After a successful career in German silent films, where he was one of the best-paid stars of UFA, Veidt and his new Jewish wife Ilona Prager left Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power.

[citation needed] With the money he raised from odd jobs and the allowance his mother gave him, Veidt began attending Berlin's many theatres.

In the late summer of 1912 he met a theatre porter who introduced him to actor Albert Blumenreich, who agreed to give Veidt acting lessons for six marks.

[13] His contract with the Deutsches Theater was renewed for a second season, but by this time World War I had begun, and on 28 December 1914, Veidt enlisted in the Imperial German Army.

One of his earliest performances was as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), a classic of German Expressionist cinema, with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover.

His starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928), as a disfigured young outcast servant whose face is cut into a permanent grin, provided the (visual) inspiration for the iconic Batman villain the Joker.

Veidt starred in other silent horror films such as The Hands of Orlac (1924), also directed by Robert Wiene, The Student of Prague (1926) and Waxworks (1924), in which he played Ivan the Terrible.

He moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s and made a few films there, but the advent of talking pictures and his difficulty with speaking English led him to return to Germany.

[21][22] Soon after the Nazi Party took power in Germany, by March 1933, Joseph Goebbels was purging the film industry of political opponents and Jews.

In April 1933, a week after Veidt's marriage to Ilona Prager, a Jewish woman, also known as "Lilli" or "Lily", the couple emigrated to Britain before any action could be taken against either of them.

Goebbels had imposed a "racial questionnaire" in which everyone employed in the German film industry had to declare their "race" to continue to work.

His best-known Hollywood role was as the sinister Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942), a film which began pre-production before the United States entered World War II.

Commenting about this well-received role, Veidt noted that it was an ironical twist of fate that he was praised "for portraying the kind of character who had forced him to leave his homeland".

Ivan J. Rado, the nephew of Veidt's third wife Lily, commented:The fact that he wanted to leave Hollywood had nothing to do with anything but his disgust at the parts offered him, which was mainly Nazis.

In Above Suspicion, he is at some rally, and when at the end everyone goes "Heil", he just very casually half lifts his right hand, more in a wave than a salute, and with an ironic smile on his face, which to me, embodies his feelings. ...

But I had not learnt how to be a proper husband," and "I was elated by my success in my work, but shattered over my mother's death, and miserable about the way my marriage seemed to be foundering.

The family returned to Germany in 1929, and moved several times afterwards, including a temporary relocation to Vienna, Austria, while Veidt participated in a theatrical tour of the continent.

Conrad received generous visitation rights, and Viola called her summer vacations with her father "The Happy Times".

[36][33] Viola passed away on 2 February 2004 in New Orleans, Louisiana in the U.S. Veidt last married Flora Ilona Barta Greger,[37][38] a Hungarian Jew also known as "Lilli" or "Lily", in Berlin 24 March 1933.

Our marriage is not only flawless, it is a complete and logical union, as inevitable as daybreak after night, as harmonious and right as the words that exactly fit the music.

But it is a picture clear and distinct, a deep and humble memory of a woman no one could replace; but now it is not blurred by the complex which before had harassed my mind.Veidt and Lilli moved from London to Los Angeles, arriving on 13 June 1940.

[40] Even after leaving England, Veidt was concerned over the plight of children cooped up in London air raid shelters, and he decided to try to cheer up their holiday.

Through his lawyers in London, Veidt donated enough money to purchase 2,000 one-pound tins of candy, 2,000 large packets of chocolate, and 1,000 wrapped envelopes containing presents of British currency.

During his youthful career in the decadent Weimar Republic cabaret-era he was part of the avant-garde, experimental artists' lifestyle, even cross-dressing.

Aside from his work, which was also his life, there is little to know about Conny; he was an intensely private man who loved his home and his friends, but did not carouse in public nor was prey to scandalous behavior.

[45] Shirley Conway, in her 1993 tribute, also comments, consistent with other reports of the man being somewhat different from the screen image, that "Veidt surprised and delighted everyone with his modesty and ineffable charm.

He died of a heart attack on 3 April 1943 while playing golf at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles with singer Arthur Fields and his personal physician.

The CVS motto "Courage Integrity Humanity" honored qualities the legendary film star exemplified while claiming to be "only an actor."

[55] CVS reached out to German film officials who wished to receive the Veidt ashes but hesitated to act following controversies surrounding similar honors for Marlene Dietrich.

On 3 April 1998, on the 55th anniversary of his passing, Veidt's ashes, mixed in the original urn with those of his wife Lily, were placed in a niche of the columbarium at the Golders Green Crematorium in north London.