MUSEUM OF MODERN MYTHOLOGY AND POP CULTURE

PETER LORRE

1904-1964. Born Laszlo Loewenstein in Rozsahegy, Austria-Hungary, Peter Lorre was given a fine education by his parents, which included tutelage under Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. He worked as a stage actor in Switzerland and Austria before settling in Germany in the late 1920s, and was a favorite performer of playwright Bertolt Brecht. In 1931, Lorre was hired by famous director Fritz Lang to star in the motion picture M. The story of a child murderer tracked down by the criminal element, Lorre's performance led critics, and Charles Chaplin, to praise him as the greatest actor in films. Busy in the 1950s and 1960s, he easily expanded his talents into television. Lorre is the first actor to portray a James Bond villain. In the 1954 television production of Casino Royale, with Barry Nelson as an American James Bond, he was cast as Le Chiffre.

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