Austrian actor Anton Walbrook, circa 1926
Born Adolf Anton Wilhelm Wohlbrück, he was descended from ten generations of actors, though his father broke with tradition and became a circus clown. Walbrook studied with the legendary director Max Reinhardt and built a successful career in both Austrian and German theater and cinema. He changed his name to Anton Walbrook in 1937 when he began to work in English language films.
With the rise of Hitler and the Anschluss of Austria, Walbrook, who was classified under the Nuremberg Laws as "half-Jewish" (his mother was Jewish, and he was also homosexual), settled in England, where he continued working as a film actor, making a specialty of playing continental Europeans.
Arguably his greatest performance was as the elegant, tyrannical ballet impressario Boris Lermontov, in the legendary British film "The Red Shoes" (1948).