European Film Star Postcards

The Rolling Stones is a legendary English rock band known for many popular hits, such as Paint it Black, Lady Jane, Ruby Tuesday, and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. Their singer, Mick Jagger, starred in several films.

French postcard by PSG / Korès, no. 445.

The British Invasion

The Rolling Stones was formed in 1962 in London when original leader Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart were joined by vocalist Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, whose song writing partnership later contributed to their taking the leadership role in the group.

Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up. Ian Stewart was removed from the official line-up in 1963 but continued to work with the band as road manager and keyboardist until his death in 1985.

The band's early recordings were mainly covers of American blues and R&B songs. After first achieving success in the UK, they became popular in the US during the ‘British Invasion’ of the early 1960's.

Their 1965 single (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction established The Rolling Stones as a premier rock and roll act. It was composed by Keith Richards in his sleep, and with the addition of provocative lyrics by Mick Jagger it became their greatest hit.

During 1966-1969 they toured the world, and constantly updated their song-list with many great hits like Lets Spend the night together (1967), Sympathy for the Devil (1968) and Honky Tonk Woman (1969).

The rehearsal and recording of Sympathy for the Devil was filmed by Jean Luc Godard, who used it in his famous satirical collage of rock documentary and political commentary, One Plus One/ Sympathy for the Devil (Jean-Luc Godard, 1968).

The following year the first concert film of the Stones was released: The Stones in the Park (Leslie Woodhead, 1969).

It was followed by the harrowing documentary Gimme Shelter (Albert & David Maysles, 1970). In December of 1969, four months after Woodstock, the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane gave a free concert in Northern California, east of Oakland at Altamont Speedway. About 300,000 people came, and the organizers put Hell's Angels in charge of security around the stage. Armed with pool cues and knifes, Angels spent the concert beating up spectators, killing at least one.

Cocksucker Blues (1972) was a film by photographer Robert Frank on the 1972 American tour. The films was not released by the Stones reportedly because it contained scenes of drug use and groupie orgies.

Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 6302.

Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 1187.

It's Only Rock and Roll

Brian Jones had died in 1969 shortly after being fired from the band and was replaced by Mick Taylor.

But at the end of the 1960’s the creativity of The Rolling Stones reached new highs. Their albums Beggars Banquet (1968) and Sticky Fingers (1971) were among the most popular albums they ever made, having such hits as Wild Horses and Brown Sugar.

During the 1970’s The Rolling Stones remained the biggest band in the world. In 1974 former Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood replaced Mick Taylor, and has been with the band ever since.

The Stones made thousands of live performances and multi-million record sales with hits like Angie (1973), It's Only Rock and Roll (1974), Hot Stuff (1976) and Respectable (1978).

At that time both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger had individual ambitions, and applied their untamed creativity in various projects outside the Stones.

Wyman left the Rolling Stones in 1993; bassist Darryl Jones, who is not an official band member, has worked with the group since 1994.

The Rolling Stones have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.

Dutch postcard, no. 6223.

Italian postcard by Silvercart, Milano, no. 516/7.

Challenge to Respectable Standards

Reportedly, Mick Jagger (1943) is the heart of The Stones and Keith Richards (1943) the soul.

Mick Jagger dropped out of college and his every move on-stage and off-stage seemed to signal a challenge to respectable standards. He never received a formal musical education, and even could not read music.

However, he worked hard and emerged as the lead singer and songwriter in partnership with Richards, following the example of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's song writing for The Beatles.

Mick Jagger starred in several films, such as Performance (Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell, 1970), Ned Kelly (Tony Richardson, 1970), Running Out of Luck (Julien Temple, 1987), Freejack (Geoff Murphy, 1992), Bent (Sean Mathias, 1997), and The Man from Elysian Fields (George Hickenlooper, 2001).

Keith Richards, was a schoolmate of Jagger since the primary school. In 1960 they contemplated starting up a band together. Since the formation of the Rolling Stones in 1962, Richards has been the principal songwriting partner with Jagger, and most of the songs on all Rolling Stones albums are credited to Jagger/Richards.

Besides his music career, Richards made a cameo appearance as Captain Teague, the father of Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski, 2007).

French postcard by PSG, no. 1189. offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Decca.

Dutch postcard.

50 & Counting

In 2008 the Rolling Stones united with legendary director Martin Scorsese for Shine A Light (2008). For this career-spanning documentary, Scorsese used concert footage from their A Bigger Bang tour and he filmed the Stones over a two-day period at the intimate Beacon Theatre in New York City in fall 2006. In between there are some short clips of old Stones interviews and some Behind-the-Scenes-Footage.

It was followed by The Stones in Exile (Stephen Kijak, 2010). This documentary gives a look at the creation and impact of the 1972 Rolling Stones album Exile on Main St.

The Rolling Stones celebrated their 50th anniversary in the summer of 2012 by releasing a large hardback book titled 50.

It was followed by a documentary titled Crossfire Hurricane (Brett Morgen, 2012). Approximately fifty hours of interviews were conducted by Morgen for use for the documentary, including interviews with Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor.

In November 2012, the Stones started their 50 & Counting tour, which kept them busy throughout 2013, and was followed by the live DVD, Sweet Summer Sun: Live in Hyde Park (2013).

Trailer for Sympathy For The Devil (1968). Source: TriCyclistus (YouTube).

Trailer for Gimme Shelter (1970). Source: Matt Gamble (YouTube).

Trailer for Performance (1970). Source: Performance 786 (YouTube).

Trailer for Bent (1997). Source: ciwciwdotcom (YouTube).

Trailer for the documentary Shine A Light (2008), directed by Martin Scorsese. Source: paramountmovies (YouTube).

Trailer for The Stones in Exile (2010). Source: EagleRockTV (YouTube).

Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Esteemed and good-looking French actor Samy Frey (1937) (or Sami Frey) is best known for playing eccentric, offbeat roles in Nouvelle Vague films such as Jean Luc Godard's Bande à part/Band of Outsiders (1964). He also appeared in the provocative art-house classics Sweet Movie (1974) and Pourquoi pas!/Why not! (1977).

French postcard by Editions Marion Valentine, Paris, no. 244. Photo: Jean Mounicq. Samy Frey and La maja desnuda (The nude Maja) by Francisco Goya in 1963.

Young and Very Handsome

Samy Frey (sometimes credited as Sami Frey or Sammy Frey) was born Samuel Frei in Paris in 1937. He is of Polish Jewish descent.

He was in his late teens when he made his screen debut with an uncredited part in Napoléon (Sacha Guitry, 1955). This was followed by small parts in Pardonnez nos Offences/Forgive us our trespasses (Robert Hossein, 1956) starring Marina Vlady, and the crime drama Les jeux dangereux/Dangerous games (Pierre Chenal, 1958), starring Jean Servais and Pascale Audret.

The young and very handsome Frey was soon engaged to Audret. Then he became the lover of Brigitte Bardot when he co-starred with her in La Vérité/The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960). The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Frey became known with Nouvelle Vague films like the short Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald (ou Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires)/The Lovers of Mac Donald bridge (or Beware of dark sunglasses) (Agnes Varda, 1961), the classic Cléo de 5 à 7/Cleo from 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962) featuring Corinne Marchand, and especially with Bande à part/Band of Outsiders (Jean Luc Godard, 1964). The latter is one of Godard's most accessible films and co-stars Anna Karina and Claude Brasseur.

Louis Schwartz at AllMovie: “Bande à part is driven by its actors and the chemistry among them. It uses their interactions to document the feeling of being young and French in the early 1960s.”

Acclaimed is also Thérèse Desqueyroux (Georges Franju, 1962) featuring Emmanuelle Riva. He then worked with expatriate American photographer and filmmaker William Klein at Qui êtes vous, Polly Maggoo?/Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (William Klein, 1966), a satirical art house film spoofing the fashion world and its excesses.

Frey also worked on more mainstream films like the French historical romantic adventure Angélique et le Roy/Angelique and the King (Bernard Borderie, 1966), the third film of the Angelique series featuring Michèle Mercier. With Catherine Deneuve, he co–starred in Manon 70 (Jean Aurel, 1968), based on Manon Lescaut, an 18th-century French novel by Antoine François Prévost.

He reunited with William Klein for the anti-imperialist satirical farce Mr. Freedom (William Klein, 1969), starring Delphine Seyrig. She became his life partner till her death.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Korès, no. FK 60 A. Photo: Unifrance Film / Ufa.

Sweet Movie

Sami Frey continued to make both art house productions and mainstream films. A small and little seen but also interesting film is Jaune le soleil/Yellow Sun (Marguerite Duras, 1971), an adaptation of Duras' novel Abahn Sabana David. Frey also co-starred with Yves Montand and Romy Schneider in the successful romance César et Rosalie/César and Rosalie (Claude Sautet, 1972).

A scandal was caused by the avant-garde comedy-drama Sweet Movie (1974), directed by Yugoslavian film maker Dušan Makavejev. The film created a storm of controversy upon its release, with simulated (and unsimulated) scenes of coprophilia (sexual pleasure from faeces), emetophilia (sexual arousement by vomiting or observing others vomit), fondling, and footage of remains of the Polish Katyn Massacre victims.

Sweet Movie was banned in many countries, or severely cut; it is still banned in many countries to this day. However, Richard Winters at IMDb calls the film ‘Uniquely Brilliant and Original’: “Unfairly labeled as excessive and perverse, this film is really a very fascinating, intricate study into the recesses of the sexual mind. It looks at sex in all its complexities. It exposes it as a very primal need. It also shows how the sexual side of the person can have a personality all of its own.”

AllMovie: “Love it or hate it, one can't help but admire the visionary Makavejev for pushing the medium as far as he possibly could, and doing so with a stunningly graceful technique.”

Also odd but interesting is Le jardin qui bascule/The Garden That Tilts (Guy Gilles, 1975) in which he appeared with his partner Delphine Seyrig. One of my personal favorites is the comedy-drama Pourquoi pas!/Why not! (Coline Serreau, 1977), about a marriage à trois.

Frey co-starred again with Catherine Deneuve in Écoute voir…/See Here My Love (Hugo Santiago, 1979). He had a supporting part in the successful thriller Mortelle Randonnée/ Deadly Circuit (Claude Mille, 1983) starring Michel Serrault and Isabelle Adjani.

He then played a PLO bomber opposite Diane Keaton in the American spy-film The Little Drummer Girl (George Roy Hill), adapted from the 1983 novel The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré. Another international production was the thriller Black Widow (Bob Rafelson, 1987) starring Debra Winger and Theresa Russell.

In Germany he made the drama Laputa (Helma Sanders-Brahms, 1986), screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. In Belgium he made L'Œuvre au noir/The Abyss (André Delvaux, 1988) which was shown at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. The drama, starring Gian Maria Volonté, is based on the novel by Marguerite Yourcenar.

Frey also appeared in the American miniseries War and Remembrance (Dan Curtis, 1988), the sequel to the highly successful series The Winds of War.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2770, 1967. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Progress.

Antonin Artaud

In the 1990s and after, Sami Frey continued to star in several major European productions. He played the male lead in L'africana/The African Woman (Margarethe von Trotta, 1990) starring Stefania Sandrelli and Barbara Sukowa.

He was the narrator of the semi-autobiographical comedy Hors Saison/Off Season (1992) by Daniel Schmid, who re-imagines the hotel he grew up in the Swiss Alps, hosting a series of interesting guests, including the actress Sarah Bernhardt (Marisa Paredes), and an anarchist assassin (Geraldine Chaplin). The film was the Swiss submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Frey portrayed French actor, poet and playwright Antonin Artaud in En compagnie d'Antonin Artaud/My Life and Times with Antonin Artaud (Gérard Mordillat, 1993). For this role he garnered considerable critical acclaim. Oslo Jargo at IMDb: “Sami Frey, who plays Artaud, is simply extraordinary and there is no hint that this man is an actor, this man IS Artaud, everything he says, whether it be random missives on the nature of evil in a fly or movements with his hands, eyes and intense caricature of the face, realizes Artaud's living frenzy.”

That same year, Frey was also Aramis in the French adventure film La fille de d'Artagnan/Revenge of the Musketeers (Bertrand Tavernier, 1994). Sophie Marceau starred as the daughter of the renowned swordsman D'Artagnan who keeps the spirit of the Musketeers alive by bringing together the aging members of the legendary band to oppose a plot to overthrow the King and seize power.

Later films include the French drama Les menteurs/The Liars (Élie Chouraqui, 1996) with Jean-Hugues Anglade.

In the new century Frey kept appearing in major parts in European films. In Germany he starred in PiperMint... das Leben möglicherweise/PiperMint… life possibly (Nicole-Nadine Deppé, 2004) with Meret Becker. He co-starred with Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal in the romantic thriller Anthony Zimmer (Jérôme Salle, 2005).

In Italy, he co-starred with Sergio Castellito in Il regista di matrimoni/The Wedding Director (Marco Bellocchio, 2006) which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Also interesting is Nuit de chien/ This Night (Werner Schroeter, 2008), as offbeat as his Nouvelle Vague films.

Most recently, Sami Frey played the lead in Le nez dans le ruisseau/The nose in the stream (Christophe Chevalier, 2012). He played a philosophy professor, who strikes up a friendship with a 12-year-old boy who understands Rousseau's philosophy better than he, without ever having been exposed to it.

Trailer La Vérité/The Truth (1960). Source: Milibbardot (YouTube).

Scene from Bande à part/Band of Outsiders (1964). Source: Lalvolution (YouTube).

Trailer for Sweet Movie (1974). Source: GardenSceneEvenings (YouTube).

Sources: Louis Schwartz (AllMovie), Richard Winters (IMDb), Oslo Jargo (IMDb), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Gudrun Hildebrandt was a well-known German dance artist, who also appeared in a few silent films. Although she was one of the most photographed artists of her time and there are dozens of postcards of Hildebrandt, she seems forgotten now.

German postcard by P.M.B., no. 4526/1.

German postcard by GL Co., no. 4114/6. Sent by mail in 1910.

Beautiful Dancer

It is quite hard to find information about Gudrun Hildebrandt on the net. This is what we found:

Gudrun was the daughter of a journalist, who worked for Kaiser Wilhelm II. He purchased all the gifts for the Kaiser. Her father was Jewish, but christened as a baby.

As an adult, Gudrun danced to the music of Chopin in theatrical productions and performed in productions as Wolk und Wind (Cloud and Wind).

The beautiful dancer became a popular subject for dozens of postcards. It was a logical step to the cinema.

According to IMDb, Gudrun Hildebrandt appeared in only two films. Under the lemma Gudrun Hildebrand you can find Das Leben ein Roman/Life is a Novel (1913). Produced by Alfred Duskes for Duskes Kinematographen- und Film-Fabriken GmbH and directed by Carl Bernhardt.

Under ‘Gudrun Hildebrandt’ we found the short comedy Fräulein Puppe - Meine Frau/Miss Doll - My wife (1914) about a puppet which comes to life. This is an Uranus-Film-Gesellschaft Franz Scholling & Co production directed by the Polish director Danny Kaden (a.k.a. Nunek Danuky), and produced by Franz Scholling. Hildebrandt played the title character and the cast also included Kurt Gerron, Hermann Picha and Fritz Schulz.

The German Early Cinema Database gives a third title: Zwischen den Jahrhunderten/Between the centuries (1916), a production by Luna Film. This site also gives a description of the manuscript by Carl Schönfeld for Das Leben ein Roman: “A foster child is chased away. An earl takes her in. When his son is going to marry, she takes poison, but not enough.”

German postcard, no. 1445/46.

German postcard by EAS, no. 5 / 1899.

A Bourgeois Lifestyle Interrupted

Around 1920, Gudrun Hildebrandt had a dance school in Berlin and she published the book Grammatik der Modernen Tänze (Grammatics of modern dance). She also published in dance magazines.

In 1926 she published a novel under the title Steffi Walborg, der Roman einer Tänzerin (Steffi Walborg, the novel of a dancer).

In her book, Frenchy: I Wanted to Get Back at Hitler, Tracy L. Shaler relates the life of a niece of Hildebrandt, Jeannette Grünfeld Marx, and gives also information about Hildebrandt.

Gudrun was married to Grünfeld’s uncle, Benjamin (or Benedikt) Marx, a successful businessman and an elected member of the Social Democratic Party.

In 1930 their bourgeois lifestyle was interrupted by the elections when the Nazi party won 107 seats in the Reichstag. Benedikt and Gudrun fled Germany shortly before Hitler was made Reichs Chancellor.

What later happened with Gudrun Hildebrandt is unclear to us. How was her later life in England? Where and when did she die? If you know the answers, please send a mail and share the info.

German postcard, no. 1381/82.

German postcard by Bromüra, no. B 238.

German postcard by Rotophot, no. 1381/82. Sent by mail in 1909.

Sources: Tracy L. Shaler (Frenchy: I Wanted to Get Back at Hitler), The German Early Cinema Database, and IMDb.

Photographer Lucienne Chevert (1911-1982) portrayed dozens of French stars of the post-war period. She was an associate of the famous French photographer Sam Lévin.

Françoise Arnoul. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 366. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Martine Carol. French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 210 H. Photo: Lucienne Chevert, no. 456.

Jeanne Moreau. French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), no. 620. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Assistant and Associate

Information on Lucienne Chevert is hard to find, but we know the year when she was born: 1911.

In 1934, upcoming photographer Sam Lévin started his own photo studio in Paris and the young Lucienne Chevert became his assistant.

Chevert was only 22 or 23 at the time, but their cooperation at this portrait studio would continue till her death in 1982. Although Lévin was married with another woman, their professional association obviously worked.

In 1935 Sam Lévin was asked to replace a sick photographer at a film set. This proved to be a great start for a career as a set photographer for both him and Chevert.

Chevert is first credited as a set photographer for Dernier atout/The last ace (Jacques Becker, 1942) starring Mireille Balin and Raymond Rouleau. Reportedly a mediocre crime film.

During the French occupation she also made the stills for such films as Sortilèges (Christian-Jaque, 1944), Boule de suif (Christian-Jaque, 1945) with Micheline Presle, and Adieu chérie/Goodbye Darling (Raymond Bernard, 1945) with Danielle Darrieux.

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

Bernard Blier. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 369. Offered by Les Carbones Korès. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Simone Renant. French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 153. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Lesbian Photographer

Very successful was Lucienne Chevert's cooperation with famous film director Henri-Georges Clouzot. It started with Quai des Orfèvres/Quay of the Goldsmiths (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1947) for which she made beautiful star portraits of Louis Jouvet, Bernard Blier, Suzy Delair and Simone Renant.

Renant plays the photographer Dora, who works for the artists of the music halls and night clubs. One of her clients is her neighbour, the singer Jenny Lamour (Delair). It's clear by the way Dora interacts with Jenny that she is a lesbian and thus Dora is one of the first gay characters in the cinema.

Chevert of course made Dora's beautiful photos of Jenny Lamour, who were also used in the publicity for the film. Quai des Orfèvres is an excellent film noir with crisp black and white cinematography by Armand Thirard. Chevert gave her stills the same atmosphere. They are now popular items at auctions.

Next Lucienne Chevert made the stills for the comedy Antoine et Antoinette/Antoine and Antoinette (Jacques Becker, 1947) and Le dessous des cartes/Under the Cards (André Cayatte, 1948) starring Madeleine Sologne.

Her definitive breakthrough came with her work for the classic La salaire de la peur/The wages of fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1952) with Yves Montand. La salaire de la peur is a painfully riveting suspense thriller about a suicidally dangerous mission involving trucks and nitroglycerine.

Yves Montand. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 455. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Ingrid Bergman. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 198. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Dominique Wilms. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 28G. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Beautiful and Sexy Stars

Lucienne Chevert is now only remembered for her set photography but also for her film star portraits. She became one of the most famous celebrity photographers in France and her glamorous portraits of film French actors and especially actresses graced thousands of European film star postcards.

In the intimacy of their beautifully decorated studio and thanks to her friendly character and personal interest, many film stars felt at ease. Her portraits of beautiful and sexy stars as Martine Carol and Françoise Arnoul are exquisite.

She made portraits of many stars of the French cinema of the 1950s, including Charles Aznavour, Eddie Constantine and Yves Montand. International stars like Ingrid Bergman and Nadja Tiller also posed for her camera.

Chevert photographed the faces of the Nouvelle Vague, like Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau. Her colour portraits at that time are still fresh and cheerful. And in 1965, she returned to set photography for Agnes Varda’s classic Le Bonheur (1965).

Le Bonheur was one of her last known professional activities. Lucienne Chevert died in 1982.

Jean-Paul BelmondoFrench postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 77. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Juliette Mayniel. French postcard by EDUG (Editions du Globe), no. 45. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Jean Sorel. French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 143. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

This is the ninth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographerAttilio Badodi, the German photographer Ernst Schneider, Dutch photo artist Godfried de Groot, Milanese photographersArturo Varischi andGiovanni Artico, the French Studio Lorelle, the British 'royal' photographer Dorothy Wilding, and last week: Berlin duo Becker & Maass.

Sources: UniFrance Films, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

German actor Wolfgang Lukschy (1905-1983) performed in theatre, film and television. Between 1940 and 1979, he made over 75 film and television appearances. Best known is his role as gangster lord in the classic Spaghetti Western Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964), starring Clint Eastwood.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3704/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz, Berlin.

Gallant Lover

Wolfgang Lukschy was born in Berlin, Germany in 1905. He initially worked for several years as a apprentice process engraver (a graphic specialist), and later as a film copier.

In 1928, he took acting lessons from Paul Bildt and soon the 23 year old found work at various stages in Germany. Following an engagement at the Berlin Volksbühne, he performed in Stuttgart, Würzburg, Munich and Hanover. Eleven years later he returned to Berlin to perform at the Schiller Theatre.

In 1940 he played his first film role in Friedrich Schiller – Triumph eines Genies/Friedrich Schiller - Triumph of a genius (Herbert Maisch, 1940) with Horst Caspar as the 18th-century German playwright and blank-verse poet.

Till the end of the war only a few more film parts followed for Lukschy. He had a small part in the propaganda film Ohm Kruger/Uncle Kruger (Hans Steinhoff, 1941) in which Emil Jannings played South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War.

He embodied the gallant lover in the excellent revue-film Die Frau meiner Träume/The woman of my dreams (Georg Jacoby, 1944) starring Marika Rökk. With this leading role in one of the first German films in colour, he reached the height of his popularity.

In 1944, he also had a supporting part in the drama Die Degenhardts/The Degenhardts (Werner Klingler, 1944). Heinrich George starred as Karl Degenhardt, the patriarch of a family in Lubeck, who leads his wife and five children through the opening stages of Second World War culminating in the Bombing of Lübeck on 28 March 1942 by the Royal Air Force. The film was part of a cycle of home front films produced in Germany during the war. Die Degenhardts was intended to fan anti-British sentiment and prepare Germans psychologically for the destruction of their cities by Allied bombing raids and invasions.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3465/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

Shady Characters

After the Second World War, Wolfgang Lukschy operated both as a director and as an actor. He was still active in the theatre and in the cinema for the East-German studio Deutsche Film AG (DEFA).

In the early 1950s, he worked mainly in West-Germany. On stage he played about 500 times Professor Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady.

In the cinema he appeared in the charming remake of the famous children’s film Emil und die Detektive/Emil and the Detectives (Robert A. Stemmle, 1954) based on the famous novel by Erich Kästner, and in Heimatfilms like Das Mädchen vom Moorhof/The Girl from the Marsh Croft (Gustav Ucicky, 1958) featuring Maria Emo.

During the 1960s he starred in Edgar Wallace thrillers such as Die toten Augen von London/The Dead Eyes of London (Alfred Vohrer, 1961) and in Karl May Westerns including Old Surehand (Alfred Vohrer, 1965) featuring Stewart Granger.

Even in international films one could see him. He played Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl in the American war film The Longest Day (Bernhard Wicki a.o., 1962) and the gangster lord John Baxter in the classic Spaghetti Western Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) alongside Clint Eastwood and Gian Maria Volonté (as John Wells).

In his film roles, he presented now mostly shady characters who hide their excessive ambition or their questionable past behind outward correctness.

His film career dropped off in the 1970s. Lukschy played in the crime series Tatort (1970) and other television dramas. One of Lukschys main activities was film synchronization. He was often the German voice of James Mason, Walter Matthau, Stewart Granger, Gregory Peck, John Wayne and others.

Wolfgang Lukschy died in 1983 in Berlin. He had three sons: Wolfgang, Stefan and Mathias-Michael. Stefan Lukschy (1948) works as a director.

Italian trailer Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Source: Cineocchio (YouTube).

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

Last year's Il Cinema Ritrovato (29 June - 6 July 2013) had a section Bigger than Life: a journey through European Cinemascope, which included Mario Monicelli's La grande guerra/The Great War (1959). EFSP did a post then about the female lead of this dark comedy, gorgeous Silvana Mangano. Today, the newly restored version of La grande guerra/The Great War will be presented in the Netherlands, in Eye Film Institute, with an introduction by film historian and EFSP contributor Ivo Blom.

A fine opportunity to do a post today about one of the male leads of La grande guerra/The Great War,Alberto Sordi (1920-2003). In a career that spanned seven decades, the actor established himself as an icon of Italian cinema with his representative skills at both comedy and light drama. He was also a film director and the dubbing voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian versions of some Laurel & Hardy films.

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano (Milan), no. 325. Photo: Galfano, Roma.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano (Milan), no. 697.

Fellini Classics

Alberto Sordi was born in Rome in 1920 to a schoolteacher and a musician. He discovered his comic vocation when, as an altar boy, he raised giggles when he waved the censer too boisterously. At 10, he was singing in the Sistine Chapel choir, thanks to his father, a tuba player at the Rome opera house.

At 16, he went to Milan to record his own fairy tales. He enrolled in Milan's dramatic arts academy but gave up when a teacher told him he would never have an acting career unless he got rid of his thick Roman accent. This accent that would later prove to be his trademark.

His film career began in the late 1930s with bit parts and secondary characters in wartime films. After the war he began working as a voice actor for the Italian versions of Laurel and Hardy shorts, dubbing Oliver Hardy.

His first notable film roles were plum parts in two early Federico Fellini classics: Lo sceicco bianco/The White Sheik (Federico Fellini, 1952) as the exotic hero of fotoromanzi (melodramatic photo dime novels), and Fellini's I vitelloni (Federico Fellini, 1953) about a group of young slackers (also including Franco Interlenghi and Franco Fabrizi).

The year after I Vitelloni, Sordi played leading roles in 13 films. One was a short, in which he played a freakish Roman who is completely crazy for everything that comes from the States. Repeating the character in a full-length film, Un Americano a Roma/An American in Rome (Steno, 1954), he established himself as a star. Then followed a starring role opposite Nino Manfredi in Lo scapolo/The Bachelor (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1955) playing a single man trying to find love.

In 1959 he appeared with Vittorio Gassman as seedy first world war soldiers, who become heroes in spite of their cowardliness, in La grande guerra/The Great War (Mario Monicelli, 1959). The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and is considered by many critics and film historians to be one of the best Italian comedies.

Sordi became known for satirizing his country's social mores in pungent black comedies and farces. In the World War II comedy The Best of Enemies (Guy Hamilton, 1961), Sordi played a wide-eyed, expressive Italian commander opposite stiff-upper-lip British officer David Niven.

He directed himself as an honest Sicilian smuggled into New York as a hit man in Mafioso (Alberto Sordi, 1962). The film was barely seen outside of Italy at the time and was long forgotten, but American distributor Rialto re-released Mafioso in 2007 and netted enthusiastic reviews. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso (1962) was a movie so far ahead of its era, that -- looking at it 45 years after its release -- it seems at times as though it had been made in a time warp. After all, who made comedies about the mob -- even the Sicilian mob -- in 1962? And in a neo-realist style, to boot? "

Another example is Il diavolo/To Bed or Not to Bed (Gian Luigi Polidoro, 1963) about an Italian fur merchant in Sweden. The film depicts the clash between his fantasies about sex in Sweden with the reality of what he finds. The Hollywood Foreign Press awarded him for this part with a Golden Globe.

Another highly regarded comedy is the anthology I complessi/Complexes (Luigi Filippo D'Amico, Dino Risi, Franco Rossi, 1965) about various psychological complexes. The two other episodes featured Nino Manfrediand Ugo Tognazzi.

Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "The titles of some of his most prolific characters were as simple as their titles: The Seducer, The Bachelor, The Husband, The Widower, The Traffic Cop, and The Moralist. Most of his protagonists amusingly, but not always pleasantly, stereotyped the worst attributes of Italian men and society, yet many of his films are unparalleled in quality and considered masterpieces. "

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano (Milan), no. 697.

Alberto Sordi and David Niven in The Best of Enemies (1961). Collection: Pierre sur le Ciel.

Underdog and Prevaricator

Wikipedia indicates that Alberto Sordi was really masterful in two broad roles: the underdog, militating against injustices and prevarications, but also the prevaricator himself.

An example of the underdog is the returning emigrant unjustly convicted in Detenuto in attesa di giudizio/In Prison Awaiting Trial (Nanni Loy, 1972) or the miserly sub-proletarian of Lo scopone scientifico/The Scientific Cardplayer (Luigi Comencini, 1972) teased by the old millionaire Bette Davis into endless card games where he hopes to find release from his poverty.

A typical prevaricator is the rampant, unscrupulous doctor in Il medico della mutua/Be Sick... It's Free (Luigi Zampa, 1968). These characters were both truly despicable and completely believable.

Sordi also succeeded in dramatic roles, most notably in Un borghese piccolo piccolo/A Very Small Petit Bourgeois (Mario Monicelli, 1977) in which he portrays an elderly middle-class man, who after seeing his son killed in an armed robbery, takes justice in his own hands. According to John Francis Lane in The Guardian it was his 'best performance'.

He was also among the large international cast of the dark comedy L'Ingorgo/Traffic Jam (Luigi Comencini, 1979) in which the stories of numerous individuals whose cars are stalled in a massive Roman traffic jam are told. The film was based on a novel by Julio Cortazar.

In Tutti dentro/Off to jail, everybody (Alberto Sordi, 1984), he played a judge who has warrants for corruption served on ministers and businessmen. Sordi directed and co-scripted the film nearly a decade before magistrate Antonio Di Pietro revolutionised Italian politics by doing just that. In 1985, Sordi was a member of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.

One of his last films was the character study Romanzo di un giovane povero/The History of a poor, young man (Ettore Scola, 1995). He played an old man fed up with his despotic wife, who during an outburst asks his young and also sad neighbour (Rolando Ravello) to help him to get rid of his wife by simulating an accident with the promise of a considerable amount of money.

Sordi won during his long career seven David di Donatello’s, Italy's most prestigious film award, and is the record holder of David di Donatello awards as best actor. He also received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 1995.

In 2003, Alberto Sordi died in Rome shortly before his eighty-third birthday following a heart attack. He was never married, but didn't disdain female company according to John Francis Lane in his obituary: "A loner, he enjoyed a quiet life with his dogs and his two sisters in a splendid villa near the Caracalla Baths." A huge crowd gathered to pay their last respects at his funeral.

Scene from Lo sceicco bianco/The White Sheik (1952). Source: NanniAglione (YouTube).

Scene from La grande guerra/The Great War (1959). Source: GoatDigital (YouTube). Sorry, no subtitles.

Trailer Lo scopone scientifico/The Scientific Cardplayer (1972). Source: FILMAUROsrl (YouTube).

Sources: John Francis Lane (The Guardian), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

English actress Charlotte Rampling (1946) became a legend with her ice-blue eyes, diamond-cut diction and much-remarked-upon cheekbones in such controversial classics like La Caduta degli dei/The Damned (1969) and Il Portiere di notte/The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974). In Hollywood, she worked successfully with Woody Allen and Sidney Lumet, and this century she returned spectacularly to the A-list of the cinema in François Ozon’s Sous le sable/Under the Sand (2000), and Swimming Pool (2003).

French postcard by Editions Admira & Bettina Rheims, no. PHN 139, 1987. Photo: Bettina Rheims, 1985.

A Traumatic Event

Charlotte Rampling was born Tessa Charlotte Rampling in Sturmer, Great Britain, in 1946. She is the daughter of Anne Isabelle Rampling-Gurteen, a painter, and Godfrey Rampling, an army officer. Her father had won silver in the athletics track event 4x400m relay at the 1932 Olympics, and gold in the 4x400m relay at the 1936 Olympics.

Charlotte attended the Jeanne d'Arc Académie in Versailles, France and the exclusive St. Hilda's School, Bushey, England. At 17 she was spotted on the street, and asked to appear in a Cadbury television commercial.

She enjoyed a successful modelling career, before she made her first, uncredited screen appearance as a water skier in the comedy The Knack ...and How to Get It (Richard Lester, 1965). The film won the Palme d'Or at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival.

Later that year she played the female lead in the comedy Rotten to the Core (John Boulting, 1965) with Anton Rodgers and Eric Sykes. At the time London was swinging and the 20 years old Rampling was one of the city’s ‘it’ girls.

She played Meredith, the bitchy but beautiful roommate of Georgy (Lynn Redgrave) in the successful comedy drama Georgy Girl (Silvio Narizzano, 1966).

But that year, a traumatic event occurred, when her elder sister Sarah shot herself in Argentina after giving birth prematurely and losing her child. Charlotte was devastated by this loss, which she experienced as an abandonment by her sister. She and her father lied to her mother, telling her that Sarah had died of a stroke.

Charlotte seemingly overcame this trauma and was able to continue acting. In 1967 she played the gunfighter Hana Wilde in The Superlative Seven, an episode of the hit series The Avengers with Patrick Macnee.

After this, her acting career blossomed in both English and French cinema. Among the early roles were the female lead in the British adventure film The Long Duel (Ken Annakin, 1967) starring Yul Brynner and Trevor Howard, and the thriller Target: Harry (Roger Corman, 1969).

Charlotte Rampling is interviewed by Gian Luca Farinelli before the screening of The Damned in Cinema Jolly at the Cinema Ritrovato 2011 festival in Bologna, Italy. 27 June 2011.

Mysterious, Sensitive and Ultimately Tragic

Charlotte Rampling has performed controversial roles. In Luchino Visconti's classic, she played a young wife sent to a Nazi concentration camp. Critics praised her performance, and it cast her in a whole new image: mysterious, sensitive and ultimately tragic. ‘The Look’ as co-star Dirk Bogarde called it, became her trademark.

She played Anne Boleyn in the film adaptation of Henry VIII and His Six Wives (Waris Hussein, 1972), with Keith Michell as Henry VIII. In the US, she played the wife of Robert Blake in the drama Corky (Leonard Horn, 1972).

In 1972, Rampling also married the actor and publicist Bryan Southcombe and had one child, Barnaby Southcombe (1972), now a television and film director. They were widely reported to be living in a ménage à trois with a male model, Randall Laurence, although Rampling always denied there was ever any sexual relationship.

She co-starred with Sean Connery in the science fiction/fantasy film Zardoz (John Boorman, 1974).

In Il Portiere di notte/The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974), she portrayed a concentration camp survivor who is reunited with the Nazi guard (Dirk Bogarde) who tortured her, and resumes their ambiguous relationship.

In France, she offered a passionate rendering of a violent heiress confined to a mental institution in La Chair de l'orchidée/The Flesh of the Orchid (1975), an adaptation of the pulp novel The Flesh of the Orchid (1948) by James Hadley Chase. The film was the directorial debut of French author and stage director Patrice Chéreau, and also stars Simone Signoret, Bruno Cremer and Edwige Feuillère.

Other interesting European films were Un taxi mauve/The Purple Taxi (Yves Boisset, 1977) with Peter Ustinov, Philippe Noiret and Fred Astaire, and Max mon amour/Max, My Love (Nagisa Oshima, 1986), in which she played a woman who fell in love with a chimpanzee.

Rampling gained recognition from American audiences in a remake of Raymond Chandler's detective story Farewell, My Lovely (Dirk Richards, 1975) with Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe.

Later she stole the show with her part in Stardust Memories (Woody Allen, 1980) as a beautiful but emotionally fragile depressive.

She had again success in Hollywood as the deceitful Laura in the acclaimed courtroom drama The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982), starring Paul Newman.

Five years later she appeared with Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro. in the American voordoo themed thriller Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987), as an ill-fated woman whose heart is irrevocably extracted from her body.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 43079. Photo: publicity still for The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982) with Paul Newman.

A Commanding, Devastating, and Nuanced Performance

In the following decade, Charlotte Rampling mainly worked for TV, such as in Great Expectations (Julian Jarrold, 1999), BBC's BAFTA award-winning adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel. She played the decayed spinster Miss Havisham opposite Ioan Gruffudd as Pip.

Charlotte Rampling credits François Ozon with drawing her back to film in the 2000s, a period when she came to terms with the death of her eldest sister Sarah. Ozon gave her the lead role in his French drama Sous le sable/Under the Sand (François Ozon, 2000), which was nominated for three César Awards and was critically well received.

Bob Mastrangelo at AllMovie: “Sous le Sable belongs to Charlotte Rampling. Delivering a commanding, devastating, and nuanced performance, Rampling portrays Marie Drillon, a middle-aged professor who goes through an emotional roller coaster after the sudden disappearance of her husband. Rampling beautifully handles Marie's various transformations, making it appear outwardly as if she is coping with reality, while inwardly she is collapsing.”

The character she played in Ozon's Swimming Pool (François Ozon, 2003), Sarah Morton, was named in her sister's honour. For most of Rampling's life, she would say only that her sister had died of a brain haemorrhage; when she and her father heard the news, they agreed they would never let her mother know the truth. They kept their secret until Rampling's mother died in 2001. A year later, Rampling became a Dame of France's Legion.

At 59, Rampling appeared in Vers le Sud/Heading South (Laurent Cantet, 2005), a film about sexual tourism. She plays Ellen, a professor of French literature and single Englishwoman, who holidays in 1970s Haiti to get the sexual attention she does not get at home.

Ozon directed her also in the costume drama Angel (François Ozon, 2007). Furthermore, she portrayed the mother of Keira Knightley's character in The Duchess (Saul Dibb, 2008), and she appeared in the terrorist thriller Cleanskin (Hadi Hajaig, 2010), starring Sean Bean and James Fox.

Very interesting is the Polish-Swedish co-production The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, 2011) starring Rutger Hauer as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, on whose 1564 painting The Procession to Calvary the film is inspired.

She was also among the cast of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Charlotte Rampling played the title role in the noir thriller I, Anna (2012) written and directed by her son, Barnaby Southcombe. Rampling married twice. In 1976, she had met French composer Jean Michel Jarre at a dinner party; and left her first husband Bryan Southcombe the next day. Two years later she married Jarre and had a second son, magician and singer David Jarre.

During 20 years, she accompanied Jarre on his worldwide music and light shows. She also brought up stepdaughter Émilie Jarre, now a fashion designer. Then the marriage was publicly dissolved in 1997 when she learned from tabloid newspaper stories about Jarre's affairs with other women and had a nervous breakdown.

Since 1998, she has been engaged to Jean-Noël Tassez, a French communications tycoon.

Charlotte Rampling stays very active on the screen. In 2013 she played Dr. Evelyn Vogel in the American hit series Dexter, had a small part in Night Train to Lisbon (Bille August,2013) and she appeared in Francois Ozon’s Jeune & jolie/Young & Beautiful (2013).

Scene from Il Portiere di note/The Night Porter (1974). Source: ctrlzjones (YouTube).

Trailer Sous le sable/Under the Sand (2000). Source: Daniel Fogarty (YouTube).

Trailer documentary The Look (Angelina Maccarone, 2011). Source: TrailerTVOne (YouTube).

Sources: Tracie Cooper (AllMovie), Bob Mastrangelo (AllMovie), Sholto Byrnes (The Independent), Pete Stampede, David K. Smith and Alan Hayes (The Avengers Forever), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

German actor Karl Beckersachs (1886-1951) was the gallant lover in many of the early silent films of the Weimar cinema. His career fizzled out in the late 1920s and later this pioneer film actor got completely forgotten.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 207/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 207/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.

Wilhelminian Film Divas

Karl Beckersachs, also Carl Beckersachs was born as Karl Nikolaus Beckersachs in Neuenhain, Germany in 1881 (Wikipedia) or 1886 (IMDb and Cyranos). He spent his school years in Darmstadt and started as a volunteer at the local Hoftheater (court theatre).

In 1906 he received his first engagement in Aachen. Three years later, he arrived at the Schiller Theater in Berlin.

In 1912, he began his career as a silent film actor. That year he appeared in Europäisches Sklavenleben/European slave life (Emil Justitz, 1912) with Friedrich Zelnik, and Die Papierspur/The paper trail (Emil Albes, 1912).

Then he appeared in Komödianten/Behind Comedy's Mask (Urban Gad, 1913) opposite the Danish diva Asta Nielsen. They play a divorcing stage couple with a dying son.

He then worked with the other diva of the Wilhelminian cinema, Henny Porten in the melodrama Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915).

In Carl und Carla/Carl and Carla (Carl Wilhelm, 1915), his co-star was Lisa Weise, and in the following years they made several films together. These included Ein Zirkusmädel/A circus girl (Carl Wilhelm, 1917), Das große Los/The big prize (Friedrich Zelnik, 1917) and Klein Doortje/Little Dorrit (Friedrich Zelnik, 1917).

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5448. Photo: publicity still for Das grosse Los/The big prize (1917) with Lisa Weise.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 260/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 260/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.

A Gallant Lover

Karl Beckersachs made his name as a gallant lover opposite the major female stars of the era. He starred with Erika Glässner in Das Wäschermädel Seiner Durchlaucht (Danny Kaden, 1917), with Lotte Neumann in Der Geigenspieler/The violin player (Paul von Woringen, 1917) and Wanda Treumann in Der Dieb/The thief (Franz Eckstein, Rosa Porten, 1918).

He played opposite Max Landa in the Krimi Mitternacht/Midnight (1918) in which he plays Lieutenant Commander Donald Gordon who is suspected to have murdered the stepmother of his fiancée.

After WWI, he continued to play in films like Heddas Rache/Hedda’s revenge (Jaap Speyer, 1919) with Mia Pankau.

He directed himself in Die gestohlene Seele/The stolen soul (Karl Beckersachs, Carl Boese, 1919) .

He regularly worked with director Friedrich Feher as for Carrière - Aus dem Leben einer Tänzerin/Career, from the life of a dancer (Friedrich Feher, Heinz Heil, 1922).

He was the co-star of Bartolomeo Pagano in Maciste und der Sträfling Nr. 51/ Maciste and the convict no. 51 (Luigi Romano Borgnetto, 1923).

His parts became smaller in the mid-1920s. His best known films of this period are the comedy Ein Walzertraum/A Waltz-Dream (Ludwig Berger, 1925) starring Willy Fritsch and Mady Christians, and Richard Oswald's drama Halbseide/Semi-silk (1925) with Bernd Aldor and Mary Parker.

In the sound film era, he only made two films. His last film was Der lachende Dritte/The Chuckling Third (Georg Zoch, 1936) with Lucie Englisch.

In 1938 he managed the Theater am Kottbusser Tor in Berlin, and his last sign of life is from the year 1944, when he ran his own little tour-theatre.

Karl Beckersachs died in 1951 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. He was married to Maria Katharina Freiin von Schenk zu Schweinsberg (1908-1925).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 348/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Balász.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 179. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1293/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line) (German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Who was Miss Pielson? We have this beautiful postcard of her, but there is no information on the net about this beautiful silent film star. So we asked this question about her identity in a 2011 post. French film star postcard specialist Marlène Pilaete solved the puzzle.

French postcard by A.N., Paris in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series, no. 157. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

7 March 2011

EFSP: "Who was Miss Pielson? Nothing is known about her on the internet. She must have been a vedette, a star of the silent cinema of the 1920s as this beautiful vintage postcard witnesses.

The Les vedettes de Cinéma series is a French, sepia tinted series of film star postcards, published in the 1920s by Paris-based A.N.

The picture was taken by Studio G.L. Manuel Frères, who were also based in Paris and often worked for A.N.
The Manuel brothers were commercial photographers who took photographs of French polticians, literary figures and performing artists between 1911 and ca. 1935.

Their work is conserved in the Harvard University Department of French collection of portrait photographs and in several other important international collections.

Perhaps the name Pielson was misspelled and this postcard refers to Suzy Pierson, a French actress active in the 1920's and the 1930's. Maybe - or maybe not.

So, we'd be grateful if anyone gives us more information which can help us solve this little mystery. Anyone?"

12 March 2014

Marlène Pilaete of the French blog La Collectionneuse mails me:
"I saw your older post on your 'Miss Pielson' postcard. I’ve compared it to my Suzy Pierson postcards and they look very different. So I don’t think she is Suzy Pierson.

On the other hand, I think that Miss Pielson really looks a lot like British actress Mabel Poulton. I’ve compared it with my Mabel Poulton postcards and with the photos I’ve found on Internet. The features of Miss Pielson and Mabel Poulton are very similar.

Mabel Poulton was featured in the 1924 French movie Ame d’artiste, so it is plausible that she was photographed by the Manuel Frères studio. I think that we have a clue in the way her name is mentioned on the card.

The 'Les vedettes de cinéma' A.N. series never referred to actresses as 'Miss', they always wrote the name in full (first name and surname). Anyway, if Pielson was French and if her first name was unknown to the publishers, she would have been called 'Mademoiselle Pielson', and not 'Miss Pielson'.

So, if they used the word 'Miss', she must be an Anglo-Saxon actress. On Internet, I’ve found a French old magazine called Cinemagazine which has an advertisement for Ame d’artiste and Mabel Poulton is referred to as 'Miss Poulton'. Her first name is not mentioned. See here (page 4/25 above left).

So, we can imagine that the A.N. publishers have misspelled the name and transformed 'Miss Poulton' into 'Miss Pielson'. Those two names, 'Poulton' and 'Pielson' have several letters in common."

I think Marlène has solved this puzzle with her excellent research. Thanks, Marlène!

For more info about Mabel Poulton and a postcard of her, check out Wikipedia.

Sources: Vintage Movie Star Postcard Publishers, Harvard University Library, and IMDb

German film actor Will Dohm (1897–1948) appeared in more than fifty films between 1926 and 1946.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2760/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Endemann / Terra.

Dance on the Volcano

Wilhelm Dohm was born in Köln (Cologne), Germany in 1897. His father was a postal worker.

After the end of World War I, Dohm worked as a bank clerk in Dresden and at the same time he took private acting lessons by former theatre director Georg Kiesau. This was followed by engagements in theatres in Dresden and München (Munich).

In 1928, Dohm made his film debut in Waterloo (Karl Grüne, 1929) with Charles Vanel as Napoleon. In 1932 Dohm played in the sound film remake of the war film Kreuzer Emden/Cruiser Emden (Louis Ralph, 1932). In the cast were also the young and still unknown O. E. Hasse and Helmut Käutner.

One of Dohm’s best known films is Peter Voss – Der Millionendieb/Peter Voss Who Stole Millions (Ewald André Dupont, 1932).

More roles followed in the science fiction film Der Tunnel/The Tunnel (Kurt Bernhardt, 1933), the drama Barcarole (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1935) starring Lida Baarová, the romantic comedy Allotria/Hokum (Willi Forst, 1936) starring Renate Müllerand Heinz Rühmann, and the drama Tanz auf dem Vulkan/Dance on the Volcano (Hans Steinhoff, 1938) with Gustaf Gründgens in the leading role.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3114/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Sandau, Berlin.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3957/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

The German Voice of Oliver Hardy

In most of his over 50 films, Will Dohm embodied comic characters in sympathetic supporting parts.

Popular examples were his roles as journalist Charles Forestier in the box office hit Bel Ami (Willi Forst, 1939) and as agent Möller in the musical Kora Terry (Georg Jacoby, 1940) starring Marika Rökk.

Another example was his final film role as prison director Michel Falke opposite Marte Harell and Johannes Heesters in Die Fledermaus/The Bat (Géza von Bolváry, 1946), based on the operetta by Johan Strauss.

Dohm also worked as a voice actor for the radio (including the radio play Hans Sonnenstössers Höllenfahrt/Hans Sonnenstössers descent into hell, 1937) and for film synchronization.

He was the German voice of American stars like Lionel Barrymore and Oliver Hardy in Bonnie Scotland (James W. Horne, 1935).

In 1948 Will Dohm died in Munich. He was only 51. Dohm was married to actress Heli Finkenzeller. They had two children: Michel Dohm and Gaby Dohm, who became also a well-known actress.

Heli Finkenzeller. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3746/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film Zeit.de, Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

Nerio Bernardi (1889–1971) was one of the dashing heroes and gentlemen in the melodramas and diva films of the silent Italian cinema. In his long career the handsome stage and screen actor played in some 210 films.

Italian postcard by Neg. Vettori, Bologna, no. 404.

Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 977. Photo: Medusa Film. Publicity still of Nerio Bernardi and Silvana Morello in La maschera/The Mask (Ivo Illuminati, 1921), based on a play by Henry Bataille.

An Agressive Lover

Nerio Bernardi was born in Bologna, Italy in 1889.

After having studied mathematics, medicine, counterpoint and composition, he became an active stage and screen actor. Between 1918 and 1922 Bernardi was one of the dashing heroes and gentlemen in the Italian melodramas and diva films.

In 1918 his screen career started at the small company Felsina Film in his hometown Bologna, where he acted in Rebus (Mario Isma aka Alfredo Masi, 1918) and Marinella (Raimondo Scotti, 1918, released only in 1920). Both films were photographed by Raimondo Scotti whose photography was praised, while critics were less impressed with the rest.

After moving to Rome, Nerio Bernardi started to act with acclaimed actors and directors at the famous Cines company. In Bernardi's first Cines production, Il gorgo fascinatore/The Things Men Do (Mario Caserini, 1919), he played an agressive lover who tries to rape Luisa (Bianca Stagno-Bellincioni) but accidentally dies. When Luisa begs another lover, Glauco (Alberto Capozzi), to remove the body, he is arrested for murder.

In 1920 various films followed. He played his first lead role in La buona figliola/The good daughter (Mario Caserini, 1920) with Vera Vergani. Other films were La casa in rovina/The house in ruins (Amleto Palermi, 1920) with Gustavo Salvini, La modella/The model (Mario Caserini, 1920), again with Vergani, Il mulino/The mill (Camilo De Riso, 1920), and Musica profana/Profane music (Mario Caserini, 1920) with Elena Lunda and again with Bernardi in the lead.

A peak year for Bernardi was 1921 in which he made seven films. These included three films with Vera Vergani: Caterina (Mario Caserini, 1921), Il filo d’Arianna/Ariadne's thread (Mario Caserini, 1921), and Fior d’amore/Flower of love (Mario Caserini, 1921).

That year, he also appeared in L’eredità di Caino/Cain's heritage (Giuseppe Maria Viti, 1921) with Elena Sangro and Gianna Terribili-Gonzales, Giovanna la pallida/Giovanna the pallid (Ivo Illuminati, 1921) with Silvana Morello, and La maschera/The mask (Ivo Illuminati, 1921).

1922 was Bernardi’s last year in the Italian silent cinema. His films included La vittima/The victim (Jacques Creusy, 1922) with Vergani, Bolshevismo!/Bolshevism (directed by and starring Daisy Sylvan, 1922), and Nero (J. Gordon Edwards, 1922), with Bernardi acting as the Apostle opposite Jacques Grétillat as Emperor Nero and Edy Darclea as Acte.

Edwards’ production for Fox, shot in Italy, was followed by another epic film by him, the biblical The Shepherd King (J. Gordon Edwards, 1923), in which many of the cast of Nero returned including Darclea and Bernardi, who played the male lead as (King) David.

Italian postcard. Photo: Alberto Montacchini, Parma. The car is an Isotta Fraschini.

Italian postcard by Cines, no. 450. Photo: Vera Vergani and Nerio Bernardi in the Italian silent film Il filo d'Arianna/Ariadne's thread (1921), directed by Mario Caserini.

Coppa Mussolini

Bernardi then shifted to the stage, debuting at the Teatro degli italiani, under the direction of Lucio D’Ambra.

In the following years Bernardi acted all over Italy and a.o. under direction of Max Reinhardt (The Merchant of Venice, 1935). He acted opposite the famous stage actresses of those years, such as Tatjana Pavlova,Andreina Rossi and Alda Borelli.

In 1938 he founded a theatre company with Romano Calò and Olga Solbelli.

After the introduction of sound film, Bernardi took up acting in Italian film again with a part in Tempo Massimo/Maximum time (Mario Mattoli, 1934), starring Vittorio De Sica and Milly.

In the same year Bernardi had the male lead in Teresa Confalonieri/Loyalty of Love (Guido Brignone, 1934), with Marta Abba in the title role. The patriottic film won the Coppa Mussolini for best film at the 1934 Venice film festival.

From the mid-1930s on, Bernardi had a steady career in the Italian sound cinema. Between 1936 and 1943, he appeared in some 12 films in various genres: including the Science Fiction comedy Mille chilometri al minuto!/1Thousand kilometres per minute (Mario Mattoli, 1940), the literary melodrama Fedora (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1942) and the patriottic drama Antonio Meucci (Enrico Guazzoni, 1940), in which he played Graham Bell opposite the Italian inventor of the telephone, played by Luigi Pavese.

During the Second World War he moved to Spain where he worked in several films and also dubbed films. Back in Italy he continued his career as a voice actor, dubbing for Cedric Hardwicke (Rope), Basil Rathbone (The Mark of Zorro), George Sanders (Son of Fury), Donald Crisp (How Green Was My Valley) and Henry Travers (Shadow of a Doubt).

From 1952 he taught make up and scenic behaviour at the Accademia d'arte drammatica Silvio D'Amico in Rome.

Italian postcard, no. 33.

Italian postcard by Neg. Vettori, Bologna, no. 342.

Working with the New Generation of Actresses

In the postwar Italian cinema Nerio Bernardi co-starred with actresses who had peaked in the war years such as Vivi Gioi in La portatrice di pane/The bread delivery woman (1950) and Maria Mercader in Cuore/Heart (1948).

But he also worked with the new generation of actresses such as with Carla Del Poggio in Core ʼngrato/The Ungrateful Heart(1951), Cosetta Greco in Il viale della speranza/The avenue of hope (1953), Alida Valli in La mano dello straniero/The Stranger's Hand (1953), based on Graham Greene’s The Stranger’s Hand, and with Silvana Pampanini in Bellezze in biciletta/Beauties on Bicycles (1951).

He also acted in various films with Totò such as Il medico dei pazzi/The doctor of the insane (Mario Mattoli, 1954), Siamo uomini o caporali/Are We Men or Corporals? (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1955), Totò all’inferno/Toto in Hell (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1955), and Totò contro Maciste/Toto vs. Maciste (Fernando Cerchio, 1962).

Bernardi also often incarnated mythological and historical characters, such as Agamemnon in Adamo e Eva/Adam and Eve (Mario Mattoli, 1949) starring Macario, and in the same role in La guerra di Troia/The Trojan War (Giorgio Ferroni, 1961) starring Steve Reeves. He also was Belisarius in Teodora, imperatrice di Bisanzio/Theodora, Slave Empress (Riccardo Freda, 1954) starring Gianna Maria Canale.

In the later 1950s and 1960s, Bernardi acted in many sword and sandal films by directors such as Giorgio Ferroni and in particular Luigi Capuano. He played for instance Cicero in Giulio Cesare, il conquistatore delle Gallie/Caesar the Conqueror (Tanio Boccia, 1962) starring Cameron Mitchell, and Cardinal Richelieu in Zorro e i tre moschettieri/Zorro and the Three Musketeers (Luigi Capuano, 1963), starring Gordon Scott.

He also performed in auteur films such as La lunga notte del ʼ43/It Happened in '43 (Florestano Vancini, 1960), playing the father of Gabriele Ferzetti’s character, and Vanina Vanini/The Betrayer (Roberto Rossellini, 1961) as Cardinal Savelli opposite Sandra Milo and Laurent Terzieff.

Bernardi acted in various French and Franco-Italian productions as well, such as Thérèse Raquin (Marcel Carné, 1953) starring Simone Signoret, Mam’zelle Nitouche (Yves Allégret, 1954) with Fernandel, the period pieces La chartreuse de Parme (1948) and Fanfan-la-Tulipe (1952), both directed by Christian-Jaque and starring Gérard Philipe, and Plein soleil/Purple Noon (René Clement, 1960) starring Alain Delon.

In the late 1960s Bernardi acted in Spaghetti Westerns and comic book thrillers as well.

Nerio Bernardi died in 1971 in Rome, Italy. He was 71.

Italian postcard by Neg. Vettori, Bologna, no. 502.

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini Editori, Frenze, no. 2694. Photo: Produzione SAPF. Nerio Bernardi in the period piece Teresa Confalonieri/Loyalty of Love (Guido Brignone, 1934), with Marta Abba in the title role. Content: in 1821 count Federico Confalonieri (Bernardi) was arrested on ground of conspiracy against the Austrian regime and was condemned to death. With great efforts, his wife Teresa (Abba) obtains a pardon from the Austrian Emperor, so the death penalty was changed into lifetime imprisonment at the notorious Spielberg prison in Brno, where the count remained locked up until 1836.

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, 1918-1922), Wikipedia (Italian, German and English) and IMDb.

Hungarian-born photographer Laszlo Willinger (1909–1989) is most noted for his phenomenal Hollywood star portraits of the 1930s and 1940s. Less known is that both Willinger and his mother, photographer Margaret Willinger, made also hundreds of portraits of film actors and other celebrities during the 1920s and 1930s. They were often used for European film star postcards, but which of the Atelier Willinger portraits is made by Margaret and which by Laszlo?

Livio Pavanelli. Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 744. Photo: Atelier Willinger (Margaret Willinger).

Gustav Fröhlich. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8772/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Willinger, Wien (Laszlo Willinger).

Passion For Photography

Laszlo Willinger was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1909. Willinger's father owned a news agency, and his mother was a professional photographer. He grew up surrounded by art and photography as his mother Margarete shared her passion for photography with her son at a very early age.

Laszlo went to Berlin to study photography. At 16, he became a professional photographer when he opened his first studio in Berlin. At 19 he went to Paris, where he managed the portrait studio of the Keystone Agency, also known as the Talbot Studios. In 1931, he established a new studio in Berlin. (The sources differ about which studio he opened where).

Later he said about his start: “When I started out in Germany in the late 1920s, photographers used either daylight or a very diffused light. I never did. I used spots-arcs, which give you a point source of light.”

He worked as a freelance photojournalist for such German magazines as Berliner Illustrierte, Hamburger Illustrierte, and Munchener Illustrierte. His subjects included Josephine Baker, the French President Paul Doumer, Sacha Guitry, and Yvonne Printemps. In 1932 he visited the US on assignment of Mercedes Benz.

Willinger left Germany in 1933 when Adolf Hitler became chancellor. He settled in Vienna where his mother already had a studio, Atelier Weninger. He photographed such celebrities as Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung, Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr (then Hedvig Kiesler), and Emil Jannings. He also documented Max Reinhardt’s stage productions.

In 1936 Willinger travelled for Keystone Press Agency through Africa and Asia. His photos were published in the London Daily Express. That year, he was also stationed in Spain during the Civil War.

Between 1933 and 1937 he was unable to obtain the necessary working permits for Germany, so any photographs reproduced in German photo annuals during this period were credited to his mother, Margaret Willinger.

Ellen Richter. German postcard by Rotophot., no. 1651. Photo: Willinger (Margaret Willinger).

Albert Bassermann and Else Bassermann. German postcard, no. 8772. Photo: Willinger (Margaret Willinger).

Suzanne Grandais. French postcard, no. 7872. Photo Willinger (Margaret Willinger).

Richard Eichberg. German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, K. 1618. Photo Willinger, Berlin (Margaret Willinger).

MGM's Last Sweep For European Talent

According to Wikipedia and to David Fahey and Linda Rich in their study Masters of Starlight, Laszlo Willinger was ‘discovered ‘and invited by studio photographer Eugene Robert Richee to move to the United States.

However, the blog mistress at Iconista cites a source which claims that it was Louis B. Mayer, who was looking for talent for MGM Studios. In Vienna, Mayer signed Willinger, but also Hedy Lamarr and Luise Rainer at the same time as part of the studio’s last European sweep for talent before the outbreak of the Second World War.

In Hollywood Willinger replaced studio photographer Ted Allan at MGM (others say he replaced George Hurrell).

Kendra Bean at her blog Vivandlarry.com: “Willinger brought a fresh look to MGM and Hollywood photography — his prints have a crisp luminescence and his compositions often orient his subjects on the diagonal, which gives them a modern, European sophistication.”

Iconista describes how he worked in Hollywood: “Willinger acted as the art director when photographing the stars. The only thing expected of him was to make images that the press would choose to print over everyone else’s. There could be up to 5000 pictures available on any major star. To get printed, your photograph had to be the best. One thing he always kept in mind, regardless of the subject, is that the photograph has a purpose – and that’s to sell.”

Albert Paulig. German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 1332. Berlin. Sent by mail in 1917. Photo: Willinger (Margaret Willinger).

Livio Pavanelli. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1598/1, 1927-1928. Photo Willinger, Vienna (Margaret Willinger). Livio Pavanelli in the German silent film Die letzte Einquartierung aka Küssen ist keine Sünd'/Kissing is no sin (Rudolf Walther-Fein, Rudolf Dworsky, 1926), starring Xenia Desni.

Grete Mosheim. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3204/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Willinger (Laszlo Willinger).

André Mattoni. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3745/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Willinger, Berlin (Laszlo Willinger).

Stalking Chaplin

In Hollywood, Laszlo Willinger photographed as many as four stars every week, using lighting, costumes and emotion as a film director might.

MGM divas Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford wanted Willinger to make all their portraits. He photographed Shearer beautifully for Marie Antoniette (1937) and The Women (1939).

Decades later, Willinger said in an interview with author and photo collector John Kobal: “If Shearer liked 10 percent of a sitting, you were going great. With Crawford you could figure 80 percent would be okay.”

Willinger considered Crawford, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh his favorite subjects: “The one I liked best to work with was Vivien Leigh. She was a thorough professional.” His 1940 series of portraits of Olivier and Leigh are housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Willinger was also one of the first Hollywood photographers to experiment in the use of colour. He worked exclusively for MGM until 1944.

Later, he spent 40 years at FPG, a New York photo agency that stocked about 50,000 of his photos. Willinger was a frequent contributor to magazines and periodicals, providing magazine cover portraits of the young Marilyn Monroe and other popular stars.

Wikipedia describes how Willinger shortly before his death was accused of stalking some celebrities, including Charlie Chaplin. An investigation into the matter led to the uncovering of thousands of personal pictures of Chaplin.

In 1989, Laszlo Willinger died of heart failure in Los Angeles at age 83 (some sources suggest that he committed suicide because of the investigation). He was survived by his wife Yvonne Willinger.

There is no information about what happened to his mother, Margaret Willinger.

Lida Baarova and Gustav Fröhlich. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9228/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Willinger, Wien (Laszlo Willinger).

Hedy Lamarr. French postcard by Editions Chantal, no. 10. Photo: MGM (Laszlo Willinger, 1939).

This is the tenth and final post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi, the German photographer Ernst Schneider, Dutch photo artist Godfried de Groot, Milanese photographers Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico, the French Studio Lorelle, the British 'royal' photographer Dorothy Wilding, Berlin duo Becker & Maass and French Lucienne Chevert.

Sources: David Fahey & Linda Rich (Masters of Starlight), Myrna Oliver (Los Angeles Times), Kendra Bean (vivandlarry.com), John Kobal (Movie Star Portraits of the Forties), Iconista, Vintage Movie Star Photos, AP News Archive, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Belgian actor Jean-Claude Drouot (1938) started his acting career with a boom in the French TV series Thierry La Fronde (1963-1966) and with Agnès Varda’s controversial masterpiece Le Bonheur (1965). Although he went on to appear in many film, TV and stage roles he would never completely lose the image of Thierry la Fronde, the French Robin Hood.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 983bis. Photo: Philips.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 969. Photo: Philips / Alibert.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 984bis. Photo: Philips.

So Passionate About Theatre

Jean-Claude Constant Nestor Gustave Drouot was born in Lessines (Lessen), Belgium, in 1938. He studied law and later medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he also appeared at the Jeune Théâtre (Youth Theatre).

He was so passionate about theatre that he gave up his academic studies. He settled in Paris where he attended acting courses by Charles Dullin.

From 1962 on, he interpreted the classic tragedies classics and the plays by Molière. He was spotted for television when he appeared in Orestes in 1962.

Between 1963 and 1966, Drouot played the title role in the legendary TV series Thierry La Fronde/Thierry the Sling Man (Pierre Goutas, 1963-1966), created for television by Jean-Claude Deret(who also played the traitor Florent in the series). The series, created to compete with the overwhelming British and American TV productions with medieval themes, became one of the most popular programs on French television in the 1960s. Thierry La Fronde is credited with boosting the use of the sling shot in French school playgrounds and turning the relatively rare first name, Thierry, into one of the most popular names for French boys.

On IMDb, Canadian reviewer Animal 8 5 writes: “Thierry was not only an unmatched sling man, but the savvy leader of a band of French rebels during the Hundred Year War. Jean-Claude Drouot portrayed Thierry of Janville, who begins the series as a young lord betrayed out of his title and property by conniving steward, Florent, played by Jean-Claude Deret. Actress Céline Léger played his love interest, Isabelle. Joined by his friends, Thierry becomes a 'Robin Hood' type of character and fights undercover to end the iron rule of the ruthless Brits. I remember the adventure was top-notch and very watchable.”

In 1963 Jean-Claude Drouot also appeared in a short film, L'évasion/The Avoidance (Henri Fishbach, 1963).

French postcard by Éditions d'art Yvon, Arcueil, no. 2. Photo: O.R.T.F. / Télé France Film / Photo Bruguière. Still from Thierry la Fronde (1963-1966).

French postcard by Éditions d'art Yvon, Arcueil. Photo: O.R.T.F. / Télé France Film / Photo Bruguière. Still from Thierry la Fronde (1963-1966).

French postcard by Éditions d'art Yvon, Arcueil, no. 6. Photo: O.R.T.F. / Télé France Film / Photo Bruguière. Still from Thierry la Fronde (1963-1966) with Jean-Claude Drouot and Céline Léger.

An Invitation To Free Love

Jean-Claude Drouot made his feature film debut in Le Bonheur/Happiness (Agnès Varda, 1965) in which he performed with his wife Claire and his children Olivier and Sandrine. Agnès Varda’s third film (and her first colour film) is associated with the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave).

Le Bonheur/Happiness provoked something of a scandal when it was first released in France, at the height of the sexual revolution in the mid-1960s. What was so shocking about the film was not so much its subject but the way in which Varda approaches it, in a way that suggests a kind of moral equivalence between love in a stable marriage and love in an adulterous relationship. The film can be interpreted as an invitation to free love, even implying that the lives of married couples can only be improved by an extra-marital affair or two.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie writes: “To critics who carped that her choice of hues was not "realistic", she responded that she was choosing the hues that were best suited psychologically to her story. The film's protagonist is a young, married carpenter (Jean-Claude Drouot). He takes a mistress (Marie-France Boyer), assuming that he can be equally in love with both his wife and the new woman in his life. When the wife drowns, the mistress quietly takes her place. This plot twist remains a subject of debate amongst Varda’s admirers.”

At Films de France, James Travers adds: “Le Bonheur is actually a far more subtle film than this, and indeed it is one of the most ironic and truthful portrayals of romantic love in French cinema. The film doesn’t celebrate open relationships, as its detractors claimed, but merely observes that marital infidelity is an inevitable fact of life. It also reminds us that there is no so such thing as the perfect love affair.”

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 970. Photo: Laurent Camil / Philips.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 983. Photo: Philips.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 968. Photo: Philips / Alibert.

Jules Verne Adventure

Jean-Claude Drouot next played a role in Les ruses du diable/The Devil's Tricks (Paul Vecchiali, 1965) with Michel Piccoli.

Later he appeared in British and American films as the Vladimir Nabokov adaptation Laughter in the Dark (Tony Richardson, 1969) starring Nicol Williamson and Anna Karina, the anti-imperialist satirical farce Mr. Freedom (William Klein, 1959) with Delphine Seyrig and John Abbey, the Jules Verne adventure The Lighthouse at the End of the World (Kevin Billington, 1970) with Kirk Douglas, and the historical drama Nicholas and Alexandra (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1971) about the rise and fall of the last of the Russian Romanovs.

In France, director Claude Chabrol made him a mentally ill addict in the thriller La Rupture/The Breach (1970) starring Stéphane Audran, and he appeared in L'histoire très bonne et très joyeuse de Colinot Trousse-Chemise/The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (Nina Companéez, 1973) with Francis Huster and Brigitte Bardot in her final role.

On television, Drouot starred in popular series such as Gaston Phoebus (Bernard Borderie, 1978). He founded with some friends La Coopérative théâtrale, a theatre group, where they were both producers and actors. Their plays included Cyrano de Bergerac, The Three Musketeers and Kean.

From 1984 till 1986, he directed the Centre dramatique national de Reims (National Dramatic Center of Reims), and from 1985 till 1989, the Théâtre national de Belgique (National Theatre of Belgium).

He was a member of the Comédie-Française from 1999 till 2001. He is also artistic director of the Compagnie Jean-Claude Drouot and director of numerous plays co-produced with the Théâtre régional des Pays de la Loire.

His most recent film is Va, petite!/Go, girl! (Alain Guesnier, 2003). He also appeared in TV series such as Trois femmes... un soir d'été/Three women... A Summer Evening (Alain Guesnier, 2003) and Les Rois maudits/The Cursed Kings (Josée Dayan, 2005) with Philippe Torreton and Jeanne Moreau.

Since then Jean-Claude Drouot dedicates himself mainly to the stage, but in 2010 he made a new TV film, Les châtaigniers du desert/The Sweet Chestnut Trees of the Desert (Caroline Huppert, 2010), followed by more TV films and he had a small part in the comedy Les conquérants/The Conquerors (Xabi Molia, 2013), starring Agnès Varda's son Mathieu Demy.

In October of 2012, it was announced that a modern version of Thierry la Fronde is in production. However, IMDb does not mention the production,

Since 1960, Jean-Claude Drouot is married to Claire Drouot.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 396. Photo: FIEBIG.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 395. Photo: FIEBIG.

French postcard by E.D.U.G.. Photo: FIEBIG.

Leader of Thierry La Fronde (1963). Source: Benoitus xvi (YouTube).

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

Vladimir Borsky (1904-1962) started as a film actor of the Czech silent cinema. He then became a popular film comedy star of the 1930s and later expanded to be an actor-writer-director.

Czech postcard, no. 147. Photo: Foto Ströminger, Praha (Prague).

Counts, Doctors or Other Respectable Characters

Vladimír Borský (also written as Wladimir Borsky) was born as Vladimir Fuks in Prague, in Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic) in 1904.

He made his first film appearance in the silent comedy Prach a broky/Tarnation (Premysl Prazský, 1926).

He had his breakthrough in the sound film era with comedies like To neznáte Hadimrsku/Business Under Distress (Martin Fric, Carl Lamac, 1931) and Kariéra Pavla Camrdy/The Career of Pavel Camdra (Miroslav Josef Krnanský, 1931) opposite Hugo Haas and the beautiful Lída Baarová, who later would become a star of the German cinema during the Nazi era.

He made with the same co-stars the comedies Zapadlí vlastenci/Forgotten Patriots (Miroslav Josef Krnanský, 1932), Madla z cihelny/Madla from the Brickworks (Vladimír Slavínský, 1932) and the Ufa production Její lékar/Her Doctor (Vladimír Slavínský, 1933). In these films Borský often played counts, doctors or other respectable characters.

The following year he appeared in Poslední muz/The Last man (Martin Fric, 1934), again starring Hugo Haas. Haas was a celebrated comedy star in Czechoslovakia. The Nazi invasion forced him to leave his beloved country and he went to the United States. After the war he worked there as a character actor and also as a director of independent B-films.

Czech postcard, no. 217. Photo: Foto Ströminger, Praha (Prague).

Volga in Flames

Vladimir Borský continued acting in Czech films during the 1930s and 1940s.

He had a small role in the French-Czech co-production Volga en flammes/Volga in Flames (Victor Tourjansky, 1934) starring Albert Préjean and Danielle Darrieux.

The comedy Anita v ráji/Anita in Paradise (Jan Sviták, 1934) was an alternative language version of the German production Annette im Paradies (Max Obal, 1934).

Other films were Vdavky Nanynky Kulichovy/Nanynka Kulichova's Wedding (Vladimír Slavínský, 1935), Tri muzi ve snehu/Three Men in the Snow (Vladimír Slavínský, 1936), based on the novel by Erich Kästner, and Svadlenka/The Seamstress (Martin Fric, 1936) again starring Lída Baarová and Hugo Haas.

Another Czech star of the 1930’s and 1940’s with whom Borsky co-starred was Adina Mandlová. They appeared together in the drama Porucik Alexander Rjepkin/Lieutenant Alexander Rjepkin (Václav Binovec, 1937) and the musical drama Druhe mládi/Second Youth (Václav Binovec, 1938).

He also frequently appeared opposite Hana Vítová, such as in Bláhové devce/A Foolish Girl (Václav Binovec, 1938) and the drama Písen lásky/Love Song (Václav Binovec, 1940).

Danielle Darrieux. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 20.

Master of Orphans

During the war years, Vladimir Borský only appeared incidentally in films. He played a supporting role in the comedy Host do domu/The Guest House ( Zdenek Gina Hasler, 1942).

In 1936 he had started a second career as a film director. His first film was the drama Vojnarka (1936). Other films were Jan Výrava (1938), the romantic comedy Cekanky/Chicory (1940), Palicova dcera/The Incendiary's Daughter (1941) with Lída Baarová, and the war drama Jan Rohac z Dube/Warriors of Faith (1947).

Jan Rohac z Dube was the first colour film in Czechoslovakia. The main hero Jan Rohac of Duba was a 15th Century Bohemian Hussite marshal originated from Bohemian gentry. Following the death of Jan Zizka, he became Master of Orphans, a radical Hussite sect. He survived the Battle of Lipany and, in 1437, he moved with his last remaining disciples on the castle Sion. There he was besieged and later assaulted by Hungarian troops. He was hanged three days later in Prague. Borský had also written the screenplay for this film.

Among Borsky later films were Kudy kam/Whence and Where to? (1956) and a documentary about the actor Stanislav Neuman, Herec Stanislav Neuman/Actor Stanislav Neuman (1961).

Borský’s last film role was a supporting part in Slecna od vody/The Young Lady from the Riverside (Borivoj Zeman, 1959).

Vladimír Borský died in 1962 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic).

Albert Préjean. French postcard by Pathé Consortium, no. 44. Photo: Roger Karan.

Source: IMDb.

The petite, blue-eyed blonde Cécile Aubry (1928-2010) was often seen as the predecessor of Brigitte Bardot as the French cinema's sex goddess. Her acting career was successful but brief: during the late 1940s through the mid-'50s. Later the French actress started a second career as a writer of children’s books, which she also adapted for television. The TV series with the boy Sebastien, played by her own son Mehdi, became a classic among children’s series.

French postcard by Editions O.P, Paris, no. 55. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions O.P, Paris, no. 48. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 145. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Seductive Pout

Cécile Aubry was born Anne-José Madeleine Henriette Bénard in Paris, France, in 1928. Her family was well-to-do, and Cécile had an English governess and a personal dance teacher. In her late teens, she studied acting at the Cours Simon, where she was discovered by famous film director Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Clouzot fell immediately for her ingenuity, her green bronze eyes, her blond hair and her seductive pout. He offered the 20-year-old Aubry the title role in Manon (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1949), opposite Serge Reggiani and Michel Auclair. In this dark adaptation of the Abbé Prévost's 18th-century novel Manon Lescaut, set in post-World War II, she played a capricious, luxury-seeking young woman who corrupts her lover.

Aubry managed to bring out the duality of the character – both femme fatale and femme enfant. She was a sensation. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1949 and the 20-years-old Cécile landed on the cover of Life magazine. In the accompanying article, Life described her as a “frisky, pert, sugar-and-spice bundle of adolescence.”

Ronald Bergan described in The Guardian what happened next: "in a blaze of typical Hollywood publicity, Cécile Aubry was signed up by 20th Century-Fox to co-star with Tyrone Power and Orson Welles in Henry Hathaway's The Black Rose. It was to be Aubry's only American film, placing her among several French actresses who had short-lived Hollywood careers after the liberation of France in 1944."

In her next, European film, Barbe-bleu/Bluebeard (Christian Jacque, 1951) she played the last wife of Bluebeard, played in the French version by Pierre Brasseur and in the German version by Hans Albers. She performed a silhouetted striptease that left little to the imagination.

In the following years she only appeared in a few more films, including Piovuto dal cielo/Fallen From the Sky (Leonardo De Mitri, 1953) and Tanz in der Sonne/Dance in the Sun (Géza von Cziffra, 1954) with Franco Andrei.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Still from The Black Rose (1950) with Tyrone Power.

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 377. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin. Photo: publicity still for Barbe-Bleue/Bluebeard (Christian-Jaque, 1951).

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 410. Photo: publicity still for Barbe-Bleue/Bluebeard (Christian-Jaque, 1951).

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin.

Secret Marriage

Cécile Aubry stopped acting after her marriage to Si Brahim El Glaoui, caïd (local administrator) of Telouet and the oldest son of T'hami El Glaoui, pasha of Marrakech.

During the filming of The Black Rose in the dunes of the Moroccan Atlas mountains, the couple had met when he visited the set. They married in secret because Aubry thought that a marriage would harm her Hollywood career. Their marriage lasted for six years.

After her divorce Cécile Aubry made one more film L'espionne sera à Nouméa/The spywill bein Noumea(Georges Péclet, 1960) starring Anouk Ferjac. Then, she announced her retirement from the cinema. She reportedly said that she had only enjoyed film acting for its travel opportunities.

She started a second successful career as a writer of children’s books. Her son Mehdi El Glaoui (only credited as Mehdi) later played roles in the French TV series Poly (1961-1973) about a boy and his horse, and in the three series around Sébastien (1965-1970). These series were all written and directed by Aubry.

The most popular of these series was Belle et Sébastien/Belle and Sebastian (1965), which tells the adventures of a young orphan boy, Sébastien, in a small village in the Pyrenees, and the large white dog, Belle, whom he finds wandering through the mountains. Aubrey's series were broadcasted all over Europe during the 1960s. Later she wrote and directed also the series Le jeune Fabre/The Young Fabre (1973), again with Mehdi in the lead, now as a teenager.

Belle et Sébastien was adapted in 1981 for a Japanese animated series, Meiken Jolie, which was itself translated into English. The Scottish rock band Belle and Sebastian took its name from Aubry’s series too.

In 2010, Cécile Aubry died of lung cancer in Dourdan, outside of Paris, at the age of 81.

Last year Belle et Sébastien was filmed again, but now for the cinema. In Belle et Sébastien/Belle and Sebastian (Nicolas Vanier, 2013), the six-year-old boy and his dog look to foil a Nazi effort to capture French Resistance fighters. Sébastien was played by Félix Bossuet and Mehdi El Glaoui played a supporting part.

Dutch postcard. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 179. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mexican Collector's card, no. 302.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 629. Photo: Serge Beauvarlet, Paris.

French postcard by Editions d'art Yvon, Paris, no. 6. Photo: RTF/Gaumont. Publicity still for the film Sébastien parmi les hommes (Cécile Aubry, 1968) with Mehdi El Glaoui.

French postcard by Editions d'art Yvon, Paris, no. 40/001-19. Photo: RTF / Gaumont / Téléclip. Publicity still for the film Sebastien et la Mary-Morgane (Cécile Aubry, 1970) with Mehdi El Glaoui.

Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Bruce Weber (The New York Times), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Albert Paulig (1873-1933) was a popular comedian in the German silent cinema of the 1910s and 1920s.

German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 122/2. Photo: Nicola Perscheid, Berlin. Ca. 1916-1918.

His Own Comedy Series

Born in Stollberg, Germany in 1873, Albert Paulig was trained to become a teacher. He also did a musical training at the Konservatorium Dresden (conservatory of Dresden), but initially he became a salesman.

In 1896 he had his stage debut at the Stadttheater in Zwickau. Other locations he performed were Łódź, Hannover and Dresden. In 1901 he first performed in Berlin at the Deutsch-Amerikanischen Theater, after which he did several guest performances in other Berlin stages.

In 1913, when he was already 40, Albert Paulig was discovered as a film comedian. Because of his success he got his own series in the 1910s, the Albert-Paulig series, with titles just as simple as Paulig als Asta Nielsen/Paulig as Asta Nielsen (Albert Paulig, 1915) or Albert hat Prokura/Albert has the power of attorney (Uwe Jenss Kraft 1919).

Starting with Alberts Hose/Albert’s Pants (1915), Paulig directed his own comedy series. But in between he also acted in films by other directors.

Paulig for example played opposite Ernst Lubisch in both the popular success Die Firma heiratet/The Firm Weds (Carl Wilhelm, 1914) and its unofficial sequel Der Stolz der Firma/The Pride of the Firm (Carl Wilhelm, 1914). He also co-starred with Hanni Weisse in Meine Braut, seine Frau/My bride, his wife (Danny Kaden, 1916).

German postcard by G.L., no. 3172/3. Photo: Elite, Berlin. Albert Paulig, Alfred Walters and Fritzi Arco in the operetta Die Dollarprinzessin (The dollar princess). This operetta by Leo Fall was first performed in Vienna in 1907, this card is for the Berlin version of 1908.

Strong Popularity

After he stopped his Albert-Paulig series in 1919, Paulig’s popularity remained strong among audiences. During the 1920s, he acted in over 100 films. While Albert Paulig mostly performed in supporting parts, he sometimes had major parts as the protagonist or the main antagonist.

Albert Paulig co-starred with Mia Mayand Georg Alexander in the comedy Die platonische Ehe/The platonic marriage (Paul Leni, 1919), and acted with Hans Albers and Ria Jende in Der Schuss aus dem Fenster/The shot out the window (director unknown, 1920).

He did several small parts in the Ossi Oswalda comedies of the late 1910s and early 1920s such as Das Mädchen aus dem wilden Westen/The girl from the Wild West (Erich Schönfelder, 1921). The most famous example is the classic Die Austernprinzessin/The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubisch, 1919).

Paulig was reunited with Hanni Weisse in the comedy Weil Du es bist/Because it's you (Hans Werckmeister, 1925). He had the lead as Archduke Albert Paul in G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald/Tales from the Vienna Woods (Jaap Speyer, 1928), co-starring Eric Barclay, Magnus Stifter and Fritz Schulz.

In the later 1920s, he was often seen in supporting parts in the sensational Harry Piel adventure films, such as Der Mann ohne Nerven/The Man Without Nerves (Harry Piel, 1924), Zigano, der Brigant vom Monte Diavolo/Zigano (Harry Piel, 1925), Sein grösster Bluff/His Greatest Bluff (Harry Piel, 1927), Panik/Panic (Harry Piel, 1928), and Männer ohne Beruf/Men without Profession (Harry Piel, 1929).

German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 1332. Berlin. Photo: Willinger.

Army Officers

When sound film set in, Paulig managed to continue his career, often portraying aristocrats and industrials, but in particular army officers. An example of the latter is Schön is die Manöverzeit/Manoeuver Time Is Fine (Erich Schönfelder, Margarete Schön, 1931) with Ida Wüst.

He also acted the musical Es war einmal ein Walzer/Once There Was a Waltz (Victor Janson, 1932) written by Billy Wilder, Der Prinz von Arkadien/The Prince from Arcadien (Karl Hartl, 1932) with Willi Forst, Das Testament des Cornelius Gulden/The Testament of Cornelius Gulden (E.W. Emo, 1932), starring Magda Schneider and Georg Alexander, and Manolescu, der Fürst der Diebe/Manolescu (George C. Klaren, Willi Wolff, 1933), starring Iván Petrovich.

The crime film K1 greift ein/K1 intervenes (Edmund Heuberger, 1933) was his last film.

He couldn’t attend the premiere of the film, as he died himself in Berlin on 19 March 1933, because of a heart failure, two days after the film had passed censorship.

According to Filmportal.de, which lists his most extended filmography, Albert Paulig acted in 183 films.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3024/1, 1928-1929.

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

During the 1960s and 1970s handsome French actor Laurent Terzieff (1935-2010) starred in many films by noted French and Italian directors. The magnetic and politically engaged actor began his film career as one of the existential youth in Les Tricheurs (1958) and later often portrayed cynical bohemians or political activists.

French Postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 1007. Photo: Studio Vallois.

French Postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1099. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

French Postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 963. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

Bohemian and Cynical Student

Laurent Terzieff was born Laurent Didier Alex Laurent Tchemerzine in 1935 in Toulouse, France. He was the son of a French visual artist and a Russian sculptor who had emigrated to France during the First World War.

The spectacle of the bombardments during WW II had a dramatic effect on nine-year-old Laurent. As an adolescent, he was fascinated with philosophy and poetry.

He assisted director Roger Blin by the production of the play La Sonate des spectres (The Ghost Sonata) by August Strindberg. Then and there, he decided to become an actor.

Terzieff made his debut in 1953 with the Theatre of Babylon in Tous contre Adamov (All Against Adamov) by Jean-Marie Serreau. His film début was opposite Yves Montand in Premier mai/The First of May (Luis Saslavsky, 1958).

A year earlier he had gained some notoriety playing a role as an assassin in L'affaire Weidmann/The Weidmann case (Jean Prat, 1957), an episode of the TV series En votre âme et conscience/Inyourconscience (1954-1969).

Legendary director Marcel Carné spotted him and offered him a leading role opposite Pascale Petit, Jacques Charrier and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les Tricheurs/The Cheats (Marcel Carné, 1958), a portrait of the existentialist youth in the late 1950s.

At AllMovie, Hal Erickson writes: “Carné's youthful characters are not so much people as symbols of the postwar relaxation of worldwide manners and mores. In anticipation of the hippie flicks of the 1960s, the main characters indulge in a great deal of sex, but abstain from true love and commitment, citing these things as irrelevant in a world full of instant gratification.“

Les Tricheurs was Terzieff’s breakthrough in the cinema. For a long time, the public would identify him with the bohemian and cynical student.

French Postcard by St. Anne, Marseille. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 71. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Famous Directors

Laurent Terzieff played roles in films by such famous directors as Gillo Pontecorvo in Kapò (1959) about a young Jewish girl (Susan Strasberg) who leads an escape attempt from a concentration camp, Claude Autant-Lara in Tu ne tueras point/Thou Shalt Not Kill (1961), a portrait of a conscientious objector, and Jacques Demy in the portmanteau (omnibus film) Les Sept Péchés/The Seven Deadly Sins (1962). He appeared in a segment about the lusty conversation between two young men, one of whom has x-ray eyes that enable him to see through women's clothing.

Terzieff starred with Rosanna Schiaffino and Elsa Martinelli in the Italian film La Notte Brava/Bad Girls Don't Cry (Mauro Bolognini, 1959). Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote this social drama about three young Roman criminals and three beautiful prostitutes without any perspective in life but having some money to spend during a night of illusions and adventures.

More famous Italian film directors would ask him for their films. Terzieff appeared as a revolutionary on the run from government troops in Vanina Vanini/The Betrayer (Roberto Rossellini, 1961), as the centaur in Medea (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1969) opposite Maria Callas, as an anarchistic petty thief in Ostia (Sergio Citti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1970), and as a military in Il deserto dei Tartari/Desert of the Tartars (Valerio Zurlini, 1976) opposite Vittorio Gassman and Jacques Perrin.

In France, he played in A cœur joie/Two Weeks in September (Serge Bourguignon, 1967) with Brigitte Bardot, and La Prisonnière/Woman in Chains (Henri Georges Clouzot, 1968), in which he interpreted a disturbed modern art gallery owner who manipulates Elisabeth Wiener.

He made four films with director Philippe Garrel.Le Révélateur/The developper (Philippe Garrel, 1968) was shot in May 1968 during the student revolution, and Les hautes solitudes (Philippe Garrel, 1974), a biographical film about actress Jean Seberg.

Terzieff worked with more great auteurs. Famous Spanish director Luis Buñuel took him and Paul Frankeur on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in La Voie lactée/The Milky Way (Luis Buñuel, 1969). He was once directed by Jean-Luc Godard in Détective/Detective (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985).

On television he appeared in the American-Italian Mini-Series Moses the Lawgiver/Moses (Gianfranco De Bosio, 1974) starring Burt Lancaster.

French Postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 994. Photo: De Kermadec.

French Postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris, no. T 2. Photo: Claude Schwartz.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2992, 1967. Photo: Progress.

Director, Writer and Actor

Since the 1980s, Laurent Terzieff was seen less in the cinemas, and mostly acted on stage. In the theatre he often worked as a director, writer and actor with his own troupe, co-founded in 1961 with his companion Pascale de Boysson. He also ran the theatre Lucernaire in Paris.

His later film roles include a Trotskyist in Rouge Baiser/Red Kiss (Véra Belmont, 1985), an anarchist in Germinal (Claude Berri, 1993) starring Gérard Depardieu, and the painter Hérigault in Le radeau de la Méduse/The Raft of the Medusa (Iradj Azimi, 1994), inspired by a tragic maritime event that happened in 1816.

Politically engaged, Terzieff signed in 1960 La Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission dans la Guerre d'Algérie (Declaration on the Right of Insubordination in the War of Algeria), and in 2002, the petition Pas en notre nom(Not in our name) against the Iraq War.

In his seventies, the gaunt-faced actor had not lost his magnetism, as was proved by his appearance in the Agatha Christie adaptation Mon petit doigt m'a dit.../A Little Bird Told Me... (Pascal Thomas, 2005) with Catherine Frot and André Dussollier.

Terzieff also stayed active in the theatre. In 2009 he played an acclaimed Philoctetes in the play by Sophocles.

His last films were the comedy J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster/I always dreamed of being a gangster (Samuel Benchetrit, 2008) with Jean Rochefort, and the Italian production Le ombre rosse/The Red Shadow (Francesco Maselli, 2009). Posthumously he was seen opposite Sharon Stone in the thriller Largo Winch 2/The Burma Conspiracy (Jérôme Salle, 2011).

During his long career Laurent Terzieff was hailed with many awards (Prix Gérard Philippe, Molière for Best director and Best Show for Temps contre temps (Time against time) in 1993), and he was also an Officier de l'Ordre du Mérite (Officer of the Order of Merit) and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (Commander of Arts and Letters).

Laurent Terzieff died in 2010 in Paris from a lung ailment. He was 75. He was the widower of actress Pascale de Boysson.

Final scene of La Notte Brava/Bad Girls Don't Cry (1959). Source: VigGig88 (YouTube).

Scene from La Voie lactée/The Milky Way (1969). (Spanish subtitles). Source: Carlospejino8 (YouTube).

Trailer of Détective/Detective (1985). Source: Danios 12345 (YouTube).

Trailer of Germinal (1993). Source: sonysloba (YouTube).

Sources: Hans Beerekamp (Het Schimmenrijk) (Dutch), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Evene.fr (French), Ciné-Ressources (Cinémathèque française) (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

Former wild boy Anthony Delon (1964) is the son of screen idol Alain Delon and film actress Nathalie Delon. The handsome French-American actor was first better known as a jet setting playboy than as a serious film star, but coming of age he stepped out of the shadow of his famous father.

French postcard no. 1036.

Genes and Good Looks

Anthony Delon was born as Antoine Delon in the famous Cedar Sinai hospital of Beverly Hills, USA. He was the son of actors Alain Delon and Nathalie Delon, and at the time, his father worked in Hollywood.

After his family’s return to France, Anthony spent his first school years at bilingual schools. After the divorce of his parents in 1968, he lived with his mother. He was a rebellious and wild child and his parents sent him to a boarding school.

When 19, Delon had his own leather company and part-owned a club, but his business partner in the venture was shot. Delon himself, for unrelated incidents, went to prison for a month. In the US, his genes and his good looks helped him get a modelling job with American photographer Bruce Weber.

This lead to a leading part in the Italian romance-drama Una spina nel cuore/A Thorn in the Heart (Alberto Lattuada, 1986), loosely based on the novel with the same title by Piero Chiara. His co-stars were Sophie Duez and Antonella Lualdi.

Even more prestigious was his next leading part in the drama Crónica de una muerte anunciada/Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Francesco Rosi, 1987), adapted by Tonino Guerra from the eponymous novel by Gabriel García Márquez. The film also starred Rupert Everett, Ornella Muti, and Gian Maria Volonté, and premiered at the Cannes film festival in May 1987.

According to Wikipedia, the film was a critical success in Latin America and Eastern Europe but was snubbed by the French critics.

At 24, Delon returned to the US and lived in Los Angeles for two years. He took some acting classes for about six months, and then just partied. He was even once, alongside Ivana Trump, Joan Collins and Richard Branson, one of the Miss World judges. During the 1980s, playboy Delon was one of the boyfriends of Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, and he also had a relationship with sexy actress Valerie Kaprisky.

French postcard by Editions Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. ST-184.

Italian postcard. Photo: publicity still for the Italian romance-drama Una spina nel cuore/A Thorn in the Heart (Alberto Lattuada, 1986) with Sophie Duez.

A Huge Box Office Smash

In 1990 Anthony Delon returned to France. He played parts in the film comedies La Femme fardée/The Strange Woman (José Pinheiro, 1990) with Jeanne Moreau, which was a spectacular flop.

He found most of his work on TV in series and films like Sup de fric/Cash Academy (Christian Gion, 1992), starring Jean Poiret.

Ten years after Crónica de una muerte anunciada, Delon played a small role in the French film La Vérité si je mens!/Would I Lie to You? (Thomas Gilou, 1997), about working-class immigrants living in metropolitan Paris. It was a huge box office smash and lead to two sequels.

For Delon, the success meant he could finally step out of the shadow of his father. That same year, he played the lead in the TV miniseries Deserto di fuoco/Desert of Fire (Enzo G. Castellari, 1997). This was a European co-production between Italy, Germany and France, with a cast including such European stars as Claudia Cardinale, Arielle Dombasle, Vittorio Gassman, Marie Laforêt, Franco Nero, Fabio Testi and Jean Sorel.

The following years, he played several roles in French TV series and films. In the TV film Un amour de femme (Sylvie Verheyde, 2001) he played the husband of a woman (Hélène Fillières) who has an affair with a female dance instructor (Raffaëla Anderson).

Other films were the comedy Jeu de cons/Con Games (Jean-Michel Verner, 2001), the drama Danse avec lui/Dance With Him (Valérie Guignabodet, 2007) with Mathilde Seigner and Sami Frey, and Mensch (Steve Suissa, 2009) starring Nicolas Cazalé.

French postcard no. 68.

French postcard no. 1023.

That Essential Quality Of Being Alive

In 2006, Anthony Delon married his long-time girlfriend Sophie Clerico. He has two daughters with her, Lou Delon (1996) and Liv Delon (2001).

In his autobiography, Le premier maillon (2008), he wrote that he has another daughter, Alyson Le Borges (1986), from an affair with a former Crazy Horse dancer, Marie Hélène.

Recently, Delon appeared with Charles Dance and Anouk Aimée in the British film Paris Connections (Harley Cokeliss, 2010) written by Michael Tupy, based on a thriller by Jackie Collins. It was the first film funded by supermarket Tesco and released exclusively in their stores.

He also had a small part in the French drama film Polisse/Poliss (Maïwenn, 2011) with French rapper Joeystarr, Karin Viard, and Riccardo Scamarcio. The film centres on the Brigade de Protection des Mineurs, the Child Protection Unit of the Paris Police, and a photographer who is assigned to cover the unit. The title is a childish spelling of the word ‘police’. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and in 2012, it was nominated for thirteen César Awards (the French Oscar), winning two.

James Travers at French Film Guide (formerly Films de France): “Yet, whilst the film is crude, and unbearably tacky in a few places, it has that essential quality of being alive. In fact, it is a film that positively bursts with life. If we care to look beyond the soap-tinted surface, the characters and the world they inhabit do have a depth and reality to them, we do empathise with the troubled child protagonists and acquire a deeper respect for their police protectors. It is a film that it is difficult to like entirely, and some will doubtless hate it for the inelegant way it knocks the stuffing out of today's mainstream cinema conventions, yet it is a film that has definitely made its mark.”

Clip of Anthony Delon singing Qu'elle Revienne... (1987). Source: Bultofrance (YouTube).

Trailer Paris Connections (2010). Source: Parisconnections (YouTube).

Sources: Tobias Jones (The Independent), James Travers (French Film Guide), AllMovie, AlloCiné (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

How did the culture of film star postcards start? There is probably not just one answer to that question, but the history of the German company Rotophot GmbH, where Heinrich Ross started his career, is exemplary. During the First World War, the internationally orientated Rotophot could only work for the German market and it began publishing ‘Film-Sterne karten’, as part of one of the first major film promotion actions.

Gudrun Hildebrandt. German postcard by Rotophot, no. 1381/82. Sent by mail in 1909.

Ellen Richter. German postcard by Rotophot., no. 1651. Photo: Willinger.

Hedda Vernon. German postcard in the Fim Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 68/5. Photo: Eiko-Film.

Henny Porten. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 114/1. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin.

Fern Andra. German postcard by Rotophot, Berlin, no. 128/3, in the Film Sterne Series. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

Mass Production

The origins of the popular Ross Verlag cards go back to the Rotophot artist postcards. The ´Rotophot-Gesellschaft für photographische Industrie´ was located at the Alexandrinenstraße 110 in Berlin.

The company was founded by Hans Kraemer on 8 January 1900 with the purpose of ‘mass production of photographic reproductions’. Kraemer, born in 1870 in Mannheim, came from a family of industrialists. He studied natural sciences, philosophy, history and cultural history in Berlin and Heidelberg.

The possibilities of photography, their distribution and reproduction on books and postcards, tied Kraemer’s attention. He decided to produce Bromsilberpostkarten in large numbers.

The period around 1900 was considered a ´golden era´ for the publication of technically high quality postcards. Celebrities from many fields offered the motives: nobles, opera singers, actors, vaudeville and circus stars. Daring erotic images also corresponded to the public taste. Especially these postcards from Rotophot were liked by the public.

Within a short time, Rotophot became a serious competitor of the NPG, the Neuen Photographischen Gesellschaft (New Photographic Society). The NPG had begun in 1895 with ‘kilometer-Photography’, an industrial-scale production of postcards.

Parallel to the NPG, Rotophot expanded internationally. In 1902 Rotophot closed a contract with Giesen Bros. & Co. in London. Photos of English artists, produced by Rotophot in Berlin, came through Giesen Bros & Co in the UK.

Hella Moja. German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 501/2. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Das Mädel von nebenan (Otto Rippert, 1917).

Fern Andra. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 514/4. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Publicity still with (in the back) Alfred Abel in Ein Blatt im Sturm... doch das Schicksal hat es verweht (Fern Andra, 1917).

Mia May. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 528/5. Photo:May Film. Publicity still for Fünf Minuten zu spät/Five Minutes Too Late (Uwe Jens Krafft, 1918).

Ressel Orla. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 548/4, 1919-1924. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Das Glück der Frau Beate/The luck of the Mrs. Beate (Alwin Neuß, Otto Rippert, 1918).

Hedda Vernon. German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 560/2. Photo: Eiko Film. Publicity still for Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, 1918) with right back Ernst Hofmann.

One of the first major German film promotion actions

In 1904 a subsidiary company was established, the Bromsilber-Bild-Vertriebs-Gesellschaft with offices in Vienna and Budapest. Head of this division was Heinrich Ross, who had recently joined the company.

From 1905 on, all Rotophot cards wore the letters RPH as a logo, with a serial number for re-orders. In 1910, Rotophot founded subsidiaries in Vienna and Budapest. There were also sales offices in Hamburg, Cologne, Nuremberg, Wroclaw, Poznan, Warsaw, Riga, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Zurich, Milan, Bucharest, Odessa and Buenos Aires.

The start of the First World War in August 1914 meant for the export-oriented Rotophot a serious loss initially. After some difficulty it found a balance again by using new motifs, such as fighters who were now in demand instead of opera stars.

At that time, cinema only existed for 20 years and film was still a relatively new phenomenon. The German military administration tried to distract people from their worries with entertainment films. In 1916, the state gave the young film industry large amounts of money for major projects.

The postcard publishers NPG and Rotophot were involved in this operation. In 1916 Heinrich Ross started the Film Sterne series, which presented postcards with new film scenes and portraits of the previously unknown film actors. The Film Sterne series is thus one of the first major German film promotion actions.

Friedrich Zelnik. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 126/3. Photo: Nicola Perscheid, Berlin.

Paul Hartmann. German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 161/3. Photo: Nicole Perscheid, Berlin.

Bernd Aldor. German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot., no. 164/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Bruno Kastner. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 190/1, 1916-1919. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Bruno Decarli. German postcard.by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 217/1. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

The first of the fan and autograph postcard series

Occasionally, there had been film postcards published in Europe previously. However, the Film-Sterne series can be regarded as the first of the fan and autograph postcard series that followed in the next decades.

There were three separate series of Rotophot artist postcards: stage star cards, running from no. 1 to 30, film star postcards, running from no. 61-224 (why the series started with no. 61 is unknown), and film and scenes cards, running from no. 500 to about 600. Rotophot also produced film posters, such as for Homunculus (1916), designed by Hans Zoozmann.

The Rotophot Symbol RPH was part of the Film-Sterne logo. Some of the very early film star cards had only ‘film’ on the logo.
Other early Rotophot cards have as part of their logo the drawing of a horse, ‘Ross’ translates as horse.

From 1919 Heinrich Ross marketed the Film-Sterne series by his own publishing company. Each card was now wearing the name Ross Verlag.

Wanda Treumann. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 87/4. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin/Messter Film.

Maria Carmi. German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 90/5. Photo: Karl Schenker.

Lotte Neumann. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-sterne series, no. 94/2. Photo: NBFMB / Karl Schenker.

Hella Moja. German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 78/6. Photo: Decla / Karl Schenker, Berlin.

Lisa Weise. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 104/1.

Sources: Mark Goffee (Rosscards.com), Postkarten-Archiv.de (German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Suave and handsome English actor Roger Moore (1927) will always be remembered as the guy who replaced Sean Connery as James Bond, but he is also our favourite Ivanhoe, Saint and Persuader on TV.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Sent by Mail in 1963. Photo: still from the TV series Ivanhoe (1958-1959).

Belgian postcard by Publistar, Bruxelles, no. 1295. Photo: POK / Publistar / TPL. Publicity still for the TV series The Saint (1963-1966).

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 734. Publicity still for the TV series Maverick (1960-1961).

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for The Man with the Golden Gun (Guy Hamilton, 1974).

A Noble knight and Champion of Justice

Sir Roger George Moore was born in 1927 in Stockwell near London as the son of policeman George Alfred Moore and Lillian 'Lily' Moore-Pope.

Moore served in the British military during the Second World War. He first wanted to be an artist, but got into films full time after becoming an extra in productions like Perfect Strangers (Alexander Korda, 1945) and Piccadilly Incident (Herbert Wilcox, 1946).

In the early 1950s, he appeared on television and also worked as a male model, appearing in print advertisements for products like knitwear (earning him the amusing nickname 'The Big Knit'), and toothpaste.

In 1953 the suave and handsome actor got a contract with MGM, but in Hollywood Moore had little success with movies like The Last Time I Saw Paris (Richard Brooks, 1954) and Interrupted Melody (Curtis Bernhardt, 1955).

It was the British TV series Ivanhoe (1958-1959) in which Roger Moore would make his name. As Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, a noble knight and champion of justice during the reign of evil Prince John (Andrew Keir), he became the favourite action hero for millions of European kids.

Other series were The Alaskans (1959) and Maverick (1960-1961), in which he played cousin Beau.

Worldwide he got his big breakthrough as Simon Templarin the TV series The Saint (1962-1969). It was with 118 episodes one of the two longest-running British series of its kind.

Belgian postcard by S. Best (SB), Antwerpen. Photo: still from Ivanhoe. This postcard was a gift from Mary of the A Plethora of Postcards blog.

Dutch postcard by Int. Filmpers, Amsterdam.

Dutch postcard of Roger Moore as Ivanhoe, no. 761.

Dutch postcard by Int. Filmpers P.D.B., Amsterdam. Photo: publicity still for the TV series Ivanhoe (1958-1959).

Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 553. Publicity still for The Saint (1963-1966) with Dawn Addams.

Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. 6298.

Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, no. AX 6370. Sent by mail in 1966.

Spanish postcard by Raker, no. 36, 1965. Retail price: 5 Ptas. Photo: publicity still for The Saint.

007

In an effort to change this, Roger Moore agreed to star with Tony Curtis astwo millionaire playboys in another British TV show, The Persuaders! (1971-1972). It became hugely popular in Europe and Australia, but again it did not catch on in the States and was cancelled there.

Just prior to making the series he starred in the dark The Man Who Haunted Himself (Basil Dearden, 1970), which proved there was more to him than light-hearted roles. He would never become popular with critics though, who often derided his acting as limited and wooden.

At the age of 45, Roger Moore accepted the role of James Bond. Live and Let Die (Guy Hamilton, 1973) grossed more than Diamonds Are Forever (Guy Hamilton, 1971) – Sean Connery's last outing as James Bond.

Moore's James Bond was light-hearted, more so than any other official actor to portray 007. He often portrayed Bond as a playboy, with his tongue firmly in cheek.

Between 1973 and 1985 he starred in six more Bond films, The Man with the Golden Gun (Guy Hamilton, 1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (Lewis Gilbert, 1977), Moonraker (Lewis Gilbert, 1979), For Your Eyes Only (John Glen, 1981), Octopussy (John Glen, 1983), and finally A View to a Kill (John Glen, 1985).

Vintage collectors card.

Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor. Photo: this could be a still for the Italian western Un branco di vigliacchi/No Man's Land (Fabrizio Taglioni, 1962). The girl could be Luisa Mattioli, a later Mrs. Moore.

Danish postcard by Forlaget Holger Danske, no. 119. Photo: publicity still for The Persuaders (1971-1972) with Tony Curtis.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Agin.

French postcard by La Roue Tourne, Paris.

Vintage postcard.

French postcard by Editions F.Nugeron. Photo: J. Ritchie.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. With Sean Connery.

Disastrous Flops

In between the James Bond series, Roger Moore had also starred in other successful films such as The Wild Geese (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1978) and North Sea Hijack (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1979).

The USA finally took completely to him when he starred alongside Burt Reynolds in the big American hit The Cannonball Run (Hal Needham, 1981).

Moore did not act onscreen for five years after he stopped playing Bond.

Later he made a long series of disastrous flops like Feuer, Eis & Dynamit/Fire, Ice and Dynamite (Willy Bogner, 1990), Bullseye! (Michael Winner, 1990), Bed & Breakfast (Robert Ellis Miller, 1991), The Quest (Jean-Claude van Damme, 1996), Spice World (Bob Spiers, 1997), The Enemy (Tom Kinninmont, 2001) and Boat Trip (Mort Nathan, 2002).

Through the years Moore became more of a personality than an actor, appearing on TV chat shows and hosting documentaries.

Since 1991 he is a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. For his charity work he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire(CBE) in 1999 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 2003.

He married four times, to skater Doorn Van Steyn (1946-1953), singer Dorothy Squires (1953-1968), Italian actress Luisa Mattioli (1969-1996) and Danish-Swedish multi-millionaire Christina 'Kiki' Tholstrup (2002-present). He has three children: Geoffrey Moore, Christian Moore and Deborah Moore.

In 2007 (3 days before he turned 80), Roger Moore was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work on television and in film. In 2008, the French government appointed Moore a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Despite declaring in 2009 that he had retired from acting, Roger Moore is still active in the cinema. In 2010 he provided the voice of a talking cat called Lazenby in the family action comedy Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (Brad Payton, 2010), which contained several references to, and parodies of, Bond films. Last year he completed a new TV version of The Saint (Simon West, 2013) in which he played Jasper opposite Adam Rayner as Simon Templar.

Dutch card by Loeb uitgevers, Amsterdam, 1985. Photo: Danjaq S.A. Roger Moore as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973, Guy Hamilton). The Bond girl is British actress Jane Seymour, who played Solitaire.

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for Live and Let Die (Guy Hamilton, 1973) with Tommy Lane.

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, no. 5992805, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for The Man with the Golden Gun (Guy Hamilton, 1974) with Britt Ekland and Maud Adams.

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for The Spy Who Loved Me (Lewis Gilbert, 1977) with Barbara Bach.

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, no. 5992807, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for The Spy Who Loved Me (Lewis Gilbert, 1977) with Barbara Bach.

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for Octopussy (John Glen, 1983).

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for A View to a Kill (John Glen, 1985).

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A., 1985. Publicity still for A View to a Kill (John Glen, 1985).

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for A View To A Kill (John Glen, 1985).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.