Peter Lorre (26 June 1904 – 23 March 1964) was a Hungarian-American actor. Born László Löwenstein in Austria-Hungary, he began his stage career in Vienna before moving to Germany where he had his breakthrough, first on the stage, then in film in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre caused an international sensation in the German film M (1931), in which he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls.