S.Z. Sakall Movies and Career Information

Szőke Szakáll (February 2, 1883 – February 12, 1955), known as S.Z. Sakall, was a Hungarian-Jewish film character actor. He was in many films including In the Good Old Summertime, Lullaby of Broadway, Christmas in Connecticut and Casablanca in which he played Carl, the head waiter. Chubby-jowled Sakall played numerous supporting roles in Hollywood musicals and comedies in the 1940s and 1950s. His rotund cuteness earned Sakall the nickname "Cuddles," and he was often billed as S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall in his later films, though he was never happy with the name. He was famous for using the phrase "everything is hunky dunky." Szőke Szakáll was born Gerő Jenő, but even during his schooldays he was writing sketches for Budapest vaudeville shows under the pen-name Szőke Szakáll ("blonde beard", in reference to his own beard, grown to make him look older), which he retained when at the age of 18 he turned to acting. The actor became a star of the Hungarian stage and screen in the 1910s and 1920s. At the beginning of the 1920s, he moved to Vienna, where he appeared in Hermann Leopoldi's Kabarett Leopoldi-Wiesenthal. In the 1930s, he was, next to Hans Moser, the most significant representative