European Film Star Postcards

American singer and actor Dick Powell (1904-1963) was also a film producer, film director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a juvenile lead in the Warner backstage musicals, Powell showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man in Film Noirs. He was the first actor to portray the private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.

British Real Photograph postcard, no. 86a. Photo: Warner Bros and Vitaphone Pictures.

British postcard. Photo: First National Pictures.

British Real Photograph postcard, no. 86.B. Photo: Warner Bros and Vitaphone Pictures. Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944).

A boyish crooner

Richard Ewing Powell was born in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson. He was one of three brothers. His brothers were Luther and Howard Powell, who ended up as vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad.

The family moved to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with local orchestras and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College before he started his entertainment career as a singer and banjo player with the Royal Peacock Band. He then got a gig with the Charlie Davis band and toured with them throughout the mid-west, appearing at dance halls and picture theatres.

In 1925, he married Mildred Maund, a model, but she found being married to an entertainer, not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas, and the couple divorced in 1932.

He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own, for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s. Powell moved to Pittsburgh, where he found great local success as the Master of Ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater. In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records, which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Dick Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932.

He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event (Roy Del Ruth, 1932) with Lee Tracy and Mary Brian. He was borrowed by Fox to support Will Rogers in Too Busy to Work (John G. Blystone, 1932). He was a boyish crooner, the sort of role he specialised in for the next few years.

Back at Warners, he supported George Arliss in The King's Vacation (John G. Adolfi, 1933). Then he was the love interest for Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), which was a massive hit. Warner let him repeat the role in Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933), which was another big success.

Looking rather younger than his actual years, Powell soon found himself typecast as clean-cut singing juveniles. Another hit was Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), with Keeler, Joan Blondell, and James Cagney. Powell was upped to star for College Coach (William A. Wellman, 1933), then went back to more ensemble pieces including Convention City (Archie Mayo, 1933), and Dames (Ray Enright, Busby Berkeley, 1934).

He was top-billed in Gold Diggers of 1935 (Busby Berkeley, 1935), with Joan Blondell. He supported Marion Davies in Page Miss Glory (Mervyn LeRoy, 1935), made for Cosmopolitan Pictures, a production company financed by Davies' lover William Randolph Hearst who released through Warners. Warners gave Dick Powell a change of pace, casting him as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt, 1935).

He did two films with his then-wife, Joan Blondell, Stage Struck (Busby Berkeley, 1936) and Gold Diggers of 1937 (Lloyd Bacon, 1937). Then 20th Century Fox borrowed him for On the Avenue (Roy Del Ruth, 1937) with Madeleine Carroll. Back at Warners, he appeared in Hard to Get (Ray Enright, 1938) with Olivia de Havilland, and Naughty but Nice (Ray Enright, 1939), starring Ann Sheridan. Fed up with the repetitive nature of his roles, Powell left Warner Bros and went to work for Paramount.

Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (1933)

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 114. Photo: Warner. Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933).

Romanian postcard. Photo: Warner Bros. Dick Powell in Broadway Gondolier (Lloyd Bacon, 1935).

Dick Powell and Madeleine Carroll in On the Avenue (1937)

British Art Photo postcard, no. 160. Photo: Warner Bros. Dick Powell and Madeleine Carroll in On the Avenue (Roy Del Ruth, 1937).

Rugged crime fighter

At Paramount, Dick Powell and Joan Blondell were in another musical, I Want a Divorce (Ralph Murphy, 1940). Then Powell got a chance to appear in a non-musical and starred opposite Ellen Drew in the sparkling Preston Sturges comedy Christmas in July (1940). I.S. Mowis at IMDb cites Powell saying: "I knew I wasn't the greatest singer in the world and I saw no reason why an actor should restrict himself to any one particular phase of the business".

Universal borrowed him to support Abbott and Costello in In the Navy (Arthur Lubin, 1941), one of the most popular films of 1941. He was in a fantasy comedy directed by René Clair, It Happened Tomorrow (1944) then went over to MGM to appear opposite Lucille Ball in Meet the People (Charles Reisner, 1944), which was a box office flop.

During this period, Powell starred in the musical program 'Campana Serenade', which was broadcast on NBC radio (1942–1943) and CBS radio (1943–1944). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "Few actors ever managed a complete image transition as thoroughly as did Dick Powell: in his case, from the boyish, wavy-haired crooner in musicals to rugged crime fighters in films noir."

By 1944, Powell felt he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore. Still dissatisfied with lightweight roles, Powell lobbied hard to get the lead in Double Indemnity. He lost out to Fred MacMurray, another Hollywood nice guy. MacMurray's success, however, fueled Powell's resolve to pursue projects with greater range.

Instead, he was slotted into more of the same fare, refused to comply and was suspended. Powell tried his luck at RKO and at last, managed to secure a lucrative role: that of hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944). He was the first actor to play Marlowe – by name – in motion pictures. Hollywood had previously adapted some Marlowe novels, but with the lead character changed. Later, Powell was the first actor to play Marlowe on radio, in 1944 and 1945, and on television, in an episode of Climax! (1954).

Murder My Sweet was a big hit. Bosley Crowther in the New York Times: " ...and while he may lack the steely coldness and cynicism of a Humphrey Bogart, Mr. Powell need not offer any apologies. He has definitely stepped out of the song-and-dance, pretty-boy league with this performance".

Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. His career changed dramatically: he was cast in a series of Films Noirs. On the radio, Powell played detective Richard Rogue in the series 'Rogue's Gallery' beginning in 1945. On-screen, Dmytryk, and Powell re-teamed to make the film Cornered (Edward Dmytryk, 1945), a gripping, post-World War II thriller that helped define the Film Noir style.

For Columbia, he played a detective in Johnny O'Clock (Robert Rossen, 1947) and made To the Ends of the Earth (Robert Stevenson, 1948) with Signe Hasso. In 1948, he stepped out of the brutish type when he starred in Pitfall (André De Toth, 1948), a Film Noir in which a bored insurance company worker falls for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott.

He broadened his range appearing in a Western, Station West (Sidney Lanfield, 1948), and a French Foreign Legion tale, Rogues' Regiment (Robert Florey, 1949) with Marta Toren. He was a Mountie in Mrs. Mike (Louis King, 1950). From 1949 to 1953, Powell played the lead role in the NBC radio theater production 'Richard Diamond, Private Detective'. His character in the 30-minute weekly was a likable private detective with a quick wit. Many episodes were written by Blake Edwards and many ended with Detective Diamond having an excuse to sing a little song to his date.

British postcard by Art Photo, no. 62.

British real Photograph postcard, no. 86. Photo: Warner Bros and Vitaphone Pictures.

The Dick Powell Show

Dick Powell took a break from tough-guy roles in The Reformer and the Redhead (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1950), opposite his new wife June Allyson. Then it was back to tougher films: Cry Danger (Robert Parrish, 1951), as an ex-con; and The Tall Target (Anthony Mann, 1951), as a detective who tries to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He returned to comedy with You Never Can Tell (Lou Breslow, 1951).

He had a good role as best-selling novelist James Lee Bartlow in the popular melodrama, The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli, 1952). His final film performance was in a romantic comedy Susan Slept Here (1954) for director Frank Tashlin. Even when he appeared in lighter fare such as Susan Slept Here (Frank Tashlin, 1954), he never sang in his later roles. It was his final onscreen appearance in a feature film and included a dance number with co-star Debbie Reynolds.

By this stage, Powell had turned director. His feature debut was Split Second (1953) with Stephen McNally and Alexis Smith. He followed it with The Conqueror (1956), coproduced by Howard Hughes starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Powell and Wayne.

He directed Allyson opposite Jack Lemmon in You Can't Run Away from It (1956). Powell then made two war films at Fox with Robert Mitchum, The Enemy Below (1957) and The Hunters (1958). In the 1950s, Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television, along with Charles Boyer, David Niven, and Ida Lupino. He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Powell played the role of Willie Dante in episodes of Four Star Playhouse, and guest-starred in numerous Four Star programs.

Shortly before his death, Powell sang on camera for the final time in a guest-star appearance on Four Star's Ensign O'Toole, singing 'The Song of the Marines', which he first sang in his film The Singing Marine (Ray Enright, 1937). He hosted and occasionally starred in his Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on CBS from 1956–1961, and his final anthology series, The Dick Powell Show on NBC from 1961 through 1963; after his death, the series continued through the end of its second season as The Dick Powell Theater, with guest hosts.

He married three times: Mildred Evelyn Maund (1925-1932), Joan Blondell (1936-1944) and June Allyson (1945, until his death in 1963). He adopted Joan Blondell's son from a previous marriage, Norman Powell, who later became a television producer; the couple also had one child together, Ellen Powell. He had two children with Allyson, Pamela (adopted) and Richard 'Dick' Powell, Jr.

Powell's ranch-style house was used for exterior filming on the ABC TV series, Hart to Hart. Powell was a friend of Hart to Hart actor Robert Wagner and producer Aaron Spelling.

In 1962, Powell acknowledged rumours that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling East to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant tumors on his neck and chest.

Dick Powell died at the age of 58 in 1963. His body was cremated and his remains were interred in the Columbarium of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. In the film The Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger, 1975), Powell was portrayed by his son Dick Powell Jr.

Small, British collectors card in the Film Stars series by Player's Cigarettes, no. 21. Illustration: Juan de Sorie (?) / Warner - First National.

June Allyson, Dick Powell and their children

Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no. 757. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. With June Allyson and their children Pamela and Dick Jr.

Vintage postcard. Photo: M.G.M.

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

Character actor Raymond Aimos (1891–1944) or simply Aimos was one of the familiar faces of the French cinema of the 1930s and early 1940s. During this golden age of poetic realism, he was the quintessential 'Titi Parisien' (Parisian kid) in at least 105 films. His film characters generally corresponded with himself: humble, poor, colourful, cheeky but with a heart of gold.

French postcard, no. 530. Photo: C.F.C.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 34. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

Urban Legends

Raymond Aimos was born as Raymond Arthur Caudrilliers in La Fère, in the Aisne department in the North of France in 1891 (1889 (sic) according to IMDb, English Wikipedia, and other sources, who also erroneously write that his birth name is Raymond Coudurier). He was the son of a watchmaker-jeweler and was expected to work in the family business but young Raymond was uncontrollably attracted to show business.

He managed to become an opera singer under the stage name Aimos. According to urban legends, retold by different sources, he made his first film appearance as a kid either in the Lumière brothers’ L’arroseur arose/The Sprinkler Sprinkled (Louis Lumière, 1895) or in a film by another legendary film pioneer, Georges Méliès. (In the first film, the naughty boy was Benoît Duval).

However, officially Aimos made his cinema debut in the short silent Western Pendaison à Jefferson City/Hanging at Jefferson City (Jean Durand, 1910) with Joë Hamman and Gaston Modot.

He appeared in more early silent shorts, like the Onesime comedies Onésime et le nourrisson de la nourrice indigne/ Onesimus and the infant unworthy of the nurse (Jean Durand, 1912), Onésime a un duel à l'américaine/Onesime has an American-style duel (Jean Durand, 1912) and Onésime horloger/Onesime, Clockmaker (Jean Durand, 1912), all starring Ernest Bourbon aka Onésime.

A decade later, Aimos appeared in The Three Musketeers-sequel Vingt Ans après/Five Years Later (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922), based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas père. These film parts had all been modest, but Aimos’ lucky strike would be the coming of sound.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 123 Photo: Star.

Highlights of the Poetic realism

Aimos' physical appearance, his popular roots and mostly his gift of gab were in perfect harmony with the sound cinema of the 1930s. He was wonderful as a humble man of the people in two masterpieces by René Clair, Sous les toits de Paris/Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) starring Albert Préjean, and Quatorze juillet/July 14 (1933) with Annabella.

It lead to more work for important directors. He appeared for Raymond Bernard as a soldier in the war drama Les croix de bois/Wooden Crosses (1932) with Pierre Blanchar, and a clochard in Amants et voleurs/Lovers and Thieves (1935) with Arletty, for Sacha Guitry as another clochard in Ils étaient neuf célibataires/Nine Bachelors (1939), for Marcel Carné as Quart-Vittel, the wreck in Quai des brumes/Port of Shadows (1938), and for Jean Grémillon in Lumière d'été/Summer Light (1943) starring Madeleine Renaud.

His most memorable roles were in the films by Julien Duvivier, such as Mulot, the legionary friend of Jean Gabin in La Bandera/Escape from Yesterday (1935), and Tintin, one of the five friends who build a riverside café after winning the jackpot in the lottery in La Belle Équipe/They Were Five (1936) with Jean Gabin and Charles Vanel. He also appeared in Duvivier’s Le paquebot Tenacity/S.S. Tenacity (Julien Duvivier, 1934) with Albert Préjean, and L’homme du jour/The Man of the Hour (Julien Duvivier, 1937) starring Maurice Chevalier.

At IMDb, Guy Bellinger writes: “But even when he worked for less distinctive directors his presence was an asset for the film.” Some of these films now belong to the highlights of the Poetic realism, a French genre of the 1930s of lyrical, stylized and studio-bound films which offered a fatalistic view of life with their characters living on the margins of society, either as unemployed members of the working class or as criminals.

Raymond Aimos was a courageous man with a big heart in life. In 1940, he opened a restaurant in the Rue Montmartre in the capital, 'L'Oeuvre des Gosses d'Aimos', intended to feed the poor children of the neighbourhood. In August 1944, he decided to take part in the uprising against the Nazis which would lead to the Liberation of Paris.

He was unfortunately hit by a stray bullet in the 10th Arrondissement. The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear and undetermined. He was only 53. Aimos is buried in the cemetery of Chennevières-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne).

Raymond Aimos was married to Madeleine Botté from 1923 till their divorce in 1938. They had no children. But he left an impressive film legacy, according to some sources he even appeared in nearly 450 films! (IMDb only mentions 109 films).

French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 3 Photo: Teddy Piaz, Paris.

Belgian postcard by P.E. (Photo Édition, Bruxelles), no. 17. Photo: Studio Melvyle.

Sources: Simon Benattar-Bourgeay (Ciné-Artistes - French), Yvan Foucart (L'encinémathèque - French), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

We have another film special with Henny Porten! In the German silent comedy Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell/The Lady, the Devil and the Model (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918), she plays a young mannequin who dreams about an ermine fur coat. The devil (Alfred Abel) gives her a choice: if she fulfills three conditions, she gets the coat. The film script of this Messter production was by Robert Wiene, cinematography by Karl Freund, and sets by Kurt Richter. The film was shot at the Tempelhof studios and released at the Berlin Movie Palace Mozartsaal on 17 January 1919. Rotophot published this small series of four postcards of the film.

Henny Porten in Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell

German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 570/1. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Henny Porten and Alfred Abel in Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918).

German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 570/2. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Henny Porten and Alfred Abel in Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918).

The conditions of the Beelzebub

A young mannequin (Henny Porten) has only one dream: to finally get hold of the wonderful ermine fur, which she admires every day in the shop window of the Herpich fur house. Her dreams go so far that one day she imagines that the fine gentleman (Alfred Abel) who bought the good piece of clothing at the fashion show today appears to her as the devil, kidnaps her to hell and gives her a choice: if she fulfills three conditions, she gets the coat. The cheeky woman spontaneously fulfills the conditions of the Beelzebub, but her anger is all the greater when she still doesn't get the coat: the devil put her in!

At that moment she is knocked out of her restless sleep. The mannequin opens the door - and in front of her stands the owner of the fur, who had just made her life hell as a devil. This is where the turbulence really gets going, because by mistaking it, the little mannequin may play a spoiled millionaire for a week, whose wishes are all fulfilled - except for one thing: owning the ermine fur. But she will soon forget that in all the hustle and bustle anyway. Rather, she realises that she is happy with her groom Fritz (Eugen Rex) without wealth. And even without an ermine coat.

German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 570/3. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Henny Porten and Alfred Abel in Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918).

German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 570/4. Photo: Messter-Film, Berlin. Henny Porten in Die Dame, der Teufel und die Probiermamsell (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918).

Sources: Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

Well-built and handsome Lucien Dalsace (1893-1980) was a French stage and screen actor who peaked in the French silent cinema of the 1920s. He went from success to success in films directed by Louis Feuillade, René Leprince, Gaston Ravel, René Hervil and Henri Desfontaines.

French postcard. Photo: Film Gaumont. Lucien Dalsace in Vindicta (Louis Feuillade, 1923).

French postcard by Collection Chantal, Paris, no. 557. Photo: U.F.P.C.

An aviation hero during the First World War

Lucien Dalsace was born Gustave Louis Chalot in 1983 in Chatou, a town near Paris popular among the bourgeoisie and artists at the time. Gustave was destined by his industrialist father for a job in the silk industry.

Guy Bellinger at IMDb: "But Chalot senior had overlooked something important: one of Gustave's great-aunts, Marie Bilhaut, had been a renowned resident at the Comédie-Française while one of his great-uncles had been an opera singer. As a result of the presence of Thespis in the family genes, it comes as no surprise that as of his high school years young Gustave organized theater performances with and for his schoolmates."

After passing his final exams Gustave obeyed his father and followed training in the silk industry. At the same time, he appeared incognito in several plays in small theatres. When Gustave's father became aware of what was happening he understood that his son's passion for the theatre was too strong to be resisted.

World War I interrupted this fledgling career though. Gustave was drafted into the Third Battalion of Chasseurs where, despite this major inconvenience, he had the opportunity to meet the famous actor Jean Toulout. It was the beginning of a solid and lasting friendship. Gustave then transferred into the Air Force and took part in many air battles. He also organised performances for his war mates.

After being an aviation hero during the war, Gustave resumed his acting career as Lucien Dalsace this time. Signed by Léon Volterra, the owner of the Théâtre de Paris, he found himself very much in demand as a romantic lead. It was the start of a prolific career in both the theatre and the cinema.

Guy Bellinger: "His great presence, his manly appearance, his handsome face could not remain unnoticed by the movies for long and he debuted top-billed in La brute in 1921. Two years later his double role in the eight-chapter serial L'aviateur made him a true star."

Between 1921 and 1929, Lucien Dalsace participated in 26 silent films. In his above-mentioned debut La Brute/The Brute (Daniel Bompard, 1921), he appeared opposite Louise Storza, André Nox, and Suzanne Bianchetti.

After the serial L'aviateur masqué/The masked aviator (Robert Péguy, 1922), in which he played a double role, he worked again with director Robert Péguy on Le Crime de Monique/Monique's crime (Robert Péguy, 1922) featuring Yvette Andréyor, and Le Vol/The flight (Robert Péguy, 1923) with Charles Vanel and Denise Legeay. Subsequently, he played the Marquis of Saint-Estelle in Vindicta (1923) one of the last films by pioneer director Louis Feuillade.

French postcard, editor unknown.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 153.

French postcard for the French silent film L'Occident (Henri Fescourt, 1927, released 1928) by Europe, no. 41. The card makes publicity for the film's premiere screening at the Paris cinema Marivaux. Caption from La Petite Illustration, 398, 1928: "Taïeb forces young Fathima to dance in a den in Toulon."

A matinée idol on a secret mission

In 1924-1925, Lucien Dalsace did a whole string of films with Gaston Roudès: Féliana l'espionne/Feliana the spy (Gaston Roudès, 1924) featuring France Dhélia, Les Petits/The Little Ones (Marcel Dumont, Gaston Roudès, 1925), La Douleur/Pain (Gaston Roudès, 1925) with Constant Rémy, La Maternelle/Petite mère/Kindergarten (Gaston Roudès, 1925) starring France Dhélia, and Oiseaux de passage/Passing birds (Gaston Roudès, 1925).

In Ferragus (Gaston Ravel, 1923), based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac, the title character (René Navarre), the head of a Parisian secret society and an ex-convict wants to get rid of a young suitor (Dalsace) of his protegée (Elmire Vautier).

In the fantasy Belphégor (Henri Desfontaines, 1927), Dalsace is Bellegarde, a journalist keen on solving a murder and theft case at the Louvre, by a ghostlike figure, called Belphégor, and his gang. While the Police Inspector (Georges Paulais) suspects Bellegarde, a private detective, Chantecoq (René Navarre), knows better.

In L'Occident/The West (Henri Fescourt, 1928), set on the Moroccan coast, Captain Jean Cadière (Lucien Dalsace), is sent on a secret mission to prevent rebels attacking caravans. He is helped by Hassina (Claudia Victrix), a captive of the rebel tribe of Zerreth-Hama, but the tribe leader, Taïeb (Hugues de Bagratide) discovers this. He threatens to burn alive Hassina's little sister Fathima (Andrée Rolane). See our special blog on this film.

In Le Prince Jean/Bonds of Honour (René Hervil, 1929), Dalsace is a prince ruined at the gambling tables, so he leaves his beloved Claire (Renée Héribel) behind. Then Claire marries a banker, Arnheim (Paul Guidé), and finds out that he plotted to ruin Prince Jean, in order to marry her.

In Hervil's Le Ruisseau/The Stream (René Hervil, 1929), Dalsace is a celebrated painter who loves a rich and divorced woman (Olga Day), who cheats him. To comfort himself, he goes to Montmartre and finds a poor but honest girl (Louise Lagrange).

By the end of the silent era, Dalsace's prime was over. History repeated itself. His career was once again interrupted and the culprit this time was the coming of sound. Lucien Dalsace, still a matinée idol a few months before, had abruptly gone unfashionable. Getting no more roles, Lucien/Gustave changed jobs and became a perfume merchant in the Latin Quarter.

Dalsace made his comeback in 1937. For his old friend Léon Mathot, he returned before the cameras to play old Georges in Chéri-Bibi (Léon Mathot, 1937) alongside Pierre Fresnay in the title role. For Mathot, he also played opposite in Pierre Renoir in Le révolté/The Rebel (Léon Mathot, 1938), then an officer in Rappel immédiat/Immediate Call (Léon Mathot, 1939) with Erich von Stroheim.

In 1941, he returned to trade. His final film was the adventure Patrouille blanche/White patrol (Christian Chamborant, 1941), starring Sessue Hayakawa and Junie Astor.

Lucien Dalsace died in oblivion in 1980 at home in L'Hay-les-Roses, Val-de-Marne, France. He was 87. With his wife of many years, actress Jane Marceau, he had one child.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 74. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

Belgian postcard by Weekblad 'Cinema', Antwerpen (ed. journal Cinema, Antwerp).

Sources: Philippe Pelletier (Ciné-Artistes - French), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

Our series Photo by... returns! Every Thursday, we'll do a post on a terrific photographer and today we start with the Italian master Arturo Bragaglia (1893-1962). He had a photographic studio at the Cinecittà, the Roman film studio complex that opened in 1937. From 1942 on, he also taught photography at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, just opposite Cinecittà.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no.1036/2. Photo: Bragaglia / Phoebus Film. Ramon Novarro in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925).

In Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925), silent film star Ramon Novarro plays the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur, who seeks to find his family and to revenge himself upon his childhood friend Messala (Francis X. Bushman) who had him wrongly imprisoned. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala. Ramon Novarro was promoted by MGM as a 'Latin Lover' and became known as a sex symbol after the death of Rudolph Valentino. Ben-Hur was Novarro's greatest success. His revealing costumes caused a sensation, just like this picture by Arturo Bragaglia.

Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 617. Photo: Bragaglia / Augustus Films.

Dria Paola (1909-1993) was an Italian film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Her name is attached to the first Italian sound film La canzone dell’amore/The song of love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930).

Italian postcard. Photo Bragaglia, Cinecittà, no. 7788.

Italian actress Laura Nucci(1913-1994) was one of the stars of Italian cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1930 and 1989, she appeared in more than 60 films and TV series.

Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 263. Photo: Bragaglia.

Adriana Benetti (1919–2016) was an Italian actress, who peaked in the 1940s in films such as Teresa Venerdí/Doctor, Beware (Vittorio De Sica, 1941) and Quattro passi fra le nuvole/Four Steps in the Clouds (Alessandro Blasetti, 1942).

Italian postcard by St. b Angeli, Terni / A. Terzoli, Roma, no. 4.A. Photo: Bragaglia.

Though she acted in many light entertainment films, Clara Calamai's (1909-1998) most famous role will for always be femme fatale Giovanna in Luchino Visconti's steamy (proto-)neorealist film Ossessione (1943).

The photographic director at Cinecittà

Arturo Bragaglia began his career making photographs in collaboration with his older brother Anton Giulio Bragaglia. His artistic training was developed as an assistant, alongside his brothers, in his father Francesco Bragaglia’s film production company in Rome.

With the publication of his brother Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s book 'Fotodinamismo futurista' (Futurist photodynamism), in 1911, Arturo began collaborating with his brother on photographic experiments. He continued this work until 1932 after Anton Giulio’s focus had shifted to the cinema.

In 1914, Arturo established his own studio. From 1922 until 1928, he was the official photographer of his brothers’ establishment, the Teatro degli Indipendenti, Rome. In 1925, he co-organised the Mostra fotografica italiana (Italian photography exhibition) in Genoa and became a national advisor of the Federazione dei Fotografi.

From 1933 on he was increasingly involved in the cinema, as the photographic director at Cinecittà, Rome, and later as a screenwriter and actor in a number of major productions, such as René Clair’s film La Beauté du diable/Beauty and the Devil (1950) and Vittorio De Sica’s Miracolo a Milano/Miracle in Milan (1951).

After World War II, Bragaglia continued to work as a photographer, photojournalist, and screenwriter for major directors. He also played a studio photographer in Luchino Visconti's film Bellissima (1951).

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2112. Photo: Bragaglia.

Lilia Silvi (born 1921) was a diva of the Italian 'telefoni bianchi' comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, often paired with Amedeo Nazzari. She recently acted in Gianni e le donne (Gianni Di Gregorio 2011) and was the object of the documentary In arte, Lilia Silvi (2011).

Italian postcard by B.F.F. 2192. Photo: Bragaglia. Cortese's outfit refers to the film Una romantica avventura/A Romantic Adventure (Mario Camerini, 1940).

Leonardo Cortese (1916-1984) was a matinee idol of the Italian cinema of the 1940s. He starred in such films as Sissignora/Yes, Madam (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1941) and Un garibaldino al convento/A Garibaldian in the Convent (Vittorio De Sica, 1942). After the war, he started directing, first films and later on rather focusing on television.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 20750. Photo: Bragaglia.

Strikingly beautiful actress Alida Valli(1921-2006) was Italy’s Sweetheart of the early 1940s. She fascinated audiences not only with her flawless porcelain face, her dark, voluptuous hair, and her green, expressive eyes but also with her ability to simultaneously hide and reveal a character's thoughts and emotions. In a career that spanned seven decades, she appeared in more than 110 films including such classics as The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949), The Paradine Case (Alfred Hitchcock, 1947), and Senso (Luchino Visconti, 1954).

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit. (Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini Firenze), no. 21950. Photo: Bragaglia.

Andrea Checchi (1916-1974) was a prolific Italian film and television actor, who peaked in the early 1940s as a leading actor, while he had important supporting parts in post-war Neorealism and beyond.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., Firenze, no. 4260. Photo: Bragaglia.

Italian film and stage actress Valentina Cortese (1923-2019) appeared in more than 100 Italian, French, British and American films and TV series. She was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Truffaut’s La nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973).

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 4289. Photo: Bragaglia. Osvaldo Valenti in Fedora (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1942).

Osvaldo Valenti (1906-1945) was an Italian film actor, who appeared in 56 films between 1928 and 1945. Thanks to Alessandro Blasetti, he had his breakthrough in the late 1930s and would have major successes - often as the bad guy - in Un'avventura di Salvator Rosa/An Adventure of Salvator Rosa (Alessandro Blasetti, 1939), La corona di ferro/The Iron Crown (Alessandro Blasetti, 1941) and La cena delle beffe/The Jester's Supper (Alessandro Blasetti, 1942). He and his lover, Luisa Ferida, were executed by partisans in Milan, Italy, due to their links with Fascism.

Italian postcard by B. F. F. Edit., no. 4294. Photo: Bragaglia.

Italian film actor Massimo Serato (1916-1989) had a career spanning over 40 years with more than 140 films. He was the virile hero of many sword and sandal epics and historical dramas, mainly in Italy, but he also played roles in major international films.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 4433. Photo: Bragaglia / E.N.I.C.

Between the mid-1930s and 1943, bright and gentle Antonio Centa (1907-1979) was among the most active actors of the Italian cinema. Among female audiences, he was a popular heartthrob in the White Telephone films. The critics praised his performances in Renato Castellani's Un colpo di pistola/A Pistol Shot (1942) and Zazà (1944).

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini Editori, Firenze, no. 4468. Photo: Bragaglia / Lux Film. Mariella Lotti in Quelli della montagna/Those of the Mountain (Aldo Vergano, 1943).

Blonde Italian film actress Mariella Lotti (1921-2006) played leading ladies in a number of Fascist-era and post-war films. The refined beauty quickly became one of the most popular Italian divas of the 1940s.

Source: Mitra Abbaspour (Moma.org).

Actress Tilda Thamar (1917–1989) became known as the ‘Blonde Bombshell from Argentina’ in the French cinema of the 1950s. After Eva Perón had ruled that there was no further filming in Argentina, Thamar left for Europe. She continued to make films in France till her death in a car accident.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 182. Photo: Sam Levin.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 149. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 192. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Sculptural Silhouette and blond hair

Tilda Thamar was born Matilda Sofia Abrecht de Vidal Quadras in Urdinarrain, Argentina in 1917 (some sources say 1921). She was the daughter of the German immigrants Martha Nichoerster and Carlos Abrecht. Her father worked as a bookseller and teacher in the German language. In 1925 he opened a book, record and jewelry shop annex photo studio.

Tilda started her career as a teenager with bit roles in Argentine films, such as Don Quijote del altillo/Don Quixote in the attic (Manuel Romero, 1936). She took her stage name from transposing the syllables of the name of her mother Martha (tha-mar). In Segundos afuera!/Seconds out! (Israel Chas de Cruz, Alberto Etchebehere, 1937) starred the boxer Pedrito Quartucci. Eva Duarte (the later Evita Perón) played a small part in it.

The following years Thamar appeared as an extra or bit player in several Argentine films, including El Loco Serenata/The crazy musician (Luis Saslavsky, 1939) with Pepe Arias, Ceniza al viento/Ashes to the wind (Luis Saslavsky, 1941) with Tita Merello, and El espejo/The mirror (Francisco Mugica, 1943) starring Mirtha Legrand.

Her roles got bigger in such popular films as El muerto falta a la cita/The corpse breaks a date (Pierre Chenal, 1944), the comedy La casta Susana/Chaste Susan (Benito Perojo, 1944) based on a German operetta with music by Jean Gilbert, and La señora de Pérez se divorcia/Mrs. Perez and her divorce (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1945) featuring Mirtha Legrand.

Tilda became increasingly popular thanks to her talent but also to her sculptural silhouette and blond hair. One of her most successful films was Adán y la serpiente/Adam and the Serpent (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1946), which was the first Argentine film forbidden for minors under 18. Thamar wore a bikini in the film and she was the first Argentine woman who dared to do so.

According to Spanish Wikipedia, she appeared in these Argentine films of the 1940s “not as a femme fatale but as a rogue vampire, who got into the lives of men, gave them a moment of solace and then draw the attention of their unsuspecting wives.”

In 1947, Thamar was offered an attractive contract by the Lumiton studio to make film seven films as their main star. But after only one film, Novio, marido y amante/Boyfriend, husband and love (Mario C. Lugones, 1948), her Argentine career stopped. The Peronist censors had cut several scenes from her film.

She also had posed for the noted German-Argentine photographer Annemarie Heinrich, who was charged with exhibiting obscene works. Still in 1991, more than 40 years later, the Buenos Aires municipality declared the closing of an art gallery and police custody of his window, which displayed the same nude photo within the framework of the exhibition 'El espectáculo en la Argentina (1930-1970)'.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 643. Photo: Teddy Piaz, Paris.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 771. Photo: Studio Vallois.

Tilda Thamar and Hardy Krüger in Muss man sich gleich scheiden lassen? (1953)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 912. Photo: NDF / Schorchtfilm. Tilda Thamar and Hardy Krüger in Muss man sich gleich scheiden lassen?/Does one have to get divorced right away? (Hans Schweikart, 1953).

Exile in Paris

Tilda Thamar is quoted at Spanish Wikipedia: "Eva Perón had ruled that there was no further filming in Argentina." Thamar left the country and went into exile in Paris. There she was welcomed by the French film industry as the ‘Blonde Bombshell from Argentina’.

She appeared in such French productions as the Film Noir L’ange rouge/The red angel (Jacques Daniel-Norman, 1948) with Paul Meurisse, the crime film Ronde de nuit/Night Watch (François Campaux, 1949), the musical Amour et compagnie/Love and Company (Gilles Grangier, 1949) starring Georges Guétary, and Sérénade au bourreau/Serenade for the executioner (Jean Stelli, 1950).

She also married a certain Count Toptani, but only briefly. Her French films were mostly mediocre gangster films, including Porte d’Orient/Oriental Port (Jacques Daroy. 1950), La femme à l’orchidée/The Woman with the Orchid (Raymond Leboursier, 1951) with Georges Rollin, Massacre en dentelles/Massacre in Lace (André Hunebelle, 1951) with Raymond Rouleau, and Monsieur Scrupule, gangster/Mr. Scrupule, Gangster (Jacques Daroy, 1953).

In Spain, she made El cerco del Diablo/The siege of the devil (Antonio del Amo, Edgar Neville, José Antonio Nieves Conde, Enrique Gómez, Arturo Ruiz Castillo, 1952) with Fernando Rey, and Sor Angélica/Sister Angelica (Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, 1954).

After the fall of president Péron in 1955, she returned to Argentina to film La mujer desnuda/The Naked Woman (Ernesto Arancibia, 1955) and other films. During the 1950s, she also continued to make films in France and Spain and alternated this with the direction of short films and a feature film in 16 mm. Thamar returned regularly to Argentina.

She showed a passion for drawing and painting and created colourful artworks in the Argentine landscapes of her youth. Thamar studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. In 1956 she married the painter Alejo Vidal Quadras. From the 1960s on, she only appeared incidentally in films.

In 1989, Tilda Thamar died in a car accident in Clermont-en-Argonne in Northern France. She was 71. Her last film was the horror-thriller Los depredadores de la noche/Faceless (Jesús Franco, 1988) starring Helmut Berger.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 182. Photo: Sam Levin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German postcard. Photo: New York Times / Ernst.

Sources: Caroline Hanotte (CinéArtistes - French), Cine Nacional (Spanish), Wikipedia (Spanish, French, and English) and IMDb.

Last Saturday, EFSP had a post on a postcard series with the stars of the Comédie-Française by the French publisher FA (F.A. Christensen). Ivo Blom acquired also another fantastic postcard series with male Comédie-Française stars. Today, we present this series published by a company called PMM and the photos were made by Boyer. Ivo thinks the date of the portraits must be between 1890 and 1910. Soon, another post will follow here with a series of coloured postcards of Comédie-Française vedettes.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Pierre Laugier (1864-1907) was an actor of the Comédie-Française from 1885, becoming sociétaire in 1894. Memorable parts he had in 'Tartuffe' (as Orgon), 'L'Avare' by Molière, 'Les Folies amoureuses (ás Albert) by Jean-François Regnard, 'Le Gendre de M. Poirier' by Emile Augier et Jules Sandeau, 'Il ne faut jurer de rien' by Alfred de Musset, and 'Thermidor' by Victorien Sardou. He died, aged just 42, from scarlet fever at the bedside of one of his two daughters. He was the grand-nephew of François Arago. As far as known he didn't act in films.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Charles Le Bargy (1858-1936) was already a famous stage actor in his time, performing at the Comedie-Française when he debuted in the cinema as the perfidious King Henry III in L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise/The Assassination of the Duke de Guise (André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy, 1908).

French postcard by PMM.

Eugène Silvain (1851-1930), better known as Sylvain and Silvain, was a prominent French stage actor, though he is best remembered as the evil bishop Cauchon in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece La passion de Jeanne d’Arc/The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Louis Leloir (1860-1909), aka Leloir and originally Louis Pierre Sallot, was a French actor, and a Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française between 1889 and 1909. Parallel to his stage career, he was appointed as a teacher at the Conservatoire de musique et déclamation in 1894, and as the vice-president of the Société des artistes dramatiques in 1897. Because of his courageous behaviour during the 1900 fire at the Comédie-Française, he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur the same year. When he died in 1909, he was a board member of the Comédie-Française and one of its regular stage directors.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris. The costume could refer to Victor Hugo's 'Hernani', in which Duflos played Don Carlos, the future Charles V.

Raphaël Duflos (1858-1946) was a French famous Comédie-Française stage actor, who also acted in a handful of French silent films. He joined the Paris Comédie-Française in 1884. Between 1883 and 1898 he also acted outside of the Comédie, in the 1890s often at the Théâtre du Gymnase. He was Sociétaire at the Comédie-Française between 1896 and 1924 (as the 331st member) and became an honorary member in 1925. He also taught at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, where he had among his pupils Huguette Duflos. They married in 1910 but divorced in 1928.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Jules Truffier (1856-1943) was a respected actor of the Comédie-Française. Truffier jr. entered the Comédie-Française in 1875, became a Sociétaire there in 1888, retired in 1913, and in 1922 became Sociétaire Honoraire. All in all, he played some 150 parts in an almost 40 years time span. In 1914 he quit acting in 'Maître Favilla', an adaptation by himself of a piece by George Sand, and in the same year became the manager of the Études classiques de la Comédie-Française, so the staging of the classic repertory by the Comédie. This he did until 1918/1919. As far as known, he didn't act in a film, but between 1906 and 1929, he was a teacher at the Conservatoire and trained future screen actors such as Berthe Bovy, Pierre Dux, and Pierre Blanchar.

French postcard. Photo: Boyer, Paris. Jules Leitner is dressed as Charles V (Don Carlos) in Victor Hugo's 'Hernani'. He played this tole first in 1906.

Jules-Louis-Auguste Leitner (1862-1940) was a French stage actor of the Comédie-Française. As a student at the National Conservatory of Declamation in Paris, Leitner won a First Prize in Tragedy and a First Prize in Comedy. He entered the Comédie-Française in 1887 and was appointed as a Sociétaire (the 330th) in 1896, which he continued to be until 1919. Leitner was also a teacher at the Paris Conservatory and saw his young pupil Élie Calvé (1904-1929) die on stage in 1929 after the latter had just learned that he had won the 1st Prize for Comedy. Leitner acted in a few Film d'Art productions including Jésus de Nazareth/Jesus of Nazareth (André Calmettes, Henri Desfontaines, 1911).

French postcard. Photo Boyer, Paris. Pierre Laugier's outfit may refer to Victorien Sardou's play 'Thermidor', in which Laugier played Marteau, first in 1891.

Pierre Laugier (1864-1907) was an actor of the Comédie-Française from 1885, becoming a Sociétaire in 1894. He had memorable parts in 'Tartuffe' (as Orgon), 'L'Avare' by Molière, 'Les Folies amoureuses' (as Albert) by Jean-François Regnard, 'Le Gendre de M. Poirier' by Emile Augier and Jules Sandeau, 'Il ne faut jurer de rien' by Alfred de Musset, and 'Thermidor' by Victorien Sardou. He died, aged just 42, from scarlet fever at the bedside of one of his two daughters. He was the grand-nephew of François Arago. As far as known, he didn't act in films.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Gustave Worms (1836-1910) was a French stage actor of the Comédie-Française. He entered the company in 1858 and was appointed as a Sociétaire in 1878. In 1900 he left the Comédie. Gustave Worms was the father of stage and screen actor Jean Worms. Marguerite Moreno, Édouard de Max, and Lugné-Poe were among his pupils at the Conservatoire, the Parisian drama school. As far as is known, Worms didn't act in a film, while his son was a prolific film actor from the 1910s onward.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Augustin-Julien Hamel was active at the Comédie-Française in 1882 and between 1884 and 1910.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris. Lucien Guitry as Flambeau in 'L'Aiglon' (1900) by Edmond Rostand.

Lucien Guitry (1860-1925) was considered the preeminent French actor of his day. For many years, he played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. He also appeared in silent films like Tosca (André Calmettes, 1908) and Ceux de chez nous/Those of Our Land (Sacha Guitry, Frederic Rossif, 1915). He was married to Jeanne Desclois and Renée de Pont-Jest, and his son was the well-known actor-writer-director Sacha Guitry.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Edmond Got (1822-1901) was a French stage actor of the Comédie-Française. He entered the company in 1844 and was appointed as a Sociétaire in 1850, and as a Doyen between 1873 and 1894. In 1894 he left the Comédie. In the mid-19th century, he was one of the most respected stage actors, beloved for his grand style.

French postcard by PMM. Photo: Boyer, Paris.

Georges Berr (1867-1942) in Paris, was a French actor and dramatist, a member and Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française from 1886 to 1923. Under the pseudonyms Colias and Henry Bott, he wrote several plays, particularly in collaboration with Louis Verneuil. He was Jean-Pierre Aumont's uncle. He acted in only one film, the Molière adaptation Les précieuses ridicules/The Affected Ladies (1910), directed by himself, and he directed one other film, L'enfant prodigue/The Prodigal Son (1909), both for Pathé Frères. However, Berr was a most active playwright whose plays were often adapted for the cinema, such as Le Million/The Million (1931), filmed by René Clair, and scripted by Clair and Berr himself. Berr worked on three other film scenarios, while he was the dialogue writer for four more films, including La porteuse de pain/The Bread Peddler (René Sti, 1934).

French postcard by PMM. Photo Boyer, Paris.

Jacques Fenoux (1870-1930) entered the Comédie-Française in 1895, became a Sociétaire in 1906, retired in 1924, and became a Sociétaire honoraire in 1925. As the site of the Comédie states: "Fenoux was the type of a conscientious member, able to move effortlessly from one job to another, from small to large parts. He was appointed an honorary member in 1925 but continued to play until his last days. He barely disappeared two weeks after having last interpreted Bazile, from 'The Barber of Seville'." As far is known, his only performance was in Jacques de Féraudy's film Molière, sa vie, son oeuvre/Molière, his life, his work (1922), in which actors of the Comédie-Française can be seen rehearsing plays by Molière.

Sources: Comédie-Française (French), Fondation Jérome Seydoux, Filmographie Le Film d'Art by Eric Le Roy, Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.

Yesterday, 9 May 2020, American pianist-singer Little Richard passed away. In the mid-1950s, his dynamic songs like 'Tutti Frutti' and 'Good Golly Miss Molly' and his charismatic showmanship laid the foundation for rock and roll. He was one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races. Little Richard was 87.

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Int. Filmpers (I.F.P.), Amsterdam, no. 1525. Little Richard performs with his band as his saxophone player Grady Gaines stands on the piano in Mister Rock And Roll (Charles S. Dubin, 1957).

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 3384. Photo: Paramount. Little Richard in Mister Rock and Roll (Charles S. Dubin, 1957).

The Girl Can't Help It

Little Richard was born as Richard Wayne Penniman in 1932 in Macon, Georgia, USA. His mother was Leva Mae Penniman, and his father was Charles "Bud" Penniman, a church deacon and a brick mason, who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side and owned a nightclub called the Tip In Inn. Richard was the third born child and had five sisters and six brothers.

Before entering the tenth grade, Penniman left his family home and joined Dr. Hudson's Medicine Show in 1949. His first recording session took place at WGST in Atlanta, Georgia. He was backed by a local band led by Billy Wright. This session produced a local hit called 'Every Hour'. Little Richard admitted to copying Wright's penchant for heavy makeup and wild stage theatrics.

With a public persona and personal life marked by sexual ambiguity, he would make his mark with later hits such as the suggestive 'Tutti Frutti' and 'Good Golly Miss Molly'. 'Tutti Frutti' (1955) became an instant hit, reaching no. 2 on Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and in Europe.

Richard's next hit single, 'Long Tall Sally' (1956), hit no. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart. Like 'Tutti Frutti', it sold over a million copies. Overall, he would produce seven singles in the U.S. in 1956, including 'The Girl Can't Help It' and 'Lucille'. His performances during this period resulted in integration between whites and blacks in his audience.

He also appeared in such films as Don't Knock the Rock (Fred W. Sears, 1956) with Bill Haley, The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956) starring Jayne Mansfield, and Mister Rock And Roll (Charles S. Dubin, 1957).

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 1995.

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 1996.

Held up by angels

In October 1957, Little Richard embarked on a package tour in Australia with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. In his autobiography, he later wrote that during a flight from Melbourne to Sydney that his plane was experiencing some difficulty and he saw the plane's red hot engines and felt angels were "holding it up". At the end of his Sydney performance, Little Richard saw a bright red fireball flying across the sky above him and claimed he was "deeply shaken". He took it as a "sign from God" to repent from performing secular music and his wild lifestyle at the time.

Returning to the States ten days earlier than expected, he read news of his original flight having crashed into the Pacific Ocean as a further sign to "do as God wanted". After a "farewell performance" at the Apollo Theater and a "final" recording session with the Specialty label later that month, Richard Penniman enrolled at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, to study theology.

A month after his conversion, Penniman met Ernestine Harvin, a secretary from Washington, D.C., and the couple married in 1959. He ventured into gospel music, first recording for End Records, before signing with Mercury Records in 1961, where he eventually released 'King of the Gospel Singers', in 1962, produced by Quincy Jones, who later remarked that Penniman's vocals impressed him more than any other vocalist he had worked with.

In 1962, during a five-year period in which Little Richard abandoned rock and roll for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe. During this time, Arden had The Beatles open for Penniman on some tour dates. David Browne at Rolling Stone: "Although he never hit the Top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. The Beatlesrecorded several of his songs, including 'Long Tall Sally,' and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own 'I’m Down'– paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. His songs became part of the rock & roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions. "

Little Richard overcame a debilitating drug habit and eventually became an ordained minister. Beginning in the 1980s, he saw a resurgence in his popularity as he acquired small acting roles in such films as Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Paul Mazursky, 1986) in which he showed his comedic timing. As versatile and ageless as ever, Little Richard continued to delight fans the world over with his stage presence and flamboyant antics.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the American Songwriters Hall of Fame. From 1959 till 1963, he was married to Ernestine Campbell, with whom he had a son, Danny Penniman. Little Richard passed away in Nashville, Tennessee, aged 87. The cause of death was bone cancer.

Little Richard in The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

Dutch postcard by Takken, no. 2043. Little Richard in The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956).

Scenes from The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956) with Little Richard's recording of the title song. Source: SuperCanopus (YouTube).

Source: David Browne (Rolling Stone), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Romanian-born actress Nadia Gray (1923-1994) was an elegant and seductive star of European films of the 1950s and 1960s. She is best known for her striptease scene in Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita (1960).

Nadia Gray in Le avventure di Giacomo Casanova (1955)

Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1684. Photo: Nadia Gray in Le avventure di Giacomo Casanova/The Loves of Casanova (Steno, 1955).

Dutch postcard. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Belgian postcard, no. 271.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 346. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German postcard by ISV, no. M 13. Photo: Europa-Film / Haenchen.

Anarchist Incident

Nadia Gray (sometimes Nadja Grey) was born Nadia Kujnir-Herescu in Bucharest, Romania in 1923. She came from an old Jewish family. Her father was a Russian refugee and her mother was Bessarabian.

As a child, she was such an admirer of King Carol of Romania that she threw down a bunch of flowers from her balcony on the royal cortege passing by. It was a time of anarchist terror and the incident caused her family some trouble.

In 1946, she married the aristocrat Constantin Cantacuzino, a Romanian aviator and WW II fighter ace. They had met when she was a passenger on a commercial air flight at which he was the pilot. One of the engines had caught fire and Cantacuzino was forced to do an emergency landing.

At the time, Gray had just started a career as a theatre actress. In 1947, the couple left Romania for Paris to escape the Communist regime after World War II. Her film debut was in the French-Austrian coproduction L'Inconnu d'un soir/Strangers on a night (Hervé Bromberger, 1948) with Claude Dauphin. She played the leading role as a young waitress who yearns to be a star.

Nadia enjoyed with her husband a cosmopolitan jet-set life and meanwhile, she appeared on stage and in films. Early film roles that led to European stardom included her countess in Monseigneur/Monsignor (Roger Richebe, 1949) opposite Bernard Blier, a woman in love with a master-safecracker (Guy Rolfe) in The Spider and the Fly (Robert Hamer, 1949), and an opera diva in the Technicolor biopic Puccini (Carmine Gallone, 1953) featuring Gabriele Ferzetti as the composer.

Her English language films included the action-adventure Valley of Eagles (Terence Young, 1951), the crime drama Night Without Stars (Anthony Pelissier, 1951) opposite David Farrar, and the comedy The Captain's Table (Jack Lee, 1959). Gray and her husband had eventually settled in Spain, but in 1958 Cantacuzino died.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano. Photo: Dear Film.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 467. Photo: Dear Film.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 135. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Puccini (Carmine Gallone, 1953).

Nadia Gray in Ivan (il figlio del diavolo bianco) (1953)

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. V 301. Photo: Viktoria Filmverleih. Nadia Gray in Ivan (il figlio del diavolo bianco)/Ivan, Son of the White Devil (Guido Brignone, 1953).

Nadia Gray in Hengst Maestoso Austria (1956)

West-German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, no. 271. Photo: Schönbrunn-Film, Wien / Allianz Film. Nadia Gray in Hengst Maestoso Austria/Stallion Maestoso Austria (Hermann Kugelstadt, 1956).

Bored and Decadent Socialite

Nadia Gray’s best-known role is as the bored and decadent socialite Nadia in La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) starring Marcello Mastroianni. In fact, her part is only a cameo: toward the end of Fellini's masterpiece, Nadia celebrates her divorce by performing a sensual mink-coated striptease during a wild party at her home.

Gray specialised in aristocratic, jet-set roles. Among her scattered appearances in English-speaking productions were the comedy Mr. Topaze (Peter Sellers, 1961) starring Peter Sellers, the Hammer horror-thriller Maniac (Michael Carreras, 1963) co-starring Kerwin Mathews, the thriller The Naked Runner (Sidney J. Furie, 1967) starring Frank Sinatra, and a supporting role in the classic romance Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, 1967) with Albert Finneyand Audrey Hepburn.

On TV, Gray played a.o. Number 8 in The Chimes of Big Ben (1967), an episode of the cult series The Prisoner (1967-1968) starring Patrick McGoohan.

She had acquired the French nationality in 1964, but in 1967 she married Manhattan attorney Herbert Silverman, and they settled in the USA. She retired from films completely in 1976 and began headlining as a nightclub singer.

Nadia Gray died of a stroke in 1994 in New York City. She was 70 and was survived by her second husband and their two stepchildren.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 41. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 302. Photo: Bavaria / Cosmopol / Schorcht. Nadia Gray in Meine schöne Mama/My Pretty Mama (Paul Martin, 1958).

Nadia Gray in The Captain's Table (1959)

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1673. Photo: Rank. Nadia Gray in The Captain's Table (Jack Lee, 1959).

Vintage card. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

A long scene from La Dolce Vita (1960) including the famous striptease (No subtitles - partly in English). Source: Umbgu (YouTube).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (French, Italian, German and English) and IMDb.

One of the classics of the Weimar cinema is Die Weber/The Weavers (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927). During the 1840s, a group of Silesian weavers stages an uprising due to their concerns about the Industrial Revolution's impact on their lives. Die Weber is based on the 1892 play of the same title by Gerhart Hauptmann based on a historical event. The silent historical drama film starred Wilhelm Dieterle, Theodor Loos, and Hermann Picha, as the starving weavers, and Paul Wegener as their antagonist, the factory owner. It was director Friedrich Zelnik's most ambitious project and he created a film in the style of Eisenstein's revolutionary epics.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Wilhelm Dieterle in Die Weber/The Weavers (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927).

Wilhelm Dieterle and Hermann Picha in Die Weber (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 77/2. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Wilhelm Dieterle and Hermann Picha in Die Weber (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927).

Hertha von Walther, Wilhelm Dieterle and Hermann Picha in Die Weber (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 77/3. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Hermann Picha, Wilhelm Dieterle and Hertha von Walther in Die Weber (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927).

Wilhelm Dieterle and Paul Wegener in Die Weber (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 77/4. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Wilhelm Dieterle and Paul Wegener in Die Weber (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927).

Friedrich Zelnik. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 341/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass Phot.

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

French stage and screen actress Marcelle Géniat (1881-1959) was a Sociétaire of the Comédie-Française. She also appeared in fifty-three films between 1909 and 1956.

French postcard, series 104-1. Caption: Marcelle Géniat, Comédie Française.

French postcard by ND Phot., no. 39. Photo: Henri Manuel. Caption: Géniat (Comédie-Française).

French postcard. Photo: Paul Boyer, Paris. Stamp dated 1905.

Director of a correctional center for girls

Marcelle Géniat was born Eugénie Pauline Martin in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, in 1881. Her parents were French.

Very young, Géniat started her career at the theatre. At the age of eight, she already played in Emile Zola's 'L'Assommoir' in Saint Petersburg, alongside Lucien Guitry. Later she attended dance classes.

Back in Paris, she entered the Conservatory of Dramatic Art in 1899 in the Leloir class. After obtaining the first prize in comedy at the Conservatory, she entered the Comédie-Française in 1899. She learned the trade by playing classics like 'Les femmes savantes' by Molière, and 'Andromaque' by Racine, as well as boulevard plays like 'La petite amie' by Eugène Brieux or 'Bagatelle' by Paul Hervieu.

She was very successful in the roles of Aricie in 'Phèdre' and Atalide in 'Bajazet'. She also played in contemporary theatre, such as 'Paraître' by Maurice Donnay, 'Les Fresnay' by Vandérem, 'L'Amour vigil' by de Flers and Caillavet, and 'The Wonderful Flower' by Miguel Zamacoïs.

She also interpreted the heroines of Alexandre Dumas fils, Paul Hervieu, Édouard Pailleron, and Octave Mirbeau. She became a Sociétaire (a member) in 1910 and left in the Comédie Française in 1912.

During the First World War, Marcelle Géniat became a nurse and devoted her care to the wounded

After the war, she made a great career on the boulevards. Her best-known role was as Mademoiselle in the play by Jacques Deval.

In the 1930s, in addition to being an actress, Géniat was also the director of a correctional center for girls in Boulogne-Billancourt.

French postcard by FC & Cie, no. 86/2. Photo: A. Bert. Marcelle Géniat in 'Le Roi s'amuse'.

French postcard by Procédés G. Jeangette. Photo: Oricelly. Caption: Marcelle Géniat de la Comédie-Française in 'Oedipe Roi' (Oedipus Rex) by Sophocles. Sophocles' classic tragedy was part of the regular repertory of the Comédie-Française. In 1908 Géniat acted in it in a supporting part, while Mounet-Sully played the title role, and Jocaste was alternatingly acted by Jeanne Delvair and Louise Silvain.

French postcard by Procédés G. Jeangette. Photo: Oricelly. Caption: Marcelle Géniat de la Comédie-Française in 'Oedipe Roi' (Oedipus Rex) by Sophocles.

Becoming blind of witnessing a crime

In the cinema, Marcelle Géniat appeared in fifty-three films between 1909 and 1956. She made her film debut for Pathé Frères in Le roi s'amuse/The king has fun (Albert Capellani, Michel Carré, 1909) with Henri Sylvain. It was followed by another short film for Pathé, Rigoletto (André Calmettes, 1909), starring Paul Mounet.

During the 1910s, she played in four films. These included two films by actor and director Léonce Perret: L’imprévu/The unexpected (1916) with Henry Roussel, and Le retour du passé/The return of the past (1916).

Her largest cinema output was in the French sound film of the 1930s and 1940s. Géniat often played afflicted women such as in La fusée/Grandeur and Decadence (Jacques Nathanson, 1933) with Firmin Gémier.

She had the lead in La joueuse d'orgue/The organ player (Gaston Roudès, 1936), an adaptation of a classic novel by Xavier de Montepin which had already been filmed in 1925. The film deals with a woman who witnessed a crime and became blind because of it.

Géniat also had major parts as La Chouette in the drama Les mystères de Paris/The Mysteries of Paris (Félix Gandéra, 1935) with Lucien Baroux and Madeleine Ozeray, and as the mother of Raimu in L'étrange Monsieur Victor/The Strange Monsieur Victor (Jean Grémillon, 1938).

Her best years in the cinema took place during the occupation between 1940 and 1944 when she appeared in 10 films. These included the horror film Le loup des Malveneur/The Wolf of the Malveneurs (Guillaume Radot, 1942), with Madeleine Sologne and Pierre Renoir, and Le voile bleu/The Blue Veil (Jean Stelli, 1942), with Gaby Morlay. She also appeared in one of the rare Pétainist films, Haut le vent/High the wind (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1942), with Charles Vanel.

During this period, she also obtained her best screen role as Mamouret in Le briseur de chaînes/Chain Breaker (Jacques Daniel-Norman, 1941) opposite Pierre Fresnay. Daniel Chocron at CinéArtistes: "It is also the only time that Marcelle Géniat is the star of a popular film with a substantial budget and distribution, composing a character of anthology with a grumpy air attached to the small pleasures of life but lucid on the darkness of human nature."

Marcelle Géniat died of cancer in 1959 in L'Hay-les-Roses, France. She was 78. She was buried in the Parisian cemetery of Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis). Géniat was married to Paul Martel de la Chesnaye. They had a daughter, actress Gilberte Géniat.

French postcard by SIP, no. 1305. Photo: Paul Boyer, Paris. Caption: Géniat, Comédie-Française.

French postcard by WS Paris, no. 0515

French postcard in the 'Nos artistes dans leur loge' series, no. 304. Photo: Comoedia, Paris.

French postcard. Photo: Studio Carlet Ainé. Collection: Claude-Pascal Perna @ Flickr.

Sources: Comédie-Française (French), Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.

Foulsham & Banfield was a British photographic portrait studio, which was active between the 1900s and the 1920s. The studio was first located in Wigmore Street and later in Old Bond Street, London. The two photographers were Frank Foulsham (1873-1930) and Arthur Clive Banfield (1875-1965). They marketed themselves as specialists in glossy pictures of so-called matinée idols of the West End theatre. We selected 20 postcards with these pictures of stage idols, published by Rotary, and also later pictures of film stars, published in the Picturegoer Series.

Rotary Photo

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 1114 S. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Photo: publicity still for the stage production of 'The Bells' (ca. 1905) with H.B. Irving as Matthias.

H.B. Irving (1870-1919) was a British stage actor and actor-manager. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Irving. Despite his many roles on stage and in the silent cinema, Irving is now best known for 'A Book of Remarkable Criminals' (1918), which he wrote as a legal expert.

British postcard by Rotary, no. 1277 F. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Seymour Hicks as Dickie and Ellaline Terriss as Blue Bell in the play 'Bluebell in Fairyland' (1901).

Suave Seymour Hicks (1871-1949) was a successful British actor, music hall performer, playwright, screenwriter, actor-manager and producer. He became known, early in his career, for writing, starring in and producing several Edwardian musical comedies, often together with his famous wife, Ellaline Terriss. His most popular role was that of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. He repeated this role on screen in a silent and in a sound version.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 1699 B. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Eva, Decima, Bertha, and Jessie Moore.

English actress Eva Moore (1870–1955) had a career on stage and in the cinema which spanned six decades. She was active in the women's suffrage movement, and from 1920 on she appeared in over two dozen films.

British postcard by Rotary, no. 2391 P. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Matheson Lang as Petruchio in the play 'The Taming of the Shrew'.

Tall and good-looking Matheson Lang (1879-1948) was a Canadian-born stage and film actor and playwright in the early 20th century. He is best known for his Shakespearean roles in British productions of 'Hamlet', 'Macbeth', and 'Romeo and Juliet' and for his role as Mr. Wu. He was one of the first major stars of the British theatre who acted in a silent film and during the 1920s, he became a popular film star in Great Britain.

Constance Collier in Antony and Cleopatra (1906)

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 4039 I. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the stage production 'Antony and Cleopatra' (1906) with Constance Collier as Cleopatra.

Constance Collier (1878–1955) was an English stage and film actress and later one of Hollywood's premiere drama and voice coaches. In a career that covered six decades, she evolved into one of London’s and Broadway’s finest tragediennes. Although she appeared in a number of silent British and American films, her career in the cinema got really on steam in her senior years when Collier appeared in well-regarded supporting roles in more than twenty Hollywood productions.

C. Aubrey Smith and Charles Hawtrey in Inconstant George

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 4208D. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield, London. Publicity still for the play 'Inconstant George' with Charles Hawtrey as Georges Bullin and C. Aubrey Smith as Luciene de Versannes. The play written by Gladys B. Unger and directed by Charles Hawtrey was performed during the 1910-1911 season at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London.

C. Aubrey Smith (1863–1948) was an English cricketer and actor, who started his film career in the British silent cinema. He went to Hollywood where he had a successful career as a character actor playing stereotypical Englishmen with a stiff upper lip and a stern determination. His bushy eyebrows, beady eyes, and handlebar moustache made him one of the most recognisable faces of the cinema.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 4222 C. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Lewis Waller in the stage production 'Robin Hood' (1906).

Lewis Waller (1860-1915) was best known as a matinee-idol in the popular romantic plays of his day. He also worked as a playwriter and a stage manager and appeared in several films.

British postcard by Rotary, no. 4225 F. Photo: Foulsham and Banfield.

Sir George Alexander (1858-1918) was an English actor and theatre manager, who produced and starred in Oscar Wilde's plays 'Lady Windermere's Fan' and 'The Importance of Being Ernest'. He also acted in two silent films and is the great, great uncle of Hugh Laurie.

Constance Collier in The Last of His Race (1907)

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 4482 F. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the stage production The Last of His Race (1907) with Constance Collier as Adulola.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 4494 E. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Phyllis, Jack and Zena Dare.

English singer and actress Phyllis Dare (1890-1975) was famous for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and other musical theatre in the first half of the 20th century. She appeared occasionally in films and was one of the leading Picture Postcard beauties of the Belle Epoque. English singer and actress Zena Dare (1887–1975) was famous for her charming, graceful and vivacious performances in Edwardian musicals and comedies in the first decade of the 20th century. Decades later she again enjoyed great success with her role as Mrs. Higgins in the long-running original London production of 'My Fair Lady'. She also made several appearances on film and television.

Ada Reeve and C. Hayden Coffin in Butterflies (1908)

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 7428 D. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the stage play 'Butterflies' with Iris Hoey, Stella St. Audrie, C. Hayden Coffin, John Bardsley, Ada Reeve, and Louis Bradfield. 'Butterflies' is a musical play in three acts by William J. Locke, lyrics by T.H. Read and music by J.A. Robertson. Produced at the Apollo Theatre, London in 1908.

British stage and film actress Ada Reeve (1874-1966) was much loved on three continents. She was one of the most popular British singing comediennes of all time and considered to be a headliner in variety and vaudeville. She was endowed with a softness of voice and delicacy of performance that quite set her apart from virtually all of her more raucous contemporaries in the music halls and popularised many memorable songs.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 11673 A. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

British actor Jack Hulbert (1892-1978) was a popular comedian of the 1930s with a trademark chiselled chin. In his musicals, he often appeared with his wife Cicely Courtneidge. British actress Cicely Courtneidge (1893–1980) was an elegantly knockabout comedienne. For 62 years, she formed a husband and wife team with comedian Jack Hulbert on stage, radio, TV and in the cinema. During the 1930s she also starred in eleven British films and one disastrous American production.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 11784 C. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield, Ltd. Bertram Wallis and Lily Elsie in 'The Count of Luxembourg', an operetta in two acts with English lyrics and libretto by Basil Hood and Adrian Ross, music by Franz Lehár, based on Lehár's three-act German operetta 'Der Graf von Luxemburg' which had premiered in Vienna in 1909. The original production opened at Daly's Theatre in London in 1911 and ran for 345 performances, starring Lily Elsie, Huntley Wright, W. H. Berry, and Bertram Wallis.

Tall and handsome Bertram Wallis (1874-1952) was a renowned English actor and singer. He was a glamorous matinée idol in popular plays and musical comedies in the early 20th century. Between the two wars, he also appeared in several films. Lily Elsie (1886-1962) basically was an Edwardian music hall singer and actress, who conquered British audiences overnight in 1907 with her role in 'The Merry Widow', but she also performed in two films: The Great Love (1918) by D.W. Griffith and the British film Comradeship (Maurice Elvey 1919).

Cicely Courtneidge, George Graves and Nelson Keyes in Princess Caprice (1912)

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 11800 I. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield Ltd. Cicely Courtneidge as Princess Clementine, George Graves as Bugumil, and Nelson Keyes as Ensign Pips in 'Princess Caprice' (1912). 'Princess Caprice' is a comedy with music, in three acts, with music by Leo Fall. The original production opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, on 11 May 1912, running for 265 performances until January 1913. It was produced by Robert Courtneidge.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 11843 V. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

American actor, dancer, choreographer, and lyricist Harry Pilcer (1885-1961) is mainly remembered for his association with French diva Gaby Deslys(1881-1920). He composed a waltz for her, 'The Gaby Glide', which they danced together on Broadway in 'Vera Violetta' (1911-1912). They appeared in three more Broadway musicals together.

The Picturegoer Series

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. T 2. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Scottish music hall and vaudeville theatre singer and comedian Sir Harry Lauder (1870-1950) was perhaps best known for his long-standing hit 'I Love a Lassie' and his other simplehearted Scottish songs. With his performances, he promoted the kilt and the 'cromach' (walking stick) worldwide, especially in America. By 1911, Lauder had become the highest-paid performer in the world and was the first Scottish artist to sell a million records. He raised huge amounts of money for the war effort during World War I, for which he was subsequently knighted in 1919. He appeared in several films.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 71. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

British actress Edna Best (1900-1974) was known on the London stage before she entered films in 1921. She is best remembered for her role as the mother in the original 1934 film version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Among her other film credits are Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939), Swiss Family Robinson (1940), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) and The Iron Curtain (1948).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 82. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Ivor Novello (1893-1951) was one of the most famous matinee idols, writers and composers of the British stage during the early part of the 20th century.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 190. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Mary Odette (1901-1987) was a French actress who starred in British, Dutch, German and French silent films.

British postcard by Real Photograph in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 227. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Tall and slim actor and singer Jack Buchanan (1891-1957) was known for three decades as the embodiment of the quintessential Englishman, despite being a Scot. During his career, he was one of the major British screen stars of his day and incarnated the elegant, always immaculately clothed man about town in about three dozen films. In America, he is best known for his role opposite Fred Astaire in the classic Hollywood musical The Band Wagon (1953).

Sources: Elena Cooper (Art and Modern Copyright: The Contested Image), and Wikipedia Commons.

German actress Käthe Dorsch (1890-1957) was a famous stage actress in Vienna and Berlin. She also made several silent and sound films and was married to Harry Liedtke. During the war, she played a heroic role by saving colleagues in trouble.

German postcard by NPG (Neue Photographische Gesellschaft), no. 972. Photo: Käthe Hirschfeld, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 467/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Riess.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3977/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Frhr. v. Gudenberg, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5561/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Elli Marcus, Berlin.

Operetta Soubrette

Katharina Dorsch was born in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Germany in 1890. She was the daughter of a gingerbread baker from Nürnberg (Neurenberg).

After commercial school, she followed piano classes, and as a fifteen-year-old, she started singing in a choir in Neurenberg, and subsequently in operettas in Hanau and Mannheim.

Her career really started in 1908 as an operetta soubrette with a performance in 'Wiener Blut'(Vienna Blood) in Mainz, and in 1911 she moved to Berlin for an engagement at the Neue Operettentheater. More Berlin engagements followed in theatres like the Lessingtheater and the Deutschen Theater.

As early as 1913, Käthe Dorsch, had her first film role in the short, silent comedy Wenn die Taxe springt/When the Rates Jump (Danny Kaden, 1913). In 1920 she married colleague film star Harry Liedtke, with whom she had appeared in the fairy tale Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (Paul Leni, 1917). They were a couple for eight years.

She played in several films, including Der Blusenkönig/The King of Blouses (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917), Erborgtes Glück/Hided Happiness (Arthur Wellin, 1919) with Alexander Moissi, and the August Strindberg adaptation Fräulein Julie/Miss Julie (Felix Basch, 1921) with Asta Nielsen.

After Muss die Frau Mutter werden?/Paragraph 144 (Georg Jacoby, Hans Otto Löwenstein, 1924) opposite Harry Liedtke, she retired from the film business and devoted herself exclusively to the theatre where she became one of the great actresses of her time. In 1927 she started to work in Vienna and appeared there at the Volkstheater. From 1939 till her death she was a permanent member of the Burgtheater. From 1951 she also appeared again on the stages of Berlin.

Käthe Dorsch, Lotte Reinecken and Emil Sondermann in Egon und seine Frauen

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin. Photo: Käthe Dorsch, Lotte Reinecken and Emil Sondermann in the stage play 'Egon und seine Frauen' (Egon and his wives) at the Thalia-Theater, Berlin.

Käthe Dorsch, Erna Ritter and Elsa Grünberg in Egon und seine Frauen

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin. Photo: Käthe Dorsch, Erna Ritter and Elsa Grünberg in the stage play 'Egon und seine Frauen' (Egon and his wives) at the Thalia-Theater, Berlin.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2001. Photo: Union Film. Publicity still for John Riew (Walter Schmidthässler, 1917) with Karl Valentin, Dagny Servaes and Käthe Dorsch.

Käthe Dorsch and Harry Liedtke in Muß die Frau Mutter werden (1924)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 980/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Alex Binder. Käthe Dorsch and Harry Liedtke in Muß die Frau Mutter werden/Paragraph 144 (Georg Jacoby, Hans Otto, 1924).

Media Scandal

The sound film offered Käthe Dorsch more possibilities than the silent cinema to express herself. After a long interval, she appeared again in the film Die Lindenwirtin/The Linden Tree Landlady (Georg Jacoby, 1930) with Hans Heinz Bollmann.

She impersonated important women like Maria Theresia in Trenck, der Pandur/Trenck, the Pandur (Herbert Selpin, 1940) and Friederike Caroline Neuber in the melodrama Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941).

Other popular films in which she appeared were Drei Tage Liebe/Three Days of Love (Heinz Hilpert, 1931) opposite Hans Albers, the murder mystery Savoy-Hotel 217 (Gustav Ucicky, 1936) again opposite Albers, the Oscar Wilde adaptation Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung/A Woman of No Importance (Hans Steinhoff, 1936), Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939), and Morgen werde ich verhaftet/Tomorrow I Will Be Arrested (Karl-Heinz Stroux, 1939) with Ferdinand Marian.

During the war, she played a heroic role by saving colleagues in trouble. For this, she used her friendship with Hermann Göring, whom she knew from childhood. After the war, she devoted herself to the Burgtheater for which she played major parts in classic plays.

Incidentally, she appeared in films like Singende Engel/Singing Angels (Gustav Ucicky, 1947) with Hans Holt, Fahrt ins Glück/Journey Into Happiness (Erich Engel, 1948) with Rudolf Forster and Hildegard Knef, the melodrama Der Bagnosträfling/The Bagno Convict (1949, Gustav Fröhlich) with Paul Dahlke, Das Kuckucksei/The Cuckoo’s Egg (Walter Firner, 1949) with Curd Jürgens, and Regine (Harald Braun, 1955) with Horst Buchholz.

In 1956 she caused a media scandal when she slapped Vienna theatre critic Hans Weigel in the face in broad daylight. In the following trial, she was condemned to pay 500 Schilling.

Käthe Dorsch died in 1957, in Vienna, Austria. She determined her heritage for a foundation to help poor artists. This foundation still exists today. In Vienna, there is now a Käthe-Dorsch-Gasse, and in Berlin, a street is called the Käthe-Dorsch-Ring.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2901/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Wien-Film / Ufa.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3271/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Tobis.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3374/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst / Tita Binz.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3700/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Steffi-line.de (German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

A long time ago, I bought this old Dutch photo album which was in quite a bad state. I was disappointed that all the postcards had been glued into the album and that most of the stars were from Hollywood, which was not what I collected at the time. Lately, I found it in my attic and now I changed my opinion about it. The 'foto-album' gives a fine overview of the postcards that were published in the Netherlands in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The black and white cards contain glamorous Hollywood portraits and elegantly handwritten names. For this post, I scanned a selection of the cards.

The cover of the 'Foto-album'.

Two pages from the album.

Page from the album.

Dutch postcard.

Dominican film actress María Montez (1912-1951) gained fame and popularity as a tempestuous Latino beauty in Hollywood movies of the 1940s. In a series of exotic adventures filmed in Technicolor, she starred as Arabian princesses, jungle goddesses, and highborn gypsies, dressed in fanciful costumes and sparkling jewels. Over her career, ‘The Queen of Technicolor’ appeared in 26 films, of which five were made in Europe.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

American actress Kathryn Grayson (1922-2010) was a pretty, petite brunette with a heart-shaped face. During the 1940s and early 1950s, she starred in several MGM musicals with Gene Kelly and Mario Lanza. Her best-known musicals are Show Boat (1950) and Kiss Me Kate (1953).

Dutch postcard.

Danny Kaye (1911-1987) was an American actor, singer, dancer, comedian, and musician. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and tongue-twisting songs. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in Straw Hat Revue, but it was the stage production of the musical Lady in the Dark in 1940 that brought him acclaim and notice from agents. Samuel Goldwyn put him in a series of Technicolor musicals, starting with Up in Arms (1944). Kaye starred in 17 movies, notably Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), The Inspector General (1949), Hans Christian Andersen (1952), White Christmas (1954) and The Court Jester (1956).

Dutch postcard.

American singer Bing Crosby (1903-1977) was a crooner whose signature song was 'White Christmas'. He often played 'happy-go-lucky fellas' in films with included the 'Road to...' comedies from 1940 to 1962, but he proved that he could act with The Country Girl (1954) opposite Grace Kelly. Crosby was a multi-media entertainer: a star on the radio, in the cinema, and in chart-topping recordings. He had 38 no. 1 singles, which surpassed Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

Dutch postcard.

American actress Ava Gardner (1922-1990) was signed to a contract by MGM in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading stars and was considered one of the most beautiful women of her day. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953). She appeared in several high-profile films from the 1950s to 1970s and continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death at the age of 67.

Dutch postcard.

American actress and singer Ann Blyth (1928) was often cast in Hollywood musicals, but she was also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in Mildred Pierce (1945) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Dutch postcard, 1947.

American actress Teresa Wright (1918-2005) was nominated twice for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress: in 1941 for her debut work in The Little Foxes, and in 1942 for Mrs. Miniver, winning for the latter. That same year, she received a nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in The Pride of the Yankees (1942), opposite Gary Cooper. She is also known for her performances in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

John Garfield in Gentleman's Agreement (1947)

Dutch postcard. Photo: 20th Century Fox. John Garfield in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947).

American actor John Garfield (1913-1952) played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. Called to testify before the U.S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), he denied communist affiliation and refused to 'name names', which effectively ended his film career. The stress led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack. Garfield is seen as a predecessor of such Method actors as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

American actress Joan Caulfield (1922-1991) started as a fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a successful stage career in 1943. Paramount signed her and she starred in romantic comedies as Dear Ruth (1947) and Film Noirs like The Unsuspected (1947).

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Glenn Ford (1916-2006) was a Canadian-American actor whose career lasted more than 50 years. Although he played different types of roles in many film genres, Ford was best known for playing ordinary men in unusual circumstances. He was one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Some of his most significant roles were in the Film Noirs Gilda (1946) and The Big Heat (1953), and the high school angst film Blackboard Jungle (1955). However, it was for comedies or Westerns which he received acting laurels, including three Golden Globe Nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy, winning for Pocketful of Miracles (1961). He also played a supporting role as Clark Kent's adoptive father in Superman (1978).

Fred Astaire in The Sky’s the Limit (1943)

Dutch postcard. Photo: R.K.O. Radio Pictures. Fred Astaire in The Sky’s the Limit (Edward H. Griffith, 1943).

American dancer and actor Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was a unique dancer with his top hat and tails, his uncanny sense of rhythm, perfectionism, and innovation. He began his highly successful partnership with Ginger Rogers in Flying Down to Rio (1933). They danced together in 10 musicals in which he made all song and dance routines integral to the plotlines. Another innovation was that a closely tracking dolly camera filmed his dance routines in as few shots as possible.

Dutch postcard.

Donna Reed (1921-1986) was an American film, television actress, and producer. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. She is well known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946). She received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity (1953). Reed is also known as Donna Stone, a middle-class American mother, and housewife in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966).

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount.

Green-eyed and dark-haired American actress Wanda Hendrix (1928-1981) achieved stardom in her teens and played in about 20 films in the late 1940s and 1950s. Her first, brief marriage was to the most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy.

Dutch postcard.

Handsome American actor Montgomery Clift (1920-1966) was one of Hollywood's first Method actors. He starred in films like the Western Red River (1948), A Place in the Sun (1951), From Here To Eternity (1953), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), in which he co-starred for the third time with Elizabeth Taylor. A near-fatal auto accident in 1957 changed his looks and sent him into a drug and alcohol addiction. Clift died in 1966.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount.

Irish born Maureen O’Hara (1920-2015) was one of the icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The feisty and fearless actress starred in John Ford’s Oscar-winning drama How Green Was My Valley (1941), set in Wales, and Ford’s Irish-set The Quiet Man (1952) opposite John Wayne. The famously red-headed actress also worked successfully with Charles Laughton at Jamaica Inn (1939) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), starred in the perennial Christmas hit Miracle on 34th Street (1947), and appeared in the Disney children’s hit The Parent Trap (1961).

Dutch postcard. Photo: RKO Radio Films.

American actor John Wayne (1907-1979) was one of the most popular film stars of the 20th century. He received his first leading film role in The Big Trail (1930). Working with John Ford, he got his next big break in Stagecoach (1939). His career as an actor took another leap forward when he worked with director Howard Hawks in Red River (1948). Wayne won his first Academy Award in 1969. He starred in 142 films altogether and remains a popular American icon to this day.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

American actor James Stewart (1908-1997) is among the most honored and popular stars in film history. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart had a film career that spanned over 55 years and 80 films.

Dutch postcard. Photo: RKO Radio Films.

Handsome, suave English-American actor Cary Grant (1904-1986) became one of Hollywood's definitive classic leading men, known for his debonair demeanour. Grant’s best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).

Dutch postcard.

During the 1940s, Veronica Lake (1922-1973) was Hollywood' s Peek-a-boo Girl. We love her for Preston Sturges'Sullivan's Travels (1942), Rene Clair's I Married a Witch (1942) and for her femme fatale roles opposite Alan Ladd in the Film Noirs This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946).

Dutch postcard. Photo: M.G.M.

Handsome Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban (1920-2009) was the epitome of elegance, charm, and grace on film, stage, and television. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he reinvigorated the Latin Lover style in Hollywood without achieving top screen stardom. He fought to upscale the Latin image in Hollywood and this may have cost him a number of roles along the way, but he gained respect and a solid reputation and provided wider-range opportunities for Spanish-speaking actors. Montalban is probably best remembered for his starring role as the mysterious Mr. Roarke on the TV series Fantasy Island (1977–1984), with Hervé Villechaize as his partner Tatto, and as Grandfather Valentin in the Spy Kids franchise.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Europa - Columbia.

Randolph Scott (1898-1987) was a handsome American leading man who developed into one of Hollywood's greatest and most popular Western stars. From 1950 till 1953, he was among America's Top 10 box-office draws.

Dutch postcard.

At 19, American film actress Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) became an overnight star as 'Slim' opposite Humphrey Bogart in her memorable film debut in Howard Hawks'To Have and Have Not (1942). She became known for her distinctive husky voice and glamorous looks in film noirs as The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), and the delicious comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe. After a 50-year career, she received a Golden Globe and her first Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her role as Barbra Streisand’s mother in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1997).

Dutch postcard. Photo: Europa - Columbia.

American actor and director John Derek (1926-1998) was known for such films as Since You Went Away (John Cromwell, 1944), All the King's Men (Robert Rossen, 1949), and Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and for his marriages to Ursula Andress, Linda Evans, and Bo Derek.

Deanna Durbin and Robert Stack in Nice Girl? (1941)

Dutch postcard. Deanna Durbin and Robert Stack in Nice Girl? (William A. Seiter, 1941).

When Deanna Durbin's (1921-2013) Three Smart Girls (Henry Koster, 1936), the first of her 21 starring vehicles, was released in 1936 it was an immediate sensation, and her films for Universal are said to have saved the studio from bankruptcy.

With his charismatic smile, American actor and producer Tom Cruise (1962) became the most successful member of the Brat Pack, Hollywood's golden boys and girls of the 1980s. Top Gun (1985) made him an action star, but with his roles in The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) he proved himself to be an all-round star and an excellent actor. During the 1990s, he continued to combine action blockbusters like Mission Impossibe (1996) with highly acclaimed dramas like A Few Good Men (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Magnolia (1999). He received more praise for his roles in Minority Report (2000) and Collateral (2002) and for years, he was one of the highest paid actors in the world. Although he continued to score major box office hits with the Mission Impossible franchise, his later work was overshadowed by his outspoken attitude about Scientology which alienated him from many of his viewers.

Italian postcard by Danrose, no. 660. Photo: Fotex / R. Drechsler / G. Neri.Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

French postcard, Réf. 542.

British postcard by Heroes Publishing Ltd., London, no. SPC 2894.

British postcard by Box Office, no. BOPC 3038. Photo: Herb Ritts, 1986.

French postcard, Réf. 525. Photo: Herb Ritts.

Film-trivia infamy

Tom Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in 1962 in Syracuse, NY. He is the only son of Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. He has three sisters: Marian, Lee Anne De Vette, and Cass.

In 1974, when Cruise was 12, his parents divorced. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, with his mother and her new husband.

Deeply religious, he enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with the ambition to join the priesthood. He dropped out after one year. At high-school, he was a wrestler until he was sidelined by a knee injury. Soon taking up acting, he found that the activity served a dual purpose: performing satiated his need for attention, while the memorisation aspect of acting helped him come to grips with his dyslexia.

Moving to New York in 1980, he studied drama at the prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse, in conjunction with the Actors Studio, New School University, New York. He signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and began acting in films.

His film debut was a small part in Endless Love (Franco Zeffirelli, 1981), starring Brooke Shields. It was followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps (Harold Becker, 1981), starring George C. Scott and Timothy Hutton.

In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983). The Hollywood press corps began touting Cruise as one of the 'Brat Pack', a group of twenty-something actors who seemed on the verge of taking over the movie industry in the early 1980s.

Cruise's first big hit was the coming-of-age comedy Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983), in which he entered film-trivia infamy with the scene wherein he celebrates his parents' absence by dancing around the living room in his underwear. From the outset, he exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.

Cruise played the male lead in the dark fantasy Legend (Ridley Scott, 1985) and the action film Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986) with Kelly McGillis and Val Kilmer. Top Gun (1986) established Cruise as an action star.

However, he refused to be pigeonholed and followed it up with a solid characterisation of a fledgling pool shark in The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986), for which co-star Paul Newman earned an Academy Award. In 1988, he played the brother of an autistic savant played by Dustin Hoffman in the drama Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988). However, Cruise had not yet totally convinced critics he was more than a pretty face while he also starred in Cocktail (Roger Donaldson, 1988), which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor.

His chance came when he played paraplegic Vietnam vet Ron Kovic in Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone, 1989). For his role, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay in Risky Business (1983)

Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A 193. Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay in Risky Business (Paul Brickman, 1983).

Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves (1983)

Canadian postcard by American Postcard, no. F25, 1984. Photo: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves (Michael Chapman, 1983).

French postcard by Edition Erving, Paris, no. 743. Tom Cruise in Cocktail (Roger Donaldson, 1988).

Spanish postcard in the Collección 'Estrellas Cinematográficas' by Cacitel, no. 59, 1990. Photo: Andrea Jaffe Public Relations, Los Angeles, USA.

French postcard, no. C 72.

Undercutting his own leading man image

In 1990 Tom Cruise renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church Of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. He was introduced to Scientology by his ex-wife Mimi Rogers.

Though Cruise's bankability faltered a bit with the expensive disappointment Far and Away (Ron Howard, 1990) with his then-wife Nicole Kidman, A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992) brought him back into the game.

By 1994, the star was undercutting his own leading man image with the role of the slick, dastardly vampire Lestat in the long-delayed film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), opposite Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas. Although the author was vehemently opposed to Cruise's casting, Rice famously reversed her decision upon seeing the actor's performance, and publicly praised Cruise's portrayal.

In 1996, Cruise scored financial success with the reboot of Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996), but it was with his multilayered performance in Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996), that Cruise proved once again why he is considered a major Hollywood player. For Jerry Maguire, he won another Golden Globe and received his second Oscar nomination.

According to IMDb, Cruise is the first actor in history to star in five consecutive films that grossed $100 million in the United States: A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (Sydney Pollack, 1993), Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (Neil Jordan, 1994), Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996) and Jerry Maguire (Cameron Crowe, 1996).

1999 saw Cruise reunited onscreen with Kidman in a project of a very different sort, Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1990). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The film, which was the director's last, had been the subject of controversy, rumour, and speculation since it began filming. It opened to curious critics and audiences alike across the nation and was met with a violently mixed response. However, it allowed Cruise to once again take part in film history, further solidifying his position as one of Hollywood's most well-placed movers and shakers. Cruise's enviable position was again solidified later in 1999 when he earned a third Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a loathsome 'sexual prowess' guru in Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)."

French postcard by Edycard, no. 08. Photo: Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

French postcard by Edycard, no. 29. Photo: Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

French postcard, no. 1062. Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

French postcard, no. 1063. Tom Cruise in Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986).

A cloud of negative publicity

In 2000, Tom Cruise scored again when he returned as an international agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible II (John Woo, 2000), which proved to be one of the summer blockbusters. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year and had a mixed critical reception.

He then reteamed with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe for a remake of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenábar, 1997) titled Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz.

Though Vanilla Sky's sometimes surreal trappings found the film receiving a mixed reception at the box office, the same could not be said for the following year's massively successful Sci-Fi chase film Minority Report (Steven Spielberg, 2001), or of the historical epic The Last Samurai (Edward Zwick, 2003).

For his next film, Cruise picked a role unlike any he'd ever played; starring as a sociopathic hitman in the psychological thriller Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004). He received major praise for his departure from the good-guy characters he'd built his career on, and for doing so convincingly.

He teamed up with Spielberg again for the second time in three years with an epic adaptation of the H.G. Wells alien invasion story War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005). The summer blockbuster was in some ways overshadowed, however, by a cloud of negative publicity. It began, when Cruise became suddenly vocal about his beliefs in Scientology, the religion created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard.

Cruise publicly denounced actress Brooke Shields for taking medication to combat her postpartum depression, going so far as to call the psychological science a "Nazi science" in an Entertainment Weekly interview.

In 2005, he was interviewed by Matt Lauer for The Today Show during which time he appeared to be distractingly argumentative in his insistence that psychiatry is a "pseudoscience," and in a Der Spiegel interview, he was quoted as saying that Scientology has the only successful drug rehabilitation program in the world.

This behaviour caused a stirring of public opinion about Cruise, as did his relationship with 27-year-old actress Katie Holmes. The two announced their engagement in the spring of 2005, and Cruise's enthousiasm for his new romantic interest created more curiosity about his mental stability. He appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where he jumped up and down on the couch, professing his love for the newly-Scientologist Holmes.

The actor's new public image alienated many of his viewers. As he geared up for the spring release of Mission: Impossible III (J.J. Abrams, 2006), his ability to sell a film based almost purely on his own likability was in question for the first time in 20 years. Despite this, the film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office.

Cruise moved on to making headlines on the business front when he and corporate partner Paula Wagner in 2006 officially "took over" the United Artists studio, which was all but completely defunct. One of the first films to be produced by the new United Artists was the tense political thriller Lions for Lambs (Robert Redford, 2007), with Redford, Cruise, and Meryl Streep. The film took an earnest and unflinching look at the politics behind the Iraq war but was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by the World War II thriller Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) with Kenneth Branagh and Carice van Houten.

British postcard by New Line, no. 64. Photo: Transworld B.V. Entertainment.

Italian postcard by Danrose, no. 676. Photo: MGM / Shooting Star / Grazia Neri. Tom Cruise in Rain Man (Barry Levinson, 1988).

French postcard, no. C 33.

Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire (1994)

British postcard by Exclusive Collectors' Artcard. Photo: Geffen Pictures. Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994). Caption: The Vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise). Ageless, Immortal and Evil, he is sustained through the centuries by the blood of countless victims.

The Mission Impossible franchise

Tom Cruise would find a solid footing as the 2010s progressed, with blockbusters like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird, 2011) and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie, 2015). He is known for doing many of his own stunts in these films, even exceptionally dangerous ones.

The Mission Impossible franchise earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Cruise reteamed with Cameron Diaz in the action-comedy Knight and Day (James Mangold, 2010). He starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot (Christopher McQuarrie, 2012).

He also starred in big-budget fantasy projects like Oblivion (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). Tom Cruise was married three times. His first wife was actress Mimi Rogers, with whom he was married from 1987 till their divorce in 1990.

His second marriage with Nicole Kidman from 1990 till 2001. They adopted two children Isabella Jane Cruise (1992) and Connor Antony Cruise (1995). He lived together with Vanilla Sky (2001) co-star Penélope Cruz from 2001 till 2004.

His 2006 marriage to Katie Holmes ended in divorce in 2012. They have one daughter, Surie Cruise (2006).

Recently, Cruise returned on the screen as Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Christopher McQuarrie, 2018). In 2020, he will also return as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick (Joseph Kosinski, 2020), in which Val Kilmer will also reprise his role from the first film.

British postcard by Santoro Graphics Ltd, London, no. C243.

French postcard, no. PP 138.

Dutch postcard by Verenigde Spaarbank, Utrecht.

British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC 8638, 1999.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

German actor Olaf Storm (1894-1931) appeared in supporting roles in ca. 30 silent films, including three major classics of this period. He worked often with director Franz Hofer. Storm edited a film and also produced a film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 444/4, 1919-1924.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 444/5, 1919-1924.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 444/6, 1919-1924.

Detective Serial

Olaf Storm was born Theodor Joseph van Kann in Richterich, Germany in 1894, according to Wikipedia. However, the sources differ: IMDb and Steffi-Line claim that he was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark.

He started his film career with a supporting part in the German production Das Erbe vom Lilienhof/The legacy of Lilienhof (Franz Hofer, 1919). Hofer had been one of the true auteurs of the early German cinema.

The Encyclopedia of European Cinema indicates that “Hofer’s work is marked by stunning formal qualities and bizarre twists of plot.” Storm played supporting parts in such Hofer films as Ferréol (Franz Hofer, 1920) with Margit Barnay and Ernst Deutsch, Ein nettes Früchtchen/A nice little fruit (Franz Hofer, 1920), and Der Riesenschmuggel/The giant smuggling (Franz Hofer, 1920) as the fiancée of Erika Glässner.

Then he got the leading role in the detective serial Nat Pinkerton im Kampf/Nat Pinkerton (Wolfgang Neff, 1920). The young Béla Lugosi played a gang leader in this film serial.

In the meanwhile, Storm kept appearing in Hofer productions, including Begierde/Desire (Franz Hofer, 1921) and the comedy Aus den Akten einer anständigen Frau/From the Files of a Respectable Woman (Franz Hofer, 1921), both with Margit Barnay.

Storm produced as well as acted in Die Minderjährige - Zu jung fürs Leben/The minors - Too young for life (Alfred Tostary, 1921) with Hanni Weisse. A year later, he both edited and acted in the drama Das Straßenmädchen von Berlin/Girl of the Berlin Streets (Richard Eichberg, 1922) with Lee Parry.

That year, he also played a supporting part as the husband in the drama Fräulein Julie/Miss Julie (Felix Basch, 1922), an adaptation of the August Strindberg play from 1888, starring Danish diva Asta Nielsen.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 444/1, 1919-1924.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 444/2, 1919-1924.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 444/3, 1919-1924.

Three Classics

Olaf Storm played small parts in three of the classics of the German silent cinema. He had an uncredited part in Fritz Lang’s Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit/Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) featuring Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the arch-criminal Dr. Mabuse.

Two years later he played a young hotel guest in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Der Letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924). Emil Jannings starred in this beautiful film as an aging hotel doorman who is fired from his prestigious position and re-assigned to the lowly position of washroom attendant.

The third classic is the Sci-Fi epic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926), the biggest-budgeted film ever produced at the UFA studio. Storm played the uncredited part of Jan.

During these years he also played bigger parts in less known films. In Die Tochter des Wucherers/The daughter of the moneylender (Fritz Bernhardt, 1922), he co-starred with Lee Parry.

He had also a notable part in Die vom anderen Ufer/Those from the Other Side (Arthur Bergen, 1926) with Bruno Kastner.

His other roles were mostly smaller parts and a year later he made his last two films: the drama Verbotene Liebe/Forbidden Love (Friedrich Feher, 1927) with Magda Sonja, and Wochenendzauber/Weekend Magic (Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1927) starring Harry Liedtke. Apparently, Storm got into financial worries.

Four years later, in 1931, Olaf Storm committed suicide in Berlin at the age of 37.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 774/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Arenberg Atelier, Wien.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 774/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Arenberg Atelier, Wien.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 774/3, 1925-1926. Photo: Arenberg Atelier, Wien.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1374/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3354/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Fayer, Wien.

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-Line - German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), The Encyclopedia of European Cinema, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.

On 12 May, Michel Piccoli (1925-2020), one of the most original and versatile French actors of the last half-century, has died. He appeared in many different roles, from seducer to cop to a gangster to Pope in more than 200 films and TV films. Among the directors he worked with are Jean Renoir, Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Luis Buñuel, and Alfred Hitchcock. Michel Piccoli was 94.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 19/73.

Vintage postcard.

Swiss postcard by Musée de l'Elysée / News Productions, Baulmes, no. 55603. Photo: Laurence Sudre.

Contempt

Michel Piccoli was born Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli in Paris in 1925 to a musical family. His French mother Marcelle Piccoli was a pianist and his Italian father Henri Piccoli was a violinist.

At boarding school, the introverted teenager Michel developed a profound love for the stage. He later studied drama under Andrée Bauer-Thérond and then trained as an actor at the René Simon drama school in Paris.

In 1945, he began his stage career with the Renaud-Barrault theatre company at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris. He made his film debut in Sortilèges (Christian-Jaque, 1945), but his first proper film role was in Le Point du jour/The Mark of the Day (Louis Daquin, 1949).

Piccoli subsequently lent his talents to Jean Renoir in French Cancan (1954) starring Jean Gabin, and René Clair in Les Grandes Manoeuvres/The great manoeuvres (1955) with Gérard Philipe.

It took six more years to become ‘box office’ as a film actor with the gangster film Le Doulos/The Finger Man (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1961), starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

He then had his international breakthrough with his leading role opposite Brigitte Bardot in Jean-Luc Godard's Le Mépris/Contempt (1963). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Like Hollywood's Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and Gary Cooper, Piccoli was possessed of that rare gift of being able to adapt himself to virtually any kind of material without altering his essential screen persona. And like those aforementioned actors, Piccoli's talents suited the prerequisites of a wide variety of directors.”

He worked with some of the best international film auteurs: Agnès Varda at Les Créatures/The Creatures (1966) opposite Catherine Deneuve, Alain Resnais at La Guerre est finie/The War Is Over (1966), Jacques Demy at Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and Alfred Hitchcock at Topaz (1969).

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 795. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Belgian collectors card by Best, Antwerp for Victoria, Brussels, album 3, no. 501.

Dutch collectors card in the 'Filmsterren: een portret' Series by Edico-Service, no. D5 024 60-11, 1995. Photo: Collection La Cinémathèque Française. Michel Piccoli in Dillinger é morto (Marco Ferreri, 1968).

A Symbol of Bourgeois Respectability

Michel Piccoli starred in four of the best-known films of French director Claude Sautet, starting with Choses de la vie/The Little Things in Life (1969) with Romy Schneider. Invariably he was cast as a symbol of bourgeois respectability whose quest for personal fulfillment appears destined to end in failure.

James Travers at French Films: “Sautet did more to humanise Piccoli than perhaps any other filmmaker, particularly when the actor was cast alongside Romy Schneider (in Les Choses de la vie and Max et les Ferrailleurs), the actress who became one of Piccoli's dearest friends.”

A darker, more disturbing Piccoli can be seen in the films he made for Luis Buñuel, in particular Le Journal d'une femme de chamber/The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (1967) and Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie/The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972).

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Piccoli was one of the most visible faces in the European cinema, with films like Les Noces rouges/Wedding in Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1973), Themroc (Claude Faraldo, 1973), La Grande bouffe/The Big Feast (Marco Ferreri, 1973), Atlantic City (Louis Malle, 1980), and Salto nel vuoto/A Leap in the Dark (Marco Bellocchio, 1980), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

In 1982, he won the Silver Bear at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival for his chilling role in Une étrange affaire/Strange Affair (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1981).

Both as an actor and as a producer Piccoli supported such young filmmakers as Bertrand Tavernier (Des enfants gates/Spoiled Children, 1977), Jacques Doillon (La Fille prodigue/The Prodigal Daughter, 1981) and Leos Carax (Mauvais sang/Bad Blood, 1986).

In 1976, Piccoli recorded his remarkable career on the page when he co-wrote a semi-autobiography, 'Dialogue Egoistes' (Egoist Dialogues). He has been married three times, first to actress Éléonore Hirt (1954-?), then for eleven years to the singer Juliette Gréco (1966-1977) and finally, from 1980 till his death to writer and actress Ludivine Clerc. He had one daughter from his first marriage, Anne-Cordélia.

French postcard by La Roue Tourne, Paris.

French postcard by La Roue Tourne, Paris, no. 1117.

Big East-German collectors card by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 31/83, 1983.

Mr. Cinema

In the 1980s, Michel Piccoli resumed his stage career, starring in Peter Brook's acclaimed Paris productions of Anton Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard' (1981, 1983) and Patrice Chéreau's staging of Pierre de Marivaux's 'La Fausse Suivante' (1985).

He continued to star in films, such as in Milou en mai/Milou in May (Louis Malle, 1990) for which he was nominated for the César. In 1991, Piccoli again won international acclaim for his portrayal of an artist suffering from a creative block in La belle noiseuse (Jacques Rivette, 1991) with Emmanuelle Béart.

Piccoli turned his hand to film directing, starting with a segment for the Amnesty International film Contre l'oubli (1991). His first feature was Alors viola/So There (1997), followed by La Plage noire/The Black Beach (2001) with Dominique Blanc, and C'est pas tout à fait la vie dont j'avais rêvé (2005). Not surprisingly, he was chosen to impersonate Mr. Cinema in Agnès Varda's Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma/The One Hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (1995).

He subsequently continued to do steady work in pictures of varying quality, with highlights being the psychological thriller Généalogies d'une Crime (Raul Ruiz, 1997) with Piccoli as a doctor caught up in a murder mystery, and Je rentre à la maison/I'm Going Home (Manoel de Oliveira, 2001) with Catherine Deneuve. In 2001 he was the recipient of the Europe Theatre Prize. In 2002, he supported Lionel Jospin's presidential campaign. Piccoli was vocally opposed to the Front National.

James Travers at French Films: “There is something utterly seductive about Piccoli's screen portrayals, which comes from the actor's irresistible personal charm and his ability to project, very subtly, the inner neuroses, desires and venality of his characters. No wonder he is so well-loved by critics and audiences, and so eagerly sought after by filmmakers. Indefatigable, talented and generous, Piccoli deserves his reputation as one of the finest actors of his generation.”

In 2012, Piccoli won the David di Donatello (the Italian Oscar) for his role as the pope in the comedy-drama Habemus Papam/We Have a Pope (Nanni Moretti, 2012). Since then he made a few more films. The last one was the short fantasy Notre-Dame des Hormones/Our Lady of Hormones (Bertrand Mandico, 2015), which he narrated.

Michel Piccoli passed away on 12 May 2020 in Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle, France. He was 94.

German autograph card by Kino.

Emmanuelle Béart and Michel Piccoli in La belle noiseuse (1991)

German postcard, 1991. Emmanuelle Béart and Michel Piccoli in La belle noiseuse (Jacques Rivette, 1991).

Trailer for Le Mépris/Contempt (1963). Source: The Cult Box (YouTube).

Trailer for Habemus Papam/We Have a Pope (2012). Source: Movieclips Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (French Films), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Green-eyed and dark-haired American actress Wanda Hendrix (1928-1981) achieved stardom in her teens and played in about 20 films in the late 1940s and 1950s. Her first, brief marriage was to the most decorated soldier of World War II, Audie Murphy.

Dutch postcard, no. 1089. Photo: Universal International.

Dutch postcard, no. a.x. 276-134. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Wanda Hendrix in Prince of Foxes (Henry King, 1949).

Else, the char-girl with the thickened brogue

Dixie Wanda Hendrix was born in 1928 in Jacksonville, Florida, to Max Sylvester and Mary Faircloth Hendrix, nee Bailey. Her father was a logging camp boss who later worked for Lockheed Aircraft.

After graduation from junior high school, she joined the Jacksonville Little Theatre, where she was discovered by a Warner Brothers talent scout. The 16-years-old moved to Hollywood. She made her debut as Else, the char-girl with the thickened brogue who develops an ill-fated allegiance with Charles Boyer in Confidential Agent (Herman Shumlin, 1945).

Before she was out of her teens she had starred in several other films, including the Film Noir Nora Prentiss (Vincent Sherman, 1947) with Ann Sheridan, Robert Montgomery’s exemplary 'ultra-Noir'Ride the Pink Horse (1947) and the comedy Welcome Stranger (Elliott Nugent, 1947) with Bing Crosby.

In 1946, WW II hero-turned-actor Audie Murphy saw her on the cover of Coronet magazine and his mentor, actor James Cagney, called the magazine and got her address. Audie asked her to dinner, and they fell in love immediately. They got engaged in 1947 and promised her parents that they would defer marriage for two full years.

Her parents moved to Hollywood, where they bought a ranch. In 1949, the young couple married and the press reported: "Audie Murphy thinks his little Hendrix honey is Wanda-ful!" However, Murphy wanted her to give up filming and move with him to Texas. He had terrible nightmares from his war experiences and always had his gun with him. During 'flashback' episodes he would turn on her, once holding her at gunpoint.

In her later years, Hendrix spoke of Murphy's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with sympathy. Murphy had a passion for horse racing and for making big-money bets on long shots. Eventually, he gambled away all of her savings. In 1950, after 13 months of marriage, she received a divorce in 1951 in Los Angeles on the grounds of mental cruelty. The couple had no children but together they produced the Western Sierra (Alfred E. Green, 1950).

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount.

British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

She sizzled and showed off her hips

Among Wanda Hendrix's best-known films are the comedy Miss Tatlock's Millions (Richard Haydn, 1948) with Richard Lund, The Prince of Foxes (Henry King, 1949), with Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, the drama Song of Surrender (Mitchell Leisen, 1949), the Western Saddle Tramp (Hugo Fregonese, 1950) starring Joel McCrea, and the adventure film The Highwayman (Lesley Selander, 1951) with Charles Coburn.

Later, she starred with John Derek in the action film in Sea of Lost Ships (Joseph Kane, 1953), and she sizzled and showed off her hips in the Roger Corman–produced crime drama Highway Dragnet (Nathan Juran, 1954) with Richard Conte. In 1954, she married wealthy sportsman James L. Stack, brother of the actor Robert Stack, and she briefly retired.

Her second marriage also made headlines when it came to an end in 1958 with both sides charging "mental cruelty". Hendrix went to work again, on TV mostly. One of her films in this period was the thriller Johnny Cool (William Asher, 1963) with Henry Silva. According to IMDb, she developed a drinking problem in the 1960s due to the few acting roles she was offered.

In 1969, she married Italian financier and oil company executive Steve La Monte in a single-ring ceremony at a plush suite of the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was 34; she listed her age on the marriage license as 33. La Monte divorced her in 1979 or 1980 (the sources differ). Despite breaking up after a year of marriage with Audie Murphy, she had continued to love him and was devastated when he died suddenly in a plane crash in 1971. She considered collaborating with author Douglas Warren on an autobiography of Murphy, but it never came to fruition.

Her last role for the big screen was in the Civil War horror One Minute Before Death (Rogelio A. González, 1972), based on a short story 'The Oval Portrait' by Edgar Allan Poe. The film in which she co-starred with Barry Coe, was never theatrically released. Her final screen appearance was in an episode of the TV series Police Story (1974) with Scott Brady.

In 1981, Wanda Hendrix died of double pneumonia in Burbank, California. She was 52. Hendrix was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 252. Photo: Paramount, 1950.

Audie Murphy. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/17.

Sources: Chuck Stephens (Film Comment), New York Times, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Sarony was a French photo studio that existed throughout the 20th century and beautifully portrayed countless French silent film stars. Sarony's studio, 'photographe de luxe', was first located at 16 Rue Duphot near the Boulevard de la Madeleine in Paris. The business prospered so the studio moved on to 45 Rue la Fayette, near the Opera, and was then sometimes credited as 'Sarony, Lafitte'. We chose 15 sepia postcards with Sarony pictures by two publishers: A. Noyer a.k.a. A.N., known for its Les Vedettes de Cinéma series, and Edition Cinémagazine.

A. Noyer, Paris

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 97. Photo: Sartony.

French actress and singer Mistinguett (1875-1956) captivated Paris with her risqué routines. She went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest-paid female entertainer in the world. She appeared more than 60 times in the cinema. Bouboule was Mistinguett's goddaughter, an admittedly talented child actress. She was born in 1917 and from 1921 on, she appeared in 13 films.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 98. Photo: Sartony.

Gina Relly (1891-1985) was an actress of the French silent cinema.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by Editions A.N., Paris, no. 99. Photo: Sartony.

Félicien Tramel (1880-1948) was a French singer and actor. He made more than 30 78’s at Odeon with such hits as 'T'en fais pas Bouboule' (Do not worry Bouboule) and 'Y me faut mon patelin' (I miss my hometown). Between 1911 and 1947 he played in dozens of films. In a series of silent and sound comedies, he starred as the character Alfred Bicard or le Bouif.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by Editions A.N., Paris, no. 101. Photo: Sartony.

Sweet 'little angel'Régine Dumien (1914-1979) was a popular child star of the French silent cinema of the early 1920s.

Jean Angelo in Les Aventures de Robert Macaire (1925)

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 162. Photo: Sartony. Jean Angelo as Robert Macaire in Les Aventures de Robert Macaire (Jean Epstein 1925).

Distinguished, attractive, athletic Jean Angelo (1875-1933) was a superstar of the French silent cinema. He was the ultimate leading man of several adventure films of the 1920s. Jean Renoir and Jacques Feyder are among the noted directors that Angelo has worked with.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 165. Photo: Sartony.

Rolla Norman (1889-1971) was a French actor in silent and sound cinema. He was also a war hero.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 166. Photo: Sartony.

Jeanne de Balzac (1891-1930), niece of writer Honoré de Balzac, was a French silent film actress.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 167. Photo: Sartony.

Elegant French actress Arlette Marchal (1902-1984) started out as a fashion model. Between 1922 and 1951 she starred in 41 European and American films. From the 1950s onwards, she dedicated herself mostly to her fashion enterprise.

Cinémagazine

French postcard by Cinémagazine Edition, no. 167. Photo: Sartony. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Jaque Christiani had a brief film career during the 1920s. The handsome and elegant, but unknown actor debuted in a forgotten silent classic of the French avant-garde cinema.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 414. Photo: Sartony.

Genica Missirio (1895-?) was a Romanian actor who starred in the French silent cinema of the 1920s.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 417. Photo: Sartony.

Lilian Constantini (1902-1982) was a French dancer and actress, before marrying industrialist Charles Schneider.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 418. Photo: Sartony.

Maurice de Féraudy (1859-1932) was an actor of the Comédie-Française and a French director. He was also a notable actor and director in the French silent cinema.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 419. Photo: Sartony.

Emmy Lynn (1889-1978) was a French stage and screen actress, known for her parts in the French silent films by Abel Gance, Henry Roussel, and Marcel L’Herbier.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Édition, no. 420. Photo: Sartony.

André Luguet (1892-1979) was a French stage and film actor. He appeared in over 120 films between 1910 and 1970, both in France and Hollywood.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 423. Photo: Sartony.

Maurice Schutz (1866-1955) was a French stage and screen actor, who peaked in French silent cinema of the 1920s, in films by a.o. Dulac, Epstein, Luitz-Morat, Duvivier, Dreyer, and Poirier.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

German actor Carl Raddatz (1912-2004) was much in demand by film producers in the 1940s and especially in the 1950s. He appeared in several Nazi Propaganda films, and he also gave Joseph Stalin a German voice. Through the years he would become one of the leading character actors of the German theatre.

Big German card by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 199, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann.

Big German card by Ross Verlag, no. W 32, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Ufa. Signed on 24 XII 1941.

Big German card by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. W 63, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Ufa. Signed on 24 December 1942.

Big German card by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. W 85, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann.

Nazi Propaganda films

Carl Raddatz was born as Karl Werner Fitz in Mannheim, Germany in 1912. His parents were insurance agent Karl Hermann Raddatz and Luisa Elisabetha Nußbickel.

He took acting lessons from Willy Birgel, who engaged him for the Mannheimer Nationaltheater. Engagements in Aachen, Darmstadt, Bremen and finally Berlin followed.

In Berlin he would have his greatest successes. In the Ufa studios in Babelsberg, he made his film debut in the Propaganda film Urlaub auf Ehrenwort/Furlough on Word of Honor (Karl Ritter, 1938). Soon followed more Ufa productions like Liebelei und Liebe/Flirtation and Love (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1938) with Paul Hörbiger as well as Verklungene Melodie/Dead Melody (Viktor Tourjansky, 1938) with Brigitte Horney.

In the next years, Raddatz became established as a star and appeared in well-known productions like Befreite Hände/Freed Hands (Hans Schweikart, 1939) opposite Olga Tschechova, Zwielicht/Twilight (Rudolph von der Noss, 1940) with Viktor Staal, Der 5. Juni/June the 5th (Fritz Kirchhoff, 1942), opposite Kristina Söderbaum in Immensee (Veit Harlan, 1943), and Opfergang/The Great Sacrifice (Veit Harlan, 1944).

He also starred in the poetic love-triangle Unter den Brücken/Under the Bridges (Helmut Käutner, 1945) with Hannelore Schroth and Gustav Knuth. Of his own films, director Helmut Käutner who was one of the major figures of post-War German cinema, considered this to be his best work.

He also played in Nazi Propaganda films like Wunschkonzert/Request Concert (Eduard von Borsody, 1940), Stukas (Karl Ritter, 1941), and Heimkehr/Homecoming (Gustav Ucicky, 1941), a justification of the German invasion of Poland.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3579/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3855/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3954/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa. Carl Raddatz and Hannelore Schroth.

A darling of the public

After the war, Carl Raddatz rather smoothly continued his career with films like the episode film In jenen Tagen/In Those Days (Helmut Käutner, 1946-1947), and Epilog/Epilogue (Helmut Käutner, 1950).

Next to these films, he worked mainly in the theatre. In the mid-1950s, he became a darling of the public with the films Rosen im Herbst/Roses in Autumn (Rudolf Jugert, 1955) with Ruth Leuwerik, Nacht der Entscheidung/Night of Decision (Falk Harnack, 1956) with Hilde Krahl, and Made in Germany (Wolfgang Schleiff, 1957) with Winnie Markus.

He also starred in the musical drama Gabriela (Géza von Cziffra, 1950) opposite Zarah Leander. It was Leander's comeback film after a seven-year absence from filmmaking and became the third highest-grossing film at the West German box office in 1950.

Other popular films were the dramas Regina Amstetten (Kurt Neumann, 1953) also starring Luise Ullrich, and Carl Esmond, and Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (Rolf Thiele, 1958) with Nadja Tiller. The film portrays the scandal that surrounded the prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt.

Giulietta Masina was his partner in the German-Italian co-production Jons und Erdme/La donna dell'altro/Jons and Erdma (Victor Vicas, 1959). It was an adaptation of Hermann Sudermann's story 'Jons and Erdma' from the collection 'The Excursion to Tilsit', about the troubled relationship between the strong-willed Erdma and her irascible husband Jons in the Lithuanian moors.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 158. Photo: Foto Quick / Ufa.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3484/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Wien-Film / Ufa.

German collectors card in the "Deutsche Film-Lieblinge", series I.

Guild of Leading Character Actors

Carl Raddatz's film career ended slowly with The Counterfeit Traitor (George Seaton, 1962) starring William Holden, and finally, the Hans Fallada adaptation Jeder stirbt für sich allein/Everyone Dies Alone (Alfred Vohrer, 1975) with Hildegard Knef.

For TV, he appeared opposite Ruth Leuwerik in the series Die Buddenbrooks/The Buddenbrooks (1979) based on the classic novel by Thomas Mann, and in an episode of the popular crime series Derrick (1990).

He always remained true to the theatre. For years, he was a member of the ensemble of the Staatlichen Schauspielbühnen Berlin and played many interesting roles that heaved him to the guild of leading character actors.

In the 1950s, he had also dubbed stars like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Taylor, and Lee Marvin, and after WW II, he gave Joseph Stalin his voice on German TV. In 1972, he was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) and in 1979 the Filmband in Gold (German Film Award).

Carl Raddatz died in 2004 in Berlin. He was 92. Raddatz was married three times. His first wife was actress Hannelore Schroth, his partner in Unter den Brücken/Under the Bridges (1945).

Carl Raddatz in Geständnis unter vier Augen (1954)

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, no. A 1189. Photo: T. v. Mindszenty / Deutsche London (TLF). Carl Raddatz in Geständnis unter vier Augen/Confession Under Four Eyes (André Michel, 1954).

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1923. Photo: Corona / Deutsche London (TLF) / Lilo. Carl Raddatz in Made in Germany (Wolfgang Schleif, 1957).

'Einmal wirst du wieder bei mir sein sein' (Once You Will Be With Me Again) performed by Carl Raddatz in Wir tanzen um die Welt/We Dance Around the World (Karl Anton, 1939). Source: Various Artists - Topic (YouTube).

Sources: Hans-Michael Bock (Filmportal.de - German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.