A businessman and operetta director, Joe May can be considered one of the founders of the German cinema.

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 born Miklos Rozsa was a classical composer and as well as a composer for film. His best known American picture is Spellbound, which he wrote for director Alfred Hitchcock.

He wrote the music for Ufa’s first talking picture, and became director of the Ufa orchestra and composer of many popular hits in Germany.

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