Born in Vienna, the famous Hollywood 1930/40s supporting actor Walter Slezak was a medical student.

His Hollywood career began when Michael Curtiz (director) discovered him. Always playing bad guy roles, he was also a writer and humorist.

His father, Leo Slezak, was a world-renowned operatic tenor. Walter, too, was no mean singer.

He is remembered most for his role as the U-boat captain in Hitchcock's Lifeboat (TC Fox Studios, 1944). This film, in which Tallulah Bankhead gave a wonderful performance, gave Hitchcock an Academy Award nomination.

When Slezak appeared in This Land Is Mine (RKO, 1943), starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara, Adolf Hitler (a rampant film buff) did not like what he saw and promptly fined Walter Slezak's father Leo 100,000 marks.

Slezak produced some hilarious moments in Inspector General (Warner Bros, 1949), starring Danny Kaye, Barbara Bates and Elsa Lanchester.

While living in Manhasset, Long Island, he became depressed through illness and committed suicide by shooting himself in 1983, aged 81.

-Gordon Dean, Lancing