most Warner Bros. stories originated from current events and major news stories, with the notable exceptions of George Arliss's earlier biographical films Disraeli, Alexander Hamilton, and Voltaire. The sudden success of Pasteur gave Warner's "box office gold", notes Osborne. Muni won an Oscar for his performance (as had Arliss for his performance in Disraeli six years earlier). He played other historical figures, including Émile Zola, a "man of conscience", in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. The film won Best Picture and was interpreted as indirectly attacking the repression of Nazi Germany. He also played the lead role in Juarez (1939). In 1937, Muni played a Chinese peasant with a new bride in a film adaptation of Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth. It co-starred Luise Rainer as his wife; she won an Academy Award for her part. The film was a recreation of a revolutionary period in China and included special effects for a locust attack and the overthrow of the government. Because Muni was not of Asian descent, when producer Irving Thalberg offered him the role, he said, "I'm about as Chinese as [President] Herbert Hoover." Dissatisfied with life in Hollywood, Muni chose not to renew his contract. He returned to the screen only occasionally in later years for such roles as Frédéric Chopin's teacher in A Song to Remember (1945). In 1946, he starred in a rare comic performance, Angel on My Shoulder, playing a gangster whose early death prompts the Devil (played by Claude Rains) to make mischief by putting his soul into the body of a judge. His new identity turns the former criminal into a model citizen. Later career Muni then focused most of his energies on stage work, and occasionally on television roles. In 1946, he appeared on Broadway in A Flag is Born, written by Ben Hecht, to help promote the creation of a Jewish state in Israel. This play was directed by Luther Adler and co-starred Marlon Brando. Years later, in response to a question put to him by Alan King, Brando stated that Muni was the greatest actor he ever saw. At London's Phoenix Theatre on July 28, 1949, Muni began a run as Willy Loman in the first British production of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. He took over from Lee J. Cobb, who had played the principal role