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Ernst Schneider

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Ernst Schneider was one of the most acclaimed studio photographers of Berlin during the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. Many celebrities from the theatre, the opera, the circus, and later the cinema came to his studio. Schneider also belonged to the esteemed fashion photographers of the German capital, and published books with his nude photography.

Karina Bell
Karina Bell. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 2094/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Ossi Oswalda
Ossi Oswalda. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3871/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Ernst Schneider, Berlin / FPS.

Hans Stüwe
Hans Stüwe.  German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 645, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin.

Nude Photography


Ernst Schneider started his career in photography sometime at the turn of the 20th Century. Exact data are not available at the net.

His first fashion shots were published in magazines like Welt der Frau (World of Women) and Gartenlaube (Gazebo).

In 1908, he published Die Gestalt des Menschen und Ihre Schönheit: Vorlagen zum Studium des nackten menschlichen Körpers (The Human Form and Beauty: templates to study the naked human body). This book with nude photography was also published in the U.S. by the publisher J. Singer and Company in 1908.

In addition to beautiful women Schneider photographed opera and theatre stars such as Franz Lehar, Richard Tauber and Hans Albers. Even Mata Hari posed for Schneider’s camera.

Madge Lessing
Madge Lessing. German advertising postcard by Richard Habisch & Co., Berlin, for Gargoyle Bohner Wasch, sent by mail in 1911. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Sascha Gura
Sascha Gura. German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K 3072. Photo: Ernst Schneider.

Iris Arlan
Iris Arlan. Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5513. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Ossi Oswalda
Ossi Oswalda. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 761/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Hanni Weisse
Hanni Weisse. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3087/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber. German postcard by Odeon. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

The City's Best Fashion Houses


Around 1908 Atelier Ernst Schneider started to work closely together with such postcard publishers as Rotophot and Neue Photographische Gesellschaft (NPG) and from 1919 on with Ross Verlag.

From 1910 on, the studio was located at Unter den Linden 62-63. Atelier Ernst Schneider moved to the fashionable Kurfürstendamm in 1932. The company remained there until the end of the 1930s.

Schneider worked for the city's best fashion houses and he had a large villa in Wannsee, where many fashion photographs were taken. During the 1930s his work appeared in Vanity Fair and Die Illustrierte Berliner Zeitung.

What later happened to Ernst Schneider and his studio is unclear. If you have more information, please let us know.

Evelyn Holt
Evelyn Holt. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3688/1, 1928 - 1929. Photo: Atelier Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Agnes Esterhazy
Agnes Esterhazy. German postcard by Ross Verlag, nr. 3705/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Ernst Schneider.

Marcella Albani
Marcella Albani. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3704/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Werner Fuetterer
Werner Fuetterer. German postcard by Ross Verlag, nr. 4050/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin / Europäische Film-Production. Publicity still for Morgenröte/Dawnings (Wolfgang Neff, Burton George, 1929).

Olga Tschechowa
Olga Tschechova. German postcard by Ross Verlag no. 4652/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Lya Mara
Lya Mara. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4308/4, 1929-1930. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

This is the third post in a new series on star photographers. The first post was on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris and the second on Italian star photographerAttilio Badodi.

Sources: Detlef Krenz (diegeschichteberlins.de) (German), Postkarten-Archiv.de (German) and Luminous Lint.

Shirley Eaton

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Stunning Shirley Eaton (1937) played a cockney bombshell in British films throughout the 1950s and 1960s. She became famous as golden girl Jill Masterson in the third 007 adventure Goldfinger (1964). Five years later, Eaton retired.

Shirley Eaton
Italian postcard. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Around the World Under the Sea (1966).

Carry On


Shirley Jean Eaton was born in Edgware, Middlesex, in 1937. She grew up in the suburb of Harrow Weald, where she attended Roe Green Junior School on Princes Avenue. Eaton won a place at the Aida Foster School, a specialist drama school, and remained there until she was sixteen.

Her stage debut was at age 12 in Set to Partners (1949) and following it up the following year with Benjamin Britten's Let's Make an Opera!

In 1954 she debuted at the West End in Going to Town. All through the fifties she was a singing star both on the stage and on Television. She had her own act in Variety shows all over the country and starred at The Prince of Wales Theatre in London in her own solo singing act.

Throughout her career, she worked with top British male comedy stars from the period including Jimmy Edwards, Max Bygraves, Bob Monkhouse and Arthur Askey. Her female co-stars included Peggy Mount, Thora Hird and Dora Bryan.

From 1953 on, she also appeared in the cinema. Her debut was a bit part in the comedy-drama A Day to Remember (Ralph Thomas, 1953) starring Stanley Holloway.

She had a supporting part in the comedy Doctor in the House (Ralph Thomas, 1954), about a group of medical students including Dirk Bogarde and Kenneth More. In Great Britain, Doctor in the House was the most popular film at the box office of 1954, and its success spawned six sequels, and the television series Doctor in the House.

Other early film roles include Three Men In A Boat (Ken Annakin, 1956) opposite Laurence Harvey, and Date with Disaster (Charles Saunders, 1957), in which she co-starred with Tom Drake. Eaton participated in the British heat of the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest.

She also sang and danced with the Crazy Gang in Life Is a Circus (Val Guest, 1958). That year, she also co-starred with William Hartnell and Bob Monkhouse in the comedy Carry On Sergeant (Gerald Thomas, 1958) - the first in the series of Carry On films, with 31 entries.

Carry On Sergeant had not been conceived as the start of a series, but after the film's surprising success producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas set about planning a further project. Eaton returned as a nurse in Carry On Nurse (Gerald Thomas, 1959) which was the year’s top grossing film in the UK, and after this success the Carry On series of films evolved. In 1960, Eaton returned one more time in the series, in Carry on Constable (Gerald Thomas, 1960).

Shirley Eaton
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, no. 1085. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: J. Arthur Rank / Progress.

Goldfinger


Shirley Eaton co-starred with popular pulp novelist Mickey Spillane in the crime film The Girl Hunters (Roy Rowland, 1963). Spillane played his own literary creation, private detective Mike Hammer and Eaton was a seductive femme fatale.

Between 1962 and 1968, she also made three episodes of the spy thriller TV series The Saint, starring Roger Moore as the suave and sophisticated Simon Templar.

Eaton achieved most recognition for her short performance in Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964), the third film in the James Bond series starring Sean Connery. As the gold-painted Jill Masterson, Eaton even gained more recognition than Honor Blackman, who played the main Bond Girl, Pussy Galore.

Eaton graced the cover of Life Magazine of 6 November 1964 in her gold-painted persona. Her character's death, being painted head to toe in gold paint and suffering ‘skin suffocation’ led to an urban myth that Eaton had died during filming. She appeared in a 2003 episode of the series MythBusters to dispel the rumour.

Goldfinger was the first Bond film to win an Academy Award and was a financial success, recouping its budget in just two weeks.

After Goldfinger, Eaton made only a few more films, including a version of the Agatha Christie mystery Ten Little Indians (George Pollock, 1965) co-starring Hugh O'Brian, the science fiction film Around the World Under the Sea (Andrew Marton, 1966) starring Lloyd Bridges, and the spy story The Million Eyes of Sumuru (Lindsay Shonteff, 1967).

Eaton played the beautiful but evil Sumuru, who plans world domination by having her sexy all-female army eliminate male leaders and replace them with her female agents. She reprised her role in Jesus Franco's The Girl from Rio/The Seven Secrets of Sumuru (1970).

Then she retired to spend more time with her family. Eaton was married to Colin Lenton Rowe from 1957 until his death in 1994. The couple had two children. In 1999, Shirley Eaton published an autobiography titled Golden Girl. Her new art/autobiography book Under My Skin will be published Spring of 2014 and she is publishing an art calendar for 2014 with her own photography.


Trailer Carry On Nurse (Gerald Thomas, 1959). Source: UmbrellaEntAU (YouTube).


Trailer Around the World Under the Sea (Andrew Marton, 1966). Source: WarnerArchive (YouTube).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Fred Bertelmann (1925-2014)

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On 22 January 2014, German singer and actor Fred Bertelmann (1925-2014) died. His biggest hit was the song Der lachende Vagabund (1957), which he also sang in the Schlager film of the same name.


German postcard by ISV, no. E 22. Photo: Constantin / Grimm.

Eurovision Song Contest


Fred Bertelmann was born in Duisburg, Germany in 1925. Aged 9 he became a chorister and later also studied cello, trumpet, guitar and singing.

In World War II, he fought in the Wehrmacht but then became a prisoner of war and was sent to Alabama, where he first heard of swing music. After his return to Germany he founded his own band and often performed in American GI clubs in Germany.

In 1950 he toured Sweden with Arne Hülphers and Zarah Leander. He also worked as a solo singer of Schlager songs.

His most popular song was the 1957 published Der lachende Vagabund, a cover version of Jim Lowes song Gambler’s Guitar.

Other hits include Wenn es Nacht wird in Montana, In Hamburg sind die Nächte lang, Zwei Gitarren am Meer, Ein kleines Lied auf allen Wegen, and Arrivederci Roma.

wice, in 1958 and 1964, he sang at the German preliminary round of the Eurovision Song Contest.


Belgian postcard by Cox, no. 25. With Conny Froboess.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., no. 019. Photo: Kolibri / Appelt.


German postcard by Terra-Color, no. F 170. Photo: Electrola / Melodie / Gloria / Sascha / Appelt.

Superhit


Fred Bertelmann performed one of his songs in the romantic comedy Pulverschnee nach Übersee/Powder Snow to Übersee (Hermann Leitner, 1956) with Adrian Hoven and Marianne Hold.

This lead to several more film parts. He played the lead in Der lachende Vagabund/The Laughing Rover (Thomas Engel, 1958) opposite Susanne Cramer, a tie-in on his superhit of a year earlier.

In total he appeared in 18 Schlager films, but he also starred in stage musicals as Kiss me Kate.

Since 1966 he was married to television presenter and actress RuthKappelsberger.

He was honoured with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In late 2013 he suffered from severe pneumonia. Fred Bertelmann died on 22 January 2014 in Berg, Upper Bavaria. He was 88.


Fred Bertelmann sings Der lachende Vagabund (1958). Source: Fritz5169 (YouTube).

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

George Alexander

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Sir George Alexander (1858-1918) was an English actor and theatre manager. One of his most famous stage roles was in The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, which premiered in 1896.

George Alexander
British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., Ltd., Printers & Publishers, no. 516 B. Photo: Ellis & Walery. Publicity photo for a stage production of The Prisoner of Zenda.

Lady Windermere's Fan


George Alexander was born in 1858 as George Alexander Gibb Samson in Reading, Berkshire, England.

He began acting in amateur theatricals in 1875. Four years later he embarked on a professional acting career, making his London debut in 1881.

He played many roles in the leading companies, including Sir Henry Irving's Lyceum. In 1890, he produced his first play at the Avenue Theatre and in 1891 he became the actor manager of St. James's Theatre, where he produced several major plays of the day such as Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde in 189).

Alexander also appeared in The Second Mrs Tanqueray by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero in which he played Aubrey Tanqueray. The play madeMrs. Patrick Campbellinto a theatrical star.

George Alexander
British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., E.G., no. 515.M (matt), no. G 515 (glossy). Photo: Langfier Ltd London.

George Alexander
British postcard by Davidson Bros.´Real Photo` series, no. 1090. Sent by mail in 1907. Photo: Lizzie Caswall Smith.

The Importance of Being Earnest


One of the most famous first nights in Victorian Theatre occurred on 14 February 1895 when The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde hit the stage.

The Prince of Wales was in attendance and a good dozen policemen could be seen patrolling the streets outside. A tip-off had warned both the author and the actor/manager that Lord Alfred Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensbury was hoping to get into the theatre and create havoc during the play.

Fortunately the Marquess was ushered from the premises and in disgust threw his grotesque bouquet of vegetables that he was carrying into the gutter. Queensbury then set into motion the events that led to Wilde's downfall and disgrace.

Upon his release from prison in 1897, Wilde moved to the continent.

In 1900, Alexander, who had acquired the acting rights for The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan, visited Wilde in Paris and offered the poverty-stricken former writer some voluntary payments on the plays and to bequeath the rights to Wilde's estranged sons.

George Alexander
British postcard by J. Beagles & Co, Kondon, no. 515 S. Photo: Ellis & Walery.

George Alexander
British postcard by Rotary Photos E.C., no. 103c.

The Second Mrs. Tanqueray


Later, George Alexander threw himself into the development of the modern drawing room comedy.

It was here his true talent shone. With a light comic air and a delicate grace Alec, as he was affectionately known, brought many care-free parts to life.

He remained at the St. James's Theatre to the end of his life. In 1911 he was knighted by King George V for his services to the theatre.

He appeared in two silent films. He repeated his stage role of Aubrey Tanqueray in the film adaptation The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (Fred Paul, 1916).

The following year he appeared as himself in Masks and Faces (Fred Paul, 1917). In this silent curiosity were also appearing the legendary stage actors Henry Irvingand Gerald DuMaurier as well as the famous authors George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Barrie.

George Alexander later appeared as a character in David Lodge's novel about the life of Henry James, Author, Author.

George Alexander died in 1918. He was the great, great uncle of actor/comedian Hugh Laurie.

George Alexander
British postcard in the Wrench series, no. 1002. Sent by mail in 1902. Photo: Langfier Ltd London.

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

Sources: IMDb and Wikipedia.

Ermanno Roveri

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Italian child star Ermanno Roveri (1903-1968) played the lead in silent melodramas like Il piccolo patriota padovano/The little patriot from Padua (1915) and Naufragio/Shipwreck (1916).

Ermanno Roveri in Naufragio
Italian postcard by Film Artistica Floria, Torino (Turin), no. 3404. Printed by Uff. Rev. St. Terni, 16-5-17. Publicity still for Naufragio/Shipwreck (Umberto Paradisi, 1916). Translation caption: "He had the look of a boy who just came out of a big family misfortune."

Dagli Appennini alle Ande
Italian postcard for the film Dagli Appennini alle Ande/From the Apennines to the Andes (Umberto Paradisi, 1916), an adaptation of one of the stories of Edmondo De Amicis'novel Cuore/Heart, and starring Ermanno Roveri. Translation caption: "'Dear son, Marco mine', his father said to him, 'you now leave on a holy mission and God will help you'."

The background may be the harbour of Genoa. Young Marco from Genoa sails to Buenos Aires to visit his seriously ill mother, who emigrated for work. While his mother refuses any cure, Marco wanders around endlessly in search of his mother, following the traces of the family for whom his mother worked, all over Argentine until the foot of the Andes mountains. He first joins a caravan, but when they abandon him, he continues on his own, until he finds his mother, who then accepts to be operated and cured.

Sicilian Orphan


Ermanno Roveri played in Naufragio/Shipwreck (Umberto Paradisi, 1916) a Sicilian orphan, Mario, who is repatriated from Liverpool to Sicily.

On the boat he meets Giulietta (played by Ermanno’s sister, Lavinia Roveri), who has to return to her parents in Naples. During a tempest the boat sinks and Mario offers his seat in the lifeboat to Giulietta. Mario drowns on the sinking ship.

Naufragio was a production of Gloria, the film company in Turin that also produced the first films of diva Lyda Borelli.

Gloria produced a series of films based on the stories in Cuore/Heart (1886) by Edmondo De Amicis. These included Il piccolo scrivano Fiorentino/The little scribe from Florence (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1915) and Il piccolo patriota padovano/The little patriot from Padua (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1915).

Lyda Borelli
Lyda Borelli. Italian postcard, no. 471. Photo: Attillio Badodi.

Ermanno Roveri in Il piccolo scrivano fiorentino
Italian postcard. Ermanno Roveri in the Gloria production Il piccolo scrivano Fiorentino/The little scribe from Florence (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1915). Translation caption: "One night, for the first time in his life, he fell asleep over his notebook. Wake up! Wake up! his father shouted to him, Get to work!"

In this film, based on one the stories from Edmondo De Amicis' book Cuore/Heart (1886), Giulio (Roveri), a 12-year old boy from Florence, lacks sleep as he secretly helps his father (Antonio Monti) copying volumes at night. His parents reproach him, as he loses weight and lacks attention in school. One night, however, the father discovers the secret.

Child Actor


Ermanno Roveri was one of the stars of Gloria. He was born in 1903 in Milan, Italy. As a child he had become famous as Frugolino, one of the comic child actors of the Cines company in Rome.

Among his early films were Il Trabocchetto punitore/Fatal Trap Door (1912) with Emilio Ghioneand Amleto Novelli, and Il Portafoglio rosso/The Lost Pocket-Book (Guglielmo Zorzi, 1914) with Lea Giunchi. Ermanno appeared opposite diva Leda Gysin Il Piccolo cerinaio/The smallcerinaio (Augusto Genina, 1914).

For Gloria, Ermanno appeared in such films as Dagli Appennini alle Ande/From the Apenninesto the Andes (Umberto Paradisi, 1916) and La Felicità/Happiness (Guglielmo Zorzi, 1917).

In the 1930s and 1940s Ermanno Roveri played in a dozen Italian films including Tempo massimo/Full Speed (Mario Mattoli, 1934) and L'Uomo chesorride/The Man Who Smiles (Mario Mattoli, 1936), both starring Vittorio de Sica.

His last film appearance was in I Due sergenti/The Two Sergeants (Carlo Alberto Chiesa, 1951) with Antonella Lualdi.

Till his death, Ermanno Roveri would work on in the theatre and incidentally for the cinema or the television. He died in 1968 in Milan, Italy. He was 65.

Ermanno Roveri in Il piccolo patriota padovano
Italian postcard. Ermanno Roveri in the Gloria production Il piccolo patriota padovano/The little patriot from Padua (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1915). Translation caption: "...No longer able to stand the beatings and the hunger, he escapes his tormentor."

In this film, again adapted from one of the stories from Cuore/Heart (1886) by Edmondo De Amicis, a young boy from Padua (Roveri) dressed in rags is discovered on a boat to Genoa. His poor parents have sold him to acrobats, who maltreat him. During a stop in Barcelona he flees to the Italian consul who helps him return. Aboard the ship to Italy he is nurtured, dressed and foreign visitors give him money, but when he overhears them talking badly about Italy and the Italians, he throws them back the money, not supporting alimony from those who insult his country.

Ermanno Roveri in Il piccolo patriota padovano
Italian postcard. Ermanno Roveri in Il piccolo patriota padovano/The little patriot from Padua (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1915). Translation caption: "His bad parents continuously beat and abused him".

Ermanno Roveri in Il piccolo patriota padovano
Italian postcard. Ermanno Roveri in Il piccolo patriota padovano/The little patriot from Padua (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1915). Translation caption: "He ran to ask for protection to the Italian consul."

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Il Cinema Italiano 1916) and IMDb.

Terence Stamp

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Actor Terence Stamp (1939) is an icon of the 1960s. He dated Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and Jean Shrimpton, and worked with such directors as John Schlesinger, Ken Loach, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Joseph Losey. In 1995 he was chosen by Empire as #59 of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.

Terence Stamp
Vintage postcard.

Brooding Looks


Terence Stamp was born in Stepney, the 'Cockney' part of London, in 1939. He was the eldest of the five children of Ethel Esther (née Perrott) and Thomas Stamp, who was a tugboat captain. His younger brother, Christopher Stamp, would become a impresario and film producer for the pop group The Who.

On leaving school Stamp worked in a variety of advertising agencies in London, working his way up to a very respectable wage.

After appearing in several plays, he made his film debut as an angelic, ill-fated young seaman in the film adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov, 1962). His portrayal of the title character brought him an Oscar and a BAFTA nomination, a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, and international attention.

Roger Phillip Mellor notes in the Encyclopaedia of British Cinema: "Terence Stamp was one of a new generation of stars with fresh attitudes who found favour in the 1960s. And with his soulful, intense looks, ladies found him irresistible".

He then appeared opposite Laurence Olivierin Term of Trial (Peter Glenville, 1962). He won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival got his lead in William Wyler's adaptation of John Fowles'The Collector (1965) with Samantha Eggar.

His brooding looks made him ideal for portraying enigmatic, other-worldly characters, such as in Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey, 1966) with Monica Vitti.

He also starred in Ken Loach's first film Poor Cow (1967), and John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) starring Julie Christie. His romance with Julie Christie received extensive media coverage during London's 'swinging 60s'.

He and his next girlfriend, pre-supermodel Jean Shrimpton, were one of the most photographed couples of Mod London.

Terence Stamp
Vintage card. Photo: Coprensa.

Superman


In 1968, Terence Stamp journeyed to Italy to star in Federico Fellini's Toby Dammit, a 50-minute segment of the Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation Histoires extraordinaires/Spirits of the Dead (1968).

He lived in Italy for several years, during which time his film work included Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968) opposite Silvana Mangano, and Una Stagione all'inferno/A Season in Hell (Nelo Risi, 1970) as the poet Arthur Rimbaud opposite Jean-Claude Brialyin the role of Paul Verlaine.

He withdrew from mainstream films after his girlfriend Jean Shrimpton, left him, and he went on a 10-year sabbatical in India. He spent time in Pune at the ashram, meditating and studying the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

He returned home in the late 1970s to portray Kryptonian super-villain General Zod in Superman (Richard Donner, 1978). Stamp went on to reprise his role as General Zod in the sequel, Superman II (Richard Lester, 1980).

In 2003, Stamp returned to the Superman myths in a new role, by vocally playing Clark Kent's biological father, Jor-El, in the WB/CW television series Smallville (2001-2009).

A publicity shot for The Collector (William Wyler, 1965) showing Terence Stamp holding a chloroform pad was used for the cover of The Smiths single What Difference Does It Make. After some copies were printed, Stamp decided he didn't want his photo to be used, and the rest of the copies appeared with Morrissey in the exact same pose, looking very much like him but holding a glass of milk instead. Later, Stamp agreed and the photo was reinstated on the 12" single cover.

The Smiths: What Difference Does It Make? 12" single
The Smiths: What Difference Does It Make? 12" British 45 single (1984) with credit: Cover Star: Terence Stamp (courtesy Colombia Pictures). Source: John Elsmlie@Flickr.

Transsexual Bernadette


Terence Stamp appeared as the Supergrass in Stephen Frears'The Hit (1984), as the transsexual Bernadette in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephen Elliot, 1994) and as a vengeful gangster in The Limey (1999), a role especially created for him by its director Steven Soderbergh.

Stamp, who has been wheat and dairy intolerant since the 1960s, launched The Stamp Collectionrange of organic wheat and dairy free products in 1994. He also co-wrote a cookbook with Elizabeth Buxton to provide alternative recipes for those who are wheat and dairy-intolerant.

He also wrote three autobiographies: Stamp Album (1987), Coming Attractions (1988), and Double Feature (1989).

In the cinema, Stamp could be seen in Hollywood blockbusters (and often megaflops) like Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) as Chancellor Finis Valorum, Bowfinger (Frank Oz, 1999) with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, Red Planet (Antony Hoffman, 2000) with Val Kilmer, My Boss's Daughter (David Zucker, 2003) with Ashton Kutcher, Disney's The Haunted Mansion (Rob Minkoff, 2003) opposite Eddie Murphy, Elektra (Rob Bowman, 2005) with Jennifer Garner, and Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) starring Tom Cruise.

He also appeared in European productions like Ma femme est une actrice/My Wife Is An Actress (Yvan Attal, 2001) with Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Dead Fish (Charley Stadler, 2004) with Robert Carlyle.

Terence Stamp has been married to Elizabeth O Rourke from 2002 till their divorce in 2008.

Recently, Stamp returned to Great Britain to star in the films Song for Marion (Paul Andrew Williams, 2012) and appeared in Canada in The Art of the Steal (Jonathan Sobol, 2013) with Jay Baruchel and Kurt Russell.


Scene from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Source: LiFers (YouTube)

Sources: Roger Phillip Mellor (Encyclopedia of British Cinema), The Madcap Laughs and Tonto (IMDb), IMDb and Wikipedia.

Aïché Nana (1940-2014)

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On 29 January, Lebanese actress and former belly dancer Aïché Nana (1940-2014) died. In 1958, a 'striptease' by the then 18 years old Nana at a Roman party caused an international scandal. Subsequently she became one of the icons of ‘La Dolce Vita’, the liberated era of sex, drugs and rock & roll as documented by Federico Fellini. Aïché Nana appeared in 15 European films between 1956 and 1985.


Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, Milano (Milan), no. 238.

High-powered Publicity


Aïché Nana was born as Kiash Nanah in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1940.

She became a famous belly-dancer in Istanbul and soon also danced in Paris left-bank cabarets. She reportedly employed high-powered publicity to sell her act to European producers. In 1956 French newspapers reported her mysterious disappearance from a Paris cabaret after writing a single word on a paper in her dressing room: "Farewell”. After the French police was alerted and in the midst of all the publicity, she suddenly returned in good shape.

In 1958 the then 18 year old dancer caused a scandal that alerted the world to the luxurious and decadent lifestyle of the international jet-set in Rome that soon would become known as La Dolce Vita. Thanks to Cinecittà, the film production studios on the east side of the city, Rome had become a popular location for Hollywood films, and the foreign stars and writers began hanging out in the bars of Via Veneto.

On that historical November night, the Swedish actress Anita Ekbergdanced barefoot at a party in the Rugantino, a trattoria in Trastevere before Aïché Nana stripped to her knickers. The public was a mix of playboys, film stars like Linda Christianand Elsa Martinelli, and aristocrats, who fled when the police arrived. To the police Aïcha claimed that merrymakers had ripped off her clothes.

The next day the striptease became a historical scandal when gossip columnist Victor Ciuffa (who later claimed to be the subject for the Marcello Mastroiannicharacter in La Dolce Vita) published photo’s taken by Tazio Secchiaroli in his column in the newspaper, Corriere d'Informazione. The published photos gave lie to Aïché Nana’s story to the police. Italian authorities threatened her with a three year jail sentence and she quickly returned to Paris where striptease was permitted at the time.

The photos were published in magazines all over the world, including the famous American weekly Life. Later both Anita Ekberg and Aïché Nana’s striptease were immortalized in La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life (Federico Fellini, 1960). Tazio Secchiaroli, the original paparazzo, became the director’s privileged stills photographer.




Aïché Nana’s striptease in Rugantino. Photos: Tazio Secchiaroli. Source: Iconic Photos and Fondazione Italia.

Nunsploitation


Aïché Nana became something of a celebrity following her moment of infamy. Just 16, she had already appeared as a dancer in the French-Italian adventure film La châtelaine du Liban/The Lebanese Mission (Richard Pottier, 1956) starring Jean-Claude Pascal and Omar Sharif.

She stayed in Europe and danced ín the Frankie Howerd comedy A Touch of the Sun (Gordon Parry, 1956).

In the 1960s she stepped up to proper, secondary roles. The majority of her parts were in Euro-Westerns where her dark looks made her a natural at playing Mexicans. She appeared with bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay in the Spanish-Italian Western Lo sceriffo che non spara/The Sheriff Won’t Shoot (José Luis Monter, Renato Polselli, 1965).

Among her other spaghetti westerns were Thompson 1880 (Guido Zurli, 1966) with George Martin and Gordon Mitchell, Crisantemi per un branco di carogne/Chrysanthemums for a Bunch of Swine (Sergio Pastore, 1968) with Edmund Purdom, and Giurò... e li uccise ad uno ad uno/Gun Shy Piluk (Guido Celano, 1968) also starring Purdom as a coffin maker.

She also appeared in the thriller A... come assassin/A… Like Assassin (Angelo Dorigo, 1966) starring Alan Steel (aka the Italian actor Sergio Ciani) and was the leading lady of another Italian thriller Due occhi per uccidere/Two Eyes To Kill (Renato Borraccetti, 1968).

In the 1970s she appeared in Edipeon (Lorenzo Arato, 1970) with Magali Noëland Massimo Serato, the Oscar nominated comedy I nuovi mostri/The New Monsters (Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola, 1977) starring Vittorio Gassmann and Ornella Muti, and the Nunsploitation film Immagini di un convent/Images in a Convent (Joe D’Amato, 1979).

In the 1980s followed roles in two big budget productions. In Marco Ferreri’s Storia di Piera/The Story of Piera (1983) she supported a star cast including Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla and Marcello Mastroianni. Her final film was the British-American Bible epic King David (Bruce Beresford, 1985) starring Richard Gere as the King of Israel who took on Goliath.

Aïché Nana was married to director Sergio Pastore (1932-1987), who had directed her in Crisantemi per un branco di carogne (1968). Nana died because of complications caused by a long lasting illness.


German trailer for Thompson 1880 (1966). Don't glimpse or you'll miss Aïché. Source: koppschnicker33 (YouTube).

Sources: La Repubblica (Italian), Corriere della Sera (Italian), Matt Blake (The Wild Eye), Tom Kington (The Observer), Benito Carlo Jr. (The Inside Story via Modern Mechanix Blog), Life and IMDb.

Godfried de Groot

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For forty years Godfried de Groot (1894-1963) was a prominent Amsterdam portrait photographer who had numerous celebrities for his lens. He was a skilled portraitist whose photos protruded far above average and appeared on many Dutch and German film star postcards. During his long career he hardly changed his flattering style of posing and lighting and while he was famous during his life, there was hardly any serious attention for him after his death.

Lizzi Waldmüller
Lizzi Waldmüller. Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam), no. 1215. Photo: Godfried de Groot.

Frits van Dongen
Frits van Dongen a.k.a. Philip Dorn. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1759/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

Aesthete


Godfried Cornelius (Frits) de Groot was born in Den Helder, The Netherlands in 1894. He was the second of the three children of the innkeeper Adrianus Cornelius de Groot and Johanna Geertruida Geurds.

Between 1906 and 1908 Godfried attended the Friary school in Goirle. Then he returned to Den Helder and was registered as a photographer. He was a student of the photographer S. Dijkstra, and later had apprenticeships in Den Bosch, and Bad Nauheim in Germany.

In 1916, he returned from Germany and settled in Amsterdam. Between 1917 and 1921 he worked as assistant to photographer Frits Geveke, who portrayed many actors and actresses. Reportedly, De Groot took several of these clients with him when he opened his first studio in Amsterdam at the Amstellaan (now Vrijheidslaan) around 1922.

In 1928, he established his studio in the prestigious Jan Luykenstraat 2a opposite the Rijksmuseum and also went to live there with his friend and attorney Piet Bakker.

De Groot was an aesthete. On many of his portrait photos the light falls on one or two shoulders, on the side (usually the left) of the face, on the ridge of the nose, the hair, sometimes on the ear. In the portraits of men, the white collar usually the lightest part of the picture, in women’s portraits the light often focuses on the necklace.

De Groot often photographed obliquely from the side, and the left head is generally rotate relatively to the fuselage. Portraits in profile are in the minority. The photographed rarely laughed or looked into the lens. The tint of the face, hair, and clothing often contrasts with that of the background. De Groot continuously varied combinations of these 'ingredients' so that no portrait is exactly the same.

From 1936 on, De Groot had Jan Wieling as an apprentice, with whom he also had a relationship. Until De Groot’s death in 1963, Wieling also took care of the business side of the company. De Groot and Wieling lived from circa 1940 in a villa in Naarden, although De Groot remained formally registered in Amsterdam.

Ery Bos
Ery Bos. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Truus van Aalten
Truus van Aalten. Dutch postcard by Jospe, nr. 442. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

The Queen


Godfried de Groot’s photos are recognizable by the careful use of lighting and pose. His flattering, sometimes glamorous portraits are in the tradition of the Pictorialism: beautiful portraits executed with care.

The influence of film stars portraits of his work is unmistakable. His photographs show similarities with the German glamour photos that were published in large numbers on Ross postcards and in Dutch magazines like Cinema & Theater.

Hans Rooseboom at the Dutch photography site ScherpteDiepte (Depth of Field): “In the studio at the Jan Luykenstraat, Godfried de Groot went from daylight to artificial light on. As props, he used a pair of large rectangular blocks and a quarter circular increased by a few steps. By letting the people lean against a block or sit on it they could still move easily and be ‘rearranged’. Stiff, uncomfortable poses were thus prevented.

De Groot had the talent to make people at ease. He treated them all with respect and especially with women he was easy going. They fell often under his charm. He gave them compliments, and made them feel beautiful. No doubt he was a good actor, but his enthusiasm was often sincere. Godfried de Groot loved people and preferred to photographed them at their best.”

He focused on a wealthy clientele who could afford to have their portrait taken with special care at a corresponding price. He had many famous people before the lens throughout his career, including especially many actors, but also dancers, musicians, writers, the mayor of Amsterdam W. de Vlugt, and the director of the Rijksmuseum Dr. F. Schmidt-Degener.

In 1937 Godfried de Groot got his most prestigious commission when he was invited to portray Queen Wilhelmina. It proved to be a very lucrative commission. In addition to his portraits he also did some fashion and advertising photos. And he did a lot of nude photography, of which some pictures were sent to exhibitions.

Truus van Aalten
Truus van Aalten. Dutch Postcard by Jospe, no. 462. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

Renate Müller
Renate Müller. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 745. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

Renate Müller
Renate Müller. Dutch postcard by JosPe, no. 457. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

A Slur On His Name


On 16 July 1945, Godfried de Groot was arrested by the Political Investigation on suspicion of membership of the NSB (the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands) since February 1941.

He was interned for about a year, but on 8 June 1946 he was conditionally withdrawn from prosecution for unknown reasons. His studio was already reopened in September 1945.

After World War II, De Groot's method of photographing changed. He used the soft-focus lens only a few times and gave more attention to the distribution of large quantities of light and dark. His post-war pictures while not razor sharp but - seen from a distance – they seem sharp. He occasionally used projected shadows in the background and made little use of attributes.

While it was for a long time customary to depict actors in stage clothes, De Groot almost always made portraits of them. Therefore there is no essential difference between his portraits of famous and non-famous people.

Among his assistants through the years were Zus Ziegler and Eddy Postuma de Boer, and among the chief operators of the studio were Willy Schurman and Cor van Weele.

Around 1960 Godfried de Groot discovered that he was suffering from cancer. He was replaced by Theo Teuwen in 1961, but De Groot kept working as long as possible.

After a long illness, he died on 1963 in an Amsterdam hospital. Jan Wieling was his sole heir. The company was dissolved that same year, although s studio with his name continued to exist for some years.

His wartime past had cast a slur on his name. In his life Godfried de Groot had been famous in the Netherlands, but there was hardly any serious attention to him after his death in 1963. So several legends could be created around his person.

A large part of the archive of Godfried de Groot was demolished by the later owner of his studio. The remains are now housed at the Prentenkabinet in Leiden.

Betty van den Bosch
Betty van den Bosch. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Betty van den Bosch-Schmidt (1900-1972) was a Dutch opera and Lieder singer.

Herbert Joeks
Herbert Joeks. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

Andrea Domburg
Andrea Domburg. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

This is the fourth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi and the German photographer Ernst Schneider.

Sources: Hans Rooseboom (ScherpteDiepte) (Dutch).

Maximilian Schell (1930-2014)

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Today, Austrian-born Swiss actor Maximilian Schell has died. Schell (1930-2014) won an Oscar for his role as a defence attorney in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Many international films and awards would follow. Schell is also a respected writer, director and producer of several films, including intimate portraits of Marlene Dietrich and of his sister Maria Schell.


German postcard by Friedr. W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Kolbri-Karte, no. 2005. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961).


Spanish card by Ediciones Raker, Barcelona, no. 194. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961).

An Accidental Hollywood Career


Maximilian Schell was born in Vienna, Austria in 1930. He was the son of Margarethe Schell née Noe von Nordberg, an actress who ran an acting school, and Hermann Ferdinand Schell, a Swiss poet, novelist, playwright, and owner of a pharmacy. Schell's late elder sister, Maria Schell, was also an actress; as are their two other siblings, Carl and Immy (Immaculata) Schell.

When Austria became part of Nazi-Germany after the ‘anschluss’ of 1938, the Schell family moved to Zurich, Switzerland. Maximilian's interest in acting began at early age. When 11, he appeared in a professional production of William Tell and in the same year he wrote a play which was produced by his school. Later he served in the Swiss Army, achieving the rank of corporal.

In 1952, he began acting at the Basel Theatre. He played a small role as a desperate deserter in the war film Kinder, Mütter und ein General/Children, Mother, and the General (László Benedek, 1955) starring Hilde Krahl. That year he also played parts in Der 20. Juli/The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (Falk Harnack, 1955), Reifende Jugend/Ripening Youth (Ulrich Erfurth, 1955) and Ein Mädchen aus Flandern/The Girl from Flanders (Helmut Käutner, 1956) with Nicole Berger.

His breakthrough in the cinema was the German crime film Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957). The film, which starred O.E. Hasse and Ulla Jacobsson, was entered into the 7th Berlin International Film Festival.

Schell made his Hollywood debut as a Nazi officer in the World War II film The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958) starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. According to Jon C. Hopwood at IMDb“quite by accident, as the producers had wanted to hire his sister Maria Schell, but lines of communication got crossed, and he was the one hired.”


Belgian postcard by Cox, no. 7.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden-Westf., no. 2445. Photo: Arthur Grimm / CCC / Constantin. Publicity still for Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957).

Oscar


Maximilian Schell stayed in America and in 1959, he appeared as Hans Rolfe, an enigmatic defense attorney, in a live Playhouse 90 television production of Judgment at Nuremberg (George Roy Hill, 1959). In 1961, Schell reprised the role for the big screen remake Judgement at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) with an all star cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, and Marlene Dietrich.

As the first German speaking actor after World War II, Schell won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for the role.

In the following years, he starred in international productions like the Italian-French drama I sequestrati di Altona/The Condemned of Altona (Vittorio De Sica, 1962) opposite Sophia Loren, the heist film Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) with Melina Mercouri, the British drama Return from the Ashes (J. Lee Thompson, 1965) with Ingrid Thulin, and the British espionage–thriller The Deadly Affair (Sidney Lumet, 1966) based on John le Carré's first novel Call for the Dead.

In Hollywood, he was often top billed in Third Reich themed films, such as Counterpoint (Ralph Nelson, 1968), The Man in the Glass Booth (Arthur Hiller, 1975) – a role for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977), Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977) – for which he got another Oscar nomination, and A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977).

However, he also played in various films with different subjects, including the historical disaster film Krakatoa, East of Java (Bernard L. Kowalski, 1969), the science fiction film The Black Hole (Gary Nelson, 1979), and the crime comedy The Freshman (Andrew Bergman, 1990) starring Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick.


German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf., no. 1868. Photo: Gabriele / Real / Europa. Publicity still for Ein Herz kehrt heim/A Heart Goes Home (Eugen York, 1956).


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. V 128. Photo: CCC / Constantin / Arthur Grimm. Publicity still for Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957).

Marlene and Maria


Maximilian Schell has also served as a writer, producer and director for a variety of films.  In 1968, Schell produced and starred in the adaptation of Kafka's novel Das Schloss/The Castle. Two years later, Erste Liebe/First Love (1970) - written, directed, produced, and starred in by Schell - was hailed by the critics.
His Der Fußgänger/The Pedestrian (1974), in which he also starred, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and won a Golden Globe.

His documentary on Marlene Dietrich, Marlene (1984) was based on the audio tape recordings of his 17-hours-long interview session with Dietrich. Using original footage, documentary material and interview passages, he managed to present an intimate portrait of her, which won also several awards.

18 years later, he made a documentary about his late sister Maria Schell, Meine Schwester Maria/My Sister Maria (2002). Connor McMadden at AllMovie: "Using excerpts of her feature films along with home movie footage, Schell explores the high points his sister's career throughout the 1950s, as well as the personal problems that cast her into obscurity only a decade later. The film offers quite a few emotional peaks, especially when an elderly Maria Schell goes before her brother's camera to speak candidly about her life, and a suicide attempt which she refers to as her 'first death.'"

In addition to his film career, Maximilian Schell has also been active as director, writer and actor in the European theatre. In 1958, he made his Broadway debut in Ira Levin’s Interlock. In 1965, he starred in John Osborne’s groundbreaking A Patriot for Me, first at London’s Royal Court Theatre and later on Broadway.
He has twice played Hamlet on stage, originally under the direction of the legendary Gustaf Grundgens and later under his own direction. In 1972 he starred in Peter Hall's German language première of Harold Pinter's Old Times at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 1977 he directed Tales from the Vienna Woods at the National Theatre in London.

In later life he also began directing operatic productions, starting with Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. This passion was triggered when he was performing in the play Jedermann (Everyman) in Salzburg, Austria from 1978-1982, and he came into contact with several musical conductors including Leonard Bernstein, James Levine and Claudio Abbado. In 2006 he appeared in Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues directed by Robert Altman at the Old Vic in London.

He also often appeared on television, such as in the miniseries Peter the Great (Marvin J. Chomsky, Lawrence Schiller, 1986), with Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier. He was twice been nominated for an Emmy for his TV work, and in 1993, he won a Golden Globe for his part as Vladimir Lenin in the HBO miniseries Stalin (Ivan Passer, 1992).

In 1990, he had refused to receive the Honorary German Film Award because he felt too young to be awarded with an award for lifetime achievement. For German television, he played in the television miniseries The Return of the Dancing Master (Urs Egger, 2004), which was based on Henning Mankell's crime novel.
Through the decades he continued to star in international film productions, such as The Rose Garden (Fons Rademakers, 1986), Left Luggage (Jeroen Krabbé, 1998), Deep Impact (Mimi Leder, 1998), Vampires (John Carpenter, 1998), and the American comedy The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson, 2008) with Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo.

At IMDb, Jon C. Hopwood writes: “with the exception of Maurice Chevalier and Marcello Mastroianni, Schell is undoubtedly the most successful non-Anglophone foreign actor in the history of American cinema.”

Maximilian Schell was married to actress Natalya Andreychenko (1985-2005). Their daughter is actress Nastassja Schell (born in 1989). He was also the godfather of actress Angelina Jolie. Recently, Maximilian Schell could be seen in two new films, Les brigands (Pol Cruchten, Frank Hoffmann, 2013) opposite Tchéky Karyo, and An Artist's Emblem (Michael J. Narvaez, 2013) with Harry Dean Stanton.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 241. Photo: Real-Film.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf.no. 2275. Photo: Real / Europa / Gabriele. Publicity still for Ein Herz kehrt heim/A Heart returns home (Eugen York, 1956).

Sources: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Connor McMadden (AllMovie), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Daniela Bianchi

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Beautiful Daniela Bianchi (1942) is an Italian actress, whose best known part was luscious Soviet cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963). She played in several more Eurospy films during the 1960s.

Sean Connery
British postcard by Klasik Kards, London, no. 1543. Photos: publicity stills for From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963) with Sean Connery and Martine Beswick.

1st Runner-up


Daniela Bianchi was born in Rome, Italy in 1942. She grew up the only child of an army Colonel. After graduating from high school Bianchi found a passion for ballet before launching into a modelling career.

Her film career began in 1958 with a bit part in En cas de malheur/Love Is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) starring Jean Gabin and Brigitte Bardot.

Bianchi was Miss Rome in 1960 and became the 1st runner-up in the 1960 Miss Universe contest, where she was also voted Miss Photogenic by the press.

More film parts followed in films like Les Démons de minuit/Midnight Follies (Marc Allégret, Charles Gérard, 1961) with Charles Boyer, the comedy Una domenica d'estate/Always on Sunday (Giulio Petroni, 1962) and the Peplum La Spada del Cid/ The Sword of El Cid (Miguel Iglesias, 1962).

Then she played the role of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (1963), the second James Bond film made by Eon Productions and the second to star Sean Connery  as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young.

Following the success of the first 007 film, Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962), United Artists had approved a sequel and doubled the budget available for the producers. From Russia with Love is based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, James Bond is sent to assist in the defection of Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova in Turkey, where SPECTRE plans to avenge Bond's killing of Dr. No. In addition to filming on location in Turkey, the action scenes were shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and in Scotland.

At the age of 21, Bianchi was and would be the youngest actress to play a leading Bond girl ever. Bianchi started taking English classes for the role, but the producers ultimately chose to dub her voice over by Barbara Jefford. From Russia with Love was a critical and commercial success, taking over $78 million in worldwide box office receipts, more than its predecessor Dr. No.

Daniela Bianchi
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966).

Daniela Bianchi
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966).

Daniela Bianchi, Jacques Bugerac
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966) with Jacques Bergerac.

Campy, Plodding, and Unintentionally Funny


After From Russia with Love, Daniela Bianchi made a number of French and Italian films. First she starred in the French thriller Le Tigre aime la chair fraîche/The Tiger Likes Fresh Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1964) opposite Roger Hanin as the secret agent LeTigre.

Her only role in an American production was in Rome Will Never Leave You (1964), three episodes filmed in Rome of the Dr. Kildare series with Richard Chamberlain.

Among her Italian films were the comedy Slalom (Luciano Salce, 1965) starring Vittorio Gassman, the comedy L'ombrellone/Weekend Wives (Dino Risi, 1965) and the Eurospy film Requiem per un agente segreto/Requiem for a Secret Agent (Sergio Sollima, 1966) starring Stewart Granger. The latter is the third and last Eurospy film of prolific director Sergio Sollima and the first he signed with his real name (in the two previous spy films he was credited as Simon Sterling).

One of Bianchi’s later films was Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (Alberto de Martino, 1967), a James Bond spoof filmed in English (Bianchi was again dubbed) and starring Sean Connery's younger brother, Neil Connery. The overall plot of the film is that England’s best secret agent is not available, so his younger brother is brought in to defeat the evil crime syndicate THANATOS.

O.K. Connery is notable in that several actors from the James Bond series appear as similar characters. Besides Bianchi, the film also features Adolfo Celi, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Anthony Dawson. Dan Pavlides at AllMovie: “Campy, plodding, and unintentionally funny in places, the feature remains a curiosity item only because of the novelty of Sean Connery's brother being the hero.”

Her final film was the crime drama Scacco Internazionale/The Last Chance (Giuseppe Rosati, 1968) in which she co-starred with Tab Hunter. She retired from acting. In 1985, she married a Genoan president of a cargo shipping company, with whom she has a son named Filippo.

In 2012 Daniela Bianchi returned for once to the screen in the documentary Noi non siamo come James Bond/We're nothing like James Bond (Mario Balsamo, 2012).


Trailer From Russia with Love (1963). Source: Agelesstrailers (YouTube).


Trailer Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (1966). Source: Igotmobilephone (YouTube).


Trailer Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (1967). Source: Night of the Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: Dan Pavlides (AllMovie), M16, AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Trevor Howard

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English film, stage and television actor Trevor Howard (1913-1988) is best known as the doctor in the classic romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945), in which Celia Johnson was his co-star. In the 1940s and 1950s he often played the slightly dry, slightly crusty but capable British military officer, and in the 1960s he became one of England's finest character actors.

Trevor Howard
Dutch postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.

Trevor Howard
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W. 217. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

A Fabricated Hero


Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was born in Kent, England, to Arthur John Howard-Smith, a Ceylon representative for Lloyd's of London, and his Canadian wife, Mabel Grey Wallace. Until he was five Trevor lived in Colombo, Ceylon. When the time came for him to be educated he was sent back to England to board at Clifton College.

After school he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, acting on the London stage for several years before World War II. His first paid work was a walk-on part in the play Revolt in a Reformatory (1934), starring Alastair Sim before leaving RADA.

In 1935 he was spotted by a Paramount studio talent scout but turned down the offer of film work in favour of a career in theatre. This decision seemed justified when, in 1936, he was invited to join the Stratford Memorial Theatre and, in London, given the role of one of the students in French without Tears by Terence Rattigan, which ran for two years.

He returned to Stratford in 1939. In 1940, he was drafted into the army. He was invalided out in 1943 having seen no action, despite later publicity which implied distinguished service and a Military Cross. Files held in the Public Records Office reveal he had actually been discharged from the Army for mental instability and having a 'psychopathic personality'.

These stories of war heroism were originally fabricated, without his consent, for publicity purposes although Howard also recounted how he had parachuted into Nazi occupied Norway and fought in the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Howard moved back to the theatre in The Recruiting Officer (1943), where he met the actress Helen Cherry. They married in 1944 and remained together till his death.

Howard had a certain notoriety as a hell raiser, based on his drinking capacity. Under the influence of alcohol he could embark on celebrated exploits, one of which led to his arrest in Vienna, for impersonating an officer. Despite his drinking, however, he always remained reliable and professional, never allowing alcohol to affect his work. He was also unfaithful to Cherry on a serial basis.

Trevor HowardAnonymous postcard, no country nor editor known.

Trevor Howard, Ann Todd
With Ann Todd. Italian postcard by Edizione ELAH 'La casa delle Caramelle', Serie 100 'Artisti di Cinema'. Photo: Warner Bros.

The Roots of British Realism in Cinema


Trevor Howard had a short part in one of the best British war films, The Way Ahead (Carol Reed, 1944), which meant his springboard into cinema.

Another small part in The Way to the Stars (Anthony Asquith, 1945) led to his breakthrough role, the doctor in Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945), in which his co-star was Celia Johnson.

In a café at a railway station, housewife Laura Jesson meets doctor Alec Harvey. Although they are already married, they gradually fall in love with each other. They continue to meet every Thursday in the small café, although they know that their love is impossible. The film won an award at the Cannes Film Festivaland considerable critical acclaim for Howard.

Next came two successful thrillers, I See a Dark Stranger (Frank Launder, 1945) and Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat, 1946), followed by They Made me a Fugitive (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947), in which the roots of British realism in cinema can be traced.

In 1947 he was invited by Laurence Olivier to play Petruchio in an Old Vic production of The Taming of the Shrew. Despite The Times declaring ‘We can remember no better Petruchio’ the opportunity of working again with David Lean, in The Passionate Friends (David Lean, 1948), drew Howard back to film and, although he had a solid reputation as a theatre actor, his dislike of long runs, and the attractions of travel afforded by film, made him concentrate on cinema from this point.

Howard's film reputation was secured in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). He played the character type with which he became most associated, the slightly dry, slightly crusty but capable British military officer.

He also starred in The Key (Carol Reed, 1958), based on a Jan de Hartog novel, for which he received the best actor award from the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and Sons and Lovers (Jack Cardiff, 1960), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Another notable film was The Heart of the Matter (George More O’Ferall, 1953), another Graham Greene story, in which he probably produced his best screen performance.

Trevor Howard
British postcard in the 'People' Series of Show Parade Picture Services, no. P 1118. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Trevor Howard
Dutch postcard, no. AX 289. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Traditional Englishman


After his time as a star ended, Trevor Howard easily shifted to being one of England's finest character actors, many times appearing in war and period pieces.

Howard's later works included such films as Mutiny on the Bounty (Lewis Milestone, 1962), Father Goose (Ralph Nelson, 1964), Morituri (Bernhard Wicki, 1965), Von Ryan's Express (Mark Robson, 1965), Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969), Ryan's Daughter (David Lean, 1970), and Superman (Richard Donner, 1978).

On Television, Howard began to find more substantial roles. He played Lovborg in Hedda Gabler (Alex Segal, 1963) with Ingrid Bergman, and won an Emmy awardas Disraeli in The Invincible Mr Disraeli (George Schaefer, 1963).

In the 1970s he was acclaimed for his playing of an abbot in Catholics (Jack Gold, 1973) and he received an Emmy nomination for his role as Abbé Faria in a television version of The Count of Monte Cristo (David Greene, 1975).

The decade ended with him reunited with Celia Johnson, giving a moving performance in the nostalgic Staying On (Silvio Narizzano, 1980).

The 1980s saw a resurgence of Howard as a film actor. The exhilarating role of a Cheyenne Indian in Windwalker (Kieth Merrill, 1980) revitalized his acting career. One of his strangest films, and one he took great delight in, was Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (Steve Roberts, 1980) in which he played the title role.

He continued with cameo roles, including Judge Broomfield in Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982).

His final films were White Mischief (Michael Radford, 1988) and The Dawning (Robert Knights, 1988).

Howard did not abandon the theatre altogether in 1947, returning to the stage on occasion, most notably as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (1954) and the captain in The Father (1964). His last appearance on the British stage was in Waltz of the Toreadors in 1974.

Trevor Howard made seventy-four films. He embodied the traditional Englishman: his tight-lipped features and quiet, well-bred speaking voice caught the mood of post-war Britain while, in later years, his craggy face and gravelly voice animated the crusty character roles he played. He lacked the looks and physique to be an archetypal male hero, and his tall frame suited military roles. Supporting some of the most notable names in the world of cinema, he often received the highest critical acclaim.

Trevor Howard
German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3591. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Columbia Film.

Trevor Howard
British postcard by Dixon-Lotus Production, no. L6/8700, 1969. Photo: Spitfire Productions Ltd. Publicity still for Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969).


Trailer of Brief Encounter (1945). Source: Criterion Trailers (YouTube).


Trailer of The Passionate Friends (1953). Source: k8nairne (YouTube).

Sources: David Absalom (British Pictures), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Nathalie Lissenko

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Russian film star Nathalie Lissenko, aka Natalya Lyssenko, Natalie Lissenko, and Natal’ya Lisenko, is most famous for the French silent films of the 1920s, in which is she was often paired with her husband Ivan Mozzhukin.

Nathalie Lissenko
French postcard, no. 2.

Expressionist Film Ante Litteram


Natalia Andrianovna Lissenko was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia in 1886, according to IMDb and Filmportal.de (in Mikolaiv in 1884 according to Cinéartistes.com).

During the First World War she started to perform in films of the Khanzonkov company and was enormously productive. First, she appeared in Katioucha Maslova/KatiouchaMaslov (Pyotr Chardynin, 1915) and Leon Drey (Yevgenii Bauer, 1915).

In her third film, Nikolay Stavrogin (Yakov Protazanov, 1915), based on a story by Fyodor Dostojevsky, she already performed with Ivan Mozzhukin, her future husband.

In 1916 Lissenko was in a high number of films: Grekh/Sin (Yakov Protazanov, Georg Asagaroff, 1916) written by and starring Mozzhukin; Bez vinyvino vatye/Without Guilt (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916); Na Boykom Meste/The Busy Inn (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916) after a play by Ostrovsky, Nischaya (Yakov Protazanov, 1916) with Mozzhukin; Yastrebinoe gnedzo/The Cloven Tongue (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916) with Nicolas Rimsky, Kulisy ekrana/Behind the Screen (Georg Asagaroff, Alexandre Volkov, 1916), and Tanietz smerti/The Dance of Death (Alexandre Volkov, 1916).

In 1917 followed the Leonid Tolstoy adaptation Otets Sergiu/Father Sergius (Yakov Protazanov, Alexandre Volkov, 1917) starring Mozzhukin; Prokuror/The Public Prosecutor (Yakov Protazanov, 1917), and Satana likuyushchiy/Satan Triumphant (Yakov Protazanov, 1917).

Then followed: Malyutka Elli/Little Elli (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), Bogatyr dukha/A Hero of Mind (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), Cherna yastaya/The black herd (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), and Tayna korolevy/The Queen’s Secret (Yakov Protazanov, 1919).

Her last Russian films were Chlen parlamenta/The member of Parliament (Alexandre Volkov, 1920) and Morphine (Yakov Protazanov, 1920). At least half of these titles were with Ivan Mozzhukin in the lead.

The Italian film historian Vittorio Martinelli wrote: “Lissenko was extremely popular in pre-revolutionary Russia, performing psychological dramas or adaptations of famous novels and stage plays. Brunette Lissenko had a rather static and matron way of playing; her performance was marked, however, by the details in her face: the lifting of an eyebrow, a hardly noticeable tremble of the lips, fulminating eyes or a sweet smile.

Only after the Czarist cinema was rediscovered at the 1989 Pordenone Silent Film Festival, it was possible for Western eyes to appreciate Lissenko’s performance in e.g. Satan Triumphant, an expressionist film ante litteram (ahead of one's time), graciously directed by Protazanov. During the first part of the film, Lissenko does not strike us particularly, but when the amorous clash occurs, to the expressivity of the face the objective is made clear: the face lights up and from it a new, incomparable sentiment appears, her mimic play conquers and emotions the spectator.”

Lissenko’s popularity is also marked by Kulisy ekrana/Behind the Screen (Georg Asagaroff, Alexandre Volkov, 1916) in which Mozzhukin and she appear as themselves. Unfortunately only a fragment of the film remains.

Nathalie Lissenko in Kean
French postcard by Cinémagazine Editions, no. 231. Photo: publicity still for Kean/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924).

Nathalie Lissenko
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1665/2. Photo: De Westi Film. Publicity still for Kean/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924).

Albatros Films


At the outbreak of the revolution, Nathalie Lissenko and Ivan Mozzhukin followed the fate of producer Ermolieff and his troupe, including Nicolas Koline, Vera Orlova, Nicolai Panov, Nicolas Rimsky. They had moved to Yalta in 1918 and remained there until 1920. In 1920 they all expatriated.

During the trip through Constantinople to Marseille they produced the two films Chlen Parlamenta/Morphine (Yakov Protazanov, 1920) and L’angoissante aventure/Agonizing Adventure (Yakov Protazanov, 1920), which proved to be their business cards to the Paris film world.

In France, Lissenko continued to play with Ermolieff’s company, which later turned into Albatros Films, which had its studio in Montreuil.

The first film of Lissenko in Paris was a remake by Protazanov of his own Russian film Prokuror: Justice d’abord/Justice For All (Yakov Protazanov, 1921), the story of a judge who, torn between love and duty, does not hesitate to condemn his beloved suspected to be a spy. He kills himself after finding out she was innocent after all.

Mozzhukin and Lissenko often played together at the Ermolieff-Albatros studio, as in L’Enfant decarnaval/TheKidsCarnival (1921), directed by Ivan Mozzhukin himself, and Tempêtes/Storms (Robert Boudrioz, 1922) with Charles Vanel in the lead and with exteriors shot in Nice.

Two other examples are Le brasier ardent/The Burning Brazier (Ivan Mozzhukin, Alexandre Volkov, 1923), also with Nicolas Koline, and Kean ou désordre du génie/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924), the film to which the postcards above refer.

Kean ou désordre du génie was an adaptation of the play by Alexandre Dumas père on the famous early 19th century British stage player. While the exteriors were shot in Paris and Versailles, the interiors were done at the Joinville studio(for the set of Drury Lane theatre) and the Montreuil studio. While Ivan Mozzhukinplayed the title role, Lissenko was the Comtesse de Koefeld and Nicolas Koline was Solomon.

Nathalie Lissenko
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1085/1, 1927-1928. Photo: De Westi Film.

Nathalie Lissenko
French postcard.

Côte d’Azur

Nathalie Lissenko also performed in several films without Ivan Mozzhukin, such as Nuit de carnaval/Carnival Night (Viktor Tourjansky, 1922) for which Mozzhukin wrote the script, the serial La fille sauvage/The Wild Girl (Henri Etievant, 1922) with Romuald Joubé in the lead, La riposte/The Riposte (Viktor Tourjansky, 1922) with Jean Angelo, Calvaire d’amour/Love Cavalcade (Viktor Tourjansky, 1923) with Charles Vanel, and Les ombres qui passent/Passing Shadows (Alexandre Volkov, 1924) for which Paul Poiret designed Lissenko’s costumes.

Next followed three films by Jean Epstein in which Lissenko was the star: Le lion des Mogols/The Lion of the Moguls (1924) with Mozzhukin, shot at the Côte d’Azur, in Paris, Montreuil, and the Montreuil studio; L’affiche/The Poster (1924) with Génica Missirio, shot in Paris, Bougival (exteriors), and the Montreuil studio; and Le double amour/Double Love (1925) with Jean Angelo, Lissenko’s last film for Albatros, partly shot at the Côte d’Azur.

Lissenko knew to show her artistic sensibility, not only in the films of the Russian migrants such as Le brasier ardent/The Burning Brazier (1923), a striking phantasy directed with great refinement by Mozzhukin himself, but also in the films by Jean Epstein, Alberto Cavalcanti and Marcel L’Herbier.

In the late 1920's though, Lissenko performed not only in French productions but even more in German films. Her first German film was Die selige Exzellenz/His Late Excellency (Wilhelm Thiele, Adolf Licho, 1926) and Kinderseelen klagen euch an/Souls of Children Accuse You (Kurt Bernhardt, 1926) with Albert Steinrück.

Then followed the French super-production Casanova/The Loves of Casanova (Alexandre Volkov, 1927) with Ivan Mozzhukin, Rina De Liguoro and Diana Karenne, and the French avant-garde film En rade/Sea Fever (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1928) with Pierre Batcheff and Catherine Hessling.

After that followed three German films in a row: Rasputins Liebesabenteuer/Rasputin, the Holy Devil (Martin Berger, 1928) with Nikolai Malikoff as Rasputin and Diana Karenne as the zarina, Hurrah! Ich lebe!/Hurray! I Live! (Wilhelm Thiele, 1928) where she played Koline’s wife, and Fünf bange Tage/Five Scared Days (1928, Gennaro Righelli) with Maria Jacobini, and set in Russia.

Finally. she appeared in the late French silent film Nuits de princes/Night of Princes (Marcel L’Herbier, 1929), starring Gina Manès and Jaque Catelain.

When sound film came in, however, Lissenko’s heavy Russian accent blocked her career. She only played in three small parts in sound films before retiring from the screen altogether: Ce cochon de Morin/This Pig of Morin (Georges Lacombe, 1932), a remake of a film by Viktor Tourjansky; La mille et deuxième nuit/The Two Thousand Nights (Alexandre Volkov, 1933) with Ivan Mozzhukin; and finally Le veau gras/The Fat Calf (Serge de Poligny, 1938) with Elvire Popescu.

Nathalie Lissenko died in Paris in 1969.

Nathalie Lissenko, Nicolas Koline & Nicolas Rimsky in Calvaire d'amour
French postcard, with names written in Russian. Photo: Nathalie Lissenko, Nicolas Koline and Nicolas Rimsky in the Albatros production Calvaire d’amour/Love Cavalcade (Viktor Tourjansky, 1923).

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), François Albéra (Albatros. Des Russes à Paris 1919-1929), CineArtistes, Filmportal.de and IMDb.

Mai Zetterling

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Lovely Swedish actress Mai Zetterling (1925-1994) graced many European films in the 1940s and 1950s with her slim figure, green eyes, blonde hair and bewitchingly elfin features. She was also a talented and controversial director whose films focus on the role of women in society and show a fascination with outsiders, whether Eskimos, Gypsies or girl delinquents.

Mai Zetterling
British postcard, no. F.S. 30. Publicity postcard for the film Quartet (1948), a Sydney Box production for Gainsborough Pictures.

Modest Sex Symbol Success


Mai Elizabeth Zetterling was born in Västerås, Sweden, in 1925. She lived from 1929 till 1932 in Australia with her mother and stepfather.

After working in a drug store and a mail-order company, she tried acting. She trained at the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater, where Alf Sjöberg became her mentor. At 16, she made her debut on both stage and screen.

Following her film debut in Lasse-Maja/Lasse Maja (Gunnar Olsson, 1941), she made quite an impact in the terminally dark Hets/Frenzy (1944), directed by her mentor Alf Sjöberg and written by Ingmar Bergman.

Glenn Collins in his obituary in the New York Times writes that "her sensitive portrayal of a simple girl victimized by a sadistic professor (...) created a sensation and is now considered a landmark of the Swedish cinema."

Bergman went on to direct her in his Musik i mörker/Music in the Dark (Ingmar Bergman, 1948). The international attention she received from Hets led her to England where she debuted on London's West End in a revival of Henrik Ibsen's Wild Duck.

Zetterling also played the title role of the film Frieda (Basil Dearden, 1947), about the problems of a RAF officer's German bride in dealing with postwar prejudice in his home town. This led to a successful British film career with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

For Rank she played decorative roles in a segment of Quartet (Ralph Smart, 1948) and The Romantic Age (Edmond T. Gréville, 1949).

Developing modest sex symbol success, she went on to co-star opposite a number of handsome leading men throughout the post-war years in primarily dramatic works, including Dennis Pricein the flop The Bad Lord Byron (David MacDonald, 1949), Dirk Bogardein Blackmailed (Marc Allégret, 1951), and Herbert Lom in Hell is Sold Out (Michael Anderson, 1951) and The Ringer (Guy Hamilton, 1952).

Mai Zetterling
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W 446. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD.

Mai Zetterling
Postcard. Collection: ART NAHPRO.

Hated Hollywood


Mai Zetterling accepted an offer to be Danny Kaye's leading lady in the American espionage spoof Knock on Wood (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1954). It was to be her only film in Hollywood, a place she reportedly hated.

In her autobiography All Those Tomorrows (1985), she wrote that she was always too serious about her craft ever to do jobs just for the money. "For that I had a reputation as a freak in Hollywood, but I can't say I ever regretted [never going back]."

She returned to England and starred on the stage in a production of A Doll's House. Later she appeared in two more American films, the crime caper A Prize of Gold (Mark Robson, 1955) with Richard Widmark, and opposite Tyrone Power in Seven Waves Away (Richard Sale, 1957), a variation on Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944).

Along the way she proved just as adaptable and sexy in a smart comedy when she came between husband and wife Peter Sellers and Virginia Maskell in Only Two Can Play (Sidney Gilliat, 1962), based on a satiric novel by Kingsley Amis.

Disheartened by the quality of most of the films she was being offered, she turned her back on acting after the routine action thriller The Bay of St. Michael (John Ainsworth, 1963).


Mai Zetterling
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 535. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Mai Zetterling
Dutch postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.

Mai Zetterling
Vintage collectors card, no. A 68.

Directing Ventures


Mai Zetterling would become one of the few women who found regular work as a film director in the 1960s and 1970s.

She started her second career with four documentaries for the BBC. After she was divorced from Norwegian dancer Tutte (Samuel) Lemkow in 1953, she had married novelist David Hughes in 1958.

The couple co-wrote the screenplay of her first fiction short The War Game (1962), an anti-war film about two boys playing a game that turns nasty. The short film won the Golden Lion Prize at the 1963 Venice Film Festival.

Obviously influenced by Ingmar Bergman, her first feature film, the dark, sexy drama Älskande par/Loving Couples (1964), dealt with homosexual themes and featured nudity. Its poster won a prize in Vienna but it was banned in Cannes as obscene.

Her directing ventures were controversial seemed ahead of their time. Nattlek/Night Games (1966) was based on her own novel, and was even more of a cause celebre. Banned from the Venice Festival, it was censured by critics for scenes of sexuality, childbirth, and vomiting in detailing the story of a 35-year-old man's attempts to deal with childhood memories marked by depravity and perversity.

Flickorna/The Girls (1968), was a feminist rumination on Aristophanes' classical antiwar play Lysistrata, with Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom.

In Of Seals and Man (1978) she detailed the disappearing breed of Eskimo seal hunters.

In Great Britain she directed Scrubbers (1982) for HandMade Films about young female offenders sent to Borstal prison.

Mai Zetterling
Vintage collectors card.

Mai Zetterling
French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 591. Photo: Paramount, 1955.

The Witches


In the 1970s Mai Zetterling turned her attention to writing short stories and novels. In 1985 she published her frank autobiography, All Those Tomorrows.

Toward the end of her life, she returned to film acting. Best remembered is her wise grandmother in The Witches (Nicholas Roeg, 1990), the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's book. In this wonderful film fantasy she is forced to tangle with a particularly virulent ringleader, played by Anjelica Huston, to save her grandson from her coven of hags.

She was also excellent in Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (1990).

Her last film role was in the Swedish production Morfars resa/Grandpa's Journey (Stafan Lamm, 1993) with Max von Sydow.

Mai Zetterling died of cancer in London in 1994. She had two children from her first marriage, Louis Lemkow, who is a professor in Barcelona, Spain, and Etienne Lemkow. She was 68.

At the time of her death, she was directing the film The Woman Who Cleaned the World, which she also had written.


DVD Trailer of Hell is Sold Out (Michael Anderson, 1951) with Herbert Lom, David Attenborough and Mai Zetterling. Source: Richarde007 (YouTube).


First part of The War Game (Mai Zetterling, 1963). Source: Dogura Magura Tunes (YouTube).


Homemade trailer of The Witches (1990). Source: Billy Wool (YouTube).

Sources: Brian MacFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), Glenn Collins (The New York Times), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), John McCarty (FilmReference.com), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Jiří Vršťala

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Jiří Vršťala (1920-1999) was a Czech actor and writer. He achieved fame in Eastern Europe as the clown Ferdinand.

Jiri Vrstala
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 500/5/65, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: Bolinski.

Clown Ferdinand


Jiří Vršťala (or Jiri Vrstala) was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1920. After graduating from high school Vršťala worked as a casual labourer. During World War II he had to work as a forced labourer in Germany.

After 1945, Vršťala worked at the theatre in Liberec, although he had no acting training. He was awarded for his role as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then Vršťala got an engagement at the Realistic theatre in Prague.

In the 1950s he moved to the Prague City Theatre, and started to receive film offers for Czech films like Veliká prílezitost/The Great Opportunity (K.M. Walló, 1950) and the comedy Plavecký mariás/Swimming Maria (Václav Wasserman, 1953).

In 1955, Jiří Vršťala and Czech director Jindrich Polák developed together the character of the clown Ferdinand for the five-part TV series Sest estras Klaunem Ferdinandem/The Adventures of the Clown Ferdinand (1956-1957) of the Czech television station CST.

Here Vršťala embodied for the first time the figure that made him popular across the country's borders during the next decade. Several TV series for the Czech and East-German television followed.

He also appeared in public in this role, especially in children revues of the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin and in children cabarets. These stage appearances were always sold-out. As Clown Ferdinand, he also made records and a book.

Jiri Vrstala
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 500/6, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: DEFA / Pathenheimer, no. 2.548. Publicity still for Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3140, 1968. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Schwarz. With Angelica Domröse.

DEFA Villains 


Jiří Vršťala’s first major film role was in the Czech Crime film Páté oddělení/Fifth Department (Jindrich Polák, 1960).

Other interesting films were the Science Fiction film Ikarie XB 1 (Jindrich Polák, 1963) and the war drama Transport z raje/Transport from Paradise (Zbynek Brynych, 1963).

He also made films as Clown Ferdinand, like Klaun Ferdinand a raketa (Jindrich Polák, 1963) and Clown Ferdinand will schlafen/Clown Ferdinand Wants to Sleep (Jindrich Polák, 1965).

In 1966 he married East-German actress Angelica Domröse, with whom he had appeared in Chronik eines Mordes/The Story of a Murder (Joachim Hasler, 1965), and he moved to East Berlin.

In East-Germany he played character roles as villains in DEFA productions till 1975. These included the Western Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966) starring Gojko Mitic. He also played in more films and TV productions as Clown Ferdinand.

In 1975, he separated from Angelica Domröse and in 1983 Vršťala ended his acting career to devote himself to a literary career.

In 1987, he appeared again in two more Czech films, Mravenci nesou smrt/Ants carry the death (Zbynek Brynych, 1987) and Narozeniny reziséra Z.K./The birthday of director Z.K. (Jaroslav Balík, 1987). These were his final film appearances.

Jiří Vršťala later lived retired in the Pankow district of Berlin and in 1999, he died there of cancer shortly before his 79th birthday.

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Clown Ferdinand. Source: rania elmadany (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Varischi & Artico

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Milanese photographers Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico portrayed many stars of the Italian silent cinema, like Lyda Borelli, Dina Galli and Mercedes Brignone.

Lyda Borelli
Lyda Borelli. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano.

Daguerreotype Business


In 1900, Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico became the owners of the portrait studio and photo laboratory of Leone Ricci in Milano, Italy, where they had both been trained.

Ricci had started his daguerreotype business already before 1850 and thus was one of the earliest photographers in Milano. His studio had a long history of portraying the Milanese bourgeoisie and aristocracy and Varischi & Artico Company continued this tradition.

Giovanni Artico was born in Vittorio Veneto in 1868. After his studies in chemistry, he established himself in Milan.

Like many young contemporaries, he was interested in the upcoming business of photography. He choose to start working in the portrait studio of Leone Ricci.

There he met another employee, Arturo Varischi, and the two decided to take over Ricci's business.
The two photographers conveniently shared their business location (first Corso Vittorio Emanuele 110-111, later Corso Vittorio Emanuele 22) with Angelo Pettazzi, an established merchant and producer of photographic equipment and supplies.

Most of the photos of Varischi & Artico date from 1900-1920, while the company name was first spelled as Varischi, Artico & Co., later on as Varischi & Artico Co.

On postcards the credit reads: Fot. Varischi & Artico - Milano - as on the postcard above.

Armando Falconi and Tina Di Lorenzo
Armando Falconi and Tina Di Lorenzo. Italian postcard by NPC, no. 19. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co., Milano.

Mercedes Brignone
Mercedes Brignone. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co. Milano, no. 2052.

Lyda Borelli
Lyda Borelli. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano.

Performers of the Scala


Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico soon gained a reputation for their infant portraits.

They were also known for their ability in attracting famous artists to their studio. Renowned opera performers from the Scala flocked to Varischi & Artico Co. for their publicity by use of souvenir photographs and picture postcards.

They also attracted famous musicians like Arturo Toscanini, stage actors and writers to their studio. Soon also the first film stars were portrayed by them.

One of their most popular subjects was the first diva of the silent Italian cinema, Lyda Borelli. Notable is also their series of colour portraits.

Arturo Varischi died prematurely. In 1923 Artico took over on his own and transformed the 19th century portrait studio into a modern business.

Giovanni Artico died in 1930, and his widow, Regina Trelancia, continued the activities till 1933. Later their son Carlo Artico also became a photographer and reopened a Studio Artico in Milan.

In the archive of Studio Artico there are about 70 original photos of famous personalities like author Giovanni Verga and actress Tina de Lorenzo, which were signed by the sitters. They show the artistry and craftsmanship of Artico. Many prints of his work can be found in archives all over Italy, especially in Milan.

Lyda Borelli
Lyda Borelli. Italian postcard, no. 2015. Photo: Varischi Artico & Co., Milano.

DINA, Galli_RK. 2148. Photo Varischi Artico
Dina Galli. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co. Milano, no. 2148. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

BORELLI, Lyda & CHIANTONI, Giannina_RK. 2209. Photo Varischi Artico
Lyda Borelli and Giannina Chiantoni in the playLa figlia di Jorioby Gabriele D'Annunzio. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

GIULIA, Iris_RK. 2140. Photo Varischi Artico
Iris Giulia. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co., Milano, no. 2140. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

This is the fifth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi,  German photographer Ernst Schneider and Dutch photo artist Godfried de Groot. 

Sources: Giovanna Ginex (Varischi e Artico fotografi a Milano: i primi decenni del secolo), Silvia Paoli (Lo studio e laboratorio fotografico Artico, Rivista di storia e fotografia, no. 24, II, december 1996),  Max Hochstetler (Luminous Lint), and Claudia Morgan (Commune di Trieste) (Italian).

Leo Genn

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Leo Genn (1905–1978) was a refined British stage and film actor - and barrister. Known for his known for his relaxed charm and his deep black velvet voice, he also had success in Hollywood classics like Quo Vadis (1951) and Moby Dick (1956).

Leo Genn
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 528. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Actor and Attorney


Leo John Genn was born in, London, England in 1905. He was the son of Woolfe (William) Genn, a jewellery salesman, and his wife Rachel Asserson.

Genn attended the City of London School and studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, qualifying as a barrister in 1928. He ceased practicing as a lawyer soon after the Second World War.

Genn's stage debut was in A Marriage has been Disarranged (1930). Actor/manager Leon M. Lion engaged him simultaneously as an actor and attorney. In 1933 he appeared in Ballerina by Rodney Ackland.

In 1934-1936, Leo Genn was a member of the Old Vic Company where he appeared in many productions of William Shakespeare . He supplemented his early acting career by continuing to practice law.

Genn's first film role was as Shylock in the British production Immortal Gentleman (Widgey R. Newman, 1935), about the life of William Shakespeare featuring discussions with various friends along with scenes of his plays.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. hired Genn as a technical advisor on the film Accused (Raoul Walsh, 1936). He was subsequently given a small part as Prosecuting Counsel in the romantic drama on the strength of a "splendid voice and presence".

In 1937 he was Horatio in Tyrone Guthrie's stage production of Hamlet, with Laurence Olivier as Hamlet, in Elsinore, Denmark.

In the cinema, he spent 1937 playing film prosecutors and defence attorneys but in 1938 he nabbed a small Indian character role in producer Alexander Korda's The Drum (Zoltan Korda, 1938) starring Sabu, and he was the young man who danced with Eliza Doolittle (Wendy Hiller) at the duchess's ball in Pygmalion (Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard, 1938), although he was uncredited.

In 1938, Genn also appeared in the theatrical hit, The Flashing Stream by Charles Langbridge Morgan, and Genn made his American debut in early 1939 in the play's successful run on Broadway.

His many other stage performances included Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, 12 Angry Men, The Devil's Advocate, W. Somerset Maugham's The Sacred Flame.

Leo Genn
British postcard by L.D. Ltd., London in the Film Star Autograph Portrait Series, no. 72. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Publicity still for Personal Affair (Anthony Pelissier, 1953).

Leo Genn
Vintage postcard. Photo: MGM.

Quo Vadis


During World War II, Leo Genn served in the Royal Artillery, being made Lieutenant Colonel in 1943.

In 1944, the actor was given official leave to appear as the Constable of France in Olivier's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944). It is widely considered the first Shakespeare film to be both artistically and commercially successful.

Genn was awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1945. He was part of the British unit that investigated war crimes at Belsen concentration camp and later was an assistant prosecutor at the trial for Belsen in Lüneburg, Germany.

In 1946 he returned to law practice, but not for long. Genn had a great theatrical triumph in the 1946 Broadway production of Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest. His stage and screen career flourished afterwards in both the US and England.

On screen, he was seen in the British thriller Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat, 1946) with Alastair Sim, and the American drama The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak, 1948) starring Olivia De Havilland.

A highlight was his role as Nero’s counselor, the sardonic Gaius Petronius, in the MGM epic Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1951).

William McPeak at IMDb: “Genn's generous part as the ancient Roman satirist was filled with double meaning quips and understated sarcasm that Genn delivered with his poker face charm and subtle sidelong glances. He is so good that the audience hangs on his next sub-level dig with anticipation that partially eclipses the first rate histrionics of Peter Ustinov as a tongue-in-cheek deranged Nero. The level of Genn's performance was recognized with a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.”

Leo Genn
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 695. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

During the 1950s, Leo Genn also appeared in some rather forgettable American films, such as Plymouth Adventure (Clarence Brown, 1952), and the comedy The Girls of Pleasure Island (Alvin Ganzer, F. Hugh Herbert, 1953).

He fared far better in the British film Personal Affair (Anthony Pelissier, 1953), starring opposite Gene Tierney. Then he appeared with Gregory Peck and Richard Basehart in Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956), the film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick.

He also played Major Michael Pemberton in Rossellini's remarkable and largely forgotten war film Era Notte a Roma/Escape by Night (Roberto Rossellini, 1960) with Giovanna Ralli.

Genn was a governor of the Mermaid Theatre and trustee of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. He was also council member of the Arts Educational Trust. He was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor of Theatre Arts, Pennsylvania State University, in 1968 and Visiting Professor of Drama, University of Utah, in 1969.

Among his later films were the British drama Connecting Rooms (Franklin Gollings, 1970) starring Bette Davis, the low-budget horror-thriller Die Screaming, Marianne (Pete Walker, 1971) featuring Susan George, and the British cold war spy thriller The Mackintosh Man (John Huston, 1973) with Paul Newman.

In 1978, Leo Genn died in London from pneumonia, complications of a heart attack. His internment was in France.

Since 1933, Genn was married to Marguerite van Praag, a casting director at Ealing Studios. They had no children.


Dvd trailer Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1951). Source: Ioana Barbu (YouTube).


Leader and scenes of Too hot to handle (Terence Young, 1960) with Jayne Mansfield. Source: CinemaSirens (YouTube).

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Paul (Find A Grave), AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Elizabeth Allan

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English actress Elizabeth Allan (1910-1990) worked in both Britain and Hollywood, making about 50 films over more than a quarter century.

Elizabeth Allan
British postcard by Milton, no. 109. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


British postcard. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.

A Memorable Year in Hollywood


Elizabeth Allan was born at Skegness, Lincolnshire in 1910 (some sources indicate 1908). She was the youngest of six children born to Dr. Alexander William Allan and Amelia Allan.

Briefly, she worked as a kindergarten teacher before becoming an actress. After four years onstage with the Old Vic, she made her film debut in Alibi (Leslie S. Hiscott, 1931) based on the Agatha Christie novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and featuring for the first time her famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Austin Trevor).

She also featured in Gainsborough's Michael and Mary (Victor Saville, 1931). This was the first of the Edna Best and Herbert Marshall co-starring talkies. It was based on a play of the same name by A.A. Milne.

In the comedy Service for Ladies (Alexander Korda, 1932) she co-starred with Leslie Howard. That year she also appeared in the British thriller The Lodger (Maurice Elvey, 1932) starring Ivor Novello. It is based on the novel The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes, which was already filmed in 1927 in a silent version directed by Alfred Hitchcock and also starring Novello.

In 1932, she married agent Wilfred J. O'Bryen— to whom she had been introduced by actor Herbert Marshall. He took a major interest in her career and their marriage lasted until his death in 1977.

In 1933 came her first US production, the drama The Solitaire Man (Jack Conway, 1933), starring Herbert Marshall. In the United States, she worked under contract with MGM.

1935 was her most memorable year in Hollywood. She distinguished herself in two memorable Charles Dickens' adaptations, as David's unfortunate young mother in David Copperfield (George Cukor, 1935) and as Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935) starring Ronald Colman.

Allan was also featured in Tod Browning's Mark of the Vampire (1935) with Lionel Barrymore and Béla Lugosi.

The following year, she had a supporting part in the romantic drama Camille (George Cukor, 1936) starring Greta Garbo.

MGM announced her for a leading part in King Vidor's The Citadel (1938), and, when she was subsequently replaced by Rosalind Russell, Elizabeth sued the studio. The studio retaliated by refusing to let her work, and, frustrated, she returned to the UK in 1938.

Ivor Novello, Elizabeth Allan
With Ivor Novello. British postcard by A Real Photograph in the Film Partners series, no. P 41. Photo: Stanborough.

Elizabeth Allan
British postcard by Film Weekly Services, London.

Unofficial Propaganda For The War Effort


Back in England, Elizabeth Allan starred in the British crime film Inquest (Roy Boulting, 1939), the thriller Saloon Bar (Walter Forde, 1940) and the comedy The Girl Who Forgot (Adrian Brunel, 1940).

The British war film Went the Day Well? (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942) was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the war effort.

In the comedy He Snoops to Conquer (Marcel Varnel, 1944) she starred with George Formby.

By the 1950s, Elizabeth Allan had made the transition to character parts. She played a supporting part in the British disaster film No Highway in the Sky (Henry Koster, 1951), starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.

Particularly memorable is her appearance as Trevor Howard's brittle and dissatisfied wife in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter (George More O'Ferrall, 1953).

In 1958, she appeared as Boris Karloff's wife in The Haunted Strangler (Robert Day, 1958).

Late in her career, she was a frequent panellist on television game shows, including the British version of What's My Line?. She was named Great Britain's Top Female TV Personality of 1952.

Elizabeth Allan died in 1990 at Hove, East Sussex, aged 80.

Elizabeth Allan
British postcard by Real Photograph in the Film Kurier Series, no. 125. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 617. Photo: Stanborough.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Michel Auclair

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French actor Michel Auclair (1922-1988) is best known for his roles in over 100 French films. He appeared in only a few English-language films.

Michel Auclair
French postcard by O.P., Paris. no. 77. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Michel Auclair
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 225. Photo Studio Harcourt.

A Menacing but also Fragile Seducer


Michel Auclair was born Vladimir Vujović in Koblenz, Germany, in 1922. His father was Vojislav Vujović, a prominent Yugoslav Communist and a secretary of the Communist Youth International, and his mother was Charlotte Caspar, French biologist and sister of John Marchat.

Auclair moved to Paris when he was three years old. He later entered medical school but then studied acting at the Conservatoire (CNSAD) in Paris.

His stage debut was at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre in 1940 and he appeared in plays by Alfred de Musset, Jean Cocteau and Henrik Ibsen. His stage name was based on the title of a play by Charles Vildrac, whichrevolves around the loyalty of a man to a woman who has rejected him.  It was written in the year of the actor's birth, 1921.

Auclair made his screen debut after the war in the classic La Belle et la Bête/Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946). It was followed by a part in the war drama Les Maudits/The Damned (René Clément, 1946).

Two years later he starred in Manon (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1949) as a French Resistance fighter who rescues a woman (Cécile Aubry) from villagers convinced she is a Nazi collaborator. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

In the following decade, he gradually developed into a leading man of the post-war French cinema. His type was the deprived dandy, a menacing but also fragile seducer.

His films included the German-French whodunit Unter den tausend Laternen/Under Thousand Lanterns (Erich Engel, 1952), the comedy La fête à Henriette/Holiday for Henrietta (Julien Duvivier, 1952) with Dany Robin, the historical epic Si Versailles m'était conté/Royal Affairs in Versailles (Sacha Guitry, 1954), the Georges Siménon adaptation Maigret et l'affaire Saint-Fiacre/Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case (Jean Delannoy, 1959) starring Jean Gabin, and L'Education Sentimentale/Sentimental Education (Alexandre Astruc, 1962) with Jean-Claude Brialy and Marie-José Nat.

Michel Auclair
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 959 A. Publicity card for les Carbones Korès. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Michel Auclair
German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktien Gesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1020. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Lucienne Chevert, Paris.

Michel Auclair
German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 124. Photo: Lantin.

Michel Auclair
French collectors card by Editions P.I. Paris for Biscottes Corvisart, Epinal.

Shady Film Producer


While a major French star, Michel Auclair only had a few English-language roles: as Professor Flostre in the musical Funny Face (Stanley Donen, 1957) with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire, as a French police investigator in Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973) with Edward Fox, as a cuckolded husband in Story of a Love Story (John Frankenheimer, 1973) with Alan Bates, and a doctor in the spy film Enigma (Jeannot Swarc, 1983) with Martin Sheen.

Auclair played in excellent European productions like the political thriller Le Juge Fayard Dit le Sheriff/Judge Fayard, Called the Sheriff (Yves Boisset, 1977) starring Patrick Dewaere, Trois Hommes à Abattre/Three Men to Kill (Jacques Deray, 1980) with Alain Delon, Mille Milliards de Dollars/A Thousand Billion Dollars (Henri Verneuil, 1982) another political thriller starring Patrick Dewaere, and the mysterious fantasy La Belle Captive/The Beautiful Prisoner (Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1983).

Michel Auclair was also a distinguished stage actor. On television he is remembered as Luis de Sant'angel in the mini-series Christopher Columbus (Alberto Lattuada, 1985) starring Gabriel Byrne.

Michel Auclair died by a cerebral haemorrhage in 1988, in Saint-Paul-en-Forêt, Var, France. He had appeared in over 100 films.

In Preuve D'Amour/Love Token (Miguel Courtois, 1988), Auclair played one of his last screen roles: a shady film producer. The feature is dedicated to him.

Michel Auclair
German postcard by Netter's Star Verlag, Berlin.

Michel Auclair
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Co., München. Photo: Kurt Ulrich-Film / Constantin Film / Wesel. Michel Auclair in the WWII thriller Der Fuchs von Paris/The Fox of Paris (Paul May, 1957).

Michel Auclair
French postcard, no. 153.

Michel Auclair
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1428, 1961. Photo: Progress. Publicity still for Unter den Tausend Laternen/Under Thousand Lanterns (1952).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), José L Bernabé Tronchoni (Find A Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Ria Jende

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German-Belgian actress Ria Jende (1898-?) was a star and producer of the silent German cinema. She appeared in 40 films, before she married and retired.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K.3239. Photo: Alex Binder.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 264/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

A Magician’s Assistant


Ria Jende's life is largely hidden in the dark. We know that she was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1898. As a young girl, she went from Belgium to Germany.

Before the First World War, Edison brought her before the camera in Das Stelldichein der Verehrer/Thegathering ofworshipers (Manfred Noa, 1912) and another film pioneer Oskar Messter followed with Problematische Naturen/Problematicnatures (Hans Oberländer, 1912) with Erich Kaiser-Titz.

After her film debut, she worked in the theatre. For a while she was a magician’s assistant.

In 1917, Jende accepted another film offer by Messter-film and co-starred with Viggo Larsen in his Der graue Herr/The man in gray (Viggo Larsen, 1917). Then she co-starred with Bruno Kastner and Mia May in Ein Lichtstrahl im Dunkel/A beam of lightin the darkness (Joe May, 1917).

For the next five years she appeared in several insignificant entertainment productions. These included Der Ring der drei Wünsche/The ring ofthreewishes (Arthur Wellin, 1918) with Alexander Moissi, Der Teufel/The Devil (Ewald André Dupont, 1918), and the mystery Die Japanerin/The Japanese Woman (Ewald André Dupont, (1919) with Bernhard Goetzke and Max Landa.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 264/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 3842. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1018/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

Her Own Film Company


During the production of Nixchen (Paul Legband, 1919), starring Georg Alexander, Ria Jende met author and scriptwriter Franz W. Koebner, who became her husband.

In 1919 Jende started her own film company, Ria Jende Film. She produced Madeleine (Siegfried Philippi, 1921) with Hermann Valentin, and Versunkene Welten/Sunken Worlds (Siegfried Philippi, 1922) with Victor Varconi, but her company was short-lived.

As an actress she appeared in films like Die Schlange mit dem Mädchenkopf/The Serpent with the head of a girl (Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1920) opposite Hans Albers, Der Held des Tages/The heroof the day (Rudi Bach, 1921) and Das Geheimnis der Santa Margherita/The Secret of Santa Margherita (Rolf Randolf, 1921).

In 1922, Ria Jende married Franz W. Koebner, and thus ended her film career. Her final film was Das blinde Gluck/The blindluck (Iva Raffay, 1922).

After that she only once returned to the cinema, for a part in Die Abenteuer des Kapitän Hasswell/The Adventures ofCaptainHateWell  (Rolf Randolf, 1925) with Ernst Pittschau.

In 1926 Ria Jende published a travelogue of Malta in the Berlin magazine Das Magazin. Her husband also wrote for the same issue. Further data of her life are not known.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 295/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende and Magnus Stifter in Seelenverkäufer
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 3081. Photo: Greenbaum-Film. Publicity still for Seelenverkäufer/Seller of souls (Lupu Pick, 1919).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Arne Molander

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European Film Star Postcards presents the stars of the European cinema, but also lesser known actors whose postcards have survived. The texts in this blog we mainly base on the information about these actors on the net. A curious and fascinating case is Arne Molander. We found three Ross Verlag postcards of this forgotten actor, but there is nearly no trace of him on the net. Who was he - or she?

Arne Molander
German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3184/1, 1928-1929.

Red Baron


According to IMDb, Arne Molander appeared in two films, but gives no further information about the actor.

He had a leading part in the war drama Richthofen, der Rote Ritter der Luft/Richthofen (Peter Joseph, Desider Kertesz, 1927-1929) as the son of the famous German Baron and WW I hero, played by Georg Burghardt.

The three Ross Verlag postcards, which were all published in the period 1927-1929, probably were intended to help promote this film.

At Spiegelonline, Ralf Bülow writes that the film that started a complete new genre: "Richthofen was not dead for ten years, when in November 1927 the Dresden actor Carl Walther Meyer started to produce Richthofen, der Rote Ritter der Luft/Richthofen. The film was a mix of a love story and a spy story in which the hero only played a supporting part. The budget reached just for a single flight-capable Dreidecker, and apart from that the film makers helped themselves with film footage from the war archives.

At that time Richthofen ran successfully in cinemas in the Berlin suburbs and in the provinces. Today the film seems to be lost; only the library of the University of Texas has some scenes in their archives." (Translated from German by EFSP).

When the film was shown in the US in 1929, The New York Times wrote: "A carelessly assembled picture is the purported story of the German war ace, Richthofen, in which a love interest has been introduced. At least three-fourths of the film is devoted to an innocuously romantic tale having nothing whatever to do with "the Red Knight," relating as it does an affair of one of his friends. Several disturbing elements enter when daylight and night-time views are mixed indiscriminately. There are several interesting airplane combats. The photography for the most part is deplorable. Egon v. Jordon [Egon von Jordan] as Werner Dewall, Richthofen's friend, comes nearest to giving a performance. The rest is negligible."

Arne Molander
German Postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1131/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balász, Berlin.

Viktor und Viktoria?


Richthofen did not stimulate Arne Molander's film career.

In the sound era, he played two small film parts, more than five years after his debut. IMDb only mentions one of the films, Der höhere Befehl/The Higher Command (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1935) starring Lil Dagover.

Filmportal.de adds the musical drama Schlussakkord/Final Accord (1936, Detlev Sierck a.k.a. Douglas Sirk, 1936) starring Lil Dagover again and Willy Birgel.

There is not further information about Arne Molander on the internet. Who was he? And what ever happened to him?

SpiegelonLine reproduced in their article the postcard above and adds that Molander was a Swedish actor, but there is no other source which confirms this.

Or was the mysterious Arne Molander in fact a she? Was Arne a real life version of the famous cross dressing comedy Viktor und Viktoria/Victor and Victoria (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933)? Can he have been a real-life drag king who fooled everybody?

I intend to thinks so watching Arne's pictures, the form of his face and the heavy make-up. But it's only a wild guess.

What do you think about Arne? Do you have more information that can put more light on this mysterious actor? Please, share your comments.

Arne Molander
German Postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1131/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balász, Berlin.

Sources: Ralf Bülow (Spiegelonline), New York Times, Filmportal.de and IMDb.
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