Which actor played Harry Lime in The Third Man?

Orson Welles played Harry Lime in The Third Man.

Harry Lime is the supposedly dead friend whose disappearance brings American writer Holly Martins to postwar Vienna. Joseph Cotten played Martins, while Welles's Lime becomes the film's mysterious and morally corrupt center when he is revealed to be alive.

The 1949 British film was directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene. Set in Allied-occupied Vienna, it follows Martins as he investigates Lime's apparent death and discovers Lime's involvement in a criminal penicillin racket. Welles's performance is relatively brief but highly memorable, especially Lime's dramatic reappearance and the Prater Ferris-wheel conversation.

A common mix-up is confusing Welles's roles behind and in front of the camera. He did not direct The Third Man; Reed did. Welles both portrayed Harry Lime and contributed to the film's lasting mystique, while Anton Karas's zither score supplied another of its signature features.