Of the numerous émigré actors who were represented by agent Paul Kohner in Hollywood, Oskar Homolka was among the more successful ones. While many of his German and Austrian colleagues were cast at best as extras or in very minor roles, he managed – no doubt because of his unique physiognomy –  to land roles in several big films acting alongside famous American movie stars.

Homolka was tall, broad, had bushy eyebrows and, in German films, had already played mainly tough guys and shady characters like criminals or spies. In England, the first place of exile for the native of Vienna, Alfred Hitchcock cast him in the role of the villain in Sabotage (1936). In May 1937 he moved to the USA, acted on Broadway and appeared in his first Hollywood production in 1940 – the comedy Seven Sinners alongside Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne. More films followed in which he was repeatedly cast as an evil Russian. The Kohner Agency had arranged with their clients that those in work gave part of their earnings to the European Film Fund to support emigrants who were unemployed or in financial straits. Homolka was among those able to give, also to the rescue operation for scriptwriter Paul Schiller and his family.