Van Eyck was born into an aristocratic German family from Pomerania (since 1945 part of Poland).^[1] After graduating from high school he studied music in Berlin.

While studying music in Berlin, Van Eyck purportedly had a brief liaison with Jean Ross, a cabaret singer who inspired the fictional character of Sally Bowles.^[2][3] Ross became pregnant with Eyck's child and, when Eyck departed Weimar-era Berlin, Ross had an abortion authorized by gay author Christopher Isherwood who falsely claimed to be her impregnator.^[2][3] These factual events served as the genesis for a short story by Isherwood which later became the 1937 novella Sally Bowles and was later adapted into the 1966 Cabaret musical and the 1972 film of the same name.^[4][5]

In 1931, after leaving Berlin, Van Eyck lived in Paris, London, Tunis, Algiers and Cuba, before settling in New York. He earned a living playing the piano in a bar, and wrote and composed for revues and cabarets, including several songs for Madame Spivy with lyricist John LaTouche. He worked for Irving Berlin as a stage manager and production assistant, and for Orson Welles Mercury Theatre company as an assistant director.^[6]

Van Eyck went to Hollywood where he worked as a truck driver. He initially found radio work with the help of Billy Wilder, who later gave him small film roles.^[7] In 1943, he took US citizenship and was drafted into the U.S. Army as a commissioned officer. At the end of World War II, he returned to Germany as a control officer for film and remained there until 1948 as director of the film section. He completed training at Camp Ritchie and is considered to be one of the Ritchie Boys.^[6] In 1949, he appeared in his first German film Hallo, Fräulein!^[8]

He gained international recognition with a leading role in the 1953 film Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.^[9] He went on to appear in episodes of several US TV series including The Adventures of Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.^[10] In English-language films he was most often typecast as a Nazi or other unsympathetic type, while in Germany he was a popular leading man in a wider range of films, including several appearances in the Doctor Mabuse thriller series of the 1960s.^[1][11]

Van Eyck was married to the American actress Ruth Ford for a short time in the 1940s.^[12] With his second wife, Inge von Voris, he had two daughters, Kristina [de], also an actor, and Claudia.^[13]

He died in 1969 in Männedorf, Switzerland, of septicaemia, caused by an untreated (relatively) minor injury,^{[citation needed]} a day before his 58th birthday.

• Peter van Eyck at IMDb
• Photographs of Peter van Eyck