Graves' disease

Marty Feldman suffered from Grave's disease, a hyperactive thyroid problem that caused his eyes to buldge out, comically. The actor playing Paul, in Quo Vadis, Abraham Sofaer, is not mentioned as suffering from Grave's disease in any biographical material I can find but he looks remarkably like Feldman in his later performances. What I find interesting is that in this 1951 film, he does not look that way at all. His eyes seem normal and we can see what he looked like for most of his life and career. By the late 50's he looked very different than this. Whereas Feldman used his eyes for comic effect, Sofaer used them for dramatic effect, often playing deranged or fanatical characters. They both made lemonade out of the lemons that life had dealt them.