Henry Victor: Biography

Born in England but raised in Germany, Henry Victor began his film career in 1916. During the silent era, the tall, muscular Victor played leads in such literary adaptations as Portrait of Dorian Gray (1917) and She (1925). When talkies came in, Victor's thick Teutonic accent precluded future leading roles, though he enjoyed a substantial career as a character actor, specializing in brutish Nazis during WWII. Henry Victor's best-known talkie roles include the sadistic strong-man Hercules in 1932's Freaks and the beleaguered Nazi adjutant Schultz in the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or Not to Be (1942). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide