Paul Lukas (May 26, 1895 - August 15, 1971) was an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning Hungarian actor.
Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917. At first, he played elegant, smooth womanizers, but increasingly he became typecast as a villain. In 1933, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He was very busy in the 1930s, appearing in such films as Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, the comedy Ladies in Love, and the drama Dodsworth. He followed William Powell and Basil Rathbone portraying the series detective Philo Vance, a cosmopolitan New Yorker, once in 1935 in The Casino Murder Case, but his major role came in 1943's Watch on the Rhine, when he played a man working against the Nazis (he had played the same role on Broadway in 1941). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role.
To modern viewers, Paul Lukas is best known for his role as Professor Aronnax in Walt Disney's classic 1954 film version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. By that time, however (according to the featurette "The Making of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" on Disc 2 of the Special Edition DVD release), he was, at age 60, suffering from memory problems during the production, apparently leading him to lash out at cast and crew alike. Even fellow Hungarian and friend Peter Lorre was not immune to the abuse.
In the 1940s, Lukas was a charter member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a conservative lobbying group opposed to alleged Communist influence in Hollywood.
The remainder of his career moved from Hollywood to the stage to television. His only singing role was as Cosmo Constantine in the original 1950 Broadway stage version of Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, opposite Ethel Merman. He died in Tangier, Morocco.
Lukas has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6841 Hollywood Blvd.
Oscar winning American actor of Hungarian origin. He graduated from the School for Dramatic Arts. In 1916 he went to Kosice (Kassa) to be an actor, in 1918 he became an actor specializing in comedy. For ten years he was the most popular character player and romantic lead of the company. From 1918 on he made films in Budapest, in the twenties in Austria as well. In 1927 he settled down in Hollywood. He wasn't untrue to the stage - he played Dr. Rank to Ruth Gordon's Nora, in Ibsen's "A Doll's House"in the Morosco Theatre in New York in 1937. Until 1948 his main domain remained the world of the studios, however. In the fifties he was engaged with the theatre more and more again, and from this time on he only stood in front of the camera only occasionally.
