Dan Seymour

Described bluntly as "yeccch" in a 1968 book on movie villains, porcine Dan Seymour has certainly played more than his share of slimy bad guys. Seymour started out as a nightclub comedian, then decided to give movies a try. He was almost immediately cast in heavy roles due to his girth and sinister features. Seymour's career has in many ways been inextricably linked with the 1942 classic Casablanca. He played the small role of Abdul the doorman in that film, went on to a larger part in Warners' Casablanca clone To Have and Have Not (1944), graduated to chief of police in the Marx Brothers spoof A Night in Casablanca (1946), and, coming full circle, was cast in the old Sidney Greenstreet role of Ferrari in Warners' weekly TV series version of Casablanca in 1955. Dan Seymour continued to play small roles in films like The Way We Were into the 1970s, and was frequently seen on TV comedy series of the same era, usually cast as a self-indulgent Middle Eastern potentate.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide