Carl van Vechten · Public domain

Francis Lederer began as a matinee idol in 1920s Central European theater and film, playing Romeo for Max Reinhardt and starring in G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box (1929) before immigrating to Hollywood. There he pivoted from romantic leads to villains, most notably a Nazi spy in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), sustaining a screen and stage career that stretched from silent pictures to a lead role in The Return of Dracula (1958) and a life of exactly one hundred years.