Peter Lorre

On August 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 Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) and a mad scientist and gangster in several Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.

John Kricfalusi, creator of the animated series The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991), has said that Lorre inspired the character Ren.

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)).

Is the subject of a 1986 song by the British indie pop group The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.

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 for playing a serial killer in Fritz Lang's M (1931). Catharine Lorre did not realize that they were killers until after they were arrested.

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").

Lorre's 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).

Separated from wife, Annemarie Brenning, in October 1962; a divorce hearing had been scheduled for the day Lorre passed away, March 23, 1964.

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).

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 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).

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).

Was the very first James Bond villain; he played Le Chiffre in a 1954 version of Casino Royale on the television series Climax! (1954).

Had one daughter: Catherine Lorre (born 22 June 1953). She passed away on May 7, 1985 in California.

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 Climax!: Casino Royale (1954), broadcast just a few months after Ian Fleming had published that first Bond novel.

In Autumn 1950 he traveled to West Gemany where he wrote, directed and starred in the critically acclaimed but generally unknown German-language film Der Verlorene (1951), adapted from Lorre's own novel.

Host/performer of NBC Radio's "Mystery in the Air" (1947).

After the war, between 1946 and '49 Lorre concentrated largely on radio and the stage, while continuing to appear in movies.

Among his most famous films, Casablanca (1942), and a comedic role in the Broadway hit film Arsenic and Old Lace (1942).

He 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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

His distinctive voice gave Lorre 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".

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.