Trivia of Paul Henreid

 Trivia of Paul Henreid (10 January 1908 - 29 March 1992)

*Henreid trained for the theatre in Vienna, over his family's objections, and debuted there on the stage under the direction of Max Reinhardt. He began his film career acting in German and Austrian films in the 1930s.

*In 1937 Henreid played Prince Albert in the first British stage production of Victoria Regina.With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Henreid risked deportation or internment as an enemy alien, but Conrad Veidt (who later appeared as Major Heinrich Strasser in the film Casablanca) spoke for him, and he was allowed to remain and work in British films.

*He had a notable supporting role as Staeffel in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) opposite Robert Donat and Greer Garson.He credited as Paul Von Hernried.

*Henreid was put under contract by RKO in 1941. The studio changed his name by dropping the nobiliary particle "von", as simply "Henreid" would sound less overtly Germanic.His first film for the studio was Joan of Paris, released in 1942, that became a big hit.During production, Henreid little upset with his co-star perform, Alan Ladd.Henreid says that after working with Ladd he felt "Ladd couldn't die properly and Director Robert Stevenson shot and reshot the episode. Ladd's eyes showed no expression. They were like glass balls no matter how much Stevenson worked on him." He and Stevenson both predicted that out of the young men in the film it would be Dick Frazier who had the best chance of stardom.

*He play as leading man in Bette Davis' biggest box office hit, Now Voyager (1942).The film is remembered for the scene in which Paul Henreid places two cigarettes in his mouth, lights them and then passes one to Bette Davis. This wasn't an original idea, a similar exchange occurred ten years earlier between Ruth Chatterton and George Brent in The Rich Are Always with Us (1932), which happens to have Bette Davis in it. Director Rapper subsequently called Henreid "a liar" for claiming he thought of it, and the director pointed out it had been done in a D. W. Griffith film in 1917.

*His famous role was as Victor Laszlo, a heroic anti-German resistance leader on the run, in Casablanca (1942) with Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.Behind the scene, Paul Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors. He considered Humphrey Bogart "a mediocre actor," while Ingrid Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna."

*In the early 1950s, Henreid began directing both film and television productions. His "small-screen" directorial credits include episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Maverick, Bonanza, The Virginian, and The Big Valley. He also directed on the "big screen" A Woman's Devotion (1956) in which he played a supporting role, Girls on the Loose (1958), and Live Fast, Die Young (1958). In 1964, he directed Dead Ringer, which stars Bette Davis and features in a minor role Henreid's daughter Monika.