He graduated from Vienna's Royal Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, debuting onstage in 1924. Over the next decade he became a prominent stage actor, later in Berlin. He left Germany after the Nazi takeover, and in the early '40s he moved to Hollywood. His German accent helped him land roles as Nazis in a number of films, and after the war he played character roles. In the early '50s he became yet another victim of the McCarthy Era witch-hunts when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Blacklisted, after 1953 he appeared in only one more film.