Roles in Germany and Austria While performing in a play at the Akademie, Henreid was discovered by
Otto Preminger, then working for the director
Max Reinhardt. Henreid then joined Reinhardt's theater company. In 1935, Henreid was cast in the Austrian film
Jersey Lilly. Henreid went to London in 1937 to portray
Prince Albert in the first British stage production of
Victoria Regina. In 1939, Henreid had a major supporting role as German teacher Max Staefel in
Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The following year, he received third billing as a German
Gestapo agent in the thriller
Night Train to Munich. In 1940, Henreid also performed in a minor role in the British musical comedy
Under Your Hat. That same year, he portrayed a German army officer in the film
Madman of Europe. That same year, he signed a contract with the
RKO Pictures in Hollywood. RKO dropped the "von" from his name to make it sound less Germanic. He also became a citizen of the United States. Moving to
Warner Brothers in 1942, the studio cast Henreid as Jeremiah Durrance in the romance
Now, Voyager, playing opposite
Bette Davis. His role was that of a married man who meets the "
spinster" Davis on an ocean voyage. His next role was as
Victor Laszlo, an anti-Nazi resistance leader in the 1942 romantic drama
Casablanca. The cast included
Claude Rains,
Humphrey Bogart, and
Ingrid Bergman, who plays Laszlo's wife. Henreid briefly rejoined RKO to play a pirate with
Maureen O'Hara in the studio's 1945
swashbuckler,
The Spanish Main. Returning to Warner Bros., he was cast in 1946 in
Devotion, a
biopic of the
Brontë family in which Henreid portrays
Charlotte Bronte's husband,
Arthur Bell Nicholls. He was cast again with Parker in the 1946 adaptation of the
Somerset Maugham novel,
Of Human Bondage. He played Philip Carey, a medical student with a
clubfoot.
Blacklisting and independent films Henreid recounted that in the late 1940s, he participated in a protest by some Hollywood actors in Washington, D.C. against the anti-Communist excesses of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities. For the next several years, Henreid was only able to gain roles in independent films with lower budgets. He appeared in the 1949 adventure film
Rope of Sand, playing a villain opposite
Burt Lancaster. In 1950, Henreid made a low-budget film for Edward and Harry Danziger,
So Young, So Bad, as a school psychiatrist. This film was followed by an offer from producer
Sam Katzman to play the pirate
Jean Lafitte in
Last of the Buccaneers (1950). Henreid then went to France for the 1951 romance film
Pardon My French. He then returned to Katzman for the 1952 film
Thief of Damascus. He directed and played the lead role in
For Men Only (1952), a college drama about
hazing. Later, in the United Kingdom, he made the films
Stolen Face (1952) and
Mantrap (1953). He then went back to Katzman for the 1953 fantasy adventure
Siren of Bagdad, playing a magician. In the early 1950s, Henreid began directing both films and television shows. His directorial credits include American television episodes of: •
Alfred Hitchcock Presents •
Maverick •
Bonanza •
The Virginian •
The Big Valley Henreid also directed the 1956 film ''
A Woman's Devotion, 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 Henreid's daughter, Monika Henreid, in a minor role. While working as a director, Henreid continued to accept some small acting parts: •
Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957) •
Holiday for Lovers (1959) •
Never So Few (1959) •
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) •
Operation Crossbow (1965) •
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) •
The Failing of Raymond (1971) In 1973, Henreid returned to
Broadway to perform in a revival of the
George Bernard Shaw drama,
Don Juan in Hell. Henreid's final film role was in the 1977 horror film
Exorcist II: The Heretic, where he played a
cardinal. ==Personal life==