Peter van Eyck

Van Eyck was born into an aristocratic German family from Pomerania (since 1945 part of Poland).[1] After graduating from high school he studied music in Berlin.

While studying music in Berlin, Van Eyck purportedly had a brief liaison with Jean Ross, a cabaret singer who inspired the fictional character of Sally Bowles.[2][3] Ross became pregnant with Eyck's child and, when Eyck departed Weimar-era Berlin, Ross had an abortion authorized by gay author Christopher Isherwood who falsely claimed to be her impregnator.[2][3] These factual events served as the genesis for a short story by Isherwood which later became the 1937 novella Sally Bowles and was later adapted into the 1966 Cabaret musical and the 1972 film of the same name.[4][5]

In 1931, after leaving Berlin, Van Eyck lived in Paris, London, Tunis, Algiers and Cuba, before settling in New York. He earned a living playing the piano in a bar, and wrote and composed for revues and cabarets. He worked for Irving Berlin as a stage manager and production assistant, and for Orson Welles Mercury Theatre company as an assistant director.[6]

Van Eyck went to Hollywood where he worked as a truck driver. He initially found radio work with the help of Billy Wilder, who later gave him small film roles.[7] In 1943, he took US citizenship and was drafted into the U.S. Army as a commissioned officer. At the end of the World War II, he returned to Germany as a control officer for film and remained there until 1948 as director of the film section.[6] In 1949, he appeared in his first German film Hallo, Fräulein![8]

He gained international recognition with a leading role in the 1953 film Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.[9] He went on to appear in episodes of several US TV series including The Adventures of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.[10][11] In English-language films he was most often typecast as a Nazi or other unsympathetic type, while in Germany he was a popular leading man in a wider range of films, including several appearances in the Doctor Mabuse thriller series of the 1960s.[1][12]

Van Eyck was married to the American actress Ruth Ford for a short time in the 1940s.[13] With his second wife, Inge von Voris, he had two daughters, Kristina, also an actor, and Claudia.[14]

He died in 1969 in Männedorf, Switzerland of septicaemia, caused by an untreated relatively minor injury. He was 57.

• Peter van Eyck at IMDb
• Photographs of Peter van Eyck