Dantine enrolled at the
University of California, Los Angeles. His relatives thought he would go into business, but he became interested in theater. He began his U.S. acting career at the
Pasadena Playhouse, while running two gas stations in order to pay his expenses. Dantine was spotted by a talent scout from Warner Bros, who signed him to a contract. The studio kept him busy with roles in the
World War II films,
The Pied Piper (1942),
Desperate Journey (1942) fighting
Errol Flynn, and
The Navy Comes Through (1942). He had a sympathetic role in
Casablanca (1942), as a young refugee trying and failing to earn money via gambling in order to purchase travel visas for him and his wife; he is helped by
Humphrey Bogart. Warners began to give Dantine more sizeable roles in their "A" films,
Watch on the Rhine (1943),
Edge of Darkness (1943), playing a Nazi officer, again fighting Errol Flynn, and
Mission to Moscow (1943), playing a sympathetic Russian. Dantine's good looks caused him to receive a lot of fan mail and, in the words of one profile, "the studio began to realize it had something else besides a Hollywood Hitlerite on its hands." but the film appears not to have been made. Instead, he had a large role playing the villain in
Northern Pursuit (1943), as a Nazi running loose in northern Canada fighting Errol Flynn again. Warner Bros. later cast him in a sympathetic role in
Passage to Marseille (1944), and he was one of several stars in
Hollywood Canteen (1944). In 1944, exhibitors voting for "Stars of Tomorrow" picked Dantine at number 10. Warners gave him a sympathetic lead in
Hotel Berlin (1945) as the leader of the German underground. He was once again a Nazi on-the-run in
Escape in the Desert (1945), considered to be a remake of
The Petrified Forest. His last role for Warners was in the
film noir Shadow of a Woman (1946). He then left the studio.
Freelancer Dantine was the lead in another film noir
Whispering City (1947) for
Eagle-Lion Films. In 1947, he co-starred with
Tallulah Bankhead in the Broadway play
The Eagle Has Two Heads, replacing
Marlon Brando. According to
Jean Cocteau, Bankhead made alterations to the play, and the production was a flop, lasting only 29 performances. Dantine was in
No Time for Comedy on stage in Washington and also performed in the 1950 Broadway play
Parisienne. He was also in
Arms and the Man at Cambridge Summer Playhouse. Dantine starred in the live but short-lived television series
Shadow of the Cloak during the 1951–52 season. He had the lead in a
B-movie,
Guerrilla Girl (1953), then had a small role in the musical,
Call Me Madam (1953), He was supported by
Patricia Neal while starring in the British
science fiction film Stranger from Venus (1953). Dantine acted in the 1956 film production of Tolstoy's
War and Peace as Dolokhov, a Cossack officer assigned to harrying the retreat of France's Napoleonic army from Moscow. He also had a small role in
Alexander the Great (1956),
Kean: Genius or Scoundrel (1957), and
The Story of Mankind (1957). He played the lead role in ''
Hell on Devil's Island'' (1957). Dantine directed the 1958 military aviation film
Thundering Jets, starring
Rex Reason, and continued to act in the films
Fräulein (1958) and
Tempest (1958).
Producing As his acting career wound down, he became a vice-president of Hollywood mogul
Joseph Schenck's company, Schenck Enterprises, in 1959; Schenck was his wife's uncle. He later went to work as producer with
Robert L. Lippert Productions and then as president of Hand Enterprises Inc. Among Dantine's later screen appearances, there were three films for which he was the executive producer:
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) and
The Killer Elite (1975), both directed by
Sam Peckinpah, and
The Wilby Conspiracy (1975). He was also in
The Fifth Musketeer (1979) and
Tarzan the Ape Man (1981). ==Personal life==