Biografia

Obtained a PhD in Mathematics before turning to writing novels.

Decided to emigrate from his native Germany to England after hearing an anti-Semitic tirade by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Landed a worldwide success with his novel "Donovan's Brain" in 1942, which was filmed four times over the next 20 years.

His science-fiction novel "F.P. 1 antwortet nicht" attracted great attention and was filmed as F.P. 1 non risponde (1932) with Hans Albers and Sybille Schmitz. The movie was a great international success. It was his last film in Germany before he fled to Switzerland in 1933 to escape the Nazis. However, in Switzerland he was chased away as an illegal immigrant and had to go to England via France. There he had his breakthrough with the draft for The Tunnel (1935).

Brother of Robert Siodmak.

Every night I say "Heil Hitler", because, without the son of a bitch [Adolf Hitler], I wouldn't be in Three Rivers, California, I'd still be in Berlin.

[about L'uomo lupo (1941), one of Universal Pictures' biggest hits of 1941, which he wrote] After "The Wolf Man" made its first million, [producer-director] George Waggner got a diamond ring for his wife and [executive producer] Jack Gross got a $10,000 bonus. I wanted $25 more a week and [Universal] wouldn't give it to me.

[about Peter Lorre, with whom he worked on Il mistero delle 5 dita (1946)] He was really a sadistic son of a bitch--liked to look at operations. He really was the type, a very weird character.

My pictures run on television and I don't get a penny out of it. But the guys are all dead, and I'm still alive, so who's winning?

[on Kurussù la bestia delle amazzoni (1956)] I had no money at the time, so I wrote "Curucu" . . . It was done in Brazil . . . I shot it down there, in the jungles. I never recovered, physically.