Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Budapest, Hungary). The son of an advertising executive, he received his stage training at the Hungarian Actors' Academy and made his debut in 1916 on the Budapest stage. He subsequently appeared in many plays and films and before long had achieved a local matinee-idol status. His reputation spread throughout Central Europe and in the 20s he appeared frequently as a guest star in Max Reinhardt productions in Berlin and Vienna. He was brought to the US by Adolph Zukor in 1927 and the following year began a long and often impressive career as Hollywood's Continental-in-residence. Initially he was typecast as a smooth, suave seducer, but gradually, as he matured in age and still retained a noticeable Middle European accent, he was cast more and more in outright villainous roles, often of the Nazi type. However, it was in an anti-Nazi role, one of his few sympathetic parts, that he scored his greatest personal triumph on stage and screen. He received superlative notices from critics for that performance on Broadway in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine (1941) and won the best actor Academy Award as well as the New York Film Critics Award for repeating the role in the 1943 film version. He appeared with distinction in many other pictures, in roles varying in importance and size, before his death of heart failure in Tangier during a search for a retirement home. Other notable screen credits include EXPERIMENT PERILOUS (1944), BERLIN EXPRESS (1948), KIM (1950), 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1954), THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN (1958), TENDER IS THE NIGHT and FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (both 1962), 55 DAYS AT PEKING and FUN IN ACAPULCO (both 1963), LORD JIM (1965) and SOL MADRID (1968).  Actor 1943: WATCH ON THE RHINE 1 nomination, 1 Award