Conrad Veidt
Birthday: 1893-01-22
Place of Birth: Berlin, Germany
Synopsis
Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as Different from the Others (1919), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and The Man Who Laughs (1928). After a successful career in German silent film, where he was one of the best-paid stars of Ufa, he was forced to leave Germany in 1933 with his new Jewish wife after the Nazis came to power. They settled in Britain, where he participated in a number of films, including The Thief of Bagdad (1940), before emigrating to the United States around 1941, which lead to him having a supporting role in Casablanca (1942).
From 1916 until his death, Veidt appeared in more than 100 films. One of his earliest performances was as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), a classic of German Expressionist cinema, with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover. His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928), as a disfigured circus performer whose face is cut into a permanent grin, provided the (visual) inspiration for the Batman villain the Joker, created in 1940 by Bill Finger. Veidt also starred in other silent horror films such as The Hands of Orlac (1924), another film directed by Robert Wiene, The Student of Prague (1926) and Waxworks (1924) where he played Ivan the Terrible.
Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919), one of the first films to sympathetically portray homosexuality, although the characters in it do not end up happily. He had a leading role in Germany's first talking picture, Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women, 1929).
He moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s and made a few films, but the advent of talking pictures and his difficulty with speaking English led him to return to Germany. During this period he lent his expertise to tutoring aspiring performers, one of whom was the later American character actress Lisa Golm.
Acting
Above Suspicion
as Hassert Seidel
Two newlyweds spy on the Nazis for the British Secret Service during their honeymoon in Europe.
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
In Casablanca, Morocco in December 1941, a cynical American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.
All Through the Night
as Franz Ebbing
Broadway gamblers stumble across a plan by Nazi saboteurs to blow up an American battleship.
Nazi Agent
as Otto Becker / Baron Hugo von Detner
Humble stamp dealer Otto Becker has little to do with international politics, so when he receives a surprise visit from his estranged twin brother and Nazi spy, Baron Hugo von Detner, his world is thrown into turmoil. Threatening Becker with deportation, Hugo forces him to use his shop as a front for espionage.
Whistling in the Dark
as Joseph Jones
The operators of 'Silver Haven', a cultish group bilking gullible rich people out of money, is set to inherit a large sum after the deceased woman's heir also dies. Leader Joesph Jones decides to hurry the process along and kidnaps Wally Benton, his fiancé, and a friend, to further this goal. Wally, 'The Fox', is a radio sleuth who solves murders on the air. Jones wants him to devise a perfect murder, and isn't above killing others sloppily along the way to get his foolproof murder plot.
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A Woman's Face
as Torsten Barring
A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
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Contraband
as Capt. Andersen
When a neutral Danish merchant ship is forced to put into port after trying to evade British wartime contraband control, its captain becomes involved in a beautiful British Naval Intelligent agent's efforts to capture a group of German spies operating from a London cinema.
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The Thief of Bagdad
as Jaffar
When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.
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The Spy in Black
as Captain Ernst Hardt
A German submarine is sent to the Orkney Isles in 1917 to sink the British fleet.
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The Chess Player
as Le baron de Kempelen
A toymaker in Poland specializes in building lifesize mechanical men. He builds a chess-playing "automaton" to hide a pretty young Polish activist who is being hunted by occupying Russian forces.
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Dark Journey
as Baron Karl Von Marwitz
Madeline Goddard, is a British double agent who meets and falls in love with a German spy Baron Karl Von Marwitz during World War I. This tale of espionage blends high adventure and romance making perfect order from wartime chaos and growing in faith from despair.
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I Was A Spy
as Commandant Oberaertz
During World War I, a young nurse in a hospital in German-occupied Belgium is secretly feeding military information to the British. Complicating matters is the guilt she feels when she has to treat the German casualties inflicted as a result of the information she's passed on, and the fact that the local German commandant is falling in love with her.
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Rome Express
as Zurta
The theft of a famous painting leads to murder and many suspects on a plush train speeding from Paris to Rome.
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The Last Performance
as Erik the Great
A middle-aged magician is in love with his beautiful young assistant. She, on the other hand, is in love with the magician's young protege, who turns out to be a bum and a thief.
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The Man Who Laughs
as Gwynplaine / Lord Clancharlie
Gwynplaine, son of Lord Clancharlie, has a permanent smile carved on his face by the King, in revenge for Gwynplaine's father's treachery. Gwynplaine is adopted by a travelling showman and becomes a popular idol. He falls in love with the blind Dea. The king dies, and his evil jester tries to destroy or corrupt Gwynplaine.
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The Hands of Orlac
as Paul Orlac
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he is horrified to learn they once belonged to a murderer.
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The Beloved Rogue
as King Louis XI
François Villon, in his lifetime the most renowned poet in France, is also a prankster, an occasional criminal, and an ardent patriot.
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Waxworks
as Ivan the Terrible
A poet is hired by the owner of a wax museum in a circus to write tales about Harun al Raschid, Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper. While writing, the poet and the daughter of the owner, Eva, fantasize the fantastic stories and fall in love for each other.
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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
as Cesare
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.
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The Head of Janus
as Dr. Warren
The film was an unauthorized adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but the source material went unrecognized by some of the German media due to changes in the characters' names. Released in 1920, this is one of Murnau's lost films. While the film itself does not survive, the scripts and related production notes do. Because the film is lost, its full length is unknown. Dr. Warren is the Dr. Jekyll character who changes into Mr. O'Connor, a parallel of Mr. Hyde. This transformation is brought about, not by experimentation with chemicals as in Stevenson's original, but through the supernatural agency of a bust of Janus (the Roman god of the doorway), which Warren / O'Connor purchases in the opening sequence as a gift for his sweetheart, Jane. When she refuses the gift, horrified, Warren / O'Connor is forced to keep the statuette himself...
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Eerie Tales
as Der Tod / Various Other Roles
After the old-books shop closes, portraits of the Strumpet, Death, and the Devil come to life and amuse themselves by reading stories--about themselves.
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Fear
as Indian Priest
A millionaire steals an ancient idol causing some natives call upon him a terrible curse.
