The Lost One Page 4
One day the distraught fiancé of Moreno’s chief actress complained that his angelic sweetheart, Barbara, acted like a “bedeviled creature” when they were alone. Moreno smiled his “mixture of mockery and kindness” and said he would try a remedy. Because she had taken part in his extemporaneous, living-newspaper experiment, Moreno told her that “news just came in that a girl in Ottakring (a slum district in Vienna), soliciting men on the street, had been attacked and killed by a stranger.” Moreno, pointing to László, identified him as the “apache” and told the actors to “get the scene ready.” László
came out of an improvised cafe with Barbara and followed her. They had an encounter, which rapidly developed into a heated argument. It was about money. Suddenly Barbara changed to a manner of acting totally unexpected from her. She swore like a trooper, punching at the man, kicking him in the leg repeatedly…. [T]he apache got wild and began to chase Barbara. Suddenly he grabbed a knife, a prop, from his inside jacket pocket. He chased her in circles, closer and closer. She acted so well that she gave the impression of being really scared. The audience got up, roaring, “Stop it, stop it.” But he did not stop until she was supposedly “murdered.”
The therapy worked. Having acted out her problems on stage, Barbara joyfully embraced her fiancé, and they went home “in ecstasy.”14
Just as Moreno’s “moments” anticipated poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht’s “pictures”—there the similarity ends—László’s self-presentations foreshadowed what he later described as “psychological” acting. “There is little doubt,” wrote Zerka, “that Moreno was one of the sources of his awareness of human psychology and its role in acting.” The psychodramatist counseled his players and patients to “lift the veil” and make evident what is genuinely there but “hidden, repressed or denied.” Through nonverbal acting techniques, his actors made their bodies speak explicitly and learned to put the gesture before the word, pairing it with the abstract or unspoken.
Jacob Moreno clearly recognized László’s talent for “learning to be in the core of the role, swapping skins with another’s feelings and being.” Helping the budding actor to find himself and a style that answered his apparent needs did not, however, preclude constructive criticism. After watching him repeat his best lines and movements—he had already adopted the “peculiar grin” he later trademarked in Hollywood—Moreno cautioned him to “de-conserve” his “mimic behavior.”
Moreno drew László into his circle at the Café Herrenhof, where he and the nineteen-year-old Billy Wilder sat at the “kitten table for the children.” Among this group were Franz Werfel, Franz Theodor Csokor, and the highly respected Viennese character actor and director Karl Forest, who took the aspiring artist under his accomplished wing and schooled him for the stage. Forest played the provinces—Ingolstadt, Czernowitz, Reichenberg—after mounting the boards at the age of seventeen. He moved on to Munich, Hamburg, and finally, in 1898, Berlin’s Deutsches Theater, where he appeared in productions of Gerhart Hauptmann, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Frank Wedekind, Carl Sternheim, and Georg Kaiser and took classical roles as well. In 1917 he returned to Vienna and the Deutsches Theater, the Burgtheater, the Raimund Theater, and the Theater in der Josefstadt. Grounded in realist drama, he gravitated toward “an exploding expression of fate.” Wilhelm Kosch wrote that he was “an episodist of the fantastic, the farcical in a human being, a macabre humor. At the same time, the strong, graphic power of his drawing shows up in his delicate lines, which let the human and his fateful background suddenly blend into each other so that one had to think of Kubin.”15 Perhaps László recognized something in Forest that he saw in himself.
Moreno couldn’t release this talented unknown into the world without giving him a more suitable professional name. The psychodramatist borrowed his friend Peter Altenberg’s Christian name, bemusedly recalling the actor’s resemblance to the character of Struwwelpeter, an unruly young man in German children’s literature “whose hair and nails grew to unreasonable ungroomed lengths.” For a surname, Moreno suggested Lorre, which means “parrot” in German. (Perhaps a more accurate origin of the word is the common parrot vocalization of the phonetic equivalent of “lora,” a predictably popular call name.) “This name would mean he could keep the same initial as in both his given names,” said Zerka. “‘Parrot’ seemed the right designation for him. Probably Lorre’s ability at mimicry was the source of the inspiration.”16
Lorre told German film editor Paul Falkenberg “that he met an actor friend in Vienna, who said, ‘Oh, Peter, I’m going to see an agent for a job. Can you help me read the cues?’ So Peter said, ‘Fine, I’ll come along.’ And they went to see the agent and Peter read the cues and the other guy spoke his part. At the end of the performance, the agent said, ‘And who are you?’ pointing to Peter. ‘My name is Peter Lorre,’ he told him. ‘I have a job for you in Breslau,’ said the agent. He forgot about the professional actor and hired Peter right on the spot.”
Falkenberg stated that this account “came from Peter’s mouth.” For public consumption, however, Lorre standardized the story that Leo Mittler, director (along with Paul Barnay) of the Lobe and Thalia Theaters in Breslau, Germany, saw him perform at the Stegreiftheater and offered him a job. “Moreno did say that [Lorre] needed to earn more money,” said Zerka, “and was ambitious for a wider audience—as what actor would not be?” Lorre later admitted that after going “through a certain period of Bohemianism, … then you have enough of it.” The working actor claimed he didn’t know what his services were worth and was afraid to ask. Bit parts, he soon learned, paid one hundred marks (about twenty-four dollars at the time) per month, an apparently tidy sum to a destitute artist, especially one who was also expected to pay for his basic costume: white shirt, dark suit, hat, and shoes. Alajos gave his son an old suit, the only thing he could spare, and train fare.
No other period in Lorre’s life suffered as much sheer reinvention as his first shaky professional steps. He later shrugged off his early experience, insisting that he had no idea of what constituted acting, only that “an actor was a guy not allowed to speak in his natural voice.” Lorre told George Frazier of Life magazine that “his efforts to disguise himself as a basso profundo were so ludicrous that he inadvertently found himself regarded as a comic.” Judging by his comments about his first professional stage performance, Lorre preferred to have audiences laugh with him rather than at him, putting one of his most often told anecdotes in some kind of perspective. “I was on the stage in a small city in Germany,” he later said of his role as a Teutonic warrior in Heinrich von Kleist’s Die Hermannsschlacht (Hermann’s Battle), “and I had a small part, but everybody laughed [at] every line I said. Well, they didn’t know that it wasn’t intentional. I had never been to school and didn’t know how to walk or speak or anything.” As punishment, the actor was stuck in a line of bearded soldiers carrying spears: “It so happened that the man in front of me pointed backward and said, ‘Do you see the Roman eagles?’” Lorre wiggled his ears and the audience howled. He was fired for a second time. “Don’t ask me about any more firings,” he appealed to O’Connell. “The next one might be coming up.”
In another version closer to the event, Lorre said he “dropped my spear, flapped my arms in true eagle fashion, and tried to look as much like a bird as possible. Everyone thought this very amusing—everyone but the producer, who promptly fired me.”
All kidding aside, Lorre found himself not in stock theater, as he liked to imply, but at elegant provincial theaters with distinguished traditions. Here he performed in a variety of small roles, often seven days a week, in both afternoon and evening productions, during 1924–25. At the Lobe Theater, which sounded a higher literary note, he appeared in a bit part in Gustav Freytag’s comedy Die Journalisten (The Journalists), under the direction of Hans Peppler; as a donkey in the Grimm brothers’ fairytale Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten (The Bremen Town Musicians); as a soldier in the historical Die Hermannsschlacht; and as
a tousle-haired apothecary in Romeo und Julia (Romeo and Juliet). At the Thalia Theater, which struck a more comedic and often folksy chord, Lorre could be seen—if you looked closely—as a servant in Shakespeare’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor).17
German writer Hans Sahl, then a student at the University of Breslau, “did not expect Peter Lorre to become a great actor. He was a nice guy with no particular characteristics, except for his protruding eyes.” They “gave him the look of a demonic, pop-eyed frog and … predestined him for criminal and gangster roles. He loved to parody himself and to scare others.” Sahl regarded Peter as “very intelligent, well read and very ambitious. He was very eager to become somebody, but he was not a faker, he was very, very serious about it.” The writer recalled, “We often went all night long through the little streets of Breslau and spoke about future fate and about the difficulties of making something of yourself. ‘I would rather stay a little actor who plays small parts big than a big actor who plays big parts small,’ he once said to me. Lorre became a great episodic actor who gave small parts a new dimension.”
For now, however, failing health cramped his “dreams of grandeur.” “When I got my first engagement,” Lorre told Federal Bureau of Narcotics Inspector Theodore J. Walker and Agent Sam Levine in February 1947, “my appendix started bothering me, as a result of the hardships which I had experienced, after which I was operated on.” Interviewed by Dr. D.D. Le Grand at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Ft. Worth, Texas, several weeks later, he explained that his appendix had finally ruptured, necessitating surgery. It marked the first episode in a complex and often confusing progression of health problems that eventually led to drug addiction.18
Lorre developed a close friendship with Hans Peppler during his time in Breslau. A giant of a man and a former navy captain, the actor and director more closely resembled a Casanova type than a celebrated character performer of the Berliner Volksbühne (People’s Theater), where he later starred as Zola in Dreyfus. When Peppler moved on to Zurich’s Schauspielhaus the following August, he took Lorre with him.
Over the next nine months, Lorre appeared in more than twenty-five productions at the Schauspielhaus and the Stadttheater, most often with Peppler and under his direction, and usually as a Chargenspieler (supporting actor), playing small parts big. (As a member of the ensemble, he also put his business degree to use, working behind the scenes as secretary and treasurer of the actors’ union.) In his first performance, he played two parts—Sir Oliver Martext and a farm boy—in Shakespeare’s As You Like It (Wie es euch gefällt). His next role, which he performed “excellently,” according to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, was that of Gilman, the greasy and greedy merchant in John Galsworthy’s Gesellschaft (Loyalties), the story of a wealthy Jew who tries to storm the blockade of British propriety.
From there Lorre moved on to comedies and farces. He played another apothecary in Luigi Pirandello’s Der Mann, das Tier und die Tugend (The Man, the Animal, and Virtue). In the Grimms’ fairytale Das tapfere Schneiderlein (The Brave Little Tailor)—which the actor also adapted with director Fritz Ritter—he gave an “extremely vivid” performance in the lead role, “sometimes, however, with a little too much volume.” He also stuck out as one of a dozen noisy scoundrels in Johann Nestroy’s Die schlimmen Buben in der Schule (The Bad Boys in the School).
With few words and gestures, Lorre learned to establish a character quickly. By striving to squeeze the most out of his roles in these early years on the stage, he earned the reputation of a scene-stealer. Hilde Wall, before she married film director Max Ophüls, remembered him drawing the audience’s attention as a servant. “His little bit,” related screenwriter Ellis St. Joseph, who heard it from Wall, “was to come in and announce that Frau Schultz was here to see her. That’s all he had to do, just come in, say those words and go out.” Lorre came in and sat down. “‘Of course, you know Frau Schultz,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course, I know her,’” Wall said, simply trying to follow along. Lorre pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and looked up. “‘She’s been here quite a few times lately, hasn’t she?’ ‘Yes, of course, she’s a friend of mine.’” Lorre drew long drafts, puffing the moment into something greater, stubbed out his cigarette, and then got up. “‘Well, Frau Schultz is here to see you,’” he said, finally delivering his one and only line. On that, he exited with a hand from the audience.
For every comedy, however, the actor appeared in two dramas, often tragedies, most notably Christian Dietrich Grabbe’s Napoleon oder die hundert Tage (Napoleon or the Hundred Days), in which he doubled as Ludwig XVIII and a grenadier; George Bernard Shaw’s Die heilige Johanna (St. Joan), as a castle manager; Pirandello’s Heinrich IV, as a lackey; Goethe’s Faust, as a happy pub patron; Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, in the double role of a bridegroom and a madhouse director; and Schiller’s Wallensteins Tod (Wallenstein’s Death), as an astrologer. He even played in blackface in Leon Gordon’s Weisse Fracht (White Cargo).
Except for a brief hiatus in the fall of 1925, Lorre worked steadily on stage despite “numerous episodes of abdominal cramping pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.” Alajos Loewenstein arranged for Dr. P. Clairmont, a Masonic brother, to perform a second surgery in Geneva to remove adhesions resulting from the first operation, which “was not done by the best doctor,” and his gall bladder. Familiar with his stage work, the surgeon took special interest in Lorre, which included pumping him full of morphine to relieve his severe pain, “no doubt having the best of intentions, but that seemed to be the beginning,” according to his brother Francis.
“On and off during that time,” said Lorre, “I had been given great amounts of narcotics,” namely morphine, Pantopon, and Dilaudid. “I want to point out here that I was not addicted during this time. This use of drugs on and off lasted for about seven years…. Over this period I took narcotics only in the office of the physician who was treating me at that time.”
On July 1, 1926, Lorre sent a postcard picturing Vienna’s Café Habsburg to Andrew, “My Dear Brother and Kinsman,” saying that if he did not hear from (Max) Reinhardt, German’s most influential stage director and producer, by Tuesday, he would accept a one-year contract with the Kammerspiele, for a monthly salary of five hundred schillings. The intimate theater seated between 300 and 500 patrons (it had one-half the capacity of the Reinhardt-directed Deutsches Theater in Berlin) and specialized in small plays, often with controversial themes. Through the sheer number and variety of its “chamber plays,” actors broadened themselves and sidestepped the typecasting dilemma. On September 29, 1926, Lorre stepped onto the stage of the Kammerspiele in a dual role—as a doctor and as a young lad with violin in hand—in Nicolaus Lenau’s Faust. Over the next two years he appeared in more than thirty productions, with comedies now outnumbering dramas two to one. Lorre consistently drew positive if limited critical attention commensurate with the size of his roles. In Die fleissige Leserin (The Diligent Reader), a poorly received parody directed at the lowbrow literary pulps cropping up in Germany, he appeared in nine sketches in roles as diverse as reporter, waiter, and dance maiden, but it was his solo scene as a political protester that “was the hit of the evening.” Under Peppler’s direction in the farcical Die Mädchen auf dem Diwan (The Girls on the Couch), he saved another boring performance: “Noteworthy is only the young comedian, Peter Lorre, [for] whom no part, not even the smallest and the silliest, is routine, but a chance for a grotesque human portrayal. This theatrical gift, perhaps the strongest and most original of the entire ensemble at the Kammerspiele, deserves the most attentive encouragement and cultivation.”
Offstage, Lorre continued to wear as many hats as he did costumes onstage, most notably those for his positions as chairman and secretary of the local chapter of the Österreichischen Bühnenvereins (Austrian Theater Union). He even earned a credit as set designer on Die fleissige Leserin.
During the actor’s run at the Kammerspiele, three long-standing patterns emerged. No matter how mediocre th
e material, how poor the production, or how negative the reviews, he was able to separate himself for the better from the vehicles in which he appeared. “The only one who made an exception was Peter Lorre,” wrote the Arbeiter Zeitung’s F.R. of his performance in the coolly received cabaret piece Alles verkehrt! (Everything Upside Down!). “His couplet was a small masterpiece of the stage art by itself but not because of its text but because of the way he presented it.” Lorre seasoned his comedy with a dash of the absurd, foreshadowing the delicate balance of opposites that would trademark his screen career. “Peter Lorre tried with success to play a retired president of a court of justice,” wrote the not easily impressed F.R., “with his strong talent for grotesque strangeness.” Again, as the dim-witted monarchist in Bitte, wer war zuerst da? (Please, Who Was Here First?), he showcased his “acid-like grotesque humor.”