lorre went to England to be safe from the Nazis. Lorre got work as an actor in a movie by Alfred Hitchcock called The Man Who Knew Too Much. Lorre only knew a little English. At first, it was hard for him to act in English movies.

In the 1940s, Lorre moved to Hollywood, California (USA). Hollywood is a town where many movies are made. Lorre acted in many movies, playing foreign characters. Lorre played the role of Joel Cairo in the movie The Maltese Falcon (1941) and played the role of "Ugarte" in the movie Casablanca (1942). Lorre played the character of Dr. Einstein in the movie Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).

Peter Lorre Media

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  Lorre in M (1931)
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  Lorre (left) in M (1931)
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  Edward Arnold and Lorre in Crime and Punishment (1935)

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  With Sig Ruman in Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937)

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  Left to right: Sydney Greenstreet and Lorre in The Maltese Falcon (1941), the first of their nine films together

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  Lorre in the 1941 trailer for The Maltese Falcon

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  Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Barton MacLane, Lorre, and Ward Bond in The Maltese Falcon

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  With Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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  Lorre in Quicksand, 1950

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  Vincent Price holding a replica of Lorre's head to publicize Tales of Terror (1962)

Related pages

• Film noir

Other websites

• Peter Lorre on IMDb
• The Peter Lorre Library of Sound
• The Peter Lorre Companion Archived 2011-11-04 at the Wayback Machine