[8] His many silent-era portrayals included Caesar in Theda Bara's 1917 Cleopatra and Solomon in the mammoth 1921 Betty Blythe vehicle The Queen of Sheba.

In the film Champagne Waltz (1937), he portrayed an orchestra maestro; the role required him to play classical music on a violin and jazz on a clarinet.

One of Leiber's larger assignments of the 1940s, and his most notable musical role, was as Franz Liszt in the Claude Rains remake of Phantom of the Opera (1943).

Often during his career Leiber had a likeness made of himself in costume and make-up for the role he was then playing,[10] varying the format and media to include oil painting, charcoal sketching; a sculpted bust, a clay bas-relief, and others.

After the actor's death, the collection passed to his son, Fritz Leiber Jr., who used the experience of inheriting this surfeit as the basis of his 1963 story "237 Talking Statues, Etc."