Peter Lorre (June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964), born László Loewenstein, was an Austro-Hungarian actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.
He made an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M. Later he became a popular featured player in Hollywood crime films and mysteries, notably alongside Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet, and as the star of the successful Mr. Moto detective series.

Biography
He was married three times: Celia Lovsky (1934 - 13 March 1945) (divorced); Kaaren Verne (25 May 1945 - 1950) (divorced) and Annemarie Brenning (21 July 1953 - 23 March 1964) (his death). Annemarie bore his only child, a daughter, Catharine, in 1953. In the 1970s an actor appeared on the scene billing himself as "Peter Lorre, Jr.," but he was in fact no relation, merely someone trading in on the fact that he slightly resembled the actor.

Marriages
Overweight and never fully recovered from his addiction to morphine, Lorre suffered many personal and career disappointments in his later years. When he died in 1964 of a stroke he was only 59. Lorre's body was cremated and his ashes interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. Vincent Price read the eulogy at his funeral.

Death
Lorre has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6619 Hollywood Boulevard.
His daughter, Catharine Lorre, was once almost abducted by The Hillside Stranglers. She was stopped by the Stranglers, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, imitating policemen. When they found out she was Lorre's daughter, they let her go. She didn't realize that they were killers until after they were caught.

Legacy
Lorre's distinctive Viennese-meets Middle American accent and large-eyed face has been a favorite target of comedians and cartoonists, to the point where Lorre has become far more familiar with the public in caricature form than for his actual performances.

Imitating Lorre
In the early 1940s, the adventures of Batman and Robin appeared in daily newspapers. One story, The Two-Bit Dictator of Twin Mills, drawn by Batman co-creator Bob Kane, featured a hitman called Jojo who was, according to writer Al Schwartz, made to look like Lorre . Jojo is a highly skilled gunman who, whatever the distance or the circumstances, always hits his target. A mildly eccentric character, he refers to his hits (objects or people) as "flinks". Even Batman, who is used to taking on armed men, hesitates in dealing with this particular gunman head-on or face-to-face. A later story was The Karen Drew Mystery, written by Jack Schiff and drawn by Jack Burnley. This one featured villains drawn to resemble Lorre's occasional co-stars: Sydney Greenstreet as gang leader Mr Wright and Humphrey Bogart as his henchman Merry.
A Lorre-like character (with strong admixtures of Max Schreck) is the focus of Brock Brower's novel The Late, Great, Creature.
Science-fiction writer Howard Waldrop wrote a short story entitled "The Effects of Alienation" which includes Peter Lorre as the main character.

Books and Comics
Most persons doing impressions of Lorre's voice are actually imitating Warner Brothers' Mel Blanc doing his Lorre impression (Blanc is much broader and louder than Lorre generally was, and the cartoons are seen much more often than Lorre's actual work. The most obvious being the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Racketeer Rabbit"). This can be noticed in characters such as:

Ren from Ren and Stimpy,
Morocco Mole from Secret Squirrel,
The tuxedoed 'Lost Soul' in an episode of The Simpsons entitled Homer Simpson in: "Kidney Trouble"
Rocky Rococo from various Firesign Theatre sketches,
Surface Agent X20 from Stingray, and
Digitamamon from Digimon
In the episode "The Tick vs. Chairface Chippendale" from The Tick animated series, one of the villains attending Chairface's birthday party is "The Man Who Looks Like Peter Lorre."
A Peter Lorre character, named Nero, was also featured in the Darkwing Duck episode "Fungus Amongus."
An evil doctor called Alphonse in the Johnny Bravo cartoon entitled Intensive care
In Transformers, Cosmos' voice actor Michael McConnohie spoke with a heavily-processed impression of Peter Lorre. Animated series
The stop motion film Mad Monster Party?, made in 1969, featured a zombie manservant called Yetch who was made to look and sound like Lorre. Yetch was voiced by Allen Swift. Lorre's fellow horror star Boris Karloff provided the voice of Baron Frankenstein.
Singer-songwriter Al Stewart immortalized the actor, and his close association with Bogart, in the opening lines of his 1976 hit, "The Year Of The Cat": "In the morning from a Bogart movie/In a country where they turn back time/You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre/Contemplating a crime..."
The title song to the 1981 Jon & Vangelis release "The Friends of Mr. Cairo" includes spoken dialogue that imitates the distinctive voice of Peter Lorre as well as that of his frequent costar Sidney Greenstreet.
The script for Godspell includes a line which is suggested as being done in the style of Peter Lorre. Also, Rob Schneider ably played Lorre's character in the Saturday Night Live sketch "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
On September 11, 2007 Brooklyn-based punk band The World/Inferno Friendship Society released a full-length album about Peter Lorre called Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's Twentieth Century on the Chunksaah Records label. The lyrics trace Lorre's film career, drug addiction, and death. It has been performed at the world-famous Spiegeltent.
Even today, films and video games show his distinct characteristics in some characters. These include:

Arnold Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark
A routine Robin Williams' genie character did in Disney's Aladdin
Doctor N. Gin from the Crash Bandicoot series of video games
The maggot in Corpse Bride
The 2005 video game Destroy All Humans! features aliens that look similar to Lorre. During gameplay, some humans will shout, "Help! We're being invaded by Peter Lorre!"
Spike Jones utilized cartoon voice-over actor Paul Frees to perform an imitation of Peter Lorre singing "My Old Flame".
A Looney Tunes character is an unnamed mad scientist who looks and acts identical to Peter Lorre. He is the one who created the Gossamer. This character appears in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.