What use is there for a biography of myself? I'm just a movie actor.

I wish, naturally to prevent the possibility that someone may write an accidental, superficial, incomplete and perhaps untrue picture of me.

My birth neither shook the German Empire nor caused much of an upheaval in the home. It pleased mother, caused father a certain amount of pride and my elder brother the usual fraternal jealousy of a hitherto only son.

There must have been something in my nature - I believe, with all my heart, that I have conquered it now - which prevented me from being perfectly happy or making a woman perfectly happy.

For me, half the joy of achieving has been the struggle and the fight, the pitting myself against the world and all its competition - and winning.

In the middle of my third Hollywood picture The Magician, the earthquake hit Hollywood. Not the real earthquake. Just the talkies.

I think the motion picture industry is a stupid business and I despise acting the scenes in short snatches, one at a time. I hate this film work. I am disgusted with myself. On the stage I could never play a part unless I felt it with all my heart and soul.