Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and Casablanca (1942). 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 U.S.A around 1941.

Early life and work

He was born Hans Walter Conrad Weidt in a working-class district of Berlin, Germany. (Some biographies wrongly state that he was born in Potsdam, probably on the basis of an early claim on his part.) From 1916 until his death, he appeared in well over 100 movies. He appeared in two of the most well-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."