CONRAD VEIDT Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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CONRAD VEIDT

Name: Conrad Veidt.                                                                       
Birth name: Hans Walter Konrad Veidt                                                     
Born: 22 January 1893 Potsdam, Germany                                                   
Died: 3 April 1943 Hollywood, California, U.S.                                           
                                                                                         
Conrad Veidt (January 22, 1893 – April 3, 1943) was a German actor, well known         
for his roles in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The Thief of           
Bagdad (1940), and Casablanca (1942).                                                     
                                                                                         
He was born Hans Walter Conrad Weidt in Potsdam, Germany. From 1916 until his             
death, he appeared in well over 100 movies. He appeared in two of the most well-known     
films of the silent era: as a murderous somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr.               
Caligari (1920), and as a disfigured circus performer in The Man Who Laughs (1928).       
Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering gay rights film Anders als         
die Andern ("Different from the Others", 1919) and in Das Land ohne Frauen (1929),       
Germany's first talking picture.                                                         
                                                                                         
Playing as The Stranger in The Passing Of The Third Floor Back (1935). Veidt (wearing     
the bow tie) is third from left.                                                         
                                                                                         
Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime, and he emigrated from Germany in 1933 a         
week after marrying a Jewish woman, Illona Prager. He settled in the United               
Kingdom and continued making films, notably three with director Michael Powell:           
The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).               
                                                                                         
He later moved to Hollywood, and starred in a few films, such as Nazi Agent - in         
which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother. But he is             
most well known in this period for playing the Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser in           
Casablanca (1942).                                                                       
                                                                                         
He died of a heart attack a year later, while playing golf in Los Angeles.               
                                                                                         
Veidt sang the title song "Where the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay" of the             
1933 film F.P.1. It was a flop at the time, but became a hit in the United               
Kingdom in 1980. Disc-jockey Terry Wogan had played it as a request on his               
breakfast show and was flooded afterwards with letters asking for a repeat.