German actor Conrad Veidt was BOTD in 1893. Born in Berlin to a middle-class family, he planned to become a doctor, though failed the qualifying exams and pursued a career as an actor. After years as an extra in Max Reinhardt’s theatre company, he joined the German Army in 1914, performing in an army theatre during a period of illness. Discharged in 1917, he returned to Berlin, performing in silent films, including Different from the Others, playing a concert violinist who falls in love with his male pupils. Co-scripted by sexologist Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, it is thought to be the first expressly gay-themed film ever made. He shot to fame as the murderous sleepwalker in Robert Wiene’s 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, now considered a classic of German Expressionist cinema. He became one of German cinema’s highest-paid film actors, appearing in The Hands of Orlac, The Student of Prague and Waxworks. His appearance in the 1929 film The Man Who Laughs, as a disfigured servant whose face is cut into a permanent grin, later inspired the character of Batman villain The Joker. Veidt’s opposition to the Nazi regime, support for the British war effort and relationship with a Jewish woman forced him to move to England in 1933, where he appeared in anti-Nazi propaganda films. He worked regularly with filmmaking duo Michael Powell and Emergic Pressburger, appearing in their films Spy in Black, Contraband and The Thief of Bagdad. Settling in Hollywood in the 1940s, he continued to play Nazis in a series of thrillers and became friends with the director F. W. Murnau and actress Greta Garbo. He is best known for his role as the sinister Major Strasser in the 1942 film Casablanca. Married three times, he is also thought to have had affairs with men. He died in 1943, aged 50.