Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor who appeared in well over 100 films. In 1914 Veidt was drafted into the German Army during World War I. In 1915, Veidt was sent to the Eastern Front as a noncommissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theater so that he could entertain the troops. In late 1916, he was reexamined by the Army and deemed unfit for service; he was given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt then returned to Berlin to pursue his acting career.
He appeared in two of the best-known films of the silent era: as a murderous somnambulist in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover and as a disfigured circus performer in The Man Who Laughs (1928). According to the Los Angeles Times, "Conrad Veidt starred in this semi-silent film based on Victor Hugo's novel in which the son of a lord is punished for his father's disrespect to the king by having his face carved into a permanent grin." Veidt also starred in other classic silent horror films such a The Hands of Orlac in 1929 (again directed by Robert Weine), The Student of Prague in 1926 and Waxworks in 1924 where he played Ivan the Terrible.
Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering gay rights film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919), in which he played what is probably the first gay character written especially for the cinema, and in Das Land ohne Frauen (1929), Germany's first talking picture.
He moved to Hollywood and made a few films in the twenties but the advent of talking pictures and his broken English made him return to Germany. After a successful career in German silent film, where he was one of the best paid stars of Ufa, he left Germany in 1933 with his new Jewish wife and settled in the United Kingdom, where he participated in a number of films before continuing to the United States around 1941. When Britain went to war, Veidt (an anti-Nazi and British citizen) gave most of his estate to the war effort. He also donated a large portion of the salary from each of his movies to the British war relief, as well.
In the 1940s he moved back to Hollywood, California, and starred in a few films, such as Nazi Agent (1942), in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother, but his best remembered role was as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He found himself invariably playing the very characters he detested.
He died of a heart attack while playing golf (8th hole) at the Riviera Country Club, Los Angeles, California. He was playing with Arthur Field of MGM and his personal physician, Dr. Bergman, who pronounced him dead at the scene.
Notable roles:
Ceasare - The Cabniet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Orlac - The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Ivan the Terrible - Waxworks (1924)
Gwynplaine - The Man who Laughs (1928)
Major Heinrich Strasser - Casablanca (1942)
Trivia:
Bob Kane, creator of Batman, used Veidt's appearance in The Man Who Laughs (1928) as an early model on which to base the appearance of "The Joker".
He had long been known in German theatrical circles as a staunch anti-Nazi. His activities came under the scrutiny of the Gestapo, and a decision was made to assassinate him. Veidt found out about the plot, and managed to escape Germany before the Nazi death squad found him.
(February 4 2004) His daughter Vera Viola passed away from a heart attack in her sleep at her New Orleans apartment.
Personal Quotes
(1920s, to biographer Paul Ickes) What do you want? They'll just say, "He's only a movie actor!"
(about his role in A Woman's Face (1941)) I'm Lucifer in a tuxedo!
It is precisely as if I am possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being.
(on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) No matter what roles I play, I can't get Caligari out of my system.
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