German-born Conrad Veidt (1893-1943), as Major Strasser, was one of the highest paid members of the Casablanca cast, making as much as co-stars Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid. Each of the three stars earned $25,000 for their work in the picture, but Veidt only had to work five weeks (at $5,000 per week) of the total ten weeks of filming. Humphrey Bogart, the only American among the nine top-billed stars, was paid $36,667 for his role as Richard “Rick” Blaine, “an American of indeterminate age.”

Conrad Veidt was born in Berlin on Jan. 22, 1893. In 1943 he became the first Casablanca star to die. Veidt's Hollywood career is somewhat unusual in that it involved two separate film eras: silent and sound. In 1927, at the invitation of John Barrymore—“Need you for my picture The Beloved Rogue,” read Barrymore's cable. “I won't make the picture without you.”—Veidt went to Hollywood and starred in that film as well as three other silent pictures. With the coming of sound, he returned to Germany, but in four short years he would be forced to leave his native land again. Unlike fellow German actor Emil Jannings, Veidt's anti-Nazi fervor and pleasant German accent would serve him well in Hollywood. By the time he played Major Strasser, Veidt had already acted the menacing Nazi in several films.

Veidt had fled Germany with his Jewish wife for exile in France and later England after the Nazi takeover. He was quite successful in the British Isles, making many films there between 1933 and 1940. In 1939, just a year before going to Hollywood to finish work in The Thief of Bagdad, Veidt obtained British citizenship. But it was in the US that he played Nazi roles in a series of anti-Nazi films from 1940 to 1943. He reportedly made it a condition of his contract that he only play villainous Germans, which he did with great success as Major Strasser in Casablanca. Unfortunately, he died before he had a possible chance to take on more challenging post-war roles. His last film was Above Suspicion (1943).

More on Veidt's career in Britain and America: Conrad Veidt: Exile in Life and Death

Other UK and US films with Veidt: "The Beloved Rogue" (1927), "The Man Who Laughs" (1928), "The Last Performance" (1929), "The Spy in Black" (1939), "Contraband" (1940), "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940), "Escape" (1940), "A Woman's Face" (1941), "Whistling in the Dark" (1941), "Nazi Agent" (1942), "All Through the Night" (1942), "Above Suspicion" (1943). Also see our selected filmography of Veidt films

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