Born Paul Georg Julius Hernried in the city of Trieste, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Italy), Henreid was the son of Maria-Luise (Lendecke) and Karl Alphons Hernried, a Viennese banker, born as Carl Hirsch, who converted in 1904 from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. Henreid's father died in April 1916, and the family fortune had dwindled by the time he graduated from the exclusive Maria Theresianische Academie.
Henreid married Elizabeth "Lisl" Gluck (1908–1993) in 1936; the couple had two daughters.
He trained for the theatre in Vienna, over his family's objections, and debuted there on the stage under the direction of Max Reinhardt. He began his film career acting in German films in the 1930s.
He played Prince Albert in the play Victoria Regina in 1937. With the outbreak of World War II, Henreid risked deportation or internment as an enemy alien, but Conrad Veidt (his co-star as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca) spoke for him, and he was allowed to remain and work in England's film industry. Veidt himself was an avowed anti-Nazi, with a Jewish wife.
Henreid had a good supporting role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and third billing as a German espionage agent in the thriller Night Train to Munich (1940). He also had a minor role in Under Your Hat (1940).
After relocating to the United States, Henreid had a successful New York theater run in Flight to the West, He was put under contract by RKO in 1941. The studio changed his name from von Hernreid to the simpler and less overtly Germanic Henreid. That year, Henreid became a citizen of the United States.
At Warner Bros Henreid was cast in Now, Voyager (1942), playing the romantic lead opposite Bette Davis. Henreid's next role was as Victor Laszlo, a heroic anti-German resistance leader on the run, in Casablanca (1942) with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Warners tried to consolidate Henreid's new status by co-starring him with Ida Lupino in a romantic drama, In Our Time (1944) then putting him in Between Two Worlds (1944), a remake of Outward Bound. The Conspirators (1944) was an attempt to repeat the success of Casablanca with Henreid fighting Nazis in an ostensible neutral city with a supporting cast that included Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
Henreid played a pirate swashbuckler in RKO's The Spanish Main (1945). Back at Warners Henreid was cast in Devotion (1946) a biopic of the Bronte sisters in which Henreid played Arthur Bell Nicholls. He was cast opposite Eleanor Parker were in an adaptation of Of Human Bondage (1946).
MGM then borrowed Henreid to play Robert Schumann in Song of Love (1947) opposite Katharine Hepburn.
After leaving Warner Bros. Henreid decided to turn Producer, making the film noir Hollow Triumph (1948) in which he also appeared. He was a villain in a Burt Lancaster adventure film Rope of Sand (1949).
In the early 1950s, Henreid began directing for both film and television. His television directorial credits include Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Maverick, Bonanza and The Big Valley.
In England he made film noirs Stolen Face (1952) and Mantrap (1953), then went back to Katzman for Siren of Bagdad (1953).
Henreid had a minor role in Deep in My Heart (1954) at MGM, his first "A" film in a number of years. In 1955 he appeared in Pirates of Tripoli for Katzman, and Meet Me in Las Vegas for MGM. He also appeared on Broadway in the play Festival.
He directed A Woman's Devotion (1956) in which he played a supporting role, Girls on the Loose (1958) and Live Fast, Die Young (1958).
He had small parts in Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957), Holiday for Lovers (1959), Never So Few (1959), and Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962).
"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV series episode "Cell 227" (1960)
In 1964, Henreid directed Dead Ringer, which starred Bette Davis and featured, in a minor role, the director's daughter, Monika.
Later film appearances included Operation Crossbow (1965), The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), and The Failing of Raymond (1971). He was in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway in 1973,
His last screen appearance was in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977).
In his 1984 autobiography "Ladies Man" Henreid recounts that he was one of a group of Hollywood stars who went to Washington to protest the excesses of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, following which he was semi-blacklisted.
Henreid died on 29 March 1992 at the age of 84 of pneumonia in Santa Monica after suffering a stroke. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.
