Paul Lukas

 Paul Lukas, born Pál Lukács (May 26, 1894 – August 15, 1971)

He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film Watch on the Rhine (1943). Lukas made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917. At first, he played elegant, smooth womanizers, but increasingly he became typecast as a villain. He had a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany, and Austria, where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He arrived in Hollywood in 1927 and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1937. He was busy in the 1930s, appearing in such films as the melodrama Rockabye, the crime caper Grumpy, Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, the comedy Ladies in Love, and the drama Dodsworth. He followed William Powell and Basil Rathbone portraying the series detective Philo Vance, a cosmopolitan New Yorker, once in The Casino Murder Case (1935). His major film success came in Watch on the Rhine (1943), where he played a man working against the Nazis, a role he originated in the Broadway premiere of the play of the same name in 1941. He also played Professor Aronnax in Walt Disney's film version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Lukas' film career picked up momentum in the 1960s with six films, including Fun in Acapulco with Elvis Presley in 1963 and Lord Jim with Peter O'Toole in 1965.

His final film, The Challenge, was released in 1970. He was married twice, remarrying after his first wife died. Lukas died August 15, 1971, in Tangier, Morocco.