| |
Page Updated: Dec. 25, 2007
Home
Table of Contents
Excerpt: Chapter 3
Peter Lorre's Credits (A Sample)
Peter Lorre: Biographical Sketch
Peter Lorre FAQ
Peter Lorre On DVD
Peter Lorre Photos
Peter Lorre Poster Art
Critics Are Saying . . .
Interview With The Author
|
|
===================================/>
Main Text Area />
===================================/>
In The Lost One, I separated the person of Peter Lorre from his screen
persona. Continuing that theme for this website, I suggested including photos (most of which
belonged to Lorre himself) that pictured a happy, healthy man at odds with his sinister image
as a movie menace. There are many images here that would have made the book but for space
limitations and/or poor resolution. Nonetheless, these shots (and more to come) show rather
than tell his many-sided story behind the camera.
Except where noted, all photos are from the collection of Stephen
Youngkin. For a larger image, click on the thumbnail. A new window will open.
2-col table, 6 rows />
|
|
Andrew “Bundy” Lorre looked a great deal like his famous brother. Often
told that he also talked just like Peter Lorre, he would reply, “Yes, but he is getting
paid for it.” Circa 1931.
|
Peter Lorre and brother Francis Lorant, who later emigrated to Australia,
lunching in Berlin, 1932. Lorre’s head is shaved for his role as a humpbacked drug
dealer in Der weisse Dämon (The White Demon).
|
Celia Lovsky, circa 1925. Lovsky was already well established on the
Vienna and Berlin stages when Lorre met her in 1929. He was mesmerized by her
beauty, she by his talent.
|
Celia Lovsky, circa 1927. Peter Lorre told friends he didn't know how he
attracted such beautiful women. Some female admirers found his menacing and
mysterious screen image appealing. His wives, however, shared something else in
common: an unqualified belief in his talent.
|
On a winter holiday in the Black Forest of southwestern Germany,
December, 1929. Peter proposed to Celia at Christmas that year.
|
Peter and Celia motor-boating on der Wannsee, a popular area for
swimming and boating in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf.
1932.
|
After Peter and Celia divorced, she was seldom without one or more cats.
When I knew her, she had four felines, all tabbies and all very spoiled. Here she is at
a petting zoo with a tiger cub in her lap. Berlin, circa 1932.
|
Peter Lorre and Paul Falkenberg in a Paris editing room, 1933.
Falkenberg, who edited M (1931), became a good friend of Lorre's, even
lending him money to take a cure for his drug addiction.
|
Peter Lorre, as the angelically simple "Moritz Steifel" in Frank Wedekind’s
Frühlings Erwachen (Spring’s Awakening), resists the sexual
overtures of the nymphomanical Ilse (Lotte Lenja), Volksbühne, Theater am
Bülowplatz, Berlin, October 1929. Taken by photographer Lotte Jacobi.
|
Kurt Gerron plays the shady profiteer "Camillioni" to Peter Lorre as the
corrupt Vienna press czar "Barkassy" in Karl Kraus' Die Unüberwindlichen
(The Unconquerable, October 1929). At the Volksbühne, Theater am
Bülowplatz, Berlin.
|
Otto Wallburg and Peter Lorre (as "Bach", editor of The People's
Voice) in Carl Sternheim's comedy Der Kandidat (The
Candidate), Deutsches Kammerspiele, Berlin, January 1930. Said theater critic
Fritz Engel in the Berliner Tageblatt: "He has a personal enchantment, not
one of beauty; one is strongly moved and cannot pull himself away from Lorre."
|
Heinz Rühmann and Hilde Körbe opposite Peter Lorre, as "Wasja", a
fanatical member of the League of Communist Youth, in Valentine Katayev's
Die Quadratur des Kreises (Squaring the Circle). The satire, set
against Russia's housing shortage, premiered at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm,
Berlin, in December 1930.
|
Whether distancing himself from a character or absorbing himself in a role,
Lorre called himself a “face-maker.” As Vincent Price said, “It was his definition of
acting.” Lorre first played the funnyman ("Pipi the Clown") in Der Dompteur
(The Lion Tamer) on the Berlin stage in March 1931, with Carola Neher
and Fritz Kampers.
|
Director Tay Garnett felt that Lorre called himself a “face-maker” because
he wanted no one to know how seriously he took his art. Once again, as "the
Pawnbroker" in Georg Kaiser’s Nebeneinander (Side by Side,
September 1931), his facial expressions gave, according to one reviewer, “good
insight into one driven by demons.” With Ilse Fürstenberg.
|
Prev Page |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
Next Page
=============================================================== />
Display ads for UK Press, Powell's Books, Overstock.com, Barnes & Noble, Deep />
Discount, Amazon.com (US, UK, Canada), Radio Showcase, Netflix, Movies Unlimited. />
=============================================================== />
Divider />
The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre
by Stephen Youngkin -- now in its second printing and
winner of the Rondo Award for "Best Book of 2005" -- is available in bookstores
everywhere, as well as these on-line merchants.
The Films of Peter Lorre
(1982), also by Youngkin, is out of print, but copies may be
purchased through Amazon and Barnes & Noble below. Interested in Lorre's radio and
television performances? Check out Radio Showcase and Movies Unlimited. Netflix has
Lorre movies for rent.
Link -- University Press of Kentucky />
University Press of Kentucky
Link -- Powell's Books />
Powell's Books
Link -- Overstock.com />
Overstock.com
Display Ads -- 4-column table />
|
|
|
|
Display ad -- Barnes & Noble />
The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre
Barnes & Noble
Bookstores
Display ad -- Deep Discount, "The Lost One" />
Deep Discount
|
Display ad -- Amazon.com (US) />
US fans:
Amazon.com
|
Display ad -- Amazon.ca (Canada) />
Canadian fans:
Amazon.ca
|
Display ad -- Amazon.uk (UK) />
UK fans:
Amazon.uk
|
Display ad -- B&N, "The Films of Peter Lorre" />
The Films of Peter Lorre
Barnes & Noble
Bookstores
|
Display ad -- Amazon, "The Films of Peter Lorre" />
US fans:
Amazon.com
|
Display ad -- Radio Showcase />
Radio Showcase
|
Display ad -- Netflix />

|
Display Ads -- 1-column table />
|
Display ad -- Movies Unlimited />
Movies Unlimited
|
Gift Certificate -- Amazon.com (US) />
US fans: Purchase an Amazon Gift Certificate
|
Gift Certificate -- Amazon.ca (Canada) />
Canadian fans: Purchase an Amazon Gift Certificate
|
Have a comment or question? We'd love to hear from you! Please contact us at:
Webmaster@PeterLorreBook.com
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Ghillie Web Design - Cheryl Morris. All Rights
Reserved.
|
===================================/>
End of Main Text Area />
===================================/>
|
===================================/>
Row 5 -- Gutter />
===================================/>