 Maria and Alexander had continued making films, no matter who was in power, with Maria as the most famous actress in Hungary and her husband its most important director.However, her husband was grabbed by Horthy's secret police one day and vanished, Maria managed to get to her brother-in-law, Zoltan Korda, and between the two of them, they learned where Alexander was being held, in a Budapest Hotel which was notorious for having a torture chamber in its basement.Maria went to the British Military Mission, whose Brigadier was also on the board of Korda's film company and "with all the considerable passion at her disposal," as her nephew, Michael Korda, was to write in his biography of the family, convinced him that her husband must be freed or there would be an international scandal, one that would quite likely expose the British government's role in setting Horthy up as regent.