Was also a noted voice actor, best known for performing "Dracula".
Ensemble member at the famous Vienna Burgtheater from 1961 to 1962, where he had directed for several years before.
As he spoke French fluently, he -like his wife Pamela Wedekind- also worked as a translator of novels and scripts from French into German.
In films invariably portrayed eminent personae of knowingly superior disposition or haughty mien: senior physicians or public servants, clever barristers or detectives, powerful aristocrats or elegant men of the world.
On stage from 1938. Worked from 1941-58 as actor/director at the Münchner Kammerspiele. Remained first and foremost a man of the theatre, for whom films remained a sideline.
His grandfather was French. His father was a physician born in America, who committed suicide in 1924.