Trivia

According to Vincent Price, when he and Lorre went to view Bela Lugosi's body during Bela's funeral, Lorre, upon seeing Lugosi dressed in his famous Dracula cape, quipped, "Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?".

He convinced Humphrey Bogart to marry Lauren Bacall, despite the age difference. He did so by saying, "Five good years are better than none!".

Was the very first James Bond villain; he played Le Chiffre in a 1954 version of Casino Royale on the television series Climax! (1954).

During the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of alleged Communist infiltration of Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s, he was interviewed by investigators and asked to name anyone suspicious he had met since coming to the US. He responded by giving them a list of everyone he knew.

When he arrived in Great Britain, his first meeting with a British director was with Alfred Hitchcock. By smiling and laughing as Hitchcock talked, the director was unaware that Lorre had a limited command of the English language. Hitchcock cast him in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934). Lorre learned much of his part phonetically.

About 1977, his daughter Catharine Lorre was almost abducted in Los Angeles by the serial killers known as the Hillside Stranglers. She was stopped by Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, who were impersonating policemen. When they realized she was Lorre's daughter, they let her go because the actor was famous for playing a serial killer in Fritz Lang's M (1931). She did not realize that they were killers until after they were arrested.

Remained friends with all his wives. His third wife's ashes are combined with his, despite their being separated at the time of his death.

Immediately after M (1931), he received 310 film offers that all contained a similar role. However, he refused most of them in order to try not to get pigeonholed as a psychopath. unfortunately, it didn't always work out that way for him.

In the early '50s he became seriously ill with a malady that affected his glands, causing a metabolic change. After recuperating, he gained almost 100 pounds, which aggravated a chronic high-blood-pressure condition that permanently altered his appearance and necessitated constant treatment.

As a young man in Vienna, he was a student of the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler.

It was reported that Joseph Goebbels himself warned Lorre to flee Germany.

His performance as Hans Beckert in M (1931) was ranked #94 on "Premiere" magazine's list of 100 Greatest Film Performances of All Time (April 2006 issue).

Alfred Hitchcock was reputed to have said that one of Lorre's nicknames was "The Walking Overcoat". This was given to him because he used to rehearse in a floor-length overcoat, no matter what the season of the year was.

Was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of Gomez Addams in The Addams Family, when they were published in "The New Yorker "in 1938. He was 34 years old at the time.

He established his own production company, Lorre Incorporated. The company was mismanaged and Lorre filed for bankruptcy.

Sold Alfred Hitchcock the screen rights to Secret Agent (1936) in addition to co-starring in the film. The actor liked to collect valuable story properties, which were estimated to value $350,000 by 1944.

Was a favorite characterization for the famed Warner Bros. cartoonists, as he tangled several times with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. He was also portrayed as a fish in a Dr. Seuss Warner Bros. cartoon, Horton Hatches the Egg (1942).

Was unhappy when 20th Century-Fox assigned him to the first "Mr. Moto" film, but as he had recently been discharged from rehab for his morphine addiction, he accepted the role with reluctance.

Separated from wife Annemarie Brenning in October 1962; a divorce hearing had been scheduled for the day Lorre passed away, 3/23/64.

John Kricfalusi, creator of the animated series The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991), has said that Lorre inspired the character Ren.

His distinctive voice gave him a successful career in radio. He guest-starred on all of the comedy/variety series from the mid-1930s into the 1950s, as well as thrillers such as "Inner Sanctum Mysteries" and "Suspense", and had three radio series of his own: "Mystery in the Air", "Nightmare", and for the Armed Forces Radio Services, "Mystery Playhouse".

Spoke English, French, German and Hungarian.

Appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Casablanca (1942) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and a Best Picture nominee: The Maltese Falcon (1941).

He suggested to Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures that they make a film version of Crime and Punishment (1935) with him in the role of Raskolnikov. Cohn agreed to the project if Lorre would agree to be loaned out to MGM for Mad Love (1935).

In an interview, he said that he and his early friends invented and popularized the slang word "creep" meaning "a creepy, annoying person", though when they invented it, it was spelled "kreap", and did not have the same negative connotation.

Had one daughter: Catharine Lorre (b. 6/22/53). She passed away on 5/7/85 in California.

Is mentioned in the lyrics of Al Stewart's 1976 song "Year of the Cat" ("In a morning from a Bogart movie / In a country where they turn back time / You go strolling through the crowds like Peter Lorre / Contemplating a crime").

He has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942).

Was the inspiration for the ghost mascot of the General Mills cereal, Boo Berry.

His performance as Hans Beckert in M (1931) was ranked #79 on "Premiere" magazine's list of 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time (April 2004 issue).

Had been signed to reprise his role of Strangdour, from Muscle Beach Party (1964), in the next beach film of the series: Bikini Beach (1964). However, he passed away before production began.

In 1936 Universal proposed starring him in a remake of Lon Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), but the project never progressed beyond the discussion stage.

Seems to be the object of tribute in many animated works, such as N. Gin in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (2001), the Ceiling Lamp in The Brave Little Toaster (1987), Ren Hoek in The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991), the Maggot in Corpse Bride (2005) and a mad scientist and gangster in several Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoons.

On 8/24/ 2018, he was honored with a day of his film work during the TCM Summer Under The Stars.

Interred at Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now called Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood, CA, in the Cathedral Mausoleum.

Appeared with Vincent Price in five films: The Story of Mankind (1957), The Big Circus (1959), Tales of Terror (1962), The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and The Raven (1963).

Appeared with John Carradine in eight films: Nancy Steele Is Missing! (1937), Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937), I'll Give a Million (1938), Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Hell Ship Mutiny (1957), The Story of Mankind (1957) and The Patsy (1964).

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6619 Hollywood Blvd. on 2/8/60.

Spike Jones had a hit record with his wacky cover version of "My Old Flame" with voice actor Paul Frees doing a Lorre impression for the vocal. When Lorre appeared on Jones' radio show he had to learn the "Paul Frees" way of being Peter Lorre, as Peter himself was not quite the madman that Paul had made him out to be. Also imitated by Mel Blanc in a handful of Warner Bros. cartoons, and the vocal inspiration for the character Flat Top in The Dick Tracy Show (1961).

Is the subject of a 1986 song by the British indie pop group The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.

A copy of his life mask--made at Don Post Studios in the 1960s--is part of the story line in Hollywood Mouth (2008). Lorre's residence on Hollywood Boulevard is also shown in the film.

While residing as an expatriate in Paris, he lived in the same shabby rooming house as future Hollywood luminaries Paul Lukas, Oscar Homolka and Franz Waxman.

Appeared with Humphrey Bogart in five films: The Maltese Falcon (1941), All Through the Night (1942), Casablanca (1942), Passage to Marseille (1944) and Beat the Devil (1953).

Host/performer of NBC Radio's "Mystery in the Air" (1947).

In the early 1990s, his famous accent was parodied yet again on the animated series Mega Man (1994) as the robot henchman Cutman (possibly a wordplay on Sydney Greenstreet's Gutman in The Maltese Falcon (1941)).

Appeared with Sydney Greenstreet in nine films: The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Background to Danger (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Conspirators (1944), Hollywood Canteen (1944), Three Strangers (1946) and The Verdict (1946).

Appeared in two science-fiction submarine movies: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

His speech and mannerisms provided the inspiration for the villainous character Rocky Rococo in the Firesign Theater's radio play "The Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye" (1968).

Was sought for a role in The Black Sleep (1956), but when the cost-conscious producers deemed his salary request too high, he was replaced by Akim Tamiroff.

His likeness and an impression of his voice were presented three years after his death as the puppet character "Yetch" in Mad Monster Party? (1967) as voiced by Allen Swift, who also voiced the hero of the piece Felix Flankin (with Swift for that character invoking an impression of a living actor at that time, James Stewart), as well as voicing many of the classic monsters of movie history appearing in the animated Rankin/Bass feature, notably the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, the Hunchback (presumably of Notre Dame), the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a band of zombies, and a giant ape referred to as "It" which turns out to be an obvious representation of King Kong. Interacting with those monsters as well as Dr. Frankenstein (as actually voiced by one of Lorre's past legendary horror co-stars, Boris Karloff), the comedic story element that qualified the Lorre character as being a monster himself was that his head would keep falling off, no doubt a reference to Lorre having in another movie played a man who claims to have been decapitated but that his head was restored to life when transplanted onto a different body, in Mad Love (1935), and also perhaps related to another of the actor's films, regarding the sightings of a disembodied living and murderous hand in The Beast with Five Fingers (1946).