Peter Lorre was a Hungarian and American actor, active first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before moving to Germany where he worked first on the stage, then in film in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre caused an international sensation in the Weimar Republic-era film M, directed by Fritz Lang, in which he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls. Known for his timidly devious characters, his appearance, and his accented voice, Lorre was frequently caricaturized during and after his lifetime and the cultural legacy of his persona remains in media today.
Lorre, of Jewish descent, left Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. His second English-language film, following the multiple-language version of M, was Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, made in the United Kingdom. Eventually settling in Hollywood, he later became a featured player in many Hollywood crime and mystery films. In his initial American films, Mad Love and Crime and Punishment, he continued to play murderers. He was later cast playing Mr.