Eric Portman

With his clipped delivery, aristocratic if somewhat ominous manner and suave, urbane demeanor, Eric Portman was so good at playing German and/or Nazi officers that many believed he actually was German, or at least Austrian. The fact is that he was British to the core, having been born and raised in Yorkshire and educated in Halifax. He began his acting career on the stage in 1923, specializing in works by William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. His film debut came in the Tod Slaughter melodrama Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn (1935) as, oddly enough, a Gypsy.