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Often typecast as a menacing figure, Peter Lorre achieved Hollywood fame first as a featured player and later as a character actor who trademarked his screen performances with a delicately strung balance between good and evil. His portrayal of the grisly child murderer in Fritz Lang's masterpiece M (1931) catapulted him to international fame. Lang said of Lorre: "He gave one of the best performances in film history and certainly the best in his life." Today, the Hungarian-born actor is also recognized for his riveting performances in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca (1942).

Reviews:

Winner of the 2005 Rondo Hatton Award

Winner of the Best Book of 2005 in the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards

"The colossal assemblage of research has been whipped into a compelling biographical narrative."--Film Monthly

"Youngkin's massively researched opus, drawing on over 300 interviews he conducted, lives up to the task of conveying Lorre's personal tragedy. . . . Readably written, spiced up with occasionally very amusing anecdotes, acerbic asides and insightful conclusions."--Cineaste

"As the very first biography of Lorre, The Lost One does not disappoint. . . . A welcome revelation indeed."--MovieMaker

"An enthralling account of Lorre's life and art, set plausibly in the cultural geography that sustained him, from Vienna to Los Angeles."-- National Post

"One chief merit of Youngkin's superb biography it its focus on Lorre's German stage work. . . . Will surely remain definitive."--Weekend Australian

"This is the first volume to intensify the mirrored image of the singularly interesting character actor--the first to penetrate the inner persona separated from the public image. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice

"Youngkin gets behind the image to incise a definitive portrait, and Lorre becomes a likeness we can like in-depth."--San Diego Union-Tribune

"Youngkin's life of Lorre is a monumental piece of research and sheds new light on a career that has too long been ignored and undervalued."--Logos Journal

"Drawing on more than 300 interviews, Youngkin offers the first major biography of a genuine but eccentric talent. This well-researched book illuminates both Lorre's strengths and his flaws, tantalizes the reader with lost possibilities in his career, and covers little-known chapters in his life."-- Library Journal (starred review)

"Youngkin peels back the layers of Lorre's life to reveal a fascinating, nuanced individual who struggled with intellectual issues in the midst of glamour and fame."--Publishers Weekly

"Lorre's battles against type-casting and addiction are detailed."-- Washington Post Book World

"You couldn't ask for a better book about Lorre. It will become the single most important book about Lorre's life and career, without question."--Patrick McGilligan, author of Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light

"A truly remarkable achievement: a quintessential biography that gets inside the inimitable, ever-mysterious Lorre and the movie industry that couldn't get enough of him, yet never quite figured out how to tap his peculiar genius. Riveting, heartbreaking, and endlessly illuminating, The Lost One reveals the talents and torments of an authentic motion- picture original. Youngkin deftly traces Lorre's on-screen achievements, from M and Mr. Moto, to the noir masterworks during his glory days at Warner Bros., to his sad, slow descent into addiction, chronic melancholy, and second-rate roles. Dead center throughout is Lorre himself, who is somehow sustained by his acerbic wit, his oddly heroic sensibility, and his incessant commitment to his art."-- Thomas Schatz, author of The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era

"Youngkin gets behind the image to incise a definitive portrait, and Lorre becomes a likeness we can like in-depth."--San Diego Union-Tribune

"A welcome life of the much-parodied but little-understood émigré actor, famed for his portrayals of underworld lowlifes."--Hollywood Reporter

"What a stunning achievement! The Lost One is, well, beyond definitive regarding the life and career of beloved actor Lorre."--Starlog

"Massively researched and surely definitive."--Film Comment

"A monumental piece of research and sheds light on a career that has too long been ignored and undervalued."--Logos

"Youngkin gets behind the image to incise a definitive portrait, and Lorre becomes a likeness we can like in-depth."--Florida Newspaper

"Youngkin makes a strong case for Lorre as one of cinema's most underrated actors, exploring in detail his early stage work in Europe, his largely forgotten performances in radio and television, and of course his role as the child murderer in Fritz Lang's classic crime film M, which would forever define Lorre as a celluloid bogeyman."--Daily Yomiuri

"Deep and detailed."--B Monster Bulletin

"A lovingly researched, much needed examination of Lorre's troubled life. . . . Youngkin's biography transports us to another time, a time of World Wars and sweeping ideologies, of pioneering in the film industry and a 'stable' mentality guiding the studios."--Vue Weekly

"His recollections are amusing and enlightening  as Peter Lorre was an actor who played to the microphone and ended each program bathed in perspiration because he had just given a fantastic vocal performance."-The Peter Lorre News Blog