What did Peter Lorrie?

Answer 1

I think you mean Peter Lorre, although his name is pronounced 'lorrey'. He was a famous Austro-Hungarian actor who specialised in starring in crime and mystery films- his real name was Lazslow Lowenstein. After serving as a soldier in the First World War he started out as a stage actor in Berlin, and had his first major film breakthrough in Fritz Lang's 1931 thriller 'M', in which he played a serial killer who preyed on little girls. Because he was of Jewish extraction, he fled Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power and settled first of all in Britain, where he starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much.Eventually settling in Hollywood, he went on to make a string of famous films, starting out with being cast as Japanese detective Mr.Moto in a series of cult movies before going on to star opposite Humphrey Bogart in some of the most famous Bogart films, including The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, in which he played a police detective. This is probably the role for which he is best remembered.

After the War his acting genres became more eclectic- he appeared in a version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and also worked in television, appearing as a villain in the first televised version of the James Bond novel Casino Royale in 1954. His latter acting career saw him appearing in a number of horror films in the late '50s / early '60s, frequently opposite Vincent Price who became a personal friend of his. His final film was a version of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven in 1963. He died of a stroke in Los Angeles the following year at the age of 60- his ashes were scattered in the 'Hollywood Forever' Cemetery, and Price read the eulogy at his funeral.

Although married 3 times, he only ever had one child, a daughter called Catharine who died childless in 1985 at the age of just 32, as a result of complications arising from diabetes.