Curt Bois
German actor (1901–1991)
Curt Bois (born Kurt Boas; April 5, 1901 – December 25, 1991) was a German actor with a career spanning over 80 years. He is best remembered for his performances as the pickpocket in Casablanca (1942) and the poet Homer in Wings of Desire (1987).
Life and career
Bois was born to a German Jewish family in Berlin and began acting in 1907, becoming one of the film world's first child actors, with a role in the 1907 short film Bauernhaus und Grafenschloß. In 1909, he played the title role in Der Kleine Detektiv ('The Little Detective'). Bois performed in theatre, cabaret, musicals, silent films, and "talkies" over his long acting career. He performed under Max Reinhardt and found success in 1928 in a Viennese stage production of "Charley's Aunt" at the Josefstadt Theater. He was a successful character comic, and for a while film studios tried to make him into a "German Harold Lloyd".
In 1934, institutionalized Anti-Semitism forced the Jewish Bois to leave his home in Nazi Germany for the United States. There he found work on stage on Broadway. By 1937, he had made his way to Hollywood and began acting in films, the best-known being Casablanca (1942), in which he warns a befuddled English gentleman to be on guard against pickpockets ("vultures everywhere") while stealing the man's wallet.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Curt Bois” as german actor (1901–1991). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as german actor (1901–1991). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q66479. VIAF identifies the subject as 51915851. The Library of Congress control number is n80137992. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1991, 1942 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Curt Bois” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.