Otto Waldis

Otto Waldis was an Austrian-American character actor who worked in film and television from the 1930s into the 1960s, sometimes billed as Otto Blum. Born in Vienna in 1901, he first trained as a naval engineer, then turned to acting in the 1920s after Rudolph Schildkraut saw him perform and urged him toward the theater; he acted in Shakespeare and classic German plays and also directed. His screen debut came in a small part in Fritz Lang's thriller M (1931), and he later took the lead in The Broken Pitcher, which won first prize at an international competition in 1934. He left Europe in 1940, arriving in Birmingham, Alabama, where he worked as a photographer. In Hollywood he became a familiar character actor in B movies, often uncredited, and a regular presence on television in the 1950s and 1960s, with occasional stage work.