Anton Walbrook

Suave, highly polished and intense performer who broke with ten generations of his family's circus tradition to make his mark on the Austrian and German stage. Walbrook entered German film in the early 1920s and emerged as a star a decade later, billed as Adolf Wohlbruck. Energetic and boyishly handsome--in contrast to the smooth maturity he would soon begin to convey so well--he graced a number of enjoyable films, among them the gender-bending romantic comedy "Viktor und Viktoria/Victor and Victoria" (1933), which later became the basis for Blake Edwards' "Victor/Victoria." Attracting attention, he arrived in Hollywood to appear in the 1937 production, "Michael Strogoff/The Soldier and the Lady," reprising his starring role in the earlier French and German versions.