Conrad Veidt

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Conrad Veidt
Conrad Veidt in The Spy in Black (1939).
Birth name	Hans Walter Konrad Veidt
Born	Jan 22, 1893 Berlin, Germany
Died	April 3, 1943 Hollywood, CA, USA
Years active	1917-1943
Notable roles	Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs Jaffar in The Thief of Bagdad Maj. Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca

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) and Casablanca (1942).

1 Early life and career
2 Flight from Germany
3 Later career
4 Trivia
5 Selected Filmography
6 External links

[edit] Early life and career

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, 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.

[edit] Flight from Germany

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 Britain and continued making films, notably three with director Michael Powell: The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). He also made the movie Jew Suss, a satire of antisemitism. Although it was not a success with audiences, it did succeed in angering Josef Goebbels, who banned all of Veidt's films from Germany.

[edit] Later career

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.

[edit] Trivia

His performance in The Man Who Laughs served as the inspiration for Batman's archenemy, the Joker. In 2005, DC Comics issued a graphic novel detailing the Joker's origins, calling it Batman: The Man Who Laughs as a tribute to the film.