Lilli Palmer (born Lillie Marie Peiser) was an international actress. Palmer, who took her surname from an English actress she admired, was one of three daughters born to Dr. Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon, and Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish stage actress in Posen, Prussia, Germany (then - after WW I - Poznań, Poland). She studied drama in Berlin before fleeing to Paris in 1933 following the Nazi takeover. While performing in cabarets, she attracted the attention of British talent scouts and was offered a contract by Gaumont-British. She made her screen debut in Crime Unlimited (1935) and appeared in British films for the next decade. In 1943, she married actor Rex Harrison and followed him to Hollywood in 1945.