In 1926, he appeared in his only Hollywood film, Rex Ingram's The Magician, in which he played the Aleister Crowley-esque Oliver Haddo in an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's story, followed by The Strange Case of Captain Ramper in 1927.

In 1928, he starred alongside Brigitte Helm in his old collaborator Henrik Galeen's adaptation of Hanns Heinz Ewers' Alraune, playing the Frankenstein-like Professor ten Brinken.

[citation needed] When in 1933 the Nazis came to power, theatre companies were disbanded and many of the actors and directors were arrested, persecuted or exiled.

He appeared in the title role in a production of Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in September 1945.

His fourth wife was Greta Schröder (previously married to the dancer Ernst Matray), who had portrayed the leading lady in F.W.