Peter Lorre acted on various stages in Breslau, Zurich and Vienna before coming to Berlin in 1929 when Bertolt Brecht invited him to play the role of Fabian in his production of Marieluise Fleißer's Pioniere in Ingolstadt.

The only world star the German cinema ever produced, Marlene Dietrich’s career spans from Weimar Germany to the Hollywood studios where she worked between 1930 and 1961 with the most acclaimed Hollywood directors.

Paul Henreid's acting career began in Max Reinhardt's theater in Vienna. Refusing to join the Nazi's actor guild in Berlin cut short his German career, but he became a celebrated stage actor in London.

Hungarian S.Z. Sakall played an endearing “fussbudget” in over thirty movies between 1940 and 1950.