European Film Star Postcards

Alice Cocéa (1899-1970) was a Romanian-born French stage and screen actress, who peaked in early 1930s French cinema. The suicide of her lover caused her to retire for a while. She was the director of a Parisian theatre during the occupation. After the war, she was arrested on charges of collaboration and was imprisoned for some time.

French postcard by Wyndham Ed., Paris, no. W110.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 735. Photo: Jacques Haïk.

French postcard by E.C., Paris, no. 549. Photo: Studio Piaz.

Star position in the Parisian theatre scene

Alice Cocéa, originally Sophie Alice Cocéa, was born in 1899 in Sinaia (Romania) as the daughter of General Dimitrie Cocea and his wife Cleopatra. Alice had one sister, Florica (later married Bressy) and one brother, Nicolae, the later socialist journalist and novelist N. D. Cocea. The Cocea family was of Albanian origin. Alice was the aunt of actress Dina Cocea.

Cocéa initially attended courses at the Conservatory in Bucharest but then studied drama in Paris. She graduated in 1917 and settled in France. She made her film debut in the film Le Delai (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1918). But she preferred to pursue a - successful - theatrical and operetta career. She appeared in two operettas by Henri Christiné and Albert Willemetz, 'Phi-Phi' (1918) and Dédé (1921), the latter with Maurice Chevalier.

In the 1920s, she performed e.g. at the Comédie Caumartin, Théâtre Daunou, Théâtre Michel, and the Comédie des Champs-Élysées. Some of her songs were recorded on records. From her star position in the Parisian theatre scene, Alice Cocéa returned to the big screen in 1930 and had a fruitful film career in the early 1930s. Her first sound film was Mon gosse de père/My Kid of a Father (Jean de Limur, 1930), starring Adolphe Menjou, while she had the female lead as his young wife. The film was the alternate French version of The Parisian (1931), in which Elissa Landi played Cocéa's part. Both versions were filmed at the Pathé-Natan studio in Paris.

At the Paris Paramount studios, Cocéa was paired with a young Fernand Gravey in Marions-nous/Let's Get Married (Louis Mercanton, 1931); with Jean Angelo and Florelle in Atout coeur/Heart trump (Henry Roussel, 1931), in which she had a popular song, 'Si j'aimais'; and with Henri Garat in Delphine (Roger Capellani, 1931).

Next, at the Studio Jacques Haïk, she starred opposite André Roanne in Nicole et sa vertu/Nicole and Her Virtue (René Hervil, 1932). She played a wife who acts as a mundane woman just to get her husband back. In 1934 she acted with Harry Baur in Le greluchon délicat/A Sensitive Lad (Jean Choux, 1934), in which she supports a penniless student, played by Paul Bernard. The previous year, Baur had directed her on stage in 'La Voie lactée' by Alfred Savoir, at the Théâtre des Mathurins.

In 1926, Cocéa married Count Stanislas de Rochefoucauld, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1931. Her affair with Lieutenant Victor Point, Marcellin Berthelot's great-grandfather, ended in 1932 by his suicide after Alice's refusal to marry him after her divorce. They had been involved for three years, and she had promised to become his wife once her divorce from Rochefoucauld had been settled. Cocéa announced her retirement shortly after Point's death, stating that she would join a convent.

Belgian postcard by S.A. Cacao et Chocolat Kivou, Vilvoorde / N.V. Cacao en Chocolade Kivou, Vilvoorde.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 25. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

Forbidden for its immorality

In the later 1930s, Alice Cocéa only did theatre. From 1937 she both acted and directed at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, run on behalf of the City of Paris by her husband Roger Capgras (1900-1963), a former fruit vendor of Les Halles, who thanks to his business in fruit juices had become an important Maecenas of the press and the theatre. Capgras was an editor at the Germanophile Paris-Soir, and founded in 1940 an independent newspaper, Aujourd'hui, which during the Occupation became a source of propaganda for the Nazis.

During the Occupation, Capgras himself, who first had tried to make friends with the occupiers, was interned. In 1941, he fled to North Africa and was interned there too, but also helped British 'Toppy' Black to open a series of clubs for British soldiers in Algiers and Tunis. After the war, he would be a mediator between his friend prime minister Edgar Faure, the French army, and the local Moroccan authorities.

On 14 November 1938, Alice Cocéa directed and acted on the first night of 'Les Parents terribles' by Jean Cocteau at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs. In the play, Georges (Marcel André) played a gentle and dreamy father, who is entirely dominated by the whims of his wife, Yvonne (Germaine Dermoz), a diabetic who suffers from frequent illnesses. With Michel (Jean Marais), their adored son, the parents live on the hook of Léonie (Gabrielle Dorziat), who was once the fiancee of Georges who preferred his sister to him. These four people live together until the day when Madeleine (Cocéa), Georges' mistress and the son's new lover arises.

According to French Wikipedia, Roger Capgras came to rescue with his theatre when Cocteau could not find a theatre to stage his new play. Cocéa, then Capgras' mistress, would play Madeleine instead of Madeleine Ozeray, Cocteau's initial choice. Yvonne, a role intended for Yvonne de Bray, was played by Dermoz. The play was a huge critical success, if not by the far-right, and neither by the City of Paris when Capgras wanted to invite Parisian high school pupils to the play. The play became forbidden for its immorality and closed down on 20 December 1938.

The radical press came to Cocteau's rescue and the play was retaken at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, where it was on show between January and June 1939. From 1940 to 1944, Cocéa was director of the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, where she alternated stage directions of serious work by Molière and Ibsen with lighter work by Feydeau and others.

At the war's end, she was arrested on charges of collaboration and was imprisoned for some time. However, from 1947 she returned some 15 times to the stage as an actress and also five times as a director too. Her memoirs, 'Mes amours que j'ai tant aimées' (The Loves I So Loved), were published in 1958. During the 1960s, she had two bit-part appearances in the cinema. Her last screen appearance was as a concierge in Roger Vadim's La Ronde/Circle of Love (1964), starring Jane Fonda. After her retirement she dedicated herself to her passion for painting.

Alice Cocéa died in 1970, after a short illness. She was 70. Cocéa was buried at the cemetery of Saint-Brisson-sur-Loire. Her cousin Armand de La Rochefoucauld recently rehabilitated her grave.

French postcard by P.C., Paris, no. 86.

French postcard, no. 75. Photo: Studio Paz.

French postcard, no. 238. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Sources: Caroline Hanotte (CinéArtistes - French), Wikipedia (French, English and Romanian), and IMDb.

Today, EFSP has another film special with Spanish Chocolate cards from the collection of Ivo Blom. The subject is the French film Le mot de l'énigme‎/The Word of The Enigma (Georges Monca, 1916), a Pathé Frères production with Gabrielle Robinne, Jean Kemm, Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal. Chocolate Salas-Sabadell made a series of six cards for the film, which was titled Celos mortales (Mortal skies) for Spain. Ivo has acquired five of them.

Gabrielle Robinne, Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (1916)

Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 1. Photo: Pathé Frères. Gabrielle Robinne, Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

Gabrielle Robinne and Jean Kemm in Le mot de l'énigme (1916)

Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 2. Photo: Pathé Frères. Gabrielle Robinne (left) and Jean Kemm (at the table) in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 3. Photo: Pathé Frères. Gabrielle Robinne, Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

The forbidden marriage

Jean Kemm plays in Le mot de l'énigme‎/The Word of The Enigma (Georges Monca, 1916) the elder Robert Duroc, who falls in love with young Lucy Le Quesnel (Gabrielle Robinne), in vain. In the countryside, Lucy visits her friend Thérèse Tillier (Andrée Pascal) and falls in love with her brother Maxime (Henri Bosc).

Yet, Mr. Tillier forbids marriage between Lucy and Maxime when he hears about the financial misfortune of Lucy's family and sends his son to the US. The father even removes a letter by Maxime asking Lucy in marriage. Lucy thinks Maxime has abandoned her and marries Duroc, who generously offers his fortune to save Lucy's family.

Years pass by. Lucy hasn't forgotten Maxime but her heart now belongs to her husband. Maxim reappears but Lucy avoids him, withdrawing to the countryside. Maxime has followed her.

The husband thinks he has seen him leaving the villa, so he bluntly confronts Lucy by telling him that Maxim's car crashed: he has killed himself. Lucy's face decomposes and she mortally collapses. All the help comes too late.

It is not clear who played father Tillier in Le mot de l'énigme, but Lucy's parents were played by Léon Bernard and Paule Andral.

The film came out at the Paris cinema Omnia Pathé, on 3 August 1916. It was produced by Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (SCAGL) for Pathé Frères. It was a typical example of the many films Robinne did with director Georges Monca between 1915 and 1917. In the years 1912-1915, she had made films with René Leprince with her fixed partner and husband René Alexandre.

Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (1916)

Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 4. Photo: Pathé Frères. Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 6. Photo: Pathé Frères. Gabrielle Robinne and Jean Kemm in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

The French poster for Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916). Source: Larry Smith @ Flickr.

Sources: Fondation Jerome Seydoux Pathe (French) and IMDb.

Marthe Régnier (1880-1967) was a beautiful and famous French stage actress and singer of the Belle Epoque and beyond. She launched her own perfume, designed fashion and jewelry, and was the companion of Baron Rothschild. Regnier also acted in six silent and sound films.

French postcard by FA, no. 148. Photo: Reutlinger.

French postcard by PC, no. 4095. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

The mistress of Baron Henri de Rothschild

Marthe Régnier was born in 1880 in Paris.

In 1901 she entered the Comédie-Française and made her debut in a play called 'Agnès'. After alternating drama (e.g. Hugo) with comedy (e.g Beaumarchais) at the Comédie, she moved in 1903 to vaudeville, where she acted for years at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in plays by e.g. Bernard and Mirbeau. Among her favourite authors were Robert de Flers ('l'Ane de Buridan', and 'le Retour'), Stève Passeur ('Etienne'), and Paul Gavault (la Petite Chocolatière).

In 1934 she acted as Jocaste opposite Jean-Pierre Aumont as Oedipus in Jean Cocteau's 'La Machine infernale' (1934), which premiered at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris, then the theatre of Louis Jouvet. This role more or less signed the end of her stage career.

In 1902. she married playwright Abel Tarride Régnier was the mother of director Jean Tarride and actor Jacques Tarride. She divorced Tarride and married in 1916 José de Oliveira Murinelly, secretary of the Brazilian embassy in France.

From ca. 1920 she was the mistress of Baron Henri de Rothschild, who, aside of being a millionaire, doctor, and founder in 1902 of the first modern children hospital in France, had developed as a playwright under the name of André Pascal. He wrote 'La Caducée', the controversial play on medical malpractice. He was the theatre manager too, taking over the Théàtre Antoine in the early 1920s.

In four years, De Rothschild had the new, ultramodern Pigalle Theatre built, which opened in 1929 and was the 'baby' of his son Philippe, but the theatre didn't fare too well. Philippe fared better afterward with wine: the famous Mouton-Rothschild. After the early death of Henri de Rothschild's wife in 1926, Régnier became his companion, who would follow him in exile during the war.

French postcard, 1e Serie. Photo: H. [Henri] Manuel. Caption: Marthe Régnier of the Comédie Française.

French postcard by ND Phot., no. 48. Photo: Manuel. Caption: Marthe Régnier (Comédie française).

French postcard. by E.L.D., no. 4157. Caption: Marthe Régnier, Vaudeville.

A businesswoman ahead of her time

Marthe Régnier was highly interested in fashion and jewelry, and as a businesswoman, she was ahead of her time. She was often photographed to publicise her own creations. In the 1910s she launched her own perfume, entitled 'Suivez-moi, jeune homme' (Follow me, young man). Régnier was portrayed by famous painters like Giovanni Boldini, who painted a magnificent, dynamic portrait of her in 1905, and photographers such as Reutlinger, Henri Manuel and Adolph Meyer.

In 1910, Régnier debuted in the title role of the short film Manon, produced by Pathé Frères and based on the famous novel (1731) by Abbé Prevost and on the opera (1884) by Jules Massenet. Her co-actors were also popular stage actors: Jean Périer played Lescaut, while Émile Dehelly played Des Grieux.

In 1918 Régnier acted opposite Musidora in Germaine Dulac's film La jeune fille la plus méritante de France (1918).

When sound film set in, Régnier returned to the sets to act as the maid in the comedy Y'en a pas deux comme Angélique (Roger Lion, 1931), starring Colette Darfeuil.

Next, she was the wife of Jacques Baumer in Étienne (1933), directed by her son Jean Tarride, and with Jean Forest in the title role. It was based on a play by Jacques Deval, in which she had acted in 1929. Opposite Charles Boyer as Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, Régnier was Danielle Darrieux's mother, Baroness Vetsera, in the romantic historical drama Mayerling (Anatole Litvak, 1936).

Régnier's last film was Les hommes sans peur (Yvan Noë, 1942), about the inventors of X-Rays, in which she played a sick woman. Perhaps her shots were taken before the German invasion, because Rothschild's biographer Harry W. Paul and others too write that she remained with Rothschild in Lisbon, Portugal, during the war years.

Anyway, she stayed close to him till the end. Rothschild, a heavy smoker, and diabetic, died near Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1947, at the age of 75. Marthe Régnier died in Paris in 1967, at the age of 86. She rests in the cemetery of Marly-le-Roi (Yvelines).

In 2011 Boldini’s 'Portrait of Marthe Régnier' was sold to a private European buyer for $1,874,500. In 2012 part of her jewelry was sold in Fontainebleau.

French postcard by SW, no. 0422. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P. in the Collection Artistique du Vin Désiles. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris. Caption: It's decided now, I won't drink but Vin Désiles.

Sources: Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia (French), and IMDb: and also biographies of Henry de Rothschild by Harry W. Paul and Nadège Forestier,

Andrex (1907–1989) was a French film actor and singer. He was a close friend of the comedian Fernandel and appeared in many films alongside him.

French card.

French postcard by EPC (Editions et Publications Cinématographiques), no. 225. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard, no. 113. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

Friends for life

Andrex was born as André Jaubert in 1907 in Marseille, France. (Andrex is in English language countries also the name of a toilet roll!) At the Copello school, he met Fernandel. They became friends for life. Later, Fernandel launched him in the cinema, and helped him getting roles.

Aided by Maurice Chevalier, he made his debut as a singer at the Alcazar in Marseille, before 'going up' in Paris and performing at the Mayol Concert. He then turned to the theatre and the operetta. In 1932, he was hired by Henri Varna at the Casino de Paris, which opened the doors for him of the biggest Music Halls in the capital: the ABC, Bobino, and the Théâtre de l'Empire.

In 1931, he appeared in the short film Une idée de génie/An idea of genius (Louis Mercanton, 1931). In 1933, he played for the first time with his childhood friend Fernandel in the comedy Le Coq du régiment/The Rooster of the Regiment (Maurice Cammage, 1933). In total, they appeared in 29 films together.

When Fernandel had a contract for a new film he quite often asked if there was a part for Andrex, so he could "have a laugh and play balls" between the takes. Thus Andrex acted in Marcel Pagnol's masterpiece Angèle (Marcel Pagnol, 1934), and in other popular successes of the time: Ignace (Pierre Colombier, 1937), Barnabé (Alexandre Esway, 1938) and Les Cinq Sous de Lavarède/The Five Cents of Lavarede (Maurice Cammage, 1939).

Without Fernandel, he also played in the classic Manon (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1949), featuring Cécile Aubry and co-starring Serge Reggiani and Michel Auclair.

French card, no. 533. Photo: Studio Piaz.

French postcard, no. 127. Photo: Roger Carlet.

A gangster more naive than clever

Andrex is best remembered for his roles in such Fernandel films as Rascasse in Simplet (Fernandel, 1942) and as the mechanic Pastèque (Watermelon) in Honoré de Marseille (Maurice Regamey, 1956).

He also appeared in the film which brought Bourvil and Fernandel together, La Cuisine au beurre (Gilles Grangier, 1963). That year, he also portrayed alongside Jean Gabin in Monsieur/Mister (Jean-Paul Le Chanois, 1963), Antoine, a gangster more naive than clever.

Apart from his acting career, Andrex continued to sing songs such as 'Comme de course', 'La Samba brésilienne' (Brazilian Samba), 'Le Régiment des Mandolines' and his greatest success 'Chez Bébert (le monte-en-l'air)'. He participated in many galas in Lyon organised by his friend Jo Darlays.

Andrex appeared in the drama L'Âge ingrat/That Tender Age (Gilles Grangier, 1964), the first film produced by Gafer, a production company founded by Jean Gabin and Fernandel.

In the early 1970s, he tried his hand at television series and appeared in the TV film Le Petit Théâtre de Jean Renoir/The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir (1970), the last completed work by Jean Renoir.

After the death, in 1971, of his wife, actress Ginette Baudin, and of Fernandel, his great friend, who helped him to have small roles in the cinema, Andrex's appearances in the media became increasingly rare. In 1973, he participated with other artists in the successful recording of French songs from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

In 1979, he appeared in the film Charles et Lucie/Charles and Lucie (Nelly Kaplan, 1979), before his final film appearance in Cap Canaille (Juliet Berto, Jean-Henri Roger, 1983).

Andrex died in 1989 in Paris, from a heart attack. He was 82. Andrex rests with his wife Ginette Baudin at the cemetery of Saint-Ouen.

French card by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 105. Photo: Studio Piaz.

Belgian postcard by P.E., no. 68. Photo: Studio Verhassel, Brussels.

Soources: Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

Betty Compson (1897-1974) was an American actress and film producer, who peaked in silent cinema and early talkies. She is best known for her performances as a suicidal prostitute rescued by a stoker (George Bancroft) in Joseph Von Sternberg's The Docks of New York (1928), and as the manipulative carnival girl Carrie in the part-talkie The Barker (1928), the latter earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

French postcard by A.N., Paris in the 'Les vedettes de cinéma' series, no. 30. Photo: Film Paramount.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 87.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 988. Photo: Universal Pictures Corporation. Betty Compson and Norman Kerry in Love Me and the World Is Mine (Ewald André Dupont, 1927).

Betty Compson in The Palace of Pleasure (1926)

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 196. Betty Compson in The Palace of Pleasure (Emmett J. Flynn, 1926) or in The Belle of Broadway (Harry O. Hoyt, 1926). Caption: Tivoli.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 98. Photo: Nicholas (?).

The Prettiest Girl in Pictures

Betty Compson was born Eleanor Luicime Compson in 1897 in Beaver, Utah at a mining camp. She was the daughter of Virgil K. Compson and Mary Elizabeth Rauscher. Her father was a mining engineer, a gold prospector, and a grocery store proprietor, and her mother was a maid in homes and in a hotel. A few months after she was born, her father seemingly deserted the family for the Klondike gold strike. As it turned out, he made $25,000 - a small fortune in today's terms - and returned to the family.

Compson graduated from Salt Lake High School. Her father died when she was young and at 16 years old, she obtained employment as a violinist at a vaudeville theatre in Salt Lake City for $15 a week. Following that, she went on tour, with her mother, with an act called 'the Vagabond Violinist'.

In 1916, she appeared on the Alexander Pantages Theatre Circuit, again doing her violin solo vaudeville routine. There, the 18-year-old Compson was discovered by Hollywood producer Al Christie and she signed a contract with him. Christie quickly changed her stage name from Eleanor to Betty.

Her first silent film was the short comedy Wanted, a Leading Lady (Al Christie, 1916), starring Eddie Lyons. The following years, she appeared in many one-reel and two-reel slapstick comedies, frequently paired with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. In 1916, she made 25 films - all of them were short comedies with the exception of one feature, Almost a Widow (Horace Davey, 1916). She continued making numerous short comedies well into the middle of 1918.

Then, after her long apprenticeship with Christie, she started making features exclusively. In 1919, Betty was signed by writer-director George Loane Tucker to co-star opposite Lon Chaney as Rose in The Miracle Man (George Loane Tucker, 1919). The film was a huge critical and financial success. Compson was called "The Prettiest Girl in Pictures". During the filming of Ladies Must Live (George Loane Tucker, 1921), Compson began a relationship with married director George Loane Tucker. However, Tucker was dying and as a favour to her, Tucker negotiated a contract with Paramount for her.

Betty Compson signed a five-year contract with the studio. Her popularity allowed Compson to establish her own production company that provided her creative control over screenplays and financing. Her first film as a producer was Prisoners of Love (Art Rosson, 1921). She played the role of Blanche Davis, a girl born to wealth and cursed by her inheritance of physical beauty. The story was chosen from a work by actress and writer Catherine Henry.

After completing The Woman With Four Faces (Herbert Brenon, 1923), with Richard Dix, Paramount refused to offer her a raise (her salary was $2,500 per week) and she refused to sign without one. Instead, she signed with Balcon, Freedman & Saville, a film company in London, England. There she starred in a series of four films directed by Graham Cutts, a well-known English filmmaker.

The first of these was a film version of an English play called Woman to Woman (Graham Cutts, 1923). The screenplay was co-written by Cutts and Alfred Hitchcock. She played a dual role in The White Shadow (Graham Cutts, 1924), also written by Alfred Hitchcock. Part of the film has been found and preserved from a collection in New Zealand.

Woman to Woman was released in the United States and proved to be popular enough for Jesse Lasky to offer top dollar to return to Paramount. Back in Hollywood, she starred in The Enemy Sex (1924), directed by James Cruze. Compson and Cruz married in 1924, but they had a rocky relationship and separated several times. One of the more highly paid performers of the silent screen, Compson's weekly earnings exceeded $5000 a week at the peak of her career. She came to own a fleet of luxury limousines and was able to move from a bungalow in the hills overlooking Hollywood to an expensive mansion on Hollywood Boulevard.

In 1925, her contract with Paramount was not renewed and she decided to freelance, working with lower budget studios such as Columbia Pictures in The Belle of Broadway (Harry O. Hoyt, 1926) and Chadwick in The Ladybird (Walter Lang, 1926), with Malcolm McGregor. During this time, she was suggested as a replacement for a difficult Greta Garbo in the MGM feature Flesh and the Devil (Clarence Brown, 1926), oppositeJohn Gilbert. She eventually worked for the studio with former The Miracle Man co-star Lon Chaney in The Big City (Tod Browning, 1928).

British postcard in the "Pictures" Portrait Gallery series, no. 66.

Spanish collectors card by Ed. Edoardo Pi, Barcelona.

Spanish postcard for Fábrica de Chocolate de Evaristo Juncosa, Barcelona, by Huecograbado. Mumbrú, Barcelona, no. Serie A, no. 14. Collección de 14 postales Artistas Cinematograficos.

American promotion postcard for Alemite. Photo: Paramount. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

The assistant of a demented ventriloquist

In 1928, Betty Compson appeared in a First National Pictures part-talkie, The Barker (George Fitzmaurice, 1928) opposite Milton Sills and Dorothy Mackaill. Her performance as manipulative carnival girl Carrie garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She lost to Mary Pickford in Coquette (Sam Taylor, 1929).

In the silent film Court-Martial (George B. Seitz, 1928), she became the first actress to portray Old West outlaw Belle Starr on film. The film apparently has not survived. In the same year, she received good reviews in the highly acclaimed The Docks of New York (Josef von Sternberg, 1928) in a sympathetic portrayal of a suicidal prostitute rescued by stoker George Bancroft.

She gave a touching performance in The Great Gabbo (1929), directed by her then-husband James Cruze, as the assistant of a demented ventriloquist (Erich von Stroheim), with whom she is unhappily in love. That same year, she appeared in RKO's first sound film, Street Girl (Wesley Ruggles, 1929). These films caused Compson's popularity to re-emerge, and she became a busy actress in the new talking cinema. In fact, Chaney offered her the female lead in his first talkie The Unholy Three (Jack Conway, 1930), but she was too busy and instead suggested friend Lila Lee.

Unlike a number of other female stars of silent film, it was felt that her voice recorded exceptionally well. Although she was not a singer, she appeared in a number of early musicals, in which her singing voice was dubbed. She divorced James Cruze in 1930. The reason for their divorce was that Cruze had an addiction to alcohol and work, which put a strain on their marriage and his health. Soon after their divorce, Cruze filed for bankruptcy, and Compson was forced to sell her Hollywood villa, her cars and her antiques to pay past years' income taxes.

However, Compson's career continued to flourish, and she starred in nine films in 1930 alone. Her last hit proved to be in The Spoilers (Edwin Carewe, 1930), alongside Gary Cooper. She was briefly under contract to RKO, and cast in so-called 'women's pictures' such as The Lady Refuses (George Archainbaud, 1931) and Three Who Loved (George Archainbaud, 1931) with Conrad Nagel.

She was unable to score a new success and only secured roles in 'poverty row' studios. One major film in which she did not appear was Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939). Although she shot a Technicolor screen test for the role of Belle Watling, she was not cast in the role. In 1941, Compson appeared in a small role in the Hitchcock film Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941), with Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery.

Most of her later films were low-budget, even exploitation, efforts. Her second marriage, to producer Irving Weinberg, lasted just four years, from 1933 till 1937. At their divorce trial, she testified that he left her home alone while he went out with other women. In 1944 she married professional boxer Silvius John Gall and decided to retire from Hollywood. Compson's last film was the comedy Here Comes Trouble (Fred Guiol, 1948).

After retiring from the screen, she began a cosmetic line and helped her husband run a business named Ashtrays Unlimited, producing personalised ashtrays for the hospitality industry. Silvius Jack Gall died in 1962. All her marriages had been childless. Betty Compson died in 1974 of a heart attack at her home in Glendale, California, aged 77. She was interred in San Fernando Mission Cemetery in San Fernando, California. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Compson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1216/1. Photo: Arthur Ziehm. Written in Dutch on the card: 'De Revueprinses', which refers to Compson's film The Belle of Broadway (Harry O. Hoyt, 1926).

Norman Kerry and Betty Compson in Love Me and the World Is Mine (1927)

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 988. Photo: Universal Pictures Corporations. Norman Kerry and Betty Compson in Love Me and the World Is Mine (Ewald André Dupont, 1927).

Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compson in Weary River (1929)

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Editions, no. 676. Photo: First National. Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compson in Weary River (Frank Lloyd, 1929).

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 365/1. Photo: Fanamet-Film.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 365/2. Photo: Paramount-Film.

Sources: I.S.Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Today, EFSP has the second post with five series of Filmshots cards, produced as a supplement for the British magazine Film Weekly. Each series presents a Hollywood film of the early 1930s, the pictures are in black and white and a few basic credits are added: the (British) film title, the two main actors and the studio. These five Filmshots series are from the collection of Ivo Blom.

A Farewell to Arms (1932)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932), based on Ernest Hemingway's homonymous novel (1929).

Gary Cooper in A Farewell to Arms (1932)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Gary Cooper in A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932). The woman on the right is not Helen Hayes. The man on the left is Gilbert Emery (British major), the woman on the left is Blanche Friderici (Head nurse).

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Philips, and Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932).

Gary Cooper, Jack La Rue and Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms (1932)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, and Jack La Rue in A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932).

A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932) is the first of the three screen adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's homonymous novel from 1929. Gary Cooper, and Helen Hayes star as the American ambulance driver Lt. Fredric Henry and the English nurse Catherine Barkley. The action takes place in Italy during World War I, Henry and Barkley fall in love and will stop at nothing to be together. The film also analyses Lt. Henry's feelings on war and the purpose of fighting.

Adolphe Menjou replete with Italian accent plays Cooper's friend and romantic rival, Major Rinaldi. In the supporting cast are also Mary Phillips as Helen Ferguson, a nurse and Catherine's closest friend who objects to her continued romance with the young American, Jack LaRue as the soft-spoken Italian priest, and Blanche Frederici as the stern head nurse. The film is sublimely photographed by Charles Lang who deservedly won an Oscar.

A Farewell to Arms was a highly popular war drama in its day. The film concentrates more on the relationship between the lieutenant and the nurse than on the soldiers on the battlefield. The film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of 1932-1933. Director Frank Borzage brings out the tenderness and simplicity of the young couple in love as he had done earlier in a series of classic films starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell at Fox Studios.

Clear All Wires! (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Lee Tracy and Benita Hume in Clear All Wires! (George Hill, 1933), here also with James Gleason.

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Lee Tracy in Clear All Wires! (George Hill, 1933). The woman in this card may be Una Merkel, the man on the left could be Guy Usher.

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Lee Tracy in Clear All Wires! (George Hill, 1933). The man on the left here is James Gleason. The man behind the chair could C. Henry Gordon.

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Lee Tracy in Clear All Wires! (George Hill, 1933). Left of Tracy stands James Gleason. The woman is Benita Hume.

Lee Tracy plays in Clear All Wires! (George Hill, 1933) the fast-talking Buckley Joyce Thomas, an unethical reporter who manipulates the news for his own benefit as much as he reports it. When he is in Paris to get a medal for being rescued from his alleged kidnappers, he finds that his boss, Stevens (Guy Usher), at the Chicago Globe is going with his old gal Dolly (Una Merkel). When Stevens learns that Dolly is staying with Buckley in Moscow, he fires Buckley. To get his job back, Buckley and Lefty (James Gleason) stage a great news story about the shooting of the last Romanoff, Prince Alexander, played by Eugene Sigaloff. but the plan backfires and they are now in line to be shot by the Commissar (C. Henry Gordon).

The film was based on a popular Broadway play by Bella and Samuel Spewack. In Encyclopedia of Journalists on Film, Richard Ness draws an interesting relationship with Orson Welles' later film Citizen Kane (1941), referring to the subplot of the operatic ambitions of the shrill-voiced mistress Dolly, even practicing the same Aria as in Citizen Kane. While in Welles' film the character is called Susan Alexander Kane, Lefty tells Buckley Dolly got a call from Mr. Alexander. Another scene in which Buckley meets Stalin and lights the dictator's pipe foreshadows a similar scene between Kane and Hitler in the staged newsreel in the film.

Melody Cruise (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: RKO Radio. Phil Harris, and Helen Mack in Melody Cruise (Mark Sandrich, 1933).

Phil Harris, prob. Greta Nissen, and Chick Chandler in Melody Cruise

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: RKO Radio. Phil Harris, Chick Chandler and probably Greta Nissen in Melody Cruise (Mark Sandrich, 1933).

Greta Nissen and Charles Ruggles in Melody Cruise (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: RKO Radio. Greta Nissen, and Charles Ruggles in Melody Cruise (Mark Sandrich, 1933).

Phil Harris, Chick Chandler and [Greta Nissen] in Melody Cruise. RKO. Film Weekly

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: RKO Radio. Phil Harris, Greta Nissen, and Chick Chandler in Melody Cruise (Mark Sandrich, 1933).

Melody Cruise (Mark Sandrich, 1933) is a pre-Code romantic musical comedy about a bachelor millionaire, Alan Chandler (Phil Harris), hunted by women aboard a cruise liner. Charles Ruggles plays his best friend and womanizer Pete, Greta Nissen plays Elsa von Rader, Alan's mundane friend, Chick Chandler plays the steward Hickey whom Pete has bribed to prevent Alan from marrying, and Helen Mack is Laurie Marlowe, Alan's new friend.

After "wintering" in New York, Pasadena businessman Pete Wells prepares for his ocean voyage home by throwing a wild party in his stateroom. While drunk, Pete signs a letter written by his best friend, playboy Alan Chandler, in which his various adulterous affairs are described in detail. Determined to remain a bachelor, Alan has arranged for the letter to be sent to Pete's wife Grace but has instructed that it not be opened until he marries.

The next morning, after the letter has been mailed and the ship is in mid-ocean, Pete discovers Zoe and Vera, two of his party-goers, stranded in his stateroom. To keep the women safely in his cabin, Pete bribes steward Hickey to steal their clothes. He then hires Hickey to discourage the blossoming romance between Alan and German beauty Elsa Von Rader, fearful that it may lead to marriage and, consequently, the opening of the letter. Soon after, Pete runs into a friend of his wife, Miss Potts, a principal who is traveling with teacher Laurie Marlowe. When Pete and Miss Potts encounter the half-dressed Zoe and Vera on the ship's deck, Pete tells her that the young women are his nieces. While Miss Potts and Pete's "nieces" become acquainted, Alan accidentally waltzes into Laurie's stateroom and begins to romance her. Although attracted to the polished playboy, Laurie dismisses him, and he continues his affair with Elsa until the machinations of Hickey bring him back to Laurie.

Gabriel Over the White House (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Walter Huston, Franchot Tone, and Karen Morley in Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933).

Franchot Tone and Karen Morley in Gabriel over the White House (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Franchot Tone, and Karen Morley in Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933).

Walter Huston in Gabriel over the White House (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Walter Huston (left), Franchot Tone (centre), and Karen Morley (sitting) in Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933). The fourth card in this series still lacks.

Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933) was a controversial film on a corrupt new American president. Judd Hammond (Walter Huston) has taken his mistress Pendola (Karen Morley) to his office and neglects the worries of his people: hunger, unemployment, and gangsterism. Because of a car accident, he gets into a coma and when awakened, he has become a totally different person. He wants an agreement with protesting workers marching up to Washington and fires his corrupt cabinet. He manages to get plenipotentiary powers. He helps farmers and ends Prohibition. Together with his secretary Beekman (Franchot Tone), he makes a quick, drastic end to the racketing of Nick Diamond (C. Henry Gordon). He even manages other nations to pay back their war debts to the US, by threatening them with arms. After an international agreement is signed, he collapses and dies.

Gabriel Over the White House was made during a special moment in time. Producer Walter Wanger conceived of it as Rooseveltian vehicle, right from the start, against the wishes of Louis B. Mayer, a stark Republican, but backed by William Randolph Hearst, who not only was a big Roosevelt backer but supposedly also wrote part of the speech President Hammond gives in the film. Mayer was furious when during a preview he noticed that Hammond's presidency changes into dictatorship, but the film was released end of March 1933, about four weeks after Roosevelt had been inaugurated as president.

When the film came out, Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler ruled their countries as dictators - Hitler only very recently. Of course, Roosevelt implemented his New Deal without dictatorship. In 1932 marches by WWI veterans and the unemployed were really taking place, while Al Capone went to prison - for tax evasion. In December 1933 Prohibition would be repealed.

Blonde Bombshell (1933)

Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy in Bombshell (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy in Blonde Bombshell/Bombshell (Victor Fleming, 1933).

Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone in Bombshell (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Franchot Tone and Jean Harlow in Blonde Bombshell/Bombshell (Victor Fleming, 1933).

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Jean Harlow, Louise Beavers, and Lee Tracy in Blonde Bombshell/Bombshell (Victor Fleming, 1933).

In the pre-Code screwball comedy Blonde Bombshell/ Bombshell (Victor Fleming, 1933), movie star Lola Burns (Jean Harlow) is angry with her studio publicist E.J. "Space" Hanlon (Lee Tracy), who feeds the press with endless stories about her greatness. Lola's family and staff are another cause of distress for her, as everybody is always trying to get money from the actress. All Burns really wants is to live a normal life and prove to the public that she's not a sexy vamp, but a proper lady. She tries to adopt a baby, but Hanlon, who secretly loves her, thwarts all her plans.

Burns decides she can't stand any more of such a life and flees. Far from the movie fluff, she meets wealthy and romantic Gifford Middleton (Franchot Tone), who hates the movies and therefore has never heard about Lola Burns and her bad press. They soon fall in love, and Gifford proposes marriage. Burns is to meet her fiancé's parents, but everything collapses when Hanlon, together with Burns' family, finds her and tells the Middletons the truth. Burns feels hurt by the rude way Gifford and his parents dump her and accepts Hanlon's suggestion to return to Hollywood with no regrets. She does not know that the three Middletons were all actors hired by Hanlon himself.

Sources: a.o. Wikipedia and IMDb

In 2017, EFSP did a series of posts on collectors cards by Ross Verlag called 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst' (From the becoming of German film art). The cards of this series, album no. 10, contained pictures of the German silent cinema. Lately, we found cards from another series, album no. 11, which treats the German sound film, Der Tonfilm. And again, some of the cards are smaller than postcards, others bigger, and all are in black and white. And also this series includes star portraits and film scenes, but also pictures of film sets and one of the Ufa studios in Babelsberg. The collectors cards date from around 1935 and album no. 11 contains cards with scenes from the popular Operetta films but also of Nazi propaganda films. Today, the first part of the series.

Dita Parlo and Willy Fritsch in Melodie des Herzens (1929)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 4. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Dita Parlo and Willy Fritsch in Melodie des Herzens/Melody of the Heart (Hanns Schwarz, 1929).

Gustav Fröhlich and Liane Haid in Die unsterbliche Lump (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 6, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Gustav Fröhlich and Liane Haid in Die unsterbliche Lump/The Immortal Vagabond (Gustav Ucicky, Joe May, 1930).

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 12. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Caption: Karl Hoffmann hüllt sich und seine summende Kamera in dicke Tücher ein. (Karl Hoffmann wraps himself and his buzzing camera in thick cloths.)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 16. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Caption: Ufa-Gelände Neubabelsberg, mit mehr als 430000 qm gesamtfläche und 11 grossen Atelierhallen der grösste Atelierbetrieb in ganz Europa. (The Ufa site Neubabelsberg, with a total area of more than 430,000 square meters and 11 big studio halls, the largest film studio in Europe.)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 18. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. The composer with stopwatch.

Walter Janssen and Gretl Theimer in Zwei Herzen im Dreiviertel-Takt (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 20. Photo: Super-Film / Ross Verlag. Walter Janssen and Gretl Theimer in Zwei Herzen im Dreiviertel-Takt/Two Hearts in Waltz Time (Géza von Bolváry, 1930).

Käthe von Nagy and Willy Fritsch in Ihre Hoheit befiehlt (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 23. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Käthe von Nagy and Willy Fritsch in Ihre Hoheit befiehlt/Her Grace Commands (Hanns Schwarz, 1931).

Richard Tauber in Das Land des Lächelns (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 25. Photo: Bayerische Filmges. / Ross Verlag. Richard Tauber in Das Land des Lächelns/The Land of Smiles (Max Reichmann, 1930).

Louis Graveure in Ein Walzer für dich (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 28. Photo: Badal-Film / Ross Verlag. Louis Graveure in Ein Walzer für dich/A Waltz for You (Georg Zoch, 1934).

Ida Wüst and Leo Slezak in Freut Euch des Lebens (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 30. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Ida Wüst and Leo Slezak in Freut Euch des Lebens/Enjoy Yourselves (Hans Steinhoff, 1934).

Jan Kiepura and Brigitte Helm in Die singende Stadt (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 31. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Jan Kiepura and Brigitte Helm in Die singende Stadt/The Singing City (Carmine Gallone, 1930).

Jan Kiepura and Julius Falkenstein in Das Lied einer Nacht (1932)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 32. Photo: Cine-Allianz / Ross Verlag. Jan Kiepura and Julius Falkenstein in Das Lied einer Nacht/The Song of Night (Anatole Litvak, 1932).

Willy Fritsch and Renate Müller in Walzerkrieg (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 34. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Willy Fritsch and Renate Müller in Walzerkrieg/Waltz War (Ludwig Berger, 1933).

Hanna Waag and Willy Fritsch in Walzerkrieg (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 35, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Willy Fritsch learns the young Queen of England Hanna Waag to waltz in Walzerkrieg/Waltz War (Ludwig Berger, 1933).

Magda Schneider and Willi Forst in Ich kenn' dich nicht und liebe dich (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 36. Photo: Boston-Film / Ross Verlag. Magda Schneider and Willi Forst in Ich kenn' dich nicht und liebe dich/I Don't Know You, But I Love You (Géza von Bolváry, 1934).

Lilian Harvey in Der Kongress tanzt (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 39. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Lilian Harvey in Der Kongress tanzt/The Congress dances (Erik Charell, 1931).

Brigitte Helm and Paul Wegener, Inge und die Millionen (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 41. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Brigitte Helm and Paul Wegener in Inge und die Millionen/Inge and the Millions (Erich Engel, 1933).

Sepp Rist and Leni Riefenstahl in Stürme über dem Mont Blanc (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 42. Photo: Aafa / Ross Verlag. Sepp Rist and Leni Riefenstahl in Stürme über dem Mont Blanc/Storm Over Mont Blanc (Arnold Fanck, 1930).

Leni Riefenstahl and Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 43, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Leni Riefenstahl and Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg/S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 44. Photo: Cine-Allianz / Ross Verlag. Sepp Rist in Der ewige Traum/The Eternal Dream (Arnold Fanck, 1934).

Ida Wüst and Paul Kemp in Mieter Schulze gegen alle (1932)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 47. Photo: Froelich-Film / Ross Verlag. Ida Wüst and Paul Kemp in Mieter Schulze gegen alle/Tenant Schulze against everyone (Carl Froelich, 1932).

To be continued.

Ruggero Ruggeri (1871-1953) was one the most important Italian stage actors of the first half of the twentieth century, who often performed the plays by Pirandello. He did act in films too, both in silent and sound films. Nowadays, he is best remembered as the voice of Jesus in the Don Camillo films.

Italian postcard, no. 8067. Photo: Ruggero Ruggeri as Hamlet, either on stage or in the film Amleto (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1917).

Italian postcard, no. 10. Editor unknown. Ruggero Ruggeri as Hamlet.

Italian postcard by Ed. Vettori, Bologna, no. 245.

Ruggero Ruggeri in L'uomo più allegro di Vienna (1925)

Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano. Photo: S.A.I.C. Ruggero Ruggeri in L'uomo più allegro di Vienna/The Most Cheerful Man in Vienna (Amleto Palermi, 1925).

Ruggero Ruggeri in I promessi sposi (1941)

Italian postcard by S.A. Grafitalia, Milano (Milan), no. 10. Photo: Film Lux. Ruggero Ruggeri as Cardinal Federigo Borromeo in I Promessi Sposi/The Spirit and the Flesh (Mario Camerini, 1941).

Multi Colored Voice

Ruggero Ruggeri was born in Fano, in the Italian region Marches in 1871. His father was Augusto Ruggeri and his mother Corina Casazza.

As an actor, he broke with the histrionic acting style, so typical for 19th-century theatre and instead opted for a more restrained, sober style, only with some stylisation of his gestures.

His multi-coloured voice was very popular. He was famous for his role in 'La figlia di Jorio' (The Daughter of Jorio) by Gabriele D'Annunzio, but he was also the most important performer of Luigi Pirandello's stage plays, such as 'Enrico IV'(Henry IV), purposely written for Ruggeri.

Ruggeri was leader of various theatre companies, with actresses such as Emma Grammatica, Lyda Borelli, and Wanda Capodaglio with whom he was also glorified abroad, because of their frequent tours.

French postcard. Photo: Nunes-Vais.

Ruggero Ruggeri in La figlia di Jorio (1906)

Italian postcard by RPH, no. 3546. Photo: Varischi Artico.& Co., Milano. Mailed 18 May 1906. Ruggero Ruggeri in the stage play La figlia di Jorio (1906).

Italian postcard by R. Rota Ed., Milano. Photo: cav. G. Artico, Milano.

Silent Era

From 1914 on, Ruggero Ruggeri played in eleven silent films.

First, he was seen in a series of dramas and comedies for the Cines company, like Veli di giovinezza/Veils of Youth (Nino Oxilia, 1914) and Papa (Nino Oxilia, 1915).

At Cines, Ruggeri was often paired with diva Pina Menichelli. Director Nino Oxilia was killed in service during the First World War, shortly after Italy joined the Allied forces.

In 1917 Ruggeri followed this with a memorable film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet: Amleto (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1917), with Helena Makowska as Ophelia and Mercedes Brignone as Gertrude. Outside of Italy the film was released only after the war.

In the mid-1920s, Ruggeri would perform in films by Amleto Palermi and Augusto Genina, and in 1930 he appeared opposite Francesca Bertini in La donna di una notte/The Woman of A Night, the Italian version of Königin der Nacht, directed by Marcel L'Herbier, who demanded his name be to be removed, because the film was edited without his consent.

Italian postcard for the film Amleto (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1917), adapted from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, and starring Ruggero Ruggeri in the title role, here also with Helena Makowska as Ophelia. Caption: Hamlet: Oh, I am your jester. What else can one ever do down here that is joyous?

Italian postcard. Ruggero Ruggeri as Hamlet in Amleto (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1917). The caption says: Horatio and Marcellus tell Hamlet of their vision of the ghost. Hamlet responds (Shakespeare's words): 'Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you.'

Italian postcard. Photo: Palermi Films. Maria Corda and Ruggero Ruggeri in L'uomo più allegro di Vienna (Amleto Palermi, 1925).

Italian postcard, no. 624. Photo: Sciutto.

The Voice of Jesus

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Ruggero Ruggeri was already in his sixties and seventies, he performed in ten Italian films, often as the lead, for companies as Scalera and Lux.

These films included La vedova/The Widow (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1939), Il documento/The Document (Mario Camerini, 1939) with María Denis, and I promesi sposi/The Spirit and the Flesh (Mario Camerini, 1941) with Gino Cervi.

He also appeared in Gelosia/Jealousy (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942), and played Napoleon in Sant'Elena, piccola isola/Daint Helens - Small Island (Umberto Scarpelli, Renato Simoni, 1942). He also worked as a voice actor, dubbing foreign actors for Italian release.

Ruggeri's best known performance today is only oral. Most older Italians will know him as the voice of Jesus in Don Camillo (1952) and in Le retour de Don Camillo/The Return of Don Camillo (1953), both directed by Julien Duvivier.

Ruggero Ruggeri died in Milano in 1953. He was 81. Ruggeri was interred at the Cimitero Monumentale di Milano in Milan.

Italian postcard by SA Grafitalia, Roma. Photo: Lux Film. Ruggero Ruggeri as Cardinal Federigo Borromeo offers solace to the repenting Innominato (Carlo Ninchi) in I Promessi Sposi/The Spirit and the Flesh (Mario Camerini, 1941).

Ruggero Ruggeri in La gerla di papà Martin

Italian postcard by Rotocalco Dagnino, Torino. Photo: Lux. Ruggero Ruggeri as Papà Martin in the drama La gerla di papà Martin (Mario Bonnard, 1940), an adaptation by the Italian Lux company of the popular drama Les crochets du père Martin by Eugène Cormon and Eugène Grangé. Among Ruggeri's co-actors in this film were Germana Paolieri, Roberto Villa, Enrico Glori and Maria Mercader.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni XIX [1941], no. 7097. Photo: Camuzzi.

Italian postcard by ASER (A. Scaramaglia Edizioni Roma), no. 64. Photo: Pesce.

Teatro Valle, Rome.Ruggero Ruggeri and Lyda Borelli often performed in this prominent Roman theatre. The Teatro Valle was built in 1727 as a wooden structure by Tommaso Morelli, enlarged and turned into stone in 1765 by architect Francesco Fiori and radically transformed, embellished and enlarged in 1821 by architect Giuseppe Valadier. Photo: Ivo Blom.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Last Sunday, 15 March 2020, vivacious French actress and singer Suzy Delair (1917) passed away. She starred in many different films and was also famous in France as a singer of songs like Avec son Tra-la-la. For several years, the saucy star was the companion of film director Henri-Georges Clouzot, in whose films of the 1940s she appeared, including the masterpiece Quai des Orfèvres/Quay of the Goldsmiths (1947). La Delair was 102.

French postcard by Editions P.I., offered by Les Carbones Korès, no. 121. Photo: Lucienne Chevert. Publicity still for Quai des Orfèvres (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1947).

French postcard by Editions O.P., no. 4. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 128. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Dutch postcard, no. AX 850. Photo: Unifrance Film.

French postcard offered by Korès 'Carboplane', no. 153.

The prototype of the sexy cheeky French lady

Suzanne Pierrette Delaire was born in 1917, in Paris as the daughter of a seamstress and a saddle shop owner.

Her first job was as an apprentice for milliner Suzanne Talbot, but Delaire dreamed of the theatre. As a teenager, she started playing bit parts in films and on stage.

Her film debut was Un caprice de la Pompadour/Madame Pompadour (Willy Wolff, Joë Hamman, 1930). She had her first success in the music-halls and appeared in the cabaret of Suzy Solidor and the revue of Mistinquett.

During the 1930s, she played small parts in films like La Dame de chez Maxim's (Alexander Korda, 1932) based on the play by farceur Georges Feydeau, Poliche (Abel Gance, 1934) with Marie Bell, and Prends la route/Hit the Road (Jean Boyer, 1936).

Finally, her breakthrough in the cinema came with Le Dernier des six/The Last One of the Six (Georges Lacombe, 1941). In this mystery thriller, she played cabaret singer Mila Malou, the unbearable girlfriend of the protagonist, inspector Wens (Pierre Fresnay).

The film was based on a script by Henri-Georges Clouzot, with whom Suzy Delair was living together. In 2003, the 85-year-old Delair told the New York Times about Clouzot: "He met me when I was a little debutante, working with Mistinquett. He adored Mistinquett, and he came to one of her shows, where I was singing one of her great successes, Valencia. And he put a cross next to my name. The next time he came to the show, he waited for me at the exit, and we went for a drink. And that lasted for 12 years."

When Clouzot became a director, he offered her two other big successes. First, she returned in the popular sequel to Le Dernier des six, L'assassin habite au 21/The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1942).

Then followed Quai des Orfèvres/Quay of the Goldsmiths (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1947), which made him the 'French Alfred Hitchcock'. In this classic thriller, Delair played the frivolous music-hall singer Jenny L'Amour who is prepared to do anything to become famous and makes thus her poor husband (Bernard Blier) insanely jealous.

With this great part, she emerged to international stardom. At IMDb, Guy Bellinger describes her as the 'prototype of the sexy cheeky French lady'. She was a seductive, stunningly attractive actress with a natural acting style. Sadly, Delair and Clouzot separated and after their successes together, the rest of her film career seems a bit disappointing. However, there are some exceptions.

French postcard, no. 14. Photo: Discina.

French postcard by Editions O.P., no. 180. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

French postcard by Editions Continental, no. 128/A. Photo: Continental Films.

French postcard offered by Editions P.I., no. 13 F. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 29 H. P.I. was the French license holder for Universum-Film A.G. (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Avec son Tra-la-la

After the war, Suzy Delair starred in films by major directors like Marcel L'Herbier (La Vie de bohème, 1945), Jean Dréville (Copie conforme/Confessions of a Rogue, 1947), Marcel Carné (Du mouron pour les petits oiseaux/Chicken Feed for Little Birds, 1962), and René Clément (Paris brûle-t-il?/Is Paris Burning?, 1966).

A highlight in her career and a milestone in the history of the cinema was Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960) starring Alain Delon and Renato Salvatori, even if her part in this operatic masterpiece is a minor one.

Delair covered all registers - from drama to comedy. Ironically, Suzy is probably best known to American filmgoers for what may well be her worst film. In 1950, she appeared as will-of-the-wisp chanteuse Cheri Lamour in the last comedy os the aging Laurel & Hardy, the melancholy Atoll K/Utopia (Léo Joannon, 1951).

She also appeared in the Fernandel vehicle Le Couturier de ces Dames/Fernandel the Dress Maker (Jean Boyer, 1956) and in the hilarious farce Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) starring French comedy star Louis de Funès.

She was a dancer and a singer, and her chanson Avec son Tra-la-la is an evergreen in France. She introduced it in Quai des Orfèvres (1947). Delair also appeared in several operettas by Jacques Offenbach and Oscar and Johan Strauss.

Her last film was Oublie-moi, Mandoline/Forget Me, Mandoline (Michel Wyn, 1976). Since then Suzy Delair only appeared incidentally on television.

Guy Bellinger gives an interesting answer to why Delair was not more famous than she was: "Suzy Delair could hardly choose between her two careers. This may be the reason why she missed out on more great roles than she finally interpreted. Nevertheless, Mila Malou and Jenny Lamour are now part of the French film heritage. Not everybody can boast having left such an imprint on several generations of movie-goers."

Trailer for Quai des Orfèvres (1947). Source: YouTube Movies (YouTube).

Snippet from Atoll K/Utopia (1951). Source: httpdbetreeorg (YouTube).

Suzy Delair sings Moulin rouge in 1966. Source: Ina Chansons (YouTube).

The trailer of Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (1973). Source: Night Of The Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Movie Diva, Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.

Today, we end the film specials series with Spanish chocolate cards with a post on the silent French film, Blessée au coeur/Wounded in the heart (1917), starring Jeanne Delvair, Jean Ayme and René Rocher. The film was produced by Pathé Frères, but the director is unknown. The series of 6 cards was produced by Ed. Auber y Pla for Chocolate Pi in Barcelona. The Spanish release title of the film was Herida del corazon and the distributor of the film in Spain was Vilaseca y Ledesma.

Spanish postcard by Ed. Auber y Pla, Barcelona for Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 1 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Publicity still for Blessée au coeur (1917). The actress is not Jeanne Delvair, but an unknown actress who plays the lady the banker wants to elope with.

Jeanne Delvair and René Rocher in Blessée au coeur (1917)

Spanish postcard by Ed. Auber y Pla, Barcelona for Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 2 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Jeanne Delvair and René Rocher in Blessée au coeur (1917).

Jeanne Delvair and Jean Ayme in Blessée au coeur (1917)

Spanish postcard by Ed. Auber y Pla, Barcelona for Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 3 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Jeanne Delvair and Jean Ayme in Blessée au coeur (1917).

A Shot in the Dark

In Blessée au coeur (1917), the banker Beaupreault (Jean Ayme) has done wild speculations to satisfy his extraordinary needs. One night, while waiting for his wife Marguerite (Jeanne Delvair), he feels the imminent disaster coming. Their son Gérard (René Rocher), unknowing of the debacle, celebrates the passing of his exams.

The opulent rich Robert Dalmarre (Georges Tréville) is prepared to save Marguerite from catastrophe. Beaupreault, who already has prepared his flight with the ex-wife of his attorney Collinet (Jacques Volnys), then hears of the offer his friend is willing to make to save his honour.

Meanwhile, because of alarming rumours around the bank, the creditor Haudecoeur (Jean Chameroy) surprises the banker preparing his luggage, and with a gun in his hand, he demands the restitution of his loans. The banker yields, but this delay is fatal, as Marguerite comes to tell him about her son's success. She quickly understands her husband's plans, and in vain pleas him to renounce to them, but the banker brutally throws her on the ground.

Marguerite finds the gun of Haudecoeur and points it at the banker. Then the banker quickly switches off the electricity to flee. A shot goes off in the dark...

The previous scene lasts briefly, surprising Haudecoeur, who is still on the stairs. The bank staff is surprised to find him in the banker's apartments as he entered without their knowledge, so they suspect him of the killing.

The drama has shocked Marguerite, but when her wits return she learns that the murderer has fallen in the hands of Justice. Marguerite has no doubt she herself has fired the gun on her husband. She is about to declare this before the judge, but her maternal egoism prevents this. The timely arrival of Robert Dalmarre clears her sad thoughts when the latter explains the true murderer was Collinet, who used the darkness created by the banker to kill him to prevent his flight with his own ex-wife.

Collinet is convicted and confesses his crime. Haudecoeur is freed and Marguerite liberated from the doubts that tormented her mind, will forget, with her two loved ones [her son and Robert], the intense drama which was about to steal her reason.

Blessée au coeur was a production by the Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (SCAGL), part of Pathé Frères. Pathé also distributed the film. The film was based on a novel (1895) by Jules Mary. According to the newspapers of 1917 on Gallica, the film was released almost simultaneously at the Parisian cinemas Pathé-Palace, Omnia-Pathé and Artistic around 20 April 1917.

Georges Tréville in Blessée au coeur (1917)

Spanish postcard by Ed. Auber y Pla, Barcelona for Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 4 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Georges Tréville in Blessée au coeur (1917). The actress does not look like Delvair, so she could be the unknown actress who plays the lady with whom the banker planned to flee (see card 1).

Spanish postcard by Ed. Auber y Pla, Barcelona for Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 5 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Georges Tréville in Blessée au coeur (1917). The actor on the right may be Jacques Volnys.

Georges Tréville, René Rocher and Jeanne Delvair in Blessée au coeur (1917)

Spanish postcard by Ed. Auber y Pla, Barcelona for Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 6 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Georges Tréville, René Rocher and Jeanne Delvair in Blessée au coeur (1917).

Sources: Wikipedia (French), IMDb, Ciné-Ressources, Fondation Seydoux-Pathé, Gallica, and the collectors cards.

N.B. The French databases only mention Georges Tréville's collaboration but from these cards, it is clear he played Robert Dalmarre.

Paul Mounet (1847–1922), born Jean-Paul Sully, was a legendary French actor of the Comédie Française. Around 1910, he acted in various Film d'Art productions, but little was known about these early silent films. For EFSP, Ivo Blom reconstructed in which films Mounet appeared.

French postcard. Photo: Boyer, Paris. Caption: Paul Mounet de la Comédie Française.

French postcard by F.A., printed by A. Christensen, imp, Rueil, no. 269. Photo: A. Bert. Paul Mounet and Mounet-Sully in the stage play 'Oedipe Roi' (Oedipus Rex) by Sophocles at the Comédie-Française in 1892.

French postcard. Photo: L'H, Paris. Paul Mounet as Le Duc d'Albe in Patrie! (1901) by Victorien Sardou and presented by the Comédie-Française.

French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leurs expressions series, no. 1023. Photo: Paris sur scène. Paul Monet in Par la vérité/By the truth (Maurice de Féraudy, Gaston Leprieur, 1917).

Correcting a few errors

Paul Mounet was born in Bergerac, Dordogne, in 1847. He was the younger brother of actor Jean Mounet-Sully aka Mounet-Sully.

Paul studied to become a medical doctor prior to his career in acting. He made his stage debut in 1880 in Paris at the Odéon's production of 'Horace'. All through the 1880s, he acted at the Odeon. It was in 1889 that he first played at the Comédie-Française, of which he became a sociétaire two years later. Mounet garnered acclaim for his roles in 'Les Érinnyes', 'L'Arlésienne', 'Severo Torelli', 'Othello', 'Patrie', 'Hamlet', and 'Œdipe Roi'.

Between 1908 and 1917, Paul Mounet appeared in a number of films, mostly Film d'Art-like productions at the companies Le Film d'Art, Pathé and Eclipse, and often based on previous stage successes by Mounet.

However, IMDb makes quite a few errors in Mounet's filmography. Either he or André Calmettes may have acted as Scarpia in a version of La Tosca (Charles Le Bargy, André Calmettes, 1908) with Sarah Bernhardt, but this version had only a very short release in December 1908, while Bernhardt had even forbidden the showing of the film.

In January 1909 a new version was made by Le Film d'Art with Cécile Sorel in the lead and Charles Le Bargy as Scarpia, so not Mounet. Neither was he in Rigoletto, the American title for Le roi 's amuse (Albert Capellani, 1909). Also, it was NOT Paul Mounet but his brother Mounet-Sully who acted in Le baiser de Judas (André Calmettes, Armand Bour, 1909).

French postcard. Paul Mounet and Mounet-Sully in 'Ruy Blas' by Victor Hugo, Comédie Française.

French postcard in the Collection Artistique du Vin Désiles. Photo: Paul Berger, Paris. Caption: Vin Désiles is a useful and pleasant travel companion - before or after the meal.

French postcard. Paul Mounet as Tiresias in 'Oedipe Roi' by Sophocles at the Comédie Française.

Historical films and stage adaptations

Paul Mounet DID play Ulysses opposite Julia Bartet as Penelope and Albert Lambert as Antinuous in Le retour d'Ulysse/The Return of Ulysses (André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy, 1909), and he played the Shakespearian title character Macbeth opposite Jeanne Delvair as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (André Calmettes, 1909). In 1884 Mounet had already played Macbeth at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, and in 1914 he would play the role again, now at the Comédie Française.

Released in 1910 (and not 1909 as IMDb writes) were Mounet's films Rival de son père (André Calmettes, 1910) based on Schiller's 'Don Carlos', also with Emile Dehelly and Julia Bartet, and Louis XI (André Calmettes, 1910) with again Dehelly and Bartet, though the latter may have been a mix up with L'Héritière/The heiress.

In 1910 indeed Mouniet had the lead of Louis XI in L'Héritière/The heiress (Henri Pouctal or André Calmettes, 1910), also with Henri Rollan as The Duke of Nemours and Mlle Gilman as Marie of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold and heiress of a vast territory, which the French king Louis XI would like to conquer.

In 1912 he acted in his last Film d'Art production, Les Jacobites/The Jacobites, for whom the director is unknown, and in which Jeanne Provost and Emile Dehelly were Mounet's co-actors. He had already played the role on stage in 1885.

Inspired by the Film d'Art productions, the new company Eclipse (1906) started to make historical films and stage adaptations as well, and launched in 1912 La légende d'Oedipe/The legend of Oedipus (released December 1913), directed by Gaston Roudès. Sophocles' tragedy had already been brought to the screen by André Calmettes for Le Film d'Art in 1910, with Mounet's brother Mounet-Sully in the lead.

Mounet-Sully had performed the play from 1901 and it had become his 'pièce de resistance'. His brother Paul had played the blind prophet and clairvoyant Tiresias in the same play. In 1912 Eclipse asked Mounet-Sully to play his star role gain, and asked his brother to play Tiresias again. Jeanne Delvair played Jocaste, Jean Hervé young Oedipus, and Louis Delaunay Creon. Mounet-Sully scripted the film.

His last fiction film part, Paul Mounet played as the Reverend Father Aurégan in the courtroom drama Par la vérité/By the truth (Maurice de Féraudy, Gaston Leprieur, 1917), based on Ernest Daudet's story, and starring Marcelle Géniat. In court, without betraying his vow of confidentiality, the priest makes clear the supposed culprit of murder is innocent.

Paul Mounet served as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, teaching, among others, Pierre Fresnay, Valentine Tessier, Hélène Dieudonné, Léonce Perret, Daniel Mendaille, Françoise Rosay, and Marie Ventura. He became a Chevalier in the Legion of Honour.

Mounet died of heart disease in 1922. In 1880 he had married the opera singer Madeleine Andrée Barbot (1852-1923), who also knew a brief career as tragedy actress in the 1880s, before returning to opera.

French postcard by A.B., Paris. Paul Mounet in the play 'Oedipe Roi' by Sophocles.

Silvain, Paul Mounet, Jeanne Provost, Charles Le Bargy, Julia Bartet, Mounet-Sully, Albert Lambert, Marie-Thérèse Piérat, Félix Huguenet, Ségond-Weber, Louise Sylvain

French postcard by F.C. & Cie., Paris, no. 475. This cards shows a 1920s photomontage of the actors of the Comédie Française, partly dressed in the costumes of their most famous plays. In the back, the Théàtre Français, home of the Comédie. From left to right: (Eugène) Silvain / Sylvain, Paul Mounet, Jeanne Provost, Charles Le Bargy, Julia Bartet, Jean Mounet-Sully, Albert Lambert, Pierrat, Huguenet, Ségond-Weber, Louise Silvain. Almost all of these actors also had a film career, either in the Film d'Art films of the early 1910s, or (also) at later stages.

French postcard by F.C. & Cie, no. 52. Photo: P. Boyer. Caption: Theatre Francais. Mounet's costume seems to refer to his last film, Par la vérité/By the truth (1917).

Sources: Ciné-Ressources (French), Fondation Seydoux Pathé (French), 1895 (French), Wikipedia and IMDb.

NB The film Rival de son père (1909) is not mentioned at the Seydoux Pathé site, but is mentioned in the Le Film d'Art filmography in the journal 1895, as well as on the Ciné-Ressources website. Neither is the film Les Jacobites (1912) mentioned at the Pathé website, but is part of the Ciné-Ressources website.

During the 1970s, American actor Al Pacino (1940) established himself with such films as The Godfather (1972), Serpico (1973), The Godfather: Part II (1974) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975). In the following decades, he became an enduring icon of the American cinema. He won the Triple Crown of Acting: an Oscar for Best Actor for Scent of a Woman (1992); a Tony for Best Supporting Actor in the play 'Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?' (1969) and for Best Actor in the play 'The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel' (1977); and an Emmy for Best Actor in the Miniseries Angels in America (2003).

British postcard by Star-Graphics, no. S 89. Photo: Al Pacino in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972).

Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972)

British postcard by Star-Graphics, no. S 91. Photo: Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972).

French postcard in the Collection In Cinéma by Editions La Malibran, Paris / Nancy, 1989, no. CA 51. Photo: Al Pacino in Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, 1973).

Michael Corleone

Alfredo James 'Al' Pacino was born in 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi) and Sal Pacino, who worked as an insurance agent. His maternal grandfather was born in Corleone, Sicily. His parents divorced when he was two years old.

His mother moved them into his grandparents' home in the South Bronx. In his teenage years, Pacino was known as 'Sonny' to his friends. Pacino found himself often repeating the plots and voices of characters he had seen in films. Bored and unmotivated in school, he found a haven in school plays, and his interest soon blossomed into a full-time career.

He attended the High School of the Performing Arts until he dropped out at age 17. In 1962, Pacino's mother died at the age of 43. The following year, his grandfather James also died. Starting on stage, he went through a period of depression and poverty, sometimes having to borrow bus fare to succeed to auditions. He made it into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1966, studying under Lee Strasberg, creator of the Method Approach that would become the trademark of many 1970s-era actors.

After appearing in a string of plays in supporting roles, Pacino finally attained success off-Broadway with Israel Horovitz's 'The Indian Wants the Bronx', winning an Obie Award for the 1966-1967 season. He was also nominated for a Best Actor Obie for 'Why Is a Crooked Letter' (1966). That was followed by a Tony Award for 'Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?'

Pacino was a longtime member of David Wheeler's Theatre Company of Boston, for which he performed in 'Richard III' in Boston (1972-1973) and at the Cort Theater in New York City (1979). He also appeared in their productions of Bertolt Brecht's 'Arturo Ui' at the Charles Theater in Boston in 1975 and later in New York and London, and in David Rabe's 'The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel' at the Longacre Theater in New York in 1977.

At the age of 29 he made his film debut with a supporting part in Me, Natalie (Fred Coe, 1969) featuring Patty Duke. In 1970, Pacino signed with the talent agency Creative Management Associates (CMA). He gained favourable notice for his first lead role as a heroin addict in The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971). These first feature films made a little departure from the gritty realistic stage performances that earned him respect.

Then came the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). It was one of the most sought-after of the time: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro and a host of other actors either wanted it or were mentioned. Pacino was rejected repeatedly by studio heads for the role, but Francis Ford Coppola fought for him. Coppola was successful but Pacino was reportedly in constant fear of being fired during the very difficult shoot. Ironically, The Godfather (1972) was a monster hit that earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. It turned out to be the breakthrough for both Pacino and director Francis Ford Coppola.

French postcard by Travelling Editions, Paris, no. CP7. Photo: Al Pacino in Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, 1973).

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Al Pacino in Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, 1973).

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Al Pacino in Serpico (Sidney Lumet, 1973).

Three consecutive Oscar nominations

Instead of taking on easier projects for the big money after this success, Al Pacino threw his support behind what he considered tough but important films. In 1973, Pacino co-starred in Scarecrow (Jerry Schatzberg, 1973), with Gene Hackman, and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

He also starred in the true-life crime drama Serpico (Sidney Lumet, 1973) and the tragic real-life bank robbery film Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975). In between, he returned as Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), the first sequel ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. For these three films, Pacino was nominated three consecutive years for the Best Actor Academy Award.

In 1977, he won his second Tony Award as Best Actor (Play) for 'The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel' (1977). He faltered slightly with Bobby Deerfield (Sydney Pollack, 1977), but regained his stride with ...and justice for all. (Norman Jewison, 1979), for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Unfortunately, this would signal the beginning of a decline in his career, which produced flops like the controversial Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980), and the comedy-drama Author! Author! (Arthur Hiller, 1982), with Dyan Cannon and Tuesday Weld.

Pacino cemented his legendary status with his role as Cuban drug lord Tony Montana in the ultra-violent cult film Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983), with Michelle Pfeiffer and Steven Bauer. Keith Phipps at AllMovie: "Infinitely quotable and more than a little cartoonish, Brian De Palma's update of Howard Hawks' seminal gangster film revels in its freedom to be larger than life. A work as akin to pop art as any other form, it reworks the crime melodrama in bold, primary colors, mostly blood red. Attracting a great deal of attention for its violence at the time of its release, the controversy overshadowed the fact that everything in the film ran to extremes, including Pacino's performance, the director's visual style (which found him almost reverting to The Fury mode), the dialogue (from a script co-written by Oliver Stone), and most importantly the themes. "

Pedro Borges at IMDb: "a monumental mistake was about to follow. Revolution (Hugh Hudson, 1985) endured an endless and seemingly cursed shoot in which equipment was destroyed, the weather was terrible, and Pacino fell ill with pneumonia. Constant changes in the script further derailed the project. The Revolutionary War-themed film, considered among the worst films ever made, resulted in awful reviews and kept him off the screen for the next four years."

Returning to the stage, Pacino did much to give back and contribute to the theatre, which he considers his first love. He directed a film, The Local Stigmatic (1990), but it remains unreleased. He lifted his self-imposed exile playing a hard-drinking policeman in the striking Sea of Love (Harold Becker, 1989), with Ellen Barkin. This marked the second phase of Pacino's career, being the first to feature his now famous dark, owl eyes, and hoarse, gravelly voice.

Big postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. SPC9608. Photo: Universal Studios. Al Pacino in Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983).

Postcard, no. C120. Photo: poster for Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983). Collection: Daniël van der Aa.

French postcard. Photo: Universal Studios. Al Pacino in Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983).

Playing Satan

Returning to the Corleones, Al Pacino made The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) and earned raves for his first comedic role in the colourful adaptation Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, 1990). This earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and two years later he was nominated for Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley, 1992).

He went into romantic mode for Frankie and Johnny (Garry Marshall, 1991) with Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1992, he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his amazing performance as the blind U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman (Martin Brest, 1992). A mixture of technical perfection and charisma, the role was tailor-made for him and remains a classic.

The next few years would see Pacino becoming more comfortable with acting and films as a business, turning out great roles in great films with more frequency and less of the demanding personal involvement of his wilder days. Carlito's Way (Brian De Palma, 1993) with Sean Penn proved another gangster classic, as did the epic crime drama Heat (Michael Mann, 1995) co-starring Robert De Niro.

He directed the theatrical docudrama Looking for Richard (1996), a performance of selected scenes of William Shakespeare's 'Richard III' and a broader examination of Shakespeare's continuing role and relevance in popular culture. In Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell, 1997), Pacino played gangster 'Lefty' in the true story of undercover FBI agent Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp) and his work in bringing down the Mafia from the inside.

Pacino played Satan in the supernatural thriller The Devil's Advocate (Taylor Hackford, 1997) which co-starred Keanu Reeves. The film was a success at the box office, taking US$150 million worldwide. He also gave commanding performances in The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999) with Russell Crowe, and Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone, 1999) opposite Cameron Diaz.

Dutch postcard by Boomerang, Amsterdam. Photo: Al Pacino in Carlito's Way (Brian De Palma, 1993).

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Al Pacino co-starred with Hillary Swank and Robin Williams in the mystery thriller Insomnia (Christopher Nolan, 2002), a remake of the Norwegian film of the same name. Pacino starred as Shylock in Michael Radford's film adaptation of The Merchant of Venice (2004), choosing to bring compassion and depth to a character traditionally played as a villainous caricature.

In the 2000s, he starred in a number of theatrical blockbusters, including Ocean's Thirteen (Steven Soderbergh, 2007) with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but his choice in television roles like the vicious, closeted Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries Angels in America (Tony Kushner, 2003) and his sensitive portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, in the television film You Don't Know Jack (Barry Levinson, 2010), are reminiscent of the bolder choices of his early career. Each television project garnered him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.

Recently, Pacino starred alongside Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino's comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) and he co-starred with Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's Netflix film The Irishman (2019). He will play Meyer Offerman, a fictional Nazi hunter, in the Amazon Video series Hunters.

Never wed, Pacino has a daughter, Julie Marie, with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, and a set of twins with former longtime girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo. His romantic history includes Veruschka von Lehndorff, Jill Clayburgh, Debra Winger, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Carmen Cervera, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, Penelope Ann Miller, and a two-decade intermittent relationship with Godfather co-star Diane Keaton.

Since 2007, Al Pacino lives with Argentinian actress Lucila Solá, who is 36 years his junior. In 2007, the American Film Institute awarded Pacino with a lifetime achievement award.

Dutch collectors card in the series 'Filmsterren: een Portret' by Edito Service, 1993. Photo: Stars-Films. Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975).

American postcard by Fotofolio, New York, no. HR73. Photo: Herb Ritts. Caption: Al Pacino, New York City, 1992.

Sources: Keith Phipps (AllMovie), Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Yes, we have a guest post at EFSP. Today the floor is for my friend, collector Carla Bosch a.k.a. Meiter.

Carla: "Some time ago I told Paul I found some lovely cards in my magic attic. I was looking for other cards which I know must be there too, but instead, I found these. This often happens: when you search for one thing you will find another thing that has been lost a long time ago too. The cards I found were vintage black and white cards with filmstars wearing bathing suits. Paul immediately suggested I should make a list as the spring approaches and we are longing for some sun. I thought it would be a nice idea to pick some cards that are not on European Film Star Postcards, but this proved to be rather difficult. It is hard to find a card that is not on this site. However, I did find five cards that should have been on the EFSP site… I added a few cards of American filmstars. The site is moving towards a more worldwide approach and coverage, so this should not be a problem."

1. Martine Carol

Vintage postcard. Photo: Sam Lévin. Collection: Carla Bosch.

Carla: "French actress Martine Carol in a bikini with frills. I don’t think the bikini was meant to swim with. Many considered her a French Marilyn Monroe. I do not agree. Perhaps her personal problems: alcohol, drugs, a suicide attempt, and four marriages remind of Marilyn’s stormy life, but her appearance in swimwear cannot be compared with Marilyn."

2. Maria Alberghetti

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. S 173. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"A lovely card of Italian-American operatic singer and actress (Anna) Maria Alberghetti. She was compared to another Italian-born actress: Pier Angeli. Alberghetti, however, had a rather more successful career and personal life. I think she radiates this satisfaction with her life on this card. After the photoshoot, she rolls off her air mattress and goes for a swim."

3. Beatrice Altariba

Vintage postcard. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"French actress Beatrice Altariba. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of her beachwear. I suppose she wears a bathing suit or bikini beneath her long-sleeved sweater. Her hair is tucked in the collar and she wears shoes with high heels. Our (or, at least mine) attention is drawn to her legs. And yes, she has nice legs. (I read she was a model as well.) I think it is a wonderful card and perhaps that is all there is to it."

4. Brigitte Auber

Vintage postcard. Photo: Paramount. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"French actress Brigitte Auber. I am not sure whether it is a bathing suit Brigitte wears. It could be a dress and she pulls up the skirt. Or: she wears a bathing suit and has a large tablecloth across her legs. Anyway, Brigitte does show us her legs. On purpose."

5. Claudine Cereda

French postcard. Photo: Sam Lévin. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"On the card, it says this is “Cereda”. I searched the internet and have come to the conclusion this must be Claudine Cereda, a French singer and dancer. I don’t know anything about her. She does not wear a bathing suit in this picture. Instead, she wears a summer dress and shows us her legs. Just like Brigitte Auber. She radiates a kind of cheerfulness and it looks as if she is preparing to dance the can-can."

6. Colleen Miller

French postcard by P.I., Paris, no. 700. Photo: H.P.S. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"American actress Colleen Miller. On this card, Colleen wears a decent and practical bathing suit. I think she is standing in a studio with a tree trunk. Because of this bathing suit, I have the impression that Colleen is a nice, decent and practical girl as well. Of course, I could be wrong and she is a wild and unpredictable girl. This card, however, tells us something different."

7. Mitzi Gaynor

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 672. Photo: Paramount. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"American actress Mitzi Gaynor. Mitzi is wearing a bikini. She apparently is standing on a scaffolding, because we can see a boat behind her. But of course, we can never be sure. She is an actress, acting in movies in studios, and she can be standing in a studio for all we know. Yet, I like to think she is standing in the cold in her bikini on a scaffolding."

8. Ann Miller

Vintage postcard. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"American dancer, singer and actress Ann Miller wearing a bathing suit. This picture radiates a kind of 'lust for life'. Ann stands on her toes, arms back, in a posture as if she is going to dive into the water. She doesn’t mind the camera. Yet, she knew she was going to be photographed because she did not take off her jewelry. I doubt whether she would wear bracelets and earrings if she was planning to take a swim. Again in a studio?"

9. Jayne Mansfield

Vintage postcard. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"I like this card of American actress and pin-up Jayne Mansfield because it is rather different from what we are used to from Jayne. My guess is that this picture was taken when she was not yet world-famous. She is wearing a nice pair of shorts, a sweater with long sleeves and sandals which are partly hidden by fishing nets. My attention is drawn to her pretty face and her bare legs. On pictures that were published later (again: it is an assumption this is an early picture) my attention is usually drawn to her obvious bombshell appearance. On this card, Jayne is not a sex bomb yet."

10. Marilyn Monroe

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 507. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Collection: Carla Bosch.

"And of course, no list of mine is complete without Marilyn Monroe. As I said before, I do not have many vintage cards of Marilyn, but I cannot stop bragging about the few I do have. This is one of them. My English Marilyn-loving-friend gave it to me as a present a week ago. So I can immediately boast about it on this list and tell how much I love this card. Again Marilyn is an outstanding example of a nice and decent pin-up postcard. She is wearing a strapless bathing suit and is on the verge of throwing her towel away. I know it probably is not a towel, but every card must have a story. So a towel it is.

These were 10 bathing suit cards that will prepare us for the approaching spring. I am always struck by how nice these cards are. They are in no way vulgar or cheap. They all radiate a kind of optimism and happiness which seems to belong to these years, I think. They were meant to be 'pinned-up' on a wall. (Hence the term 'pin-up'.) I often think they could have been used for advertising bathing suits. Fun fact: female pin-ups were called 'cheesecake' in America. Male pin-ups were called 'beefcake'.

I was looking for a bunch of large 'Ross' photos when instead I found these cards. I am curious about what I will find next time I search for those 'Ross' photos."

Carla, thank you very much for this sunny post. For me, spring has arrived!

Today the second post on the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm' (From the becoming of German film art, the sound film) by Ross Verlag. The series treats the German sound film between 1929 and 1935. Some of the cards are smaller than postcards, others are bigger, and all are in black and white. The cards could be glued in an album, no 11. We don't have the complete series, far from, but still, our cards give a good view on the film production by the Ufa and the other German studios just before and after the rise of the Nazis. Today the number 50-100. The parts 3 and 4 of this series will follow next weekend.

Paula Wessely and Willi Forst in So endete eine Liebe (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 51. Photo: Cine-Allianz / Ross Verlag. Paula Wessely and Willi Forst in So endete eine Liebe/End of an Affair (Karl Hartl, 1934).

Maria Paudler and Harry Liedtke in Wenn am Sonntagabend die Dorfmusik spielt (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 53. Photo: Terra-Film / Ross Verlag. Maria Paudler and Harry Liedtke in Wenn am Sonntagabend die Dorfmusik spielt/When the Village Band Plays on a Sunday Evening (Charles Klein, 1933).

Anny Ondra and Mathias Wieman in Fraulein Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 55, group 44. Photo: Ondra-Lamac-Film / Ross Verlag. Anny Ondra and Mathias Wieman in Fraulein Hoffmanns Erzählungen/The Tales of Ms. Hoffmann (Karel Lamac, 1933).

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 56. Photo: Ondra-Lamac-Film / Ross Verlag. Anny Ondra in Klein Dorrit/Little Dorrit (Karel Lamac, 1934).

Fritz Rasp in Emil und die Detektive (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 58, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Fritz Rasp in Emil und die Detektive/Emil and the Detectives (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1931).

Lilian Harvey and Harry Liedtke in Nie wieder Liebe! (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 61. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Lilian Harvey and Harry Liedtke in Nie wieder Liebe!/No More Love (Anatole Litvak, 1931).

Hans Marr and Detlef Willecke in Wilhelm Tell (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 64. Photo: Terra-Film / Ross Verlag. Hans Marr as Wilhelm Tell and Detlef Willecke as his son Walter in Wilhelm Tell/The Legend of William Tell (Heinz Paul, 1934).

Paul Hörbiger and Ida Wüst in Des jungen Dessauers grosse Liebe (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 68, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Paul Hörbiger and Ida Wüst in Des jungen Dessauers grosse Liebe/The young Dessauer's great love (Arthur Robison, 1933).

Albrecht Schoenhals in a double role in Fürst Woronzeff (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 69. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Albrecht Schoenhals in a double role in Fürst Woronzeff/Prince Woronzeff (Arthur Robison, 1934).

Dorothea Wieck and Hertha Thiele in Mädchen in Uniform (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 71. Photo: Froelich-Film / Ross Verlag. Dorothea Wieck and Hertha Thiele in Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, 1931).

Emil Jannings and Renate Müller in Liebling der Götter (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 72, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Emil Jannings and Renate Müller in Liebling der Götter/Darling of the Gods (Hanns Schwarz, 1930).

Hans Albers, Karl Ettlinger and Heinz Rühmann in Bomben auf Monte Carlo (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 73. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Hans Albers, Karl Ettlinger and Heinz Rühmann in Bomben auf Monte Carlo/Bombs Over Monte Carlo (Hanns Schwarz, 1931).

Lien Deyers and Mathias Wieman in Rosenmontag (1930)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 75. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Lien Deyers and Mathias Wieman in Rosenmontag/Love's Carnival (Hans Steinhoff, 1930).

Brigitte Helm and Oskar Homolka in Im Geheimdienst (1931)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 79. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Brigitte Helm and Oskar Homolka in Im Geheimdienst/In the Employ of the Secret Service (Gustav Ucicky, 1931).

Käthe von Nagy and Viktor de Kowa in Der junge Baron Neuhaus (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 81, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Käthe von Nagy and Viktor de Kowa in Der junge Baron Neuhaus/Night in May (Gustav Ucicky, 1934).

Käthe von Nagy and Lola Chlud in Der junge Baron Neuhaus (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 82. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Lola Chlud and Käthe von Nagy in Der junge Baron Neuhaus/Night in May (Gustav Ucicky, 1934).

Karin Hardt in Acht Mädels im Boot (1932)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 83. Photo: Fanal-Terra-Produktion / Ross Verlag. Karin Hardt in Acht Mädels im Boot/Eight Girls in a Boat (Erich Waschneck, 1932).

Marianne Hoppe and Hans Schlenck in Heideschulmeister Uwe Karsten (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 85, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Marianne Hoppe and Hans Schlenck in Heideschulmeister Uwe Karsten/The Country Schoolmaster (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1933).

Gustav Fröhlich in Abenteuer eines jungen Herrn in Polen (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, image no. 87. Photo: Itala-Film / Ross Verlag. Gustav Fröhlich in Abenteuer eines jungen Herrn in Polen/Love and Alarum (Gustav Fröhlich, 1934).

Sybille Schmitz and Siegfried Schürenberg in Der Herr der Welt (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 89. Photo: Ariel-Film / Ross Verlag. Sybille Schmitz and Siegfried Schürenberg in Der Herr der Welt/Master of the World (Harry Piel, 1934).

Fritz Odemar and Harry Piel in Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 90. Photo: Ariel-Film / Ross Verlag. Fritz Odemar and Harry Piel in Ein Unsichtbarer geht durch die Stadt/An Invisible Man Goes Through the City (Harry Piel, 1934).

Renate Müller and Willy Fritsch in Saison in Kairo (1933)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 92. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Renate Müller and Willy Fritsch in Saison in Kairo/Cairo Season (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933).

Willy Fritsch and Käthe von Nagy in Die Töchter ihrer Exzellenz (1934)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 94. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Willy Fritsch and Käthe von Nagy in Die Töchter ihrer Exzellenz/The daughters of her excellence (Reinhold Schünzel, 1934).

Leni Riefenstahl in Das blaue Licht (1932)

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 98. Photo: Aafa / Ross Verlag. Leni Riefenstahl in Das blaue Licht/The blaue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932).

German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 99. Photo: Deutsche Universal-Film A.G. / Ross Verlag. Luis Trenker in Der Rebell/The Rebel (Curtis Bernhardt, Edwin H. Knopf, Luis Trenker, 1932).

To be continued.

Sebastian Koch (1962) is one of Germany s most multi-faceted and successful television and film actors. He is known for roles in the Academy Award-winning film The Lives of Others (2007), Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek/Black Book (2006), Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015), and as Otto Düring in the fifth season of the TV series Homeland (2015-2016). Recently, he could be seen in Werk ohne Autor/Never Look Away (2018) with Tom Schilling, and in the TV adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (2019) with John Turturro and Rupert Everett. Announced is the Canadian series Shadowplay (2020), in which he will star with Nina Hoss.

German autograph card. Photo: Ruth Kappus, München.

TV event of the year

Sebastian Koch was born in 1962 in Karlsruhe, West Germany. Koch grew up in Stuttgart with his single mother and temporarily lived in the orphanage where his mother worked.

He originally wanted to be a musician, but a production of the artistic director Claus Peymann influenced him in the late 1970s to change his career aspiration to become an actor. From 1982 to 1985, Koch studied acting at the renowned Otto-Falckenberg-Schule (Otto Falckenberg School) in Munich.

In addition to his cinematic work, he played a diversity of different roles on stage. Koch portrayed amongst other 'Peer Gynt' and Leonce in 'Leonce and Lena' at the municipal theatre of Darmstadt. At the Schiller Theater in Berlin, he played the character Roller in Schiller's 'Die Raüber' (The Robbers) and Orest in Goethe's 'Iphigenie auf Tauris'. A couple of years later, he took over the role of Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde's 'An Ideal Husband' at the playhouse Bochum under the direction of Armin Holz.

Koch had his first TV appearance in 1980 in the 77th episode of the Krimi series Derrick, followed by an episode in another popular Krimi series Tatort/Crime Scene (1986). He acted in numerous thrillers like Der Mann mit der Maske/The Man with the Mask (Peter Schulze-Rohr, 1994), Die brennende Schnecke/The Burning Snail (Thomas Stiller, 1996) and in Heinrich Breloer's two-piece Todesspiel/Dead Pool (1997), in which he portrayed the role of Andreas Baader. This role overnight changed his career.

Sebastian Koch won in 2002 the Adolf Grimme Award for two different films, a feat not achieved in over 30 years of German television. He won the award for the title role in Der Tanz mit dem Teufel - Die Entfuehrung des Richard Oetker/Dance with the Devil – The Kidnapping of Richard Oetker (Peter Keglevic, 2001), the story of the abduction of the heir to the Oetker fortune, and for his performance as the writer Klaus Mann in the three-part historical family drama Die Manns - Ein Jahrhundertroman/The Manns – A Novel of the Century (Heinrich Breloer, 2002), starring Armin Mueller-Stahl as Thomas Mann. The latter drama was furthermore distinguished as "TV event of the year" with the German Television Award, and Koch received the Bavarian TV Award for the same film.

German autograph card. Photo: Mathias Bothor.

German autograph card.

An extremely intense examination of German History

One of Sebastian Koch's first international productions was the historical drama Napoléon/Napoleon (Yves Simoneau, 2002), in which he appeared alongside Christian Clavier, Gérard Depardieu, John Malkovich and Isabella Rossellini. He also portrayed Rodolphe Löwenstein, the youthful lover of Catherine Deneuve in Princesse Marie/Marie und Freud (Benoît Jacquot, 2004).

Anke Zindler at IMDb: 'Koch' s continued choice of roles in his career have provided an extremely intense examination of many personalities and themes pertaining to German history.' He played Rudolf Höss in Costa-Gavras' Hochhuth adaptation Amen (2002). He appeared in The Tunnel (Roland Suso Richter, 2001), a made-for-television German film about the idea of going underground by digging a tunnel shortly after the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961, and in the historical drama Zwei Tage Hoffnung/Two Days of Hope (Peter Keglevic, 2003) about the strike in the GDR on 17 June 1953.

Koch appeared as Oberst Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg in Stauffenberg/Operation Valkryrie (Jo Baier, 2004) winner of the German Film Award; and as the Nazi architect Albert Speer in the TV mini series Speer und Er/Speer & Hitler: The Devil's Architect (Heinrich Breoler, 2005) - his third collaboration with director Heinrich Breoler, following Todesspiel/Dead Pool (1997) and Die Manns - Ein Jahrhundertroman/The Manns – A Novel of the Century (2002). He received for his latter performance the German TV Award.

In 2006, Sebastian Koch played his most famous role as GDR dramatist/playwright Georg Dreymann in the drama Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006) opposite Ulrich Mühe and Martine Gedeck. Dreyman was an East-German dissident who was spied on and monitored by the Stasi. The film received an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007 as well as the BAFTA Award, the César, and the German and European Film Award.

In Paul Verhoeven’s excellent film Zwartboek/Black Book (2006), Koch played a Nazi Officer in occupied Holland who falls in love with a Jewish member of the resistance (Carice van Houten). Black Book celebrated its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.

Koch appeared opposite Tim Roth in the international production of Jack London’s classic psychological adventure novel Sea Wolf (Mike Barker, 2008). He portrayed a lonely despot of both brutal cruelty and longing romance. The shooting of this two-parter based on Nigel Williams’ script took place in Halifax, Canada. The mini-series won the Directors Guild of Canada Award and Koch was nominated in 2010 for his role as Wolf Larsen for the international Emmy Award. In Manipulation (Pascal Verdosci, 2009), adapted from the novel 'Das Verhör des Harry Wind', Koch played a leading role opposite Klaus Maria Brandauer.

German promotion card for the audiobook Der Seewolf/The Sea-Wolf (2009), by Jack London, read by Sebastian Koch.

German autograph card. Photo: Thomas Leidig.

The first feature film to address the Nazis' euthanasia program

Sebastian Koch also starred in the English independent tragicomedy Albatross (Niall MacCormick, 2010), Unknown (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2010) with Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger, and he had a guest role alongside Eva Green and Joseph Fiennes in the TV series Camelot (2011). In 2011, Koch also appeared in the Czech production Ve Stinu/The Shadow of the Horse (David Ondricek, 2012), in which he played the leading role of the investigator Zenk, whose mission is to win through one personal rival and through the regime of communist Prague in the 1950s.

In Das Wochenende/The Weekend (Nina Grosse, 2012), Koch portrays an amnestied RAF terrorist (Jens Kessler), who has a reunion with his old mates. In the same year, Koch made the Greek-Russian drama film O Theos agapaei to haviari/God Loves Caviar (Yannis Smaragdis, 2012), based upon the true story of Ioannis Varvakis, played by Koch, a former pirate who moved up to being a Greek caviar merchant and eventual benefactor from Psara. The international cast also included Catherine Deneuve as Catherine the Great of Russia and John Cleese as Officer McCormick.

Furthermore, Koch played the title role in the thriller Suspension of Disbelief (Mike Figgis, 2012) with Lotte Verbeek, and was Bruce Willis’ Russian antagonist in A Good Day to Die Hard (John Moore, 2013), part 5 of the Die Hard films. Ridley Scott directed him in The Vatican (2013), a pilot episode for a Showtime series about intrigues concerning the Pope and mysteries and secrets within the Catholic Church. Koch played the role of the Vatican’s secretary Cardinal Marco Malerba, who is one of the true potentates of the inner circle.

Sebastian Koch portrayed Alfred Nobel in Bertha von Suttner und Alfred Nobel - Eine Liebe für den Frieden/Madame Nobel (Urs Egger, 2014). In the French production Au nom de ma fille/Kalinka (Vincent Garenq, 2016), based on a true story, Koch played Dieter Krombach, a German doctor who is accused of murdering his stepdaughter by her biological French father (Daniel Auteuil). The case had spanned 30 years and has caused considerable publicity because of the issues of French-German relations and vigilante justice it raised.

Koch was also part of Steven Spielberg’s historical dramatic thriller Bridge of Spies (2015) starring Tom Hanks, about the negotiations of the release of spies between the East and West. He also appeared in the biographical romantic drama The Danish Girl (Tom Hooper, 2015), about one of the first known recipients of sex reassignment surgery, starring Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander. Nebel im August/Fog in August (Kai Wessel, 2016) is the first feature film to address the Nazis' euthanasia program and the hospital's staunch Nazi chief physician Werner Veithausen's (played by Koch) way of dealing with the issue.

Koch appeared in the fifth season of the TV series Homeland (2015-2016) about bipolar CIA Officer Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes). Recently he could be seen in Werk ohne Autor/Never Look Away (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2018) with Tom Schilling, and in the Television adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose (Giacomo Battiato, 2019) with John Turturro and Rupert Everett. Announced is the Canadian series Shadowplay (Måns Mårlind, Björn Stein, 2020), in which he will star with Nina Hoss.

Sebastian Koch dated Carice van Houten from 2006 till 2009. He had met her on the set of Zwartboek/Black Book (2006). Koch lives in Berlin and has a daughter, Paulina.

Trailer Das Leben der Anderen (2006). Source: Sebastian Koch Fans (YouTube).

Official trailer Black Book (2006). Source: Sony Pictures Classics (YouTube).

Official US Trailer Werk ohne Autor/Never Look Away (2018). Source: Sony Pictures Classics (YouTube).

Sources: Anke Zindler (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Yesterday, 23 March 2020, Italian actress Lucia Bosé passed away in Brieva, Spain. She died of pneumonia caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19). Bosé was famous for her films from the 1950s with a.o. Giuseppe De Santis and Michelangelo Antonioni. In the same years and after, she also worked with other famous directors such as Juan Bardem, Luis Buñuel, the Taviani brothers, Liliane Cavani, Francesco Rosi, and Ferzan Özpetek. Lucia Bosé was 89.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 270.

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini Editori, Firenze, no. 2528. Photo: Minerva Film.

Miss Italy

Lucia Bosè was born Lucia Borloni in Milan, Italy in 1931. She came from a peasant and working-class family and began to work at the age of twelve years. First, she was a messenger for a law firm, later a clerk in Milan's fine pastry shop Galli.

In 1947 she participated in the first Miss Italy pageant, where she was able to win against competitors like Gianna Maria Canale, Eleonora Rossi Drago, and Gina Lollobrigida.

Giuseppe De Santis had preferred Silvana Mangano for Riso amaro/Bitter Rice (1949), but he chose Bosè for his next film, Non c'è pace tra gli ulivi/No peace among the olive trees (Giuseppe De Santis, 1950), a typical Neorealist film about a poor shepherd (Raf Vallone) who tries steal back his sheep stolen from him while he was at war.

In the same year, Bosé starred opposite Massimo Girotti in the well-to-do set, modernist crime story and drama Cronaca di un amore/Story of a love affair (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950). It was Antonioni's first full-length feature film, about an adulterous couple plotting to kill her husband.

Numerous screen engagements followed. Antonioni cast her again in La signora senza camelie/The Lady Without Camelias (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953) about a newly discovered starlet and her experiences in the Italian cinema. Juan Bardem cast her in Muerte di un ciclista/Death of a Cyclist (1955) about an adulterous couple that runs over a cyclist and leaves him to die. Bosé also acted in Francesco Maselli's debut Gli sbandati/The Abandoned (1955) and Luis Buñuel's Cela s'appelle l'aurore/That Is the Dawn (1956).

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 295.

Italian postcard by Italfoto, no. 162.

Bullfighter

In 1955, Lucia Bosè married Luis Miguel Dominguín, a popular Spanish bullfighter and occasional actor. From the marriage, which ended in divorce in 1967, sprang three children, two of whom - Paola Dominguin and Miguel Bosé - are also active as actors. Luchino Visconti was godfather to her son Miguel, Pablo Picasso to her daughter Paola.

At the time, Lucia Bosè lived in Spain and put her career on halt, except for a sporadic appearance in Le testament d'Orphée/Testament of Orpheus (Jean Cocteau, 1959).

In 1968, Bosé returned to film acting after almost a ten-year break and worked first in Spain and afterward in Italy. There she worked among others in Federico Fellini's Satyricon (1969), the Taviani Brothers'Sotto il segno dello scorpione/Under the Sign of Scorpio (1969), and Liliana Cavani's L'ospite/The Guest (1972).

Other interesting films with her were Nathalie Granger (Marguerite Duras, 1972), Lumière (Jeanne Moreau, 1976), and Violanta (Daniel Schmid, 1977).

After 1978, she acted significantly less but remained active, also on television. She had memorable film performances in Cronaca di una morte annunciata/Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Francesco Rosi, 1987) starring Rupert Everett, El niño de la Luna/Moon Child (Agustí Villaronga, 1989), Harem suaré/Harem (Ferzan Özpetek, 1999) and I vicerè/The Viceroy (Roberto Faenza, 2007).

Her last screen appearance was in Alfonsina y el mar/One more time (Pablo Benedetti, David Sordella, 2013), as an 80-year-old actress who returns to the small Chilean town of her youth to fulfill her father's dream of creating a TV channel in a place which has never known television.

Italian postcard by Italfoto, Terni. Photo: Vedeo.

Italian postcard in the series 'Divi del Cinema' by Vetta Traldi, Milano, no. 7.

Spanish collectors card by Tarjetas Florita, no. 102. The cards were included with the magazine Revista Florita.

Sources: Wikipedia (German, English, and Italian) and IMDb.

Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris/Apaches of Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927) was a French silent crime drama, supervised by maestro Marcel L'Herbier. His protege Jaque Catelain plays a young street gangster, who is torn between a good and a bad woman. The French press labelled these criminals in Paris 'Apaches' because of their savage violence. They became a fad, especially after the Apache dance conquered the world.

Jaque Catelain and Ruth Weyer in Paname...n'est pas Paris (1927)

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 543. Photo: Jaque Catelain and Ruth Weyerin Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927).

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 528. Photo: Charles Vanel in Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927). Signed by Vanel at 25 April 1930.

Lia Eibenschutz in Paname...n'est pas Paris (1927)

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 527. Lia Eibenschutz in Paname...n'est pas Paris/ Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927).

A fire in the editing room

In Paname...n'est pas Paris/ Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927), Jaque Catelain plays the young Milord who is part of a gang of criminals as well as his companion, Mama Savonette (Ruth Weyher).

Milord is under the spell of Winnie Rowlandson (Lia Eibenschütz) and hesitates to steal her bracelet. He plans to make amends, but becoming an honest boy is more difficult than Milord supposes...

The cast was a mix of French and German actors. Mylord's opponent, the Apache Bécot, was played by the great Charles Vanel. Other actors were the Frenchman Bondy, and from Germany Olga Limburg and Jakob Tiedtke.

Director of the film was the Russian director Nikolai Malikoff, assisted by Georges Lampin. The famous French director Marcel L'Herbier was the producer supervisor. The film's art direction was done by the later film director Claude Autant-Lara and Vladimir Meingard.

The Franco-German co-production, by L'Alliance Cinématographique Européenne (ACE) and the Ufa, had a difficult production history. According to Cinémagazine, a fire broke out on Thursday 31 July 1927 in the editing room of the G. M. Film factory in Billancourt, where the film was being developed.

At the time of the fire, the film had just been finished. The producers decided to re-shoot the film completely. The German premiere took place on 17 December 1927 in Berlin at the Gloria-Palast cinema. The French premiere was on 17 February 1928.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 525. Signed by Jaque Catelain in 1929.

Ruth Weyher in Die Apachen von Paris (1927)

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 526. Ruth Weyher in Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1805/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

Paname and the Apaches

'Paname' is the 'argot' (slang) name for Paris and its suburbs. But there is a difference between the two. Paname is the hidden Paris, the dark and dangerous Paris of the criminals and the prostitutes. During the First World War, the term took off and was used in songs.

'Apache' literally refers to the Native American Apache tribe, but had the additional meaning in French of a Paris street gangster. After a particularly heinous crime in 1902, the newspaper reporter Authur Dupin wrote the headline "Crime Committed by the Apaches of Belleville," referring to the perceived savagery of the American Indians described in James Fenimore Cooper novels, popular at that time. The French pronounce it "a-PAHSH", and the term stuck.

In 1900, the name was also taken up by a group of young artists including the composers Claude Debussy, Manuel de Falla, and Maurice Ravel. Inadvertently they bumped once into a newspaper seller who exclaimed "Attention les apaches". They soon adapted the name, which Ravel suggested that they adopt the first melody of Borodin's 2nd Symphony as their theme, an idea with which they all agreed. The group met each Saturday and rallied around Claude Debussy's opera 'Pelléas et Mélisande' at and after its controversial premiere.

The young Apaches of Montmartre, Belleville and the Barrières swaggered with an arrogant pride, dressed distinctively and were handy with a knife. In 1908, American dancer Maurice Mouvet and French actor and dancer Max Dearly began to visit the low bars frequented by Apaches in a search for inspiration for new dances. They formulated the new dance from moves seen there and gave to it the name Apache, according to Wikipedia and other sources. Max Dearly first performed it in 1908 in Paris at the Ambassadeurs and Maurice in Ostend at the Kursaal. A short while later, in the summer of 1908, Maurice and his partner Leona performed the dance at Maxim's, and Max Dearly made an even bigger impact with it, partnered with Mistinguett, in the Moulin Rouge show, 'La Revue du Moulin'.

However, Mistinguett later claimed that she had invented the Apache dance. Who was right? Dance historian Richard Powers wrote an interesting article about the history of the Apache dance. Powers: "with a Mr. Paulo as her partner, Mistinguett took the low-class hugging a step further, and invented 'The Cake Walk of the Barrières', which was a mock fight-as-dance between a hooligan from the low-class Barrières, and his woman. This new dance was described, with photos, in the same 1903 issue of Paris qui Chante. The illustrations show the street thug violently threatening the woman, and pulling her by her hair. The article described the dance as "vulgar and amazing at the same time." Like her 'Cake-Walk Parisien', this mock battle was an entertainment, a fiction. Mistinguett never stated that there was any prototype of men choreographically abusing women in reality. This dance also went by another name, 'La Valse Chaloupee', or 'Swaying Waltz', and later as 'La danse du Pavé', 'Danse Apache' and 'Valse Apache'."

So Mistinguett created the Apache dance, five years before she partnered Max Dearly at the Moulin Rouge. The Apache dance reenacts a violent 'discussion' between an Apache, a pimp and a gigolette, a young prostitute. It includes mock slaps and punches, the man picking up and throwing the woman to the ground, or lifting and carrying her while she struggles or feigns unconsciousness. Thus, the dance shares many features with the theatrical discipline of stage combat. In some versions of the dance, the woman may fight back. The Apache remained a popular cabaret act through the 1960s.

The Apaches also figured in early French films, such as in Georges Mélies' short comedy Les Apaches (1904). The famous French film serial Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915) about the Apache gang called 'Les Vampires' contains a number of Apache dance scenes. A notable detail is that during a part of the waltz the man holds firmly onto the woman's hair, rather than her body. Apache dances also figured in many international films. And in Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927).

Mistinguett and Max Dearly. French postcard by F.C. & Cie, no. 283. Photo: Boyer & Bert. Collection: Didier Hanson.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 528. Photo: Charles Vanel in Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927).

Excerpt from Paname...n'est pas Paris/Die Apachen von Paris (Nikolai Malikoff, 1927). Source: Maximilian Guth (YouTube).

Sources: Richard Powers (The hidden story of the Apache dance), Wikipedia (English and English) and IMDb.

Helga Piur (1939), is a German actress and voice actress, who was very popular in the GDR thanks to her TV roles. She also appeared in DEFA films of the 1960s and 1970s. And she gave Brigitte Bardot her voice in synchronised films.

Helga Piur in Wo der Zug nicht lange hält (1960)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1221, 1959. Photo: DEFA / Neufeld. Helga Piur in Wo der Zug nicht lange hält/Where the train does not stop long (Joachim Hassler, 1960).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1400, 1961. Photo: Jadke.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2393, 1965. Photo: DEWAG / Herbst.

Das Stacheltier

Helga Piur was born in 1939 in Berlin. She was the youngest of six children. At the age of five, her mother died. Helga grew up with her father's sister and her husband.

As a child Helga sang in the radio children's choir. She later acted for a lay playgroup and was a secretary at the Dietz publishing house in Berlin. Several applications at the drama school failed. Therefore, she took private lessons with actor Eduard von Winterstein.

Since 1959, she regularly appeared on German television. First, she acted mainly in children's programs. She portrayed such popular characters as the doll Edelgard or Bastelinchen in programs such as Unser Sandmännchen/Our Sandman (1959), Bahnhof Puppenstadt/Station Puppet City or Treff mit Petra. Piur was also quickly cast in TV comedies and thrillers.

From the early 1960s, she is also engaged by the DEFA for some films, including the love story Wo der Zug nicht lange hält/Where the train does not stop long (Joachim Hassler, 1960) with Stefan Lisewski, and the musical Das Stacheltier - Der Dieb von San Marengo/The Stinging Animal - The Thief of San Marengo (Günter Reisch, 1963) with Horst Drinda. Das Stacheltier was a satirical series of short films that was produced in East Germany by the DEFA Film Studios from 1953 to 1964.

Over the next two decades, she appeared in a variety of roles in a wide variety of film genres. She was also active as a voice actress and performed for the radio.

East-German postcard by VEB Bild und Heimat Reichenbach I.V., no. G 6163, 1963. Photo: DDR Deutscher Fernsehfunk / Denger, 1963.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vetrieb, Berlin, no. 2.673, 1966. Photo: DEWAG / Herbst.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vetrieb, Berlin, no. 27/49, 1967. Photo: DEWAG / Herbst.

A superstar in the GDR

From 1967 to 1982 Helga Piur was heard as Brigitte Neumann in most of the 678 episodes of the popular radio drama series Neumann, zweimal klingeln/Neumann, ring twice on Radio DDR I.

Her films in this period included Orpheus in der Unterwelt/Orpheus in the underworld (Horst Bonnet, 1974) with Dorit Gäbler and Rolf Hoppe.

Piur became a superstar in the GDR with the television series Zahn um Zahn/Tooth for a Tooth (1985-1988), where she portrayed the receptionist Victoria Happmeyer, called Häppchen, on the side of Alfred Struwe as the Berlin-based dentist Dr. Alexander Wittkuge.

Since 1988 Piur belonged to the permanent ensemble of the DFF, which ended however in 1991. Nevertheless, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989-1990, she was often seen on television and is particularly dedicated to synchronisation work.

In the GDR, Piur was often awarded. She gave Brigitte Bardot her voice in synchronised films. Helga Piur was married to the actor Gert Andreae until his death in 1972. In 1974 she married the writer and director Günter Stahnke, with whom she was married until his death in 2018. She often appeared in his TV-films.

Helga Piur lives in Fredersdorf. She has a daughter. In 2009 her book 'Ein Häppchen von mir' (A Slice of Me) appeared. The title refers to her her most popular role, Victoria 'Häppchen' Happmeyer, in Zahn um Zahn/Tooth for a Tooth (1985-1988).

Helga Piur in Orpheus in der Unterwelt (1974)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 161/73, 1973. Photo: DEFA. Helga Piur in Orpheus in der Unterwelt/Orpheus in the underworld (Horst Bonnet, 1974).

German autograph card, sponsored by Elisen Park, Greifswald and OZ Ostesee-Zeitung.

Sources: DEFA Stiftung (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

British actor Henry Wilcoxon (1905-1984) was best known as a leading man in Cleopatra (1934) and many others of Cecil B. DeMille's films. He also served as DeMille's associate producer on his later films.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 963. Photo: Paramount. Henry Wilcoxon in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).

British Real Photograph postcard, no. 110. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Ill from malnutrition and neglect

Harry Frederick Wilcoxon was born on 8 September 1905 in Roseau, Dominica, British West Indies. His father was English-born Robert Stanley 'Tan' Wilcoxon, manager of the Colonial Bank in Jamaica and his mother, Lurline Mignonette Nunes, was a Jamaican amateur theatre actress, descendant of a wealthy Spanish merchant family. His older brother was Robert 'Owen' Wilcoxon.

Henry had a difficult childhood. His mother disappeared suddenly and mysteriously when he was about a year old, and his father took him and Owen to England with the intention that his own mother Ann would take care of them. But, because his mother was too frail to care for the children, they were first sent to a foster home, where they became ill from malnutrition and neglect and they were moved on to an orphanage. There, Harry suffered from rickets, and Owen developed a stutter and had epileptic fits. They were rescued from the orphanage to a new foster home.

After several years Harry's father 'Tan', with his new wife Rosamond took the children home with them to Bridgetown, Barbados, where they were educated. Harry and Owen became known as 'Biff' and 'Bang' due to their fighting skills gained in amateur boxing. After completing his education, Wilcoxon was employed by Joseph Rank, the father of J. Arthur Rank, before working for Bond Street tailors Pope and Bradshaw. While working for the tailors, Wilcoxon applied for a visa to work as a chauffeur in the United States, but upon seeing his application refused, turned to boxing and then to acting.

His first stage performance was a supporting role in an adaptation of the novel 'The 100th Chance', by Ethel M. Dell, in 1927 at Blackpool. Wilcoxon joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre the next year and toured for several years.

He found critical success playing Captain Cook in a production of Rudolph Besier's 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street' at the London Queen's Theatre alongside Cedric Hardwicke. In 1932, He played at the Queen's Theatre in Sir Barry Jackson's production of Beverley Nichols' novel 'Evensong' alongside Edith Evans.

Claudette Colbert and Henry Wilcoxon in Cleopatra (1934)

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount. Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra and Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount. Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).

The man-hungry Queen of Egypt

In 1931, Harry Wilcoxon made his screen debut as Larry Tindale in The Perfect Lady (Frederick J. Jackson, Milton Rosmer, 1931), followed by a role opposite Heather Angel in Self Made Lady (George King, 1932), alongside Louis Hayward. In 1932, he appeared in The Flying Squad (F.W. Kraemer, 1932), a sound remake of a 1929 silent film based on the novel by Edgar Wallace. Altogether he made eight films in Britain till 1934.

In 1933, a talent scout for Paramount Pictures arranged a screen test which came to the attention of producer-director Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood. He cast Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934) opposite Claudette Colbertas the man-hungry Queen of Egypt. Harry was renamed by DeMille for the role and from then on he was Henry Wilcoxon.

He was next given the lead role of Richard the Lionhearted in DeMille's big-budget spectacle The Crusades (Cecil B. DeMille, 1935) opposite Loretta Young. That film, however, was a financial failure, losing more than $700,000. After the lack of success of The Crusades, Wilcoxon's career stalled. He starred in a number of B-films, like The President's Mystery (Phil Rosen, 1936) and Prison Nurse (James Cruze, 1938) for Republic Pictures, and he portrayed the supporting role of Maj. Duncan Heyward in the commercially successful Last of the Mohicans (George B. Seitz, 1936) starring Randolph Scott.

Wilcoxon himself called 'his worst acting job'Mysterious Mr. Moto (Norman Foster, 1938) featuring Peter Lorre. That year, he also played in If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) with Ronald Colman, and featured in Five of a Kind (Herbert I. Leeds, 1938) with the Dionne quintuplets. In Great Britain, Wilcoxon appeared as Captain Hardy in Lady Hamilton (Alexander Korda, 1941), alongside Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh.

When America entered the World War II in December 1941, Wilcoxon enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. He served with the Coast Guard until 1946, gaining the rank of Lieutenant. During his period of service, he had three films released in 1942, among them Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942), which received considerable public acclaim, as well as six Academy Awards. Wilcoxon, in his role as the vicar, re-wrote the key sermon with director William Wyler. The speech made such an impact that it was used in essence by President Roosevelt as a morale builder.

Upon his return from war service, Wilcoxon picked up with Cecil B. DeMille with Unconquered (Cecil B. DeMille, 1947), starring Gary Cooper. After starring as Sir Lancelot in the musical version of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Tay Garnett, 1949) with Bing Crosby in the title role, he featured in DeMille's Samson and Delilah (Cecil B. DeMille, 1949).

Wilcoxon returned to England to feature in The Miniver Story (H.C. Potter, 1950), a sequel to the multi-Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942) in which he reprised his role as the vicar opposite Greer Garson. In the late 1940s, young actors and actresses came to Wilcoxon and wife Joan Woodbury and asked them to form a play-reading group which in 1951 became the Wilcoxon Players.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 961. Photo: Paramount. Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Anthony and Gertrude Michael as Caesar's wife Calpurnia in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 962. Photo: Paramount. Claudette Colbert and Henry Wilcoxon in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).

The World's Greatest Showman

Henry Wilcoxon played a small but important part as FBI Agent Gregory in DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952), on which he also served as Associate Producer. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1952. He also acted as associate producer on, and acted as Pentaur, the pharaoh's captain of the guards, in DeMille's remake of his own The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956).

Wilcoxon was sole producer on The Buccaneer (Anthony Quinn, 1958), a remake of DeMille's 1938 effort, which DeMille only supervised due to his declining health while his then son-in-law Anthony Quinn directed. After DeMille died, Wilcoxon worked on a film based on the life of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, which DeMille had left unrealised, and was also ultimately abandoned.

After a relatively inactive period, Wilcoxon appeared with Charlton Heston in The War Lord (Franklin Schaffner, 1965). He was co-producer on the TV tribute The World's Greatest Showman: The Legend of Cecil B. DeMille (1963). At the opening of the DeMille Theatre in New York, he produced another short film.

In the last two decades of his life, he worked sporadically and accepted minor acting roles in TV shows including The Big Valley (1965), I Spy (1966), It Takes a Thief (1968), Gunsmoke (1970), Lassie (1973), Cagney & Lacey (1982), and Private Benjamin (1982). He also appeared in a few films films like F.I.S.T (Norman Jewison, 1978), starring Sylvester Stallone.

He had a memorable turn as the golf-obsessed Bishop Pickering, struck by lightning, in the slapstick comedy Caddyshack (Harold Ramis, 1980) with Bill Murray as his caddy. His final film was Sweet Sixteen - Blutiges Inferno (Jim Sotos, 1983).

By loaning money from his early film acting, Wilcoxon assisted his brother Owen to establish himself in 1931 as a partner in the Vale Motor Company in London, and for a short time he showed a personal interest in the development of their sports car, the Vale Special.

At that time his girlfriend was a London-based American stage actress Carol Goodner. Wilcoxon married 19-year-old actress Sheila Garrett in 1936, but they divorced a year later. In 1938 he married his second wife, 23-years-old actress Joan Woodbury. They had three daughters: Wendy Joan Robert Wilcoxon (born 1939), Heather Ann Wilcoxon (1947) and Cecilia Dawn 'CiCi' Wilcoxon (1950). The couple divorced in 1969. Henry Wilcoxon passed away in 1984 in Los Angeles. He was 78 years old and had been ill with cancer.

British postcard in the Colourgraph Series, no. C248. Photo: Paramount. Henry Wilcoxon as King Richard in the period piece The Crusades (Cecil B. DeMille, 1935).

British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 863. Photo: Paramount.

Sources: The New York Times, The Scott Rollins Film and TV Trivia Blog, Wikipedia and IMDb.

The use of mirrors has become established in films. It developed as a device in the European silent cinema in the 1910s to distinguish the new medium from theatre and to connect film more with painting. When mirrors are used for visual dialogues between off-screen and on-screen characters and for creating excitement and voyeurism in silent films, the offscreen other often enters the frame, although the central character does not. It then developed both in the regular and in the avant-garde cinema in the 1920s and early 1930s, particularly in Germany in the films by F.W. Murnau, G.W. Pabst, and Fritz Lang, but also in the French avant-garde films, especially in the films by Jean Cocteau. For this post, Ivo Blom selected postcards in which the mirror is an important and intriguing device in the picture.

Pola Negri in Die Augen der Mumie Ma (1918)

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2835. Photo: Union. Pola Negri in Die Augen der Mumie Ma/The Eyes of the Mummy (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Polish film actress Pola Negri (1894-1987) achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films between 1910s and 1930s.

Alexander Moissi in Der Ring der drei Wünsche

German postcard in the Film-Sterne sewries by Rotophot, no. 537/3. Photo: Amboss-Film, Dworsky Co. Alexander Moissi and Ria Jende in Der Ring der drei Wünsche (Arthur Wellin, 1918).

Albanian-Austrian Alexander Moissi (1879-1935) was one of the great European stage actors of the early-20th century. The attractive and charismatic women's idol also appeared in several silent and early sound films. German-Belgian actress Ria Jende (1898-?) was a star and producer of the silent German cinema. She appeared in 40 films before she married and retired.

Italian postcard by Vettori, Bologna, no. 1057. Photo: Zambini, Parma.

Alda Borelli (1879-1964) was an Italian stage and screen actress, who peaked on stage in the 1920s, and also acted in a handful of silent films in the 1910s. She was the sister of Italian film diva Lyda Borelli.

German postcard by Verlag Ross, no. 289/1. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

German postcard by Verlag Ross, no. 289/2. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

German postcard by Verlag Ross, no. 289/3. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

'Modern' American actress Fern Andra (1893-1974) became one of the most popular film stars of the German cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. In her films she mastered tight roping, riding a horse without a saddle, driving cars and motorcycles, bobsleighing, and even boxing.

French postcard by Les Cinématographes Méric. Ausonia (Mario Guaita) in the French silent film La course à l'amour (Paul Barlatier, Charles Keppens, 1924).

Athletic muscleman Mario Guaita aka Ausonia (1881-1956) was an Italian actor, director, producer and scriptwriter in the silent era. He had his international breakthrough with Spartaco (Enrico Vidali 1913) and became a major actor in the Italian forzuto genre. In the early 1920s he moved to Marseille, made a few films there and ran a cinema.

The woman and her reflection

Of course, mirrors are often typical elements of film sets. People dress in front of mirrors, check their faces and clothes, comb their hair, shave, and apply or remove makeup.

But mirrors can also be used in narrative and metaphorical ways, such as emphasising a character’s introspection, showing his or her guilt or desire, providing passages to other worlds, and calling ghosts from the past or intimations of the future.

Mirrors embody a filmmaker’s preference for a more synthetic approach with deep staging and lengthy shots instead of analytical editing that fragments scenes and actors into several shots.

They also suggest that the film space does not stop at the frame’s borders, through incorporating off-screen space and off-screen characters. They add a dimension to the filmic space, showing parts that otherwise would remain hidden; they break the stage’s traditional fourth wall.

The woman and her reflection was a favourite motif in many films. These images were disseminated through postcards and illustrations in trade papers and fan magazines. They conveyed a positive, even seductive, image of a self-possessed woman who looks in the mirror or at the viewer, with the mirror often doubling or tripling the view by revealing her face, figure or legs.

Mirrors also emphasized the opulence of the setting as an asset; large mirrors were associated with luxurious decors. Theatrical promotions that placed actors in front of mirrors were also a popular motif.

Thus, in the twenties, the French magazine Comoedia issued a large series of postcards with stage actors photographed in their locker rooms entitled, ‘Nos artistes dans leur loge’. Invariably, the dressing room mirror was used to double the image - but also the status - of the actor or actress.

Luchino Visconti uses mirrors not only to show people confronting their inner selves but also other people. Someone stands onscreen, the other offscreen but appears onscreen through his or her reflection, talking to the on-screen character. Since characters talk to each other without the classical device of analytical editing (in which the camera alternates between characters and shows them in separate, closer shots), this alternative can be considered as a kind of interior editing: the unity of time, place, and action is maintained. We have a synthetic, rather than analytical, structure reminiscent of the theatre.

French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 98. Photo: Comoedia.

Camille Bos (born 1899) was a French ballet dancer. At the age of 10 (other sources say: 8), she entered the ballet school of the Paris Opera. In 1920 she was named 'première danseuse', and in 1925 she was promoted to 'danseuse étoile/ star dancer'. Bos participated in numerous performances e.g. 'Siang-Sin' (1927), 'L'écran des jeunes filles' (1929), 'La Grisi' (choreography by Albert d'Aveline, 1935), etc. Her partners were among the famous ones of those decades such as Serge Peretti and Serge Lifar with whom she danced in 'Le Spectre de la Rose' (1931) by Michel Fokine. At the age of 36 she stopped dancing to dedicate herself to teaching. For 12 years she taught at the Opéra de Paris. Her only known film performance was as a dancer in the Zola adaptation Nantas (Donatien, 1925) starring Donatien, Lucienne Legrand, and Maxime Desjardins. In 1935 she was recorded for an early television experiment.

French postcard in the Series Nos artistes dans leur loge, no. 104. Photo: Comoedia.

Mary-Hett (?-?) was a French actress and operetta singer. Already around 1900, Mary Hett aka Mary-Hett was a popular Parisian café-concert singer and would remain so for decades.

French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series by Editions La Fayette, Paris, no. 140. Photo: Comoedia.

Max Dearly (1874-1943) was a French actor, famous for his parts in 1930s French sound film but also for his previous career in Parisian vaudeville.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1361/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

Elegant German actress Claire Rommer(1904-1996) appeared in about 50 German film productions during the 1920s and the early 1930s. Her successful career suddenly ended with the seizure of power by the Nazis.

Latvian postcard by IRA, Riga, no. 2354. Rolf Wanka is misspelled as 'Ralf Wanka'. The lady in the reflection seems Martha Eggerth, so this could be for the film Die ganze Welt dreht sich um Liebe (Viktor Tourjansky, 1935), in which both starred.

Austrian actor Rolf Wanka (1901-1982) was a handsome, suave star of the European cinema of the 1930s and the 1950s. He often played supporting parts as well-dressed, dignified gentlemen, and appeared in more than 100 films and television shows between 1931 and 1976.

Thomas Milian & Romy Schneider in Boccaccio 70

Publicity still used in Germany, distributed by Rank, mark of the German censor FSK. Thomas Milian& Romy Schneider in Luchino Visconti's episode Il Lavoro in the episode film Boccaccio 70 (1962).

Milian plays a bored aristocrat, caught in a scandal with callgirls. Schneider plays his rich and equally bored Austrian wife, who tries to seduce her husband and make him pay for love just like he did with his callgirls. It works but leaves the woman with bitterness. The set of the film was terribly costly because of all the authentic, valuable objects present.

Via Saraceno, Ferrare, Italy. Photo: Paul van Yperen.

In this street, scenes of Luchino Visconti's film debut Ossessione (1942) were filmed.

German postcard by Salz und Silber Verlag. Photo: Simon Annand. Caption: Orlando Bloom, Duke of York's Theatre, Celebration, 2007.

English actor Orlando Bloom (1977) made his breakthrough as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings film series and rose to fame as Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. He established himself as a leading man in Hollywood with roles such as Paris in Troy (2004) and Balian de Ibelin in Kingdom of Heaven (2005). He later reprised his role as Legolas in The Hobbit film series and currently stars in the series Carnival Row (2019–present).

Source: Ivo Blom, Reframing Luchino Visconti: Film and Art (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2018).