Mario Girotti

March 29, 2013, 12:00 am

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Blond and blue-eyed Mario Girotti (1939) is better known as Terence Hill. The Italian actor starred in multiple action films and spaghetti westerns. In 19 of these films he appeared together with his partner Bud Spencer. Their success made him one of the highest paid European film stars.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano (Milan), no. 1807.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1.087, 1959. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: publicity still for La grande strada azzurra/The Wide Blue Road (1957, Gillo Pontecorvo, Maleno Malenotti).


German postcard by Graphimo, Berlin.


Romanian collector's Card by Coop Arta Manual, Sibiu.

Euro-westerns
Mario Girotti was born in Venice, Italy, in 1939. His mother Hildegard Thieme was German, his father Girolamo Girotti an Italian chemist. As a child he lived in the small town of Lommatzsch, near Dresden, Germany, from 1943 to 1945. During World War II, he survived the Dresden Bombing by the alies. Back in Italy and living in Rome, one of his hobbies was swimming. He swam for the Roman team Lazio and even won a bronze medal. During practice, he would often meet Bud Spencer, then still known as Carlo Pedersoli, who swam for the same team. Terence also enjoyed rowing and won a silver medal with his rowing team. He was discovered by Italian filmmaker Dino Risi at a swimming meet and he made his first film at the age of 12, Vacanze col Gangster/Vacation With a Gangster (1951, Dino Risi). He continued acting to finance his motorcycle and his studies classical literature at the University of Rome. He appeared in 27 Italian films, including Gli sbandati/Abandoned (1955, Francesco Maselli). Then he landed a supporting role in Luchino Visconti's masterpiece Il Gattopardo/The Leopard (1963). The film was based on the classic novel by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa and had a star cast with Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon. The film was a big success and Girotti decided to leave university to become a full-time actor. He signed a contract with German producer Horst Wendtland for a series of adventure and western films in Germany. Hill speaks German fluently. He appeared in the popular euro-westerns Winnetou - 2. Teil/Winnetou: Last of the Renegades (1964, Harald Reinl), Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (1964, Alfred Vohrer), Der Ölprinz/Rampage at Apache Wells (1965, Harald Philipp) and Old Surehand/Flaming Frontier (1965, Alfred Vohrer), all based on the Winnetou and Old Shatterhand-novels by German author Karl May. He also appeared in the fantasy epic Die Nibelungen/Those Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy (1966, Harald Reinl), a remake of the classic silent film by Fritz Lang.


German postcard, no. R 16. Photo: publicity still from Winnetou - 2. Teil/Last of the Renegades (1964) with Karin Dor.


German postcard, no. 45. Photo: Rialto. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (1964) with Mila Baloh.


German postcard, no. 8. Photo: Rialto / Constantin. Publicity still for Der Ölprinz/Rampage at Apache Wells (1965, Harald Philipp). Caption: "Der Treck hat verabredungsgemäss die erste Etappe am Fluss erreicht. Heimlich schleicht sich der junge Forsyth aus dem Lager und trifft sich mit Mitgliedern der Finders-bande im Blockhaus. Hier empfängt er seine Instruktionen; denn die Findersbande soll im Austrag des Ölprinzen nachts die Wagenburg überfallen." (The trek reaches according to appointment to the first stage near the river. The young Forsyth secretly sneaks out of the camp and meets with members of the Finders gang in the blockhouse. Here he receives his instructions, for the Finders gang will in the discharge of the Oil prince attack the wagons during the night.)

Trinity
In 1967, Mario Girotti returned to Italy to act in Dio perdona... Io no!/God Forgives, I don't (1968, Giuseppe Colizzi). While on location in Almeria, Spain, he married an American girl of Bavarian descent, Lori Zwicklbauer, who was the dialogue coach for the picture. Girotti changed his name to Terence Hill. The name was made up, as a publicity stunt, by the film producers. Girotti had 24 hours to choose from a list of twenty names and picked the one with his mother's initials (Hildegard Thieme). The producers told the public that ‘Hill’ was his wife's name for publicity reasons. (At this time of upcoming feminism, a man who took his wife's name was something special.) His co-star was Carlo Pedersoli who was renamed as Bud Spencer. Both had participated in the film Annibale/Hannibal (1959, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, Edgar G. Ulmer) but they had never met on the set since they always appeared in different scenes. In the following years, they starred in another 17 comic action films and spaghetti westerns. Dio perdona... Io no! became the film with the highest number of spectators in Italian cinemas, and stayed so until 1986. Director Giuseppe Colizzi called both actors back for the sequels I quattro dell’Ave Maria/Ace High (1968, Giuseppe Colizzi) and La collina degli stivali/Boot Hill (1969, Giuseppe Colizzi). Their films were incredibly successful in Italy but also abroad. Many of these films have alternate titles, depending upon the country and distributor. Possibly their most famous film is the western Lo chiamavano Trinità/They Call Me Trinity (1971, Enzo Barboni aka E.B. Clucher). Here Terence showed his talent as a comedian for the first time. Director Barboni had invented the characters Trinity and Bambino, the two protagonists of the films. The smart charmer Hill and dumb heavyweight Spencer were a hilariously funny team, which returned in the sequel Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità/Trinity Is STILL My Name! (1972, Enzo Barboni). These and all the following films contain the typical bar fights with people flying everywhere and lots of hilarious cheap jokes. According to his official website, Hill’s favorite film is Il mio nome è Nessuno/My Name Is Nobody (1973, Tonino Valerii and, uncredited, Sergio Leone), in which he co-starred with Henry Fonda. Terence plays a young, mysterious loner named Nobody who tries his hardest to make his aging outlaw hero go out in a blaze of glory.


Terence Hill with Miou Miou and Raimund Harmstorf. German promocard. Photo: publicity still for Un genio, due compari, un pollo/The Genius (1975, Damiano Damiani).


Italian postcard by Alterocca, Ferni.


Bud Spencer. Italian postcard by Alterocca, Ferni.

Don Camillo
In 1976 Hollywood called and Terence Hill appeared in March or Die (1977, Dirk Richards) with Gene Hackman and Catherine Deneuve, and he starred in Mr. Billion (1977, Jonathan Kaplan) with Valerie Perrine. Since then he divided his time between Italy and the US. He directed and produced himself in the remake Don Camillo (1983), and in Lucky Luke (1991), a mediocre adaptation of the famous cartoon by Morris & Goscinny. His last film was the actioner Cyberflic (1997, Antonio Margheriti). Hill then moved on to a successful television career in Italy. In 2000, he landed the leading role in the Italian television series Don Matteo (2000-2011), as a crime-fighting parish priest. For his performance of 'Don Matteo', Terence received the 'Outstanding Actor of the Year' award at the 42nd International Television Festival of Monte Carlo. The series endured for 172 episodes. Recently he returned to the western with the TV-film Doc West (2009, Giulio Base, Terence Hill) with Paul Sorvino and Ornella Muti. Most recently, he played the lead in the TV series Un passo dal cielo/A step from heaven (2011-2012). A new season is scheduled for 2014. Terence Hill lives in Massachusetts. He and his wife Lori had two sons, Jesse (1969) and their adopted son Ross (1973). Ross was killed in a car accident in New Mexico in 1990 while Terence Hill was preparing to film Lucky Luke on the Bonanza Creek Ranch near Santa Fe.


Scene with a young Mario Girotti and Carlo Pedersoli in Vacanze col Gangster/Vacation With a Gangster (1951). Source: Giorgio 1942 (YouTube).


Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Best of. Source: Spiros 65 (YouTube).


Terence Hill as Don Camillo. Source: godofthunder1976 (YouTube).

Sources: Klaus Bobacz (IMDb), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), TerenceHill.com, SpencerHill.de (German), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Hans Albers

March 30, 2013, 12:00 am

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Jovial, pleasantly plump Hans Albers (1891 – 1960) was a superstar of the German cinema between 1930 and 1945. He was also one of the most popular German singers of the twentieth century. His song Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (On the Reeperbahn at half past midnight) is the unofficial anthem of Hamburg’s neighbourhood of St. Pauli, famous for its brothels, music and night clubs.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 762. Photo: Ufa.


Dutch postcard by J.S.A., no. 221.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8294/12, 1933-1934. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg / Ufa.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6374/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Verlag und Drückerei Erwin Preuss, Dresden-Freital in the series Die neue farbige Filmstarkarte, Series 1, no. 13. Photo: Charlott Serda.

Blonde Hans
Hans Philipp August Albers was born in the North German port city of Hamburg in 1891. He was the son of a butcher and grew up in the Hamburg district of St. Georg. He was seriously interested in acting by his late teens and took acting classes without the knowledge of his parents. He debuted as a stage actor in Bad Schwandau, followed by engagements in Frankfurt, Güstrow, Cologne and Hamburg. His first film part was in Jahreszeiten des Lebens/Seasons of Life (1915, Franz Hofer). Albers interrupted his career to serve in World War I, where he was badly wounded. After the war ‘der blonde Hans’ started as a comedic actor in various Berlin theatres. He appeared on-stage to great acclaim with Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. Albers' breakthrough performance was that of a waiter in Ferdinand Bruckner's play Verbrecher (Criminals). His film roles ranged from Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1924) to the title character in Rasputins Liebesabenteuer/Rasputin (1928, Martin Berger). In Weimar Berlin, he began a relationship with half-Jewish actress Hansi Burg in 1925. She was the daughter of his acting teacher Eugen Burg. In 1944 Eugen Burg would be killed in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. Albers stopped working in theater to distance himself from the Hitler regime, but the Nazis forced him in 1935 to end his relationship with Hansi Burg, who in 1938 emigrated to England via Switzerland. They secretly remained a couple with him even managing to send her financial support. Burg returned to Germany and Albers in 1946. Hans and Hansi would live together until his death in 1960.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 141/5, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still with Paul Hörbiger, Paul Westermeier and Genia Nikolaieva in Quick (1931, Robert Siodmak).


Austrian Postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6699. Photo: Lux Film Verleih.


Austrian Postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6269. Photo: Lux Film Verleih.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 141/6. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Quick (1932, Robert Siodmak). Collection: Egbert Barten.

Big-mouthed Strong Man
After roles in over one hundred silent films, Hans Albers starred in the first German talkie, the romance Die Nacht gehört uns/The Night Belongs to Us (1929, Carl Froelich) with Charlotte Ander. He then played big-mouthed strong man Mazeppa alongside Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich in Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930, Josef von Sternberg), the film which made Dietrich an international star. Albers himself shot to fame with Der Greifer/The Snatcher (1930, Richard Eichberg) about three crooks who are planning a jewel robbery. Albers enhanced his star status with similar daredevil roles in the 1930's. He was probably at his best when teamed-up with Heinz Rühmann, as in Bomben auf Monte Carlo/Bombs Over Monte Carlo (1931, Hanns Schwarz) and Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war/The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes (1937, Karl Hartl). In the latter film Albers and Rühmann play two confidence trickster who pretend to be the famous duo Holmes & Dr. Watson and the police, gangsters and girls believe them beyond any doubt. Another success was the comedy Quick (1932, Robert Siodmak) in which he played a clown opposite Lilian Harvey.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6833/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6373/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7562/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8105/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa.

Huge hits
Many of Hans Albers' songs from his films became huge hits and some even remain popular to this day. While Albers himself never supported the Nazi regime, he became the most popular actor of the Third Reich. Albers was paid a huge sum of money to star in Ufa's big-budgeted anniversary picture Münchhausen/The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943, Josef von Baky) but was always careful not to give the impression that he was endorsing the National Socialist regime. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany had commissioned this lavish production as a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Ufa, the government-run German film association. More importantly, it was also to be a rival of the great fantasy films which had come from the Allied nations, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming) and The Thief of Bagdad(1940, Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan). On IMDb, Ron Oliver writes: "In that it succeeds brilliantly and needs no comparison to any other film." In 1943 Albers also starred in another classic, Große Freiheit Nr. 7/Great Freedom No. 7 (1943, Helmut Käutner) with Ilse Werner. The film was banned by the censorship of the Third Reich because the story was considered too 'anti-heroic' and demoralizing how German sailors and women were portrayed. The film could only be shown outside Germany. IMDb reviewer Jan Onderwater comments: "From directing till script, from acting till (Agfa colour) photography this is a brilliant film, with everyone involved giving the best of their talents. What we see is a compelling drama, well balanced, psychologically well conceived and at the same time a film that is great fun to watch over and over again. In this film there are only people and their lives who are not up to standard Nazi definition."


Big card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Ufa / Hämmerer.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2879/112, 1939-1940. Photo: Brix / Tobis. Publicity still for Trenck, der Pandur/Trenck the Pandur (1940, Herbert Selpin).


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3728/1, 1941-1944. Photo: V. Swolinski / Ufa. Publicity still for Munchhausen/The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1943, Josef von Baky) with Hans Albers and Brigitte Horney.


German postcard. Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3728/2. Photo: von Stwolinski / Ufa. Publicity still for Münchhausen/The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (1943, Josef von Baky).

St. Pauli
After World War II, Hans Albers matured into character parts to some public and critical acclaim, but he never again enjoyed the huge stardom of the 1930's and early 1940's. One of his better roles of this period was an aging industry tycoon in Vor Sonnenuntergang/Before Sundown (1956, Gottfried Reinhardt), which won the Golden Globe as best foreign film of the year. On IMDb reviewer Diger Jantzen notes: "Hans Albers' performance is heartbreaking from the start until the end and it is clearly one of his best serious performances ever." Albers' final film was the crime comedy Kein Engel ist so rein/No Angel Is That Pure (1960, Wolfgang Becker) with Sabine Sinjen. Today he is probably more known for his music than his films, and his music is still widely-known in modern Germany, even among young people. Many of Albers' songs were humorous tales of drunken, womanizing sailors on shore-leave, with double entendres such as "It hurts the first time, but with time, you get used to it" in reference to a girl falling in love for the first time. Albers' songs were often peppered with expressions in Low German, which is spoken in Northern Germany. His most famous song is by far Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (On the Reeperbahn at half past midnight) which has become the unofficial anthem of the colourful neighbourhood of St. Pauli. The Hans-Albers-Platz, one block south of the Reeperbahn, has a statue of Albers, by the German artist Jörg Immendorff. Outside of Northern Europe, however, Albers remains virtually unknown, although the image of an older man in a seaman's cap and raincoat playing accordion and singing may be recognised by many outside of Germany, even if they don't know that this image is based on Hans Albers. As a case in point, McDonald's used such an image in an American television ad campaign in 1986. In reality, Albers had no experience on the water, this being restricted to a one-day trip to Helgoland. Hans Albers died in Kempfenhausen, Bavaria, in 1960. After his death the Wilhelmplatz, a square in St. Pauli, was named after him. In 1989, Hans Albers was the subject of a biographical docudrama, In Meinem Hertzen Schatz/In My Heart's Treasure.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 714, 1932. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7768/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Boston-Film.


Dutch Postcard by JosPe, no. 545.


German postcard. Photto: Deutsche Cosmopol-Film. Publicity still for Die Verlobten des Todes/I fidanzati della morte (1957, Romolo Marcellini).


Hans Albers sings Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (1943). Source: Fritz 5169 (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Christus

March 30, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Happy Easter! Today, a post on the Italian silent film Christus/Christ (1916). This Cines production directed by count Giulio Antamoro an filmed in Palestine and Egypt was a worldwide success.


French postcard by Les Films Primior, Paris. Photo: Cines. Publicity still for Christus (1916, Giulio Antamoro). Translation of the caption: 'The Flight to Egypt: Get up, take your child and his mother, fly to Egypt and stay there until I warn you.'


French postcard by Les Films Primior, Paris. Photo: Cines. Publicity still for Christus (1916, Giulio Antamoro). Translation of the caption: 'The Sky over Egypt. At the entrance of Memphis, in Old Cairo, the Well of Matarea saves the menaced life of Jesus.'

Shot in Location
In 1915-1916, so right in the middle of the First World War, Italian director count Giulio Cesare Antamoro went to Palestine and Egypt, on behalf of the film company Cines. Earlier, the Kalem production From the Manger to the Cross (1912, Sidney Olcott) had faithfully reproduced the sketches by James Tissot, drawn on location in Egypt and Palestine. Antamoro wanted to film the life of Christ on location. Christus (1916) was a worldwide success, because of the quotations of famous art works such as Fra Angelico's Annunciation, Leonardo's Last Supper and Michelangelo's Pietà, but also because of the location shots. The press drew a direct relationship between the authenticity of the film and that of the the earlier sketches by Tissot. Even more than in the Kalem production, the Cines crew exploited the monuments and scenery in Egypt for the film, bending the Biblical tales to make it more spectacular.


French postcard by Les Films Primior, Paris. Translation of the caption: 'In Nazareth, surrounded by the Holy Virgin and Joseph, Jesus grows up in wisdom, in grace and in age, before God and before mankind.' On the right, Leda Gys plays the Holy Virgin.


French postcard by Les Films Primior, Paris. Translation of the caption: 'The world is dying, oppressed, degraded and in despair, Jesus, says, but God is there who guards.' Alberto Pasquali plays Jesus.

The Holy Family
Arriving in Egypt afer their Flight from Jerusalem, the Holy Family passes the pyramids of Gizeh and the famous Sphinx. We notice Mary in Memphis under Cairo, where she receives food and drinks after the Flight to Egypt. Afterwards we see the Holy Family near a row of sphinxes at Karnak. Later in the film, when Jesus has grown up in de film, he reflects on the decay of the world. Antamoro then shows Jesus walking through the majestic ruins of Luxor. No Biblical reason for this, but Antamoro thus combines literal decay with spiritual decay. Besides, anno 1915-1916 there were more ancient buildings in Egypt than in Paestine to exploit, and thus Egypt's monumentality was used. For the average cinema visitor in Europe during the First World War the vision of ancient ruins must have created associations with the modern ruins in Northern France and Belgium, daily visible in cinema newsreels.


French postcard by Films Primior, Paris. Entry of Christ into Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, Christians celebrate Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem.


French postcard by Films Primior, Paris. Christ (Alberto Pasquali) agonizing in the gardens of Getsemane.

Additional Shooting
The leading roles in Christus were acted by Alberto Pasquali (Christ), Leda Gys (Mary), Amleto Novelli (Pilate), and Augusto Mastripietri (Judas), while Renato Visca played the young Jesus. When additional shooting was necessary in 1916, Enrico Guazzoni director of Quo vadis? (1912), Marcantonio e Cleopatra (1913) and Cajus Julius Caesar (1914) was now in charge, while Antamoro wasn't available anymore. Janiss Garza at AllMovie reviews the result as: "static, pretentious and dated (yes, even for 1917). In addition, the titles - at least in the English version - were long and wordy, which was anathema to moviegoers of the 'teens." However, Christus was an international success. Two other films with the same title were released in 1914 and 1919 but both are missing now. Cines' Christus was eventually restored by producer Goffredo Lombardo, the founder of Titanus and the son of Leda Gys, and was shown at the 2000 Venice Film Festival.


French postcard by Les Films Primior, Paris. Christ towards Mount Calvary and the Crucifixion. While Simon of Cyrene is carrying the cross, Jesus (Alberto Pasquali) meets his mother Mary (Leda Gys) and Mary Magdalene (Aurelia Cattaneo), on the way to Mount Calvary. Translation of the caption: 'The Calvary: Jesus meets his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. Turning towards the other women, he speaks: Don't weep for me, daughters of Jerusalem, but for you and your children.'


French postcard by Films Primior, Paris. Christ's Crucifixion on Mount Calvary. Translation of the caption: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'


French postcard by Films Primior, Paris. The Pietà with Jesus (Alberto Pasquali) and Mary (Leda Gys). Translation of the caption: 'The descent of the cross. See if there is any sorrow like mine.'

Sources: Janiss Garza (AllMovie), Mario Gauci (IMDb) and IMDb.

Kati Székely

March 31, 2013, 11:00 pm

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German actress Kati Székely (1941) is a former star of the DEFA studio.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2.537, 1966. Retail price: 0,15 DM. Photo: Schwarzer.

Anne Frank
Kati Székely was born as Catherine Székely in New York City, US in 1941. She was the daughter of the Hungarian writer Hans Székely. In 1938, her family had emigrated to the US. During the McCarthy era, members and sympathizers of the American Communist Party were persecuted by the U.S. government. The ‘un-American Left sympathizer’ Hans Székely and his family went to Mexico, where Kati spent a part of her childhood. In 1956 the family moved to Potsdam in East-Germany, where her father worked as a screenwriter for the DEFA. As a teenager, Székely played the lead role of Anne Frank in the play Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank/Diary of Anne Frank at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin under the direction of Emil Stöhr. The production was filmed for television in 1958. Székely visited the Staatliche Schauspielschule (State Theatre School), and she was soon discovered for film and television. In 1960, she played a supporting part in the French-East-German film Les arrivistes/The Opportunists (1960, Louis Daquin) with Madeleine Robinson. Then Kati played in the TV mini-series Das grüne Ungeheuer/The Green Monster (1962, Rudi Kurz). Her co-star was Jürgen Frohriep, who later became her second husband. At the time she was married to actor actor Hans-Edgar Stecher.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1.821, 1963. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Klaus Fischer.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2740, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Schwarz.

The Berlin Wall
Kati Székely appeared in the first Indians film of the DEFA, Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (1965, Josef Mach), based on the novel by Lieselotte Welskopf-Henrich. She played the sister of the young Dakota Indian chief Tokei-ihto (Gojko Mitic). One of her other major films was the first film about the Berlin wall … Und deine Liebe auch/... And your love too (1962, Frank Vogel) with Armin Mueller-Stahl. After marrying Jürgen Frohriep, she gave up acting and studied psychology. Her final feature film was the DEFA western Schüsse unterm Galgen/Shots Under the Gallows (1970, Horst Seemann) with Werner Kanitz. After the Wende and due to the lack of roles, Jürgen Frohriep suffered from a depression and had an alcohol problem. The couple separated and Székely moved to Switzerland. As Kati Székely-Frohriep, she opened a private practice as a psychotherapist. She also gave lectures on spirituality and psychotherapy. Kati Székely has a son from her first marriage with Hans-Edgar Stecher, actor Thomas Stecher.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2.551, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Pathenheimer / DEFA. Publicity still for Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (1965).

Sources: Katrin und Uta Zutz (DEFA Sternstunden) (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

1 April - Poisson d'Avril!

April 1, 2013, 1:00 am

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Today, it's 1 April. April's Fool's Day, Poisson d'Avril. Time for jokes, but also time for a new love.


French postcard by A. Bergerie et Cie , Nancy. Sent by mail in 1904.

And if you also love (film) posters, check out the review of my book Frans Mettes Affichevirtuoos at Starland.
Thank you, David!


Bob a.k.a. Paul van Yperen

Paul Heidemann

April 2, 2013, 7:27 am

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German stage and screen actor Paul Heidemann (1884 - 1968) was also a film director and producer. In the silent period, he was famous for his character Teddy and his other comical parts.


German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5233. Photo: R. Dührkoop.

Talented Comedian
Paul Heidemann was born in Cologne, Germany in 1884. After an initial career in the tobacco branch, he took acting lessons from the Meiningen based court actor Leopold Teller. In 1906 he debuted in Hanau as Prince Karl-Heinz in the operetta Alt-Heidelberg. In 1909, he joined the theatre of Breslau, where he sang in Bruno Granichstaedten’s operetta Bub oder Mädel. Here Heidemann created his reputation as talented comedian. On the recommendation of composer Jean Gilbert, he moved to Berlin in 1911, where he debuted in Gilbert’s play Die keusche Susanne (The chaste Susanne). Franz Porten discovered Heidemann for the cinema, where he played his first lead in Das Brandmal ihrer Vergangenheit/The stigma of her past (1912). It was followed by films such as Das Teufelsloch/The Devil's Hole (1913, Rudolf Del Zopp), and Vater und Sohn/Father and Son (1914, Afred Halm) with Leopoldine Konstantin. From 1913 to 1915 he also played the character Teddy in countless comical shorts, such as Teddy ist herzkrank/Teddy has a heart condition (1914), Teddys Geburtstagsgeschenk/Teddy's Birthday Present (1915) and Teddy züchtet Notkartoffeln/teddy breeds emergency potatoes (1915). Sometimes he directed these films as well. Between 1919 and 1923 Heidemann had his own production company, Paul Heidemann-Film GmbH in Berlin, where he played the lead in films initially mostly directed by Erich Schönefelder and later on rather by Georg Schubert or by Heidemann himself. A late example is Eine kleine Freundin braucht ein jeder Mann/Every man Needs A little Friend (1927, Paul Heidemann), starring Heidemann but also Julius Falkenstein, Hans Albers, Siegfried Arno and Charlotte Ander.


With Hans Albers. Austrian Postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6699. Photo: Lux Film Verleih.

Military Comedies
In the 1920's, Paul Heidemann became an important supporting actor and sometimes leading man in all kinds of films. He often played in comedies, such as Die Bergkatze/The Wildcat (1921, Ernst Lubitsch) with Pola Negri, So sind die Männer/The Little Napoleon (1922, Georg Jacoby) with Harry Liedtke, Der Sprung ins Leben/Leap Into Life (1923, Johannes Guter) with Xenia Desni, Das süsse Mädel/The Sweet Girl (1926, Manfred Noa) with Mary Nolan and Mary Parker, Die dritte Eskadron/The Third Squadron (1926, Carl Wilhelm) with Claire Rommer, Flucht aus der Hölle/Escape from Hell (1928, Georg Asagaroff) with Heidemann, Jean Murat and Agnes Esterhazy, and Flucht vor der Liebe/The flight from love (1930, Hans Behrendt) with Jenny Jugo and Enrico Benfer. Simultaneously Heidemann acted on the Berlin stages, mainly in operettas. When in the early 1930's military comedies were popular, Heidemann acted in various military farces such as Wenn die Soldaten.../When the soldiers... (1931, Luise & Jakob Fleck) with Otto Walburg, Schön ist die Manöverzeit/Manoeuver Time Is Fine (1931, Erich Schönfelder) with Ida Wüst, Die Mutter der Kompanie/The Company's Mother (1931, Franz Seitz senior), Drei von der Kavallerie/Number Three Cavalryman (1932, Carl Boese) with Paul Hörbiger and Fritz Kampers, and Liebe in Uniform/Love in Uniform (1932, Georg Jacoby).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4181/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Sidekick
Paul Heidemann also acted in many successful films of the 1930's, often as sidekick of the popular actor Hans Albers. Among the most well-known productions are Ihre Hoheit befielt/Her Grace Commands (1930-1931, Hanns Schwarz) featuring Käthe von Nagy, Der tolle Bomberg/The Mad Bomberg (1932, Georg Asagaroff) with Heidemann in the lead, Ganovenehre/Crook's Honor (1932, Richard Oswald) with Fritz Kampers, Paprika (1932, Carl Boese) with Franciska Gaál, Narren im Schnee/Fools in the snow (1939, Hans Deppe) with Anny Ondra, and Schneider Wibbel/Tailor Wibbel (1939, Viktor de Kowa) with Erich Ponto. During the Second World War, Heidemann worked again as film director. He staged film comedies, such as Mein Mann darf es nicht wissen/My husband must not know (1940) with Mady Rahl, Krach im Vorderhaus (1941) again with Rahl, Weisse Wäsche (1942) with Harald Paulsen, and Floh im Ohr/Flea in Her Ear (1943), even if the films were not huge hits. In the 1950's, he acted both in BRD and DDR films. In East- Germany he played Presskopp in the old Berlin farce Ein Polterabend/A stag night (1955, Curt Bois) and the mayor in Bärenburger Schnurre/Bärenburg Farce (1957, Ralf Kirsten). He also acted in West-German films like Torreani (1951, Gustav Fröhlich), Der keusche Josef/The chaste Joseph (1953, Carl Boese), Rittmeister Wronski/Cavalry Captain Wronski (1954, Ulrich Erfurth), Der Mustergatte/The Model Husband (1956, Erik Ode) and Jede Nacht in einem anderen Bett/Every night in a different bed (1956-1957, Paul Verhoeven). Paul Heidemann died in Berlin in 1968. He was 83.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8154/1, 1933-1934.


East-German postcard by VEB-Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 176-59. Photo: Defa-Neufeld. Publicity still for Junges Gemüse/Young Vegetables (1956, Günter Reisch).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Volker Wachter (Defa-sternstunden) (German), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Ann Todd

April 2, 2013, 11:00 pm

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After 15 years of largely nondescript film roles, English actress and producer Ann Todd (1909 - 1993) had her breakthrough in the romantic psychodrama The Seventh Veil (1945). She played a vulnerable pianist opposite tormenter James Mason. Today, the pretty actress is probably best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's court drama The Paradine Case (1947). She was married to director David Lean and later she produced a series of travel films.


Belgian postcard by Victoria, Brussels, no. 639. (Imported from Italy. Printed by C.C.M., no. 22). Photo: Paramount.


British postcard by Astra. Photo: publicity still for The Passionate Friends (1949, David Lean). Caption: "Entrancing Ann Todd, starring in the Cineguild production "The Passionate Friends", poses in the foam-white dress that she wears to a fancy-dress Ball in the Film. The design is pure winter-halter fragile and lovely as porcelain."


British postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.

Wartime Flirtation
Ann Todd was born as Dorothy Anne Todd in Hartford, England, in 1909 to a middle-class Aberdeen family. Her brother was Harold Brooke (real name Todd), who would write plays and several screenplays with his wife Kay Bannerman. Ann was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne. The family moved to London and after school, she trained as a drama teacher at Central School. In 1928, this lead to West End walk-ons and from 1931 on to bits in films. During the 1930’s, she appeared in The Ghost Train (1931, Walter Forde) opposite Jack Hulbert, the mystery The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1934, Walter Summers) with Ralph Richardson, and the early sci-fi masterwork by Herbert George Wells, Things to Come (1936, William Cameron Menzies). Her best role of this period was as Ralph Richardson's neurotic wife in South Riding (1938, Victor Saville). After years of largely mediocre stage roles she scored in 1943 a big hit as a murderess in Enid Bagnold's play Lottie Dundas. She became a popular film actress with a showy bit part as Robert Donat's wartime flirtation in Perfect Strangers/Vacation from Marriage (1945, Alexander Korda) and suddenly she became an international star with The Seventh Veil (1945, Compton Bennett). David Absalom comments on his site British Pictures: “By any standards, The Seventh Veil is trashy. It's the story of a concert pianist and her masochistic relationship with her guardian James Mason. A psychosomatic illness prevents her playing (brought on by Mason smashing his stick on her hands as she plays). When psychiatrist Herbert Lom gets involved matters come to a head but she is reunited with Mason. Trash or not, it's hugely enjoyable and the fashionable combination of a sadistic James Mason and Freudian analysis made this a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic.” Ann Todd had finally acquired the stardom that 15 years of largely nondescript film roles had failed to deliver. Brian McFarlane adds in the Encyclopedia of British Cinema: “The film was a heady mixture of psychiatry, (popular) classical music and charismatic leading performances and it was just what audiences wanted at the end of World War II. Unfortunately, Todd never again had such a box-office hit.”


Vintage postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.


British postcard.

Brief Encounter-style Triangle
Ann Todd went to Hollywood. To international audiences she is now perhaps best known for her role as Gregory Peck's long-suffering wife in Alfred Hitchcock's disappointing courtroom drama The Paradine Case (1947). Back in England, she appeared in the melodrama, So Evil My Love (1948, Lewis Allen). Brian MacFarlane comments: “she gave what may be her finest performance (...) as the missionary's widow who returns to England, and lets down her hair, literally and figuratively, to her very great cost. Her chiselled blonde beauty, with its conflicting suggestions of propriety and sensuality, brilliantly caught by Max Greene's lustrous camera, was never more skilfully used, and she rose to poignant heights at its conclusion.” At that time Todd was a big star but she was in her late thirties, an age when the career of a film beauty begins to falter. A series of poor films slowed the momentum slightly, but it was her relationship with David Lean that finished her. They met when he directed her in The Passionate Friends (1949), an upmarket, unmoving re-telling of a Brief Encounter-style triangle. They left their respective families and married. He also directed her next two films, Madeleine (1950), the story of the notorious Madeleine Smith, a role which Todd had already tackled on the stage in the play The Rest Is Silence (1944) by Harold Purcell; and The Sound Barrier (1952). According to David Absolom it was clear Lean was obsessed with her: “The films are just excuses for Todd to look beautiful but expressionless and are the best work of neither of them. Only in the third of these, The Sound Barrier, when Todd was just one of an all-star cast and the relationship was cooling is there much evidence that David Lean could direct.” Unlike Madeleine, the film was a great success and won three BAFTAs. Todd was nominated for a BAFTA award as Best Actress.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 195. Photo: Sidney Box Productions.


Dutch postcard, no. a.x. 206. Photo: Film en Toneel.


British postcard. Photo: publicity still for The Passionate Friends (1949).

Lady Macbeth and The Shrew
In 1954, Ann Todd broke away from Lean to make the courtroom drama The Green Scarf. In 1954-1955 she did a season at the Old Vic theatre company which included playing Lady Macbeth and The Shrew. She excelled in a leading role as a desperate mother in Joseph Losey's suspenseful Time Without Pity (1957) with Michael Redgrave, and that same year she made her Broadway debut in Four Winds. Eventually film and theatre lost their appeal to her and in the mid-1960’s, she began a second career as a maker of documentaries, which she wrote, produced, and sometimes directed. She filmed these short travelogues, with titles as Thunder in Heaven (1964, Geoffrey Gurrin), in places as far apart as Iona and Nepal. She continued to act on stage occasionally, as in The Vortex (1965). Before the war. she had been in the first British TV serial, Ann and Harold (1938) and in later years she made TV appearances in both the US and the UK. In 1961 she played her first supporting feature film role in 15 years in the horror film Taste of Fear (1961, Seth Holt). Later she played supporting roles in such features as The Fiend (1971, Robert Hartford-Davis) and The Human Factor (1979, Otto Preminger) based on the Graham Greene novel. She played her last feature film role in The McGuffin (1985, Colin Bucksey) with Charles Dance. Ann Todd was married three times. Her first husband, Victor Malcolm, was a brother of famed TV presenter Mary Malcolm, and a grandson of Lillie Langtry. They had a son, David. Her second and third husbands (Nigel Tangye and David Lean) were first cousins. With Tangye, who acted as a technical adviser on Things to Come (1936, William Cameron Menzies) and Conquest of the Air (1940, Zoltan Korda), she had a daughter, Ann Francesca. Francesca was Ann's character’s name in The Seventh Veil. Ann Todd died from a stroke in 1993 in London, aged 84. In 1980 she had published her autobiography, The Eighth Veil, an allusion to the film which had made her a star in Britain. David Absalom concludes his bio on British Pictures: “At the height of her career, she was a curiously unsympathetic figure - sombre, almost sullen, her face a mask. Only occasionally, when she was caught smiling, was there a suggestion that beneath the mask there was someone worth getting to know.”


Italian trailer for The Paradine Case (1947). Source: Monsieurmabouf (YouTube).


Trailer of The Passionate Friends (1949). Source: K8nairne (YouTube).

Sources: David Absalom (British Pictures), Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Cinema), Wikipedia, Turner Classic Movies, Philippe Pelletier (Ciné Artistes) (French), AllMovie, and IMDb.

George Arliss

April 3, 2013, 11:00 pm

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George Arliss (1868 - 1946) was the first British actor to win an Academy Award. He was also an author, a playwright, and a Hollywood film maker with an unusual amount of creative control.


Vintage postcard.


British postcard in the Picturegoer series, no. 473.


British postcard in the 'Famous Film Stars' series by Valentine, no. 7123G.

The Devil
George Arliss was born George Augustus Andrews in London, England, in 1868. He began his stage career in 1887 in the British provinces. By 1900, he was playing London's West End in supporting roles. He embarked for a tour of America in 1901 in Mrs. Patrick Campbell's troupe. Intending to remain in the USA only for the length of the tour, he stayed for twenty years eventually becoming a star on Broadway in 1908 with the satiric drama The Devil, by Ferenc Molnar. Producer George Tyler commissioned a play specifically tailored for Arliss in 1911 and the actor toured in Disraeli for five years, eventually becoming closely identified with the 19th century British prime minister. He began his film career with The Devil (1921, James Young), followed by Disraeli (1921, Henry Kolker), and four other silent films. Today, only The Devil and The Green Goddess (1923, Sidney Olcott), based on William Archer’s stage play, are known to have survived. He remade Disraeli (1929, Alfred E. Green) in sound and won the Academy Award for Best Actor. At 61, he converted successfully from a star of the legitimate theater, then of silent films, and finally into the talkies.


Vintage postcard. Photo: publicity still for Disraeli.


Polish postcard by De Reszke Minors Cigarettes. Photo: still from The House of Rothschild (1934, Alfred L. Werker).

Creative Control
George Arliss made ten sound films exclusively for Warner Bros. under a contract that gave the star an unusual amount of creative control over his films. Curiously, his casting of actors and rewriting of scripts were privileges granted him by the studio that are not even mentioned in his contract. After his first three films, Arliss approved an undistinguished director, John Adolfi, to direct each of his films from that point on. Adolfi soon found himself regarded as a successful director of the critically and financially acclaimed Arliss films. Arliss preferred to use the same reliable actors from film to film such as Ivan Simpson and Charles Evans. Yet he had an eye for discovering newcomers like James Cagney, Randolph Scott, and Dick Powell. The Man Who Played God (1932, John G. Adolfi) was Bette Davis' first leading role. Until the end of Davis' life, she would credit Arliss for personally insisting upon her as his leading lady and giving her a chance to show her mettle. The two also co-starred in The Working Man (1933, John G. Adolfi).


British card. Photo: 20th Century. Publicity still for The Last Gentleman (1934, Sidney Lanfield).


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 473a. Photo: Warner.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 473b. Photo: Gainsborough.

A Stolen Star
Despite his extensive involvement in the planning and production of his films, George Arliss claimed credit only for acting. Working closely with Warners production chief, Darryl Zanuck, Arliss left the studio when Zanuck resigned in April 1933. Zanuck quickly signed him to make new films at Zanuck's fledgling studio, 20th Century Pictures, prompting Warners to bitterly complain to the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences that Zanuck had ‘stolen’ their star. Arliss is remembered primarily for his witty series of historical biographies such as Alexander Hamilton (1931, John G. Adolfi), Voltaire (1933, John G. Adolfi), The House of Rothschild (1934, Alfred L. Werker) and Cardinal Richelieu (1935, Rowland V. Lee). However, he had a second string to his bow, domestic comedies such as The Millionaire (1931, John G. Adolfi), A Successful Calamity (1932, John G. Adolfi) and The Last Gentleman (1934, Sidney Lanfield). In these films he often appeared with his wife, Florence Arliss. He was approaching 70 when he completed the British-made Doctor Syn (1937, Roy William Neill). He and Flo returned to America later that year to visit old friends. Returning to their home in London in 1939, the onset of World War II prevented their return to America. Braving the German aerial bombing of London throughout the war, George Arliss remained in his native city where he died in 1946.


Clips from The Man Who Played God (1932, John G. Adolfi) with George Arliss and Bette Davis. Source: Waco Agents (YouTube).


The final scene from The House of Rothschild (1934, Alfred L. Werker) with George Arliss and Loretta Young. This was one of the first live-action sequences to be made in three-color Technicolor. Source: Perfect Jazz (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Hertha Feiler

April 4, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Beautiful Austrian actress Hertha Feiler (1916 - 1970) was the elegant and charming wife of Heinz Rühmann, off-screen and also on-screen in many popular films of the 1940’s and 1950’s.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. S 185, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3524/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3721/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

Ladylike and Cheerful Roles
Hertha Feiler was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1916. Her parents were Josef Anton Feiler and his wife Margarethe née Schwarz. Hertha studied at the Realgymnasium. She originally wanted to become a pianist but tendinitis (an inflammation at her arm) prevented this. When she looked for another artistic activity, she decided to take acting classes. In 1936 she debuted on stage at the Wiener Scala, and one year later she already made her film debut with Liebling der Matrosen/Favourite of the Sailors (1937, Hans Hinrich) starring the Austrian Shirley Temple, Traudl Stark. In the following years Hertha became a popular actress who knew how to interpret ladylike and cheerful roles with charm. In 1938, when she worked on Heinz Rühmann's debut as a film director, Lauter Lügen/Many Lies (1939, Heinz Rühmann), they fell in love and got married in 1939. In the following years they often made films together like Kleider machen Leute/Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds (1940, Helmut Käutner), Quax in Afrika/Quax in Africa (1944-1947, Helmut Weiss) and Der Engel mit dem Saitenspiel/Angel with a Harp (1944, Heinz Rühmann). Although Hertha Feiler was considered to be ‘one fourth Jew’ by the Nazi regime and was only able to work with a special permission, she and Heinz Rühmann were presented in the press as a model married couple. Their son Peter was born in 1942.


German postcard by Ross verlag, no. A 2668/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2566/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Quick / Terra.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3729/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

Cancer
After the end of the war, Hertha Feiler took part in Heinz Rühmann's production company Comedia. After this company went bankrupt, her film career halted also. She started to appear more often in stage productions. In the mid-1950's followed more mature film roles in which she often impersonated self-confident and cheerful women who also knew the darker side of life. To her well-known films of that decade belong Pünktchen und Anton/Punktchen and Anton (1953, Thomas Engel) based on the children’s book by Erich Kästner, Die schöne Müllerin/The Beautiful Miller (1954, Wolfgang Liebeneiner), Charley's Tante/Charley’s Aunt (1955, Hans Quest), Opernball/Opera Ball (1956, Ernst Marischka) opposite Johannes Heesters, and Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (1958, Wolfgang Staudte) with O.E. Hasse. With Heinz Rühmann she took part in her last and 33rd film Die Ente klingelt um halb acht/The Duck Rings at Half Past Seven (1968, Rolf Thiele). She had to retire from the film business because she was ill with cancer. Hertha Feiler died in München (Munich), Germany in 1970.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3292/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Lüdtke.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 2524/2, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3401/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Lüdtke / Bavaria Filmkunst.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3835/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

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

Nova Pilbeam

April 5, 2013, 11:00 pm

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British film and stage actress Nova Pilbeam (1919) is a forgotten star with an odd name. As a teenager, she played in two Alfred Hitchcock classics, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Young and Innocent (1937). In 1948 she vanished from the British cinema.


British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 39. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Hitchcock's First True International Hit
Nova Margery Pilbeam was born in Wimbledon, London in 1919. Her parents were actor and theatrical manager Arnold Pilbeam, and his wife Margery Stopher Pilbeam. Nova made her stage debut at five in a charity performance produced by her father. As soon as the law allowed, she made her professional debut. At 12, she played Marigold in Toad of Toad Hall at the Savoy theatre in 1931. This led to more stage work in her teen years and to an audition for Robert Stevenson at Gaumont British in 1934. She got a leading role in the British drama Little Friend (1934, Berthold Viertel). She played a young girl who becomes an unwilling witness to the divorce of her parents (Matheson Lang and Lydia Sherwood). At Wicked Lady, Carole writes: “When the film was released, Pilbeam was a sensation. Kinematograph Weekly praised the ‘brilliant performance by the newly discovered English protégée’. Gaumont-British executives were impressed and signed her to a seven year contract”. Pilbeam first got a small but important role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) featuring Peter Lorre. Pilbeam played a sophisticated teenager who is kidnapped. The Man Who Knew Too Much became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed thrillers of Hitchcock's British period. Brendon Hanley at AllMovie: ”Though Alfred Hitchcock would remake the movie himself in 1956 with a bigger budget, the original 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much is arguably a more historically significant and aesthetically interesting film. It was Hitchcock's first true international hit. Though he wouldn't have a major success in America until The Lady Vanishes, Man and the subsequent The 39 Steps helped establish the director's distinctive style and lay the groundwork for his popularity. Along with Hitchcock's trademark blend of suspense and humour and blurring of the normal and abnormal, the film also features his characteristically grand showpieces, most memorably the recreation of the true-life ‘Sidney Street Siege’ and the famous Albert Hall scene.”


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 995a. Photo: Gaumont British.


British postcard by Real Photograph, no. 162. Photo: Gaumont-British Pictures.

Extremely Touching
Nova Pilbeam then played a lead role as the 16-years old Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1935, Robert Stevenson), a dramatization of Grey's short life, from her forced marriage to Henry VIII to her brief reign as queen of England and finally to her beheading. Carole at WickedLady: “Pilbeam looked glorious in the sumptuous Tudor costumes and was extremely touching in the role. She subsequently won the Film Weekly medal for the best performance by a performer in a British Film.” Still only seventeen, Pilbeam then had a starring role opposite Derrick de Marney in Hitchcock's Young and Innocent (1937, Alfred Hitchcock), for which she is now best known. Hal Erickson reviews at AllMovie: “Alfred Hitchcock was beginning to repeat himself, but audiences didn't mind so long as they were thoroughly entertaining-which they were, without fail. Derrick De Marney finds himself in a 39 Steps situation when he is wrongly accused of murder. While a fugitive from the law, De Marney is helped by heroine Nova Pilbeam, who three years earlier had played the adolescent kidnap victim in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. The obligatory 'fish out of water' scene, in which the principals are briefly slowed down by a banal every day event, occurs during a child's birthday party. The actual villain, whose identity is never in doubt (Hitchcock made thrillers, not mysteries) is played by George Curzon, who suffers from a twitching eye. Curzon's revelation during an elaborate nightclub sequence is a Hitchcockian tour de force, the sort of virtuoso sequence taken for granted in these days of flexible cameras and computer enhancement, but which in 1937 took a great deal of time, patience and talent to pull off.” After this, Pilbeam's film career may have stalled somewhat. She was considered for Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), but lost the role to Margaret Lockwood. In 1939 she appeared on the early British television drama Prison Without Bars (1939) with Jill Esmond, and in the Ealing comedy Cheer Boys Cheer (1939, Walter Forde) depicting the rivalry between two firms of brewers. In 1939 Nova Pilbeam married Penrose ‘Pen’ Tennyson, a great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. They had met at the set of Young and Innocent, where he was an assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock. Tennyson became a film director himself the year they were married.


British postcard in the Colourgraph Series, no. C 332. Photo: Cannons.


British postcard by Real Photograph in the Art Photo Postcard series, no. 81. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Tragic Plane Crash
Unlike other British film stars of the 1930’s, Nova Pilbeam never made a film in Hollywood. Producer David O. Selznick wanted her for the lead as Mrs De Winter in Rebecca (1940, Alfred Hitchcock) and thought she could be an international film star. However, her agent was worried about the length of a five-year contract and Hitchcock thought she was too immature for the role. It must have been a blow to Pilbeam that Hitchcock gave the role to Joan Fontaine and that her studio, Gaumont British, had collapsed in 1937 due to overexpansion and the inability to penetrate the American market. In 1941 her husband Pen Tennyson suddenly died in a tragic plane crash. He had been called up to film some instructional shorts for the war effort. Despite all this, Pilbeam carried on. Throughout the 1940’s, she appeared in British war and crime films along with many stage roles. In 1940 she played with Wilfrid Lawson in Pastor Hall (1940, Roy Boulting), based on the true story of Pastor Martin Neimuller, who was sent to Dachau concentration camp for criticising the Nazi party. Another wartime propaganda film was The Next of Kin (1942, Thorold Dickinson) about the danger of Nazi espionage. It became a great box office hit. On stage, Pilbeam gave vibrant performances as the title role of Peter Pan, Viola in Twelfth Night and Rosalind in As You Like It. One of her last films was The Three Weird Sisters (1948). It was a Gothic tale of a dying Welsh mining town and the three old and afflicted ladies who oversee it. The screenplay is credited to five writers, including Dylan Thomas. After the release, she retired from the screen. She was 29 at the time. In 1950, Pilbeam married BBC Radio journalist Alexander Whyte and their daughter Sarah Jane was born in 1952. The couple stayed together until his death in 1972. Nova Pilbeam lives in Dartmouth Park, North London and is at the time of writing 93.


Opening of Little Friend (1934). Source: D Cairns (YouTube).


Scene from Young and Innocent (1937). Source: Brukkala (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Brendon Hanley (AllMovie), Carole (Wicked Lady), BritMovie, Lenin Imports, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Johanna von Koczian

April 6, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Johanna von Koczian (1933) was in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s one of Germany’s most popular film stars. Later she evolved into a stage actress, a popular schlager singer, a TV presenter, and a successful author of novels and children books.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-60. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Central Europa Film.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-64. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Central Europa Film.

Crossdressing Comedy
Johanna von Koczian was born in Berlin as Johanna von Miskoczy in Berlin in 1933. She was the daughter of Gustav von Koczian-Miskolcy, a German soldier, and his wife Lydia Alexandra. She grew up in Austria, where she studied at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum in Salzburg. Here, she was discovered by director Gustaf Gründgens , who gave her a role at the Salzburg Theater Festival. Her breakthrough in the theatre was her role of Anne Frank at the Schiller Theater in Berlin. Her first film role was the lead in the remake of the famous crossdressing comedy Viktor und Viktoria/Viktor and Viktoria (1957, Karl Anton) with Georg Thomalla and Johannes Heesters. The next year she played the female lead in the box office hit Wir Wunderkinder/Aren't We Wonderful? (1958, Kurt Hoffmann) with Hansjörg Felmy. For her role she was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis (Federal Film Prize).


German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin, no. FK 3553. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Prisma Film. Publicity still for Viktor und Viktoria/Viktor and Viktoria (1957, Karl Anton).


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 5338. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1960. Photo: HAFBO-film. Publicity still for Wir Wunderkinder/Aren't We Wonderful? (1958, Kurt Hoffmann).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden / Westfalen, ca. 1959-1960. Photo: Corona / Constantin / Filipp. Publicity postcard for Serenade einer Grossen Liebe/For the First Time (1959, Rudolph Maté). This musical was an American/German/Italian coproduction starring opera singer Mario Lanza.

One of the most popular German Film Stars
In the later 1950's, Johanna von Koczian was one of the most popular German film stars and played in films like Petersburger Nächte/Petersburg Nights (1958, Paul Martin) with Ewald Balser, Ivan Desny and Claus Biederstaedt, Bezaubernde Arabella/Enchanting Arabella (1959, Axel von Ambesser) based on a novel by Georgette Heyer, Menschen im Netz/People in the Net (1959, Franz Peter Wirth) again with Hansjörg Felmy, the musical Jacqueline (1959, Wolfgang Liebeneiner), as Anastasia in the Friedrich Dürrenmatt adaptation Die Ehe des Herrn Mississippi/The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi (1961, Kurt Hoffmann) with O.E. Hasse, Unser Haus in Kamerun/Our House in Cameroun (1961, Alfred Vohrer) with Götz George, and the drama Straße der Verheißung/Street of Temptation (1962, Imo Moszkowicz) with Mario Adorf and Karin Baal. From 1962 on, she was mainly working on stage for several different companies. She often starred in Boulevard comedies. She also appeared in popular TV series like Praxis Bülowbogen (Practice Bülowbogen) (1987-1988), and as Dr. Cora in the satire show Fragen Sie Frau Dr. Cora (Ask Doctor Cora) (1989). She only made two more feature films, the episodic film Das Liebeskarussell/The Daisy Chain (1965, Rolf Thiele, Axel von Ambesser, Alfred Weidenmann) and Käpt'n Rauhbein aus St. Pauli/Nurses for Sale (1971, Rolf Olsen) with Curd Jürgens.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 125. Photo: Constantin.


German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin Tempelhof (UFA), no. CK 303. Photo: Klaus Collignon / UFA.


Belgian postcard by Cox, no. 23.

Successful Children Books
During the course of her career Johanna von Koczian appeared on the stages of the Schauspielhaus in Wuppertal, the Staatlichen Schauspielbühnen (State Theater) in Berlin, the Bayerische Staatsschauspiel(Bavarian State Theater) in Munich, the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna and the Hamburg Thalia Theater under the direction of Boy Gobert. In 1977 she had a major hit single in Germany and Austria with her song Das bißchen Haushalt (The Little Bit of Homemaking), mocking about a macho husband's attitude towards a homemaker's duties. Other popular schlagers of her include Keinen Pfennig (No Penny)(1974), Aufsteh'n ist schön (Getting Up Is Beautiful) (1978) and Karl, gib' mal den Hammer rüber (Karl, Hand Me the Hammer)(1979), which she often performed on TV.
For the German public television she also presented the music quiz Erkennen Sie die Melodie? (Do You Recognize This Melody?). She appeared in popular Krimis like Derrick (1975-1978), Der Alte/The Old Fox (1983), Tatort (1986-1987) and SOKO 5113 (2002). She played in the popular TV film Single Bells (1998, Xaver Schwarzenberger) and its sequel O Palmenbaum/O Palm Tree (2000, Xaver Schwarzenberger). More recently she appeared in the popular series Die Landärztin/The Country Doctor (2005-2009). Since the 1980’s she wrote successful children's books and such novels as Sommerschatten (Summer Shadows)(1989) and Das Narrenspiel (The Fool's Game) (1992). She was married twice, first shortly to director Dietrich Haugk who directed her in the films Heldinnen/Heroes (1960) and Agatha, laß das Morden sein!/Agatha, stop killing! (1960), and after their divorce she was married to music producer Wolf Kabitzky till his death in 2004. Johanna von Koczian is the mother of actress Alexandra von Koczian.


Scene from Wir Wunderkinder/Aren't We Wonderful? (1958). Source: LadyViolet7 (YouTube).


Johanna von Koczian sings Das bisschen Haushalt (1978) in a German TV show. Source: Fritz 5147 (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-Line) (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Claus Biederstaedt

April 7, 2013, 11:00 pm

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German actor Claus Biederstaedt (1928) was a typical 'sonnyboy', the nice & friendly star of the Wirtschaftswunder cinema of the 1950’s. With his twinkling eyes he was the charming and funny young man in many German language comedies and melodramas and even in some war films.


German postcard by WS-Druck, no. F 2. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann / Bavaria.


German postcard by Ufa, no. CK-80. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

First Kiss
Claus Biederstaedt was born in Stargard, Pommern, Germany (now Stargard Szczecinski, Poland) in 1928. While on grammar school, he had to join the German army. Back from the war, he studied acting with Joseph Offenbach and Will Quadflieg at the Deutschen Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and worked from 1950 on as a stage actor in Hamburg, Berlin, München, Köln and Wiesbaden. He made his film debut as a young assistant doctor in Die große Versuchung/The Great Temptation (1952, Rolf Hansen) starring Dieter Borsche. He won for his part the Bundesfilmpreis as the Best Young Actor in 1953. Next he played the lead in the comedy Liebeskrieg nach Noten/Love War on Notes (1953, Karl Hartl), a supporting role in Sauerbruch - Das war mein Leben/The Life of Surgeon Sauerbruch (1954, Rolf Hansen) – a biography of the brilliant surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch, and he gave the then 16-years old Romy Schneider her first kiss in Feuerwerk/Fireworks (1954, Kurt Hoffmann). One of his best films was Drei Männer im Schnee/Three Men in the Snow (1955, Kurt Hoffmann), based on the witty novel by Erich Kästner.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Photo: Lilo / NDF / Schorchtfilm.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. I 273. Photo: Wesel / Berolina.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 7. Photo: Berolina / Constantin / Wesel.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 3690. Photo: Ufa/Film-Foto.

Beloved Romantic Actor
From then on Claus Biederstaedt was one of the most beloved romantic actors of the German cinema, the always nice and friendly 'sonnyboy'. He played opposite many of the young female stars of the 1950’s: Gardy Granass in Schwarzwaldmelodie/Black Forest Melody (1956, Géza von Bolváry) and Die Christel von der Post/Christel of the Post Office (1956, Karl Anton), Sabine Bethmann in Das Donkosakenlied/The Song of the Don Kosacks (1956, Géza von Bolváry), Susanne Cramer in Kleines Zelt und große Liebe/Two in a Sleeping Bag (1956, Rainer Geis) and Kindermädchen für Papa gesucht/Wanted: a Babysitter for Papa (1957, Hans Quest), Germaine Damar in Die Beine von Dolores/Dolores' Legs (1957, Geza von Cziffra) and Scala-total verrückt/Scala - Completely Gaga (1958, Erik Ode), Maj-Britt Nilsson in Was die Schwalbe sang/The Song of the Swallow (1956, Géza von Bolváry), and opposite Johanna von Koczian in Petersburger Nächte/Petersburg Nights (1958, Paul Martin). In 2004, he said in an interview with the German magazine Stern: "These films were not made to be broadcasted on television a half-century later. They arose from the time, the post-war period. People wanted to forget the smell of smoke and powder."


German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof), no. CK-81. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.


German postcard by WS-Druck, no. F 51. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann / Bavaria.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. Rotterdam (Dutch licency holders of Ufa), no. 3688. Photo: Ufa/Film-Foto.


Dutch postcard, printed by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam (Dutch licency holder for Ufa/Film-Foto - the Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof), no. 3717. Photo: Wesel / Berolina / Herzog Film.

Brainless Comedies and Heimat Films
Claus Biederstaedt continued to appear regularly in comedies and heimat films until the mid 1960’s. He had also a supporting part in the thriller Hotel der toten Gäste/The Hotel With the Dead Guests (1965, Eberhard Itzenplitz) starring Joachim Fuchsberger. He then started to act for TV films and was also busy as a voice actor for the synchronisation of foreign films. He lended his deep, husky voice to Marlon Brando in films like Queimada (1969, Gillo Pontecorvo) and Der letzte Tango in Paris/Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972, Bernardo Bertolucci), to Peter Falk in the detective TV series Columbo (1971-2003), to Yves Montand in films like César & Rosalie (1972, Claude Sautet) and Vincent, Francois, Paul et les autres/Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others (1974, Claude Sautet), and to many other international film stars. His last film role was in the sex comedy Auch ich war nur ein mittelmäßiger Schüler/I Wasn't a Very Good Student Either (1974, Werner Jacobs). He regularly appeared as a guest star in TV series like Die Schwarzwaldklinik/The Black Forest Clinic (1988), Der Alte/The Old Fox (1980-1989) and Derrick (1979-1993). In the 1980’s and 1990’s he also worked as a stage director. Till 2008, he regularly performed on stage. In 2011 the newspaper Bild reported that Biederstaedt had been operated for cancer and that three quarters of his tongue had been removed. So sadly, this handicap won't permit him to act anymore. Claus Biederstaedt married twice, and has a son from his first marriage. With his second wife Barbara, he lives in Eichenau near München (Munich).


Claus Biederstaedt sings Ein Leben lang verliebt (In love for a lifetime) to Romy Schneider in Feuerwerk (1954). Source: Fritz5169 (YouTube).


Claus Biederstaedt sings Schreib es mir tausendmal (Write It To Me Thousand Times) to Gardy Granass in Die Christel von der Post (1956). Source: Fritz5169 (YouTube).

Sources: Alexander Kühn (Stern) (German), Peter Hoffmann (biografie.de) (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Sara Montiel (1928 - 2013)

April 8, 2013, 1:45 pm

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Spanish singer and actress Sara Montiel died today. She was 85. Sara, also known as Sarita and Saritísima, was a much-loved and internationally known name in the Spanish-speaking cinema. In the late 1950’s, Montiel achieved the status of mega-star in Europe and Latin America with El Último Cuple/The Last Torch Song (1957). This film and La Violetera/The Violet Peddler (1958) netted the highest gross revenues ever recorded for films made in the Spanish speaking film industry. Montiel was also the first woman to distill sex openly in Spanish cinema at a time when even a low cut dress was not acceptable.


Spanish collector's card by Cifesa.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 54. Photo: publicity still for Carmen de la Ronda/The Devil Made a Woman (1959, Tulio Demicheli).

Enormous Potential
Sara Montiel was born as María Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isidora Abad Fernández in the village of Campo de Criptana in the province of Ciudad Real, Spain, in 1928. Her parents were Isidoro Abad, a peasant who later operated a bar, and Maria Vicenta Fernández, a door-to-door beautician. At 15, Montiel won a beauty and talent contest held by Cifesa, the most influential film studio at that time in Spain. The next year, she made her film debut in Te Quiero Para Mí/I want you for myself (1943, Ladislao Vajda), credited as Maria Alejandra, a shortened version of her real name. In spite of the small part, the young actress caught the attention of producers and directors who realized her enormous potential. By the end of 1944 she was given the starring role in the film Empezó En Boda/It Started at the Wedding (1944, Raffaello Matarazzo) which introduced her with a new image and a new name: she was now a sophisticated blonde named Sara Montiel. In the next four years she appeared in 14 films. Soon her colleagues started calling her Sarita (Little Sara) due to her youth. The nickname caught on with the press and the public consequently, since then, both Sara and Sarita have been used in credits and publicity. In 1947, she played the role of Antonia, the niece of Don Quixote in Don Quijote de la Mancha/Don Quixote (1947, Rafael Gil), the Spanish film version of Cervantes' great novel. Her first international success was her role as an Islamic princess in Locura de Amor/The Mad Queen (1948, Juan de Orduña) with Fernando Rey. Locura de Amor led to a contract in Mexico where she established herself as one of the most popular film actors of the decade. She made a total of 13 films between 1950 and 1954. Due to her popularity in Mexico, Hollywood came calling, and she was introduced to American filmgoers in the Western Vera Cruz (1954, Robert Aldrich) co-starring with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. She was offered the standard seven-year contract at Columbia Pictures, but she refused, afraid of Hollywood's typecasting policies for Hispanics. Instead she free-lanced at Warner Bros. in Serenade (1956, Anthony Mann) with Mario Lanza and Joan Fontaine, and at RKO in Run of the Arrow (1957, Samuel Fuller), opposite Rod Steiger and Charles Bronson. Director Anthony Mann became her first husband.


Spanish postcard by J.R.B.. Retail price: 2'50 Pesetas. Photo: Cifeso. Publicity still for El Ultimo Cuplé (1957).


Spanish card by Archivo Bermejo. Retail price: 2'50 Pesetas. Photo: Dipenfa. Publicity still for La violetera (1958) with Raf Vallone.

The Last Torch Song
Back in Europe, Sara Montiel became the most commercially successful Spanish actress during the mid-20th century. The film musical El Ultimo Cuplé/The Last Torch Song (1957, Juan de Orduña) was an unexpected success. It played for a year in the same theaters in which it opened. A similar reaction followed in the other European countries and in Latin America. El Ultimo Cuplé turned Montiel into an overnight sensation both as an actor and a singer. Then she achieved the status of mega-star with La Violetera/The Violet Peddler (1958, Luis César Amadori) with Raf Vallone. It broke the box-office records set by El Ultimo Cuplé. She won the Premio del Sindicato (at the time Spain's equivalent to the Oscar) for best actress two years in a row for her performances in El Último Cuplé and La Violetera. From then on she combined filming highly successful vehicles, recording songs in five languages and performing live all over the world. Among the films that continued her immense popularity were Carmen, la de Ronda/The Devil Made A Woman (1959, Tulio Demicheli) with Jorge Mistral, Mi Ultimo Tango/My Last Tango (1960, Luis César Amadori), and Pecado de Amor/Sin of Love (1961, Tulio Demicheli). By 1962 she had become a legend to millions worldwide reaching markets that had previously been ‘uncharted territory for the Spanish cinema. La Bella Lola (1962, Tulio Demicheli), a new version of Camille with Antonio Cifariello and Maurice Ronet, La Reina del Chantecler/The Queen of Chantecler (1963), and Noches de Casablanca/Nights of Casablanca (1963, Henri Decoin) with Maurice Ronet spread Sarita's popularity to Eastern Europe, Greece, Turkey, Israel and Japan. Samba (1964, Rafael Gil) with Italian actor Fosco Giachetti, La mujer perdida/The Lost Woman (1966, Tulio Demicheli) with Massimo Serato, Tuset Street (1967, Jorge Grau, Luis Marquina) with Patrick Bauchau, and Esa Mujer/That Woman (1969, Mario Camus) followed. In 1973, her film Varietés (1971, Juan Antonio Bardem) was banned in Beijing. By then she had become a legend to her millions of fans but became dissatisfied with the film industry when producers started offering her roles in soft core porno films.


Scan. Collection: Véronique3.


Postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 534. C.P.C.S. With Raphael Alonzo. Collection: Véronique3.


Scan. Collection: Véronique3.

Bad Education
Sara Montiel has been married four times: to American film director Anthony Mann (1957-1963), industrial attorney José Vicente Ramírez Olalla (1964-1978), attorney-journalist José Tous Barberán (1979-1992), and Cuban videotape operator Antonio Hernández (2002-2005). With José Tous Barberán, she adopted two children: Thais (1979) and Zeus (1982). Before, during and after these marriages she had countless affairs. During the Franco dictatorship, Spanish stars were forbidden to behave in any way that could be perceived at odds with Christian principles and morality, consequently they kept their private lives very private. Montiel was no exception. Pre-marital or out of wedlock relationships were never mentioned and her civil marriage to Anthony Mann was underplayed along with the divorce. After starring in the film Cinco Almohadas Para Una Noche/ Five pillows for a night (1974, Pedro Lazaga), Montiel announced her retirement from the cinema. For a long time she concentrated on stage musicals which were highly successful: Sara en Persona (1970-1973), Saritísima (1974-1975), Increible Sara (1977-1978), Super Sara Show (1979-1980), Doña Sara de La Mancha (1981-1982), Taxi Vamos Al Victoria (1983-1984), Nostalgia (1984-1985), Sara, Mes Que Mai !! (1986), Sara, Siempre Sara (1987-1988) and Saritízate (1989-1990). In the 1990’s, Montiel surprised everyone by branching out into television: Sara y Punto (1990), a mini-series of seven one-hour episodes, included a serialized biography of the star, many popular guests including Luciano Pavarotti and Charles Aznavour, and Montiel singing her greatest hits in addition to new songs written especially for her. Next came Ven al Paralelo/Come to Paralelo (1992), taped in a Barcelona theater where Montiel hosted, sang and acted in comedy sketches in front of a live audience. In 2000, she published her autobiography Vivir es un placer (Memories: To Live Is A Pleasure), an instant bestseller with ten editions to date. A sequel Sara and Sex followed in 2003. In these books Montiel revealed other relationships in her past including one-night stands with writer Ernest Hemingway as well as actor James Dean. She also claimed a long term affair in the 1940’s with playwright Miguel Mihura and mentioned that science wizard Severo Ochoa, a Nobel Prize winner, was the true love of her life. Currently she remains one of the highest paid celebrities in Spain's TV talk and reality shows. She was portrayed in the Pedro Almodóvar film La mala educación/Bad Education (2004) by Gael García Bernal as the transsexual character Zahara, and a clip from one of her films was used as well. In 2009, the pop group Fangoria invited Montiel to record a track for the re-release of the band's album Absolutamente. The title track Absolutamente became a Top 10 hit. After almost 40 years without making a film, she accepted a role in the comedy Abrázame/Hold (2011, Óscar Parra de Carrizosa). The film was shot on location in Montiel's birth place in La Mancha. According to the star, in this film she dared to do "a parody of her old screen image, just for fun." Sara Montiel died today at home. She is survived by her children Thais and Zeus.


Trailer for El Ultimo Cuplé/The Last Torch Song (1957). Source: Soryeye (YouTube).


Trailer for Pecado de Amor/Sin of Love (1961). Source: Callecolon (YouTube).


Sara Montiel sings La paloma in La Bella Lola (1962). Source: Egor Savin (YouTube).


Sara Montiel sings Quizàs, Quizàs, Quizàs. Source: AlexandreN57 (YouTube).

Sources: InfoMontiel, Raremar (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Giuseppe Sterni

April 8, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Giuseppe Sterni (1883 - 1952) was an Italian stage and sceen actor. In the late 1910's and early 1920's he directed and produced several Italian silent films in which he played the male lead himself. In the 1930's and 1940's, he ran an Italian American theatre company in New York.


British postcard, no. 97.

Wandering Artists
Giuseppe Sterni was born in Bologna, Italy in 1883. In 1904 he started his stage career in a company of wandering artists. In 1906-1907 he became 'primo attore giovane' (first young actor) in some stage companies, including that of Italia Vitaliani. In 1908 he was member of the company of the Teatro Adriano in Rome under direction of Alfredo Campioni. He then moved to the companies of Gemma Farina, Mimì Aguglia and Ferruccio Benini. In 1912 he became 'primo attore'(first actor) in the company of the Teatro Manzoni of Milan, directed by Febo Mari. In 1913 he became director himself of the theatrical companies of first Mimì Aguglia and then that of Olga Vittoria Gentili. In 1916 Sterni temporarily left the stage for the cinema. He worked at several production companies, in particular at Milano Films, both as actor and director. He made his film debut in Bene contro male/Good against evil (1916, Gigi Armandis). Then followed Così è la vita/Such is life (1917) and I Mohicani di Parigi/The Mohicans of Paris (1917, Eugenio Perego), both with Lina Millefleurs. Simultaneously, Sterni started to direct films as well and often played the lead in these films. He directed La madre/The mother (1916) with Italia Vitaliani as the title figure. Sterni played her son, an ambitious young painter who discovers his mother is his best model. In the same year he also starred in and directed Amanda (1916) with Lina Millefleurs. He worked again with Millefleurs in Tristi amore/Sad Love (1917). Other actresses he worked with were Suzanne d’Armelle in L’antica fiamma/The old flame (1917), Linda Pini in La storia di una capinera/The story of a sparrow (1917) and Paola Borboni in Jacopo Ortis (1918).


Italian postcard by Vettori, Bologna, no. 2000.

Italian American
Giuseppe Sterni returned in 1918 to the stage joining the company of Emma Gramatica. After a year he became director of the company of the Teatro Eclettico. In 1921 he began again to direct and act in films. Sterni worked with such well known actresses as Paola Borboni in Sinfonia pastorale/Pastoral symphony (1921), and L’ora della morte/Time of death (1921), and with Carmen Boni in Passione di popolo/Passion for people (1921). After five films at Olimpus Film in 1921, he founded his own film production company in Rome, Sterni Film. He produced I disonesti/The dishonest (1922) with Linda Pini, and L'incubo (1922), but Sterni Film was short-lived. During the 1920's Sterni did a tour to New York, where he remained. In 1929 he founded the Teatro d'Arte Italiano, a small stage company with a repertory ranging from William Shakespeare to Giovanni Verga, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Luigi Pirandello. Sterni became very popular within the Italian American community in New York and he also traded in antiques there. He would stay in New York until his rerirement in 1949. Giuseppe Sterni died in Rome in 1952. He was 68.


Italia Vitaliani. Italian postcard by NPG, no. 643. Photo: Sciutto.


Linda Pini Italian postcard.


Paola Borboni. Italian postcard, no. 602/1. Photo: Massaglia, Torino.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Helena Makowska

April 9, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Polish singer and actress Helena Makowska (1893 - 1964) was a beautiful diva of the Italian silent cinema in the 1910's. During the 1920's she moved to Berlin and became a star of the German cinema.


Italian postcard, no. 30. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 563.

Beautiful and a bit Stiff
Helena (also Elena) Makowska was born Helena Woynowiczówna in Krivoy Rog, Russian Empire (now Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine), in 1893. She was the daughter of Ludwik Woyniewicz, a Polish engineer who worked for a Russian-Belgian company, and his wife Stanislawa née Sauret. She returned to Warsaw. At the age of 16, she married lawyer Julian Makowski, but the marriage was a brief intermezzo. In 1912 Makowska went to Milan to take singing lessons. The following year she debuted at the Opera as Amelia in Il ballo in maschera and as Elena in Mefistofele. Her film debut was in the film Romanticismo (1915, Carlo Campogalliani, Arrigo Frusta). It was based on a famous play by Gerolamo Rovetta, which was already filmed in 1913, and refilmed in 1951. Makowska is Anna Lamberti, whose husband count Vitaliano Lamberti (Tullio Carminati) would like to join the partizans, but is withheld by his pro-Austrian mother. His indecision has estranged him from his wife, who has an affair with a Polish profugee, Cezky, Vitaliano's secretary. When Vitaliano finally joins the freefighting patriots, he regains his wife's confidence, but her vengeful lover denounces Vitaliano to the police, then commits suicide. Even when warned, Vitaliano stays where he is, is caught and executed. Romanticismo came out in Italy in September 1915, just a few months after the country had joined the Allied forces against Austria-Hungary and Germany in the First World War (April 1915). It was also her first film for the Torinese company Ambrosio. Makowska would go on to perform in some 40 Italian films until her move to Germany in the early 1920's. The Italian press constantly praised her beauty but found her a bit stiff. From 1917 on, she switched to other film companies and played Ophelia in Ruggero Ruggeri's Amleto/Hamlet (1917), the seductress Elena in the comedy Addio giovinezza/Good-bye Youth (1918, Augusto Genina) with Maria Jacobini, followed by La dame en gris/The Lady in Grey (1919, Gian Paolo Rosmino).


Italian postcard.


Italian postcard by IPA, no. CT. 750. Photo: Film della Società Anonima Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Still from Romanticismo (1915). Caption: Notte d'angoscia (Night of anguish).

German Prison Camp
In the early 1920's, Helena Makowska moved to Berlin, where she remarried with actor Karl Falkenberg. Between 1922 and 1927 Makowska played in some 15 films in Berlin and also in 3 in Warsaw, such as Judith/Frauen im Sumpf (1923) and Frauenmoral/Women's Morals (1923), both directed by Dutch director Theo Frenkel, Taras Bulba (1924, Vladimir Strizevsky, Joseph N. Ermolieff) with Oscar Marion, the Stuart Webbs-detective Der Schuss im Pavillion/The Shot in the Pavillion (1925, Max Obal), and Kochanka Szamoty/Szamota's Mistress (1927, Leon Trystan), her last film in Poland. After her return to Italy, rumors started to circulate that she had an affair with crown prince Umberto. In the early 1930's she married for the third time, now with an Englishman, Botteril, and returned to Poland, as an opera and operetta singer. In 1939, immediately after the Germans occupied Poland, she was arrested as a British citizen and in 1940 she was deported to Berlin. After four years of prison camp, she was liberated in occasion of an exchange of prisoners. In England she joined the theater ensemble of the Polish army, where she performed until the end of the war.


Italian postcard.


Italian postcard, no. 23. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Diva of Bygone Days
During her last years, Helena Makowska lived in Italy, where she did bit parts in Fabiola (1948, Alessandro Blasetti) starring Michèle Morgan and Henri Vidal, and Quo vadis? (1951, Mervyn LeRoy) with Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr. She appeared in Luigi Comencini's melancholic La valigia dei sogni/The Suitcase of Dreams (1953) as the aged actress of the silent era who is visibly moved by the performances of Lyda Borelli in La Donna Nuda/The Naked Truth (1914, Carmine Gallone) and of herself in Fiacre 13/Cab Number 13 (1917, Alberto Capozzi, Gero Zambuto), one of her most popular films. In the film of Comencini, a modern audience of the 1950's cruelly laughs over the performances of the silent actresses, but the diva of bygone days sheds a tear over so much beauty and emotion. Her final film appearance was in Arrivederci Firenze/Goodbye Firenze (1958, Rate Furlan) with Maria-Pia Casilio. Helena Makowska died in 1964 in Rome, Italy. She was 71. In 1999 director Peter Delpeut included footage of Makowska, Lyda Borelli, Pina Menichelli and other Italian silent film stars in his beautiful compilation film Diva Dolorosa (1999).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 758/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Alex Binder. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 758/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Alex Binder.


Short clip from Diva Dolorosa (1999). Source: The Stat (YouTube).

Source: Vittoro Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio); Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

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Angelica Domröse

April 10, 2013, 11:00 pm

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German film and stage actress Angelica Domröse (1941) was one of the most famous actresses of former East Germany. She became a superstar through her role as the young mother Paula in the cult classic Die Legende von Paul und Paula (1973).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1326 F, 1960. Photo: DEFA-Neufeld.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2091, 1964. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Klaus Fischer.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 4/F/73, 1973. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: Linke.

Confusion of Love
Angelica Domröse was born in Berlin in 1941. Her Mediterranean appearance is the result of her biological father being a POW from France. Her mother married a locksmith, Rudolf Otto, to legalize her daughter, but Angelica did not get along with her stepfather. After training as a stenographer, Domröse worked in a state-run foreign trade company in the GDR. In 1958, director Slátan Dudow selected her out of 15,000 competitors to appear in his film Verwirrung der Liebe/Confusion of love (1958, Slátan Dudow). This was the only East German film made at the time that lacked the usual state propaganda. Therefore it was panned by the official GDR critics. Meanwhile Angelica also attended the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen Potsdam (Film and television Academy at Potsdam-Babelsberg) till 1961. During her acting training she already received the offer to play the title role of Irene Sauer in the TV-film Papas neue Freundin/Dad's New Girlfriend (1961, Georg Leopold) and she became known to a broad audience. From 1961 till 1966 she joined the Berliner Ensemble, the company founded by Bertolt Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel. Here she performed in Brecht's Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera), Schwejk im zweiten Weltkrieg (Schweik in the Second World War) and Die Tage der Commune (The Days of the Commune), as well as in Helmut Baierl's Frau Flinz (Mrs. Flinz). In 1966 she was chosen Actress of the Year. Thereafter she worked with the Volksbühne Berlin until 1979. She starred in plays by George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare and Peter Hacks.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1401, 1961. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Jadke.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1649, 1961. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Schütt / DEFA.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1650, 1961. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: W. Denger.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1724, 1962. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: W. Denger.


The Legend of Paul and Paula
Angelica Domröse also worked for the Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) in films like the war drama An französischen Kaminen/At a French Fireside (1962, Kurt Maetzig), Chronik eines Mordes/Story of a Murder (1965, Joachim Hasler) based on a book by Leonhard Frank, and Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt/The Adventures of Werner Holt (1965, Joachim Kunert). She also appeared at the Deutscher Fernsehfunk (the East-German TV). In 1971, 1973 and 1975 she was nominated as the DDR-Fernsehkünstlerin des Jahres (GDR television artist of the year), and in 1976 she won the Nationalpreis der DDR II (National Prize of East Germany). Very popular were her (TV)films Effi Briest (1970, Wolfgang Luderer) based on the book by Theodor Fontane, Unterm Birnbaum/Under the Pear Tree (1972, Ralf Kirsten) based on another book by Fontane, and especially Die Legende von Paul und Paula/The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973, Heiner Carow), probably the most successful East German film ever. The film is a realistic and honest view of everyday life in East Berlin in the 1970's. Eva-Maria Hagen also features in the film. GDR leader Erich Honecker finally permitted the film to be shown and 3 million of the 17 million people of East-Germany went to see the film. The romance of Paul and Paula has a simple charm that captivated audiences. Her role made Domröse a superstar in her country. Five years later, she made another film with Carow, Bis daß der Tod euch scheidet/Until Death Do Us Part (1978, Heiner Carow). After signing the resolution of protest against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann from the GDR in November 1976, she was increasingly hampered in her work. In 1979 she did a guest performance as Helena in a production of Faust at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. In 1980 she and her husband, Hilmar Thate, emigrated to West Germany, where they could continue their careers with demanding roles.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1919, 1963. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Blümel / DEFA.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2229, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Schwarz.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2.589, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Arno Fischer.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 179/70, 1970. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Linka.

I Catch Myself
Angelica Domröse worked mostly in the Schiller Theater in Berlin, but she also made guest appearances in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Bochum and Vienna. On TV she was seen in such productions as the ironic mini-series Kir Royal (1986, Helmut Dietl) with Franz-Xaver Kroetz, and the Krimi series Der Alte/The Old Fox (1988-1990). She appeared in TV films by directors like Egon Günther (Hanna von acht bis acht/Hanna From Eight to Eight (1983) and Mamas Geburtstag/Mom's Birthday (1985)), Michael Haneke (Fraulein/Miss (1986)) and Carl Schenkel (Kalte Küsse/Cold Kisses (1997)). In 1988 she was awarded the Josef Kainz Medal. In the early 1990’s she worked again with Heiner Carow for the cinema on Die Verfehlung/The Offense (1992, Heiner Carow) with Gottfried John. On TV she starred as Commissioner Vera Bilewski in the crime series Polizeiruf 110/Police Call 110 (1994-1998), including the controversial episode Samstags, wenn Krieg ist (Saturdays, when it is war). Since 1992 she has occasionally worked as a lecturer at the Universität der Künste (Art University) and the Ernst-Busch-Schule (Ernst Busch School) in Berlin. That same year she directed at the Studio Theater in Berlin and at the Meininger Theater. In 2003 her autobiography was published with the title Ich fang mich selbst ein – Mein leben (I Catch Myself – My Life). Her most recent film was Tal der Ahnungslosen/Valley of the unsuspecting (2003, Branwen Okpako). In 2006 she needed to be treated in a hospital after a collapse. Her husband had found her lifeless in the bathroom. She returned triumphantly on stage at the Komödie am Kurfürstendammas the aged diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's play Master Class. She also starred opposite Hilmar Thate in the no less successful production of Peter Turrini's play Joseph and Mary, and played the role of Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. In 2008, after more than three decades das Traumpaar (dream couple) of Paul and Paula was reunited on stage. Angelica Domröse and Winfried Glatzeder co-starred in Eduardo de Filippo's tragicomedy Filumena Marturano. In September 2009, Domröse suddenly entered a sanatorium after a nervous breakdown, but recent articles suggest that she will recover soon. Since 1976 Angelica Domröse is married to actor Hilmar Thate. From 1966 till 1975 she was married to actor Jiří Vršťala. The city of Berlin decided to name a path along a lake the Paul und Paula Ufer with a Paul und Paula bench to sit on. Angelica Domröse recently returned to the cinema in the melancholic comedy Bis zum Horizont, dann links/Fly Away (2012, Bernd Böhlich) with Otto Sander. She plays an old lady, whose family sent her to an elderly home where she takes part in a revolt.


Scene from Die Legende von Paul und Paula/The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973). Source: yDelicious (YouTube).


Trailer Bis zum Horizont, dann links/Fly Away (2012). Source: visionen1997 (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line) (German), Filmportal.de, Bild.de (German), Berliner Zeitung (German), Wikipedia and IMDb.

John Gielgud

April 11, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Sir John Gielgud (1904 – 2000) was an English actor, director, and producer, known for his warm and expressive baritone voice. His prominent hooked nose gave him a distinctive profile. In the 1929 he achieved great acclaim at the West End for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet, which in 1937 broke box office records on Broadway. Although he made his film debut in 1924, Gielgud did not make an international impact in the cinema until the last decades of his life. He is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 1066A. Photo: Gaumont.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 1066. Photo: Gaumont.

Perfection Itself
Arthur John Gielgud was born in South Kensington in London in 1904 to Katie Terry and Frank Gielgud, a stock-broker. He had a theatrical lineage - on his father's side his great grandmother Aniela Aszpergerowa, had been a well known Polish actress - and on his mother's side, his grandmother Kate played Cordelia at 14 and became an instant star. His great aunt was the celebrated English actress Ellen Terry, and his great uncle Fred Terry, who made his name with The Scarlet Pimpernel. John’s elder brother Val Gielgud came to be a head of BBC Radio, and his niece Maina Gielgud is a dancer and one time artistic director of the Australian Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1917, John won a scholarship to Westminster School. There he showed talent at sketching, and he spent hours at home designing and constructing elaborate scenery for his toy theatre. He had the idea to become a scenic designer, but at 16 he decided to become an actor. In 1921 he won, a scholarship at Lady Benson’s drama school and in 1922 he took his first job in the professional theatre when his cousin, Phyllis Neilson-Terry, asked him to tour with her. Gielgud next trained briefly at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. J. B. Fagan, the director of a small repertory company at the Oxford Playhouse, then offered him a contract. In 1924 he made his film debut opposite Isobel Elsom in the British silent drama Who Is the Man? (1924, Walter Summers). The film, based on the successful French play Daniel by Louis Verneuil, received a mixed reception from critics. While the standard of acting and the film's visuals were well-appreciated, it was generally felt that there were always going to be problems arising from trying to capture a wordy stage play in silent film form, with nuances of character and motivation inevitably being lost. The film is also believed to be lost. Due to its curiosity value as Gielgud's screen debut, it is included on the BFI's ‘75 Most Wanted’ list of missing British feature films. In 1925 at Oxford, Gielgud appeared in his first Chekhov play, as the young revolutionary Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard. "Perfection itself," said James Agate, the most influential critic of the period about his performance. Around this time he met Theodore Komisarjevsky, the Russian director who strongly influenced Gielgud over the next ten years. Theatre manager Basil Dean offered him the male lead of The Constant Nymph, and Gielgud played the part for over 14 months until the end of 1927. During the run of The Constant Nymph, Gielgud met the actor John Perry, who had a walk-on role in Avery Hopwood's The Golddiggers starring Tallulah Bankhead. Gielgud and Perry fell in love, and Perry abandoned his unpromising stage career to live with Gielgud in his flat in Covent Garden. In the US, Gielgud played the Tsarevich in the Broadway production of Alfred Neumann's The Patriot and though the play was a failure, Gielgud got a favourable reaction from the influential critic Alexander Woollcott. In 1929 Lilian Baylis of the Old Vic appointed a new director, Harcourt Williams, and he asked Gielgud to join as a leading actor. Gielgud met with Baylis and did join the company. That year he also appeared in the Edgar Wallace-based crime film The Clue of the New Pin (1929, Arthur Maude) with Benita Hume.


British postcard. Photo: Polland & Crowther.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 762A. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.

All Ages And All Types
In 1929, at the Old Vic, John Gielgud became a star. Nicholas de Jongh in The Guardian: “In the next 19 months he worked fantastically without more than a flicker of strain, taking on more Shakespeare leads than any subsequent actor has attempted in twice the time. He was all ages and all types - Romeo and Lear, Orlando and Prospero, Macbeth and Malvolio, Antony and Benedick. One of these roles, his Richard II - 'A tall willowy figure in black velvet.. the pale agonised face set beneath a glittering crown,' was the making of him." His Hamlet was the first Old Vic production to be transferred to the West End. It happened in a period when Shakespeare and the classics were out of favour in the commercial theatre, since the middle-class public taste of the 1920’s was for farces, light comedies, thrillers, revues and American musicals. Critic James Agate called Gielgud as Hamlet "the high water mark of English Shakespearean acting in our time." He returned to the role of Hamlet in a famous production under his own direction in 1934 at the New Theatre in the West End. He was hailed as a Broadway star in Guthrie McClintic's production in which Lillian Gish played Ophelia in 1936. Gielgud's Hamlet was later taken to the Lyceum Theatre and even to Elsinore Castle in Denmark, the actual setting of the play. Inspired by Gielgud's performances, a woman wrote, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot, the play Richard of Bordeaux specifically for him, and he starred in and directed the play. Richard of Bordeaux, a romantic version of the story of Richard II, was a box-office smash and made him a celebrity. Another success was The Importance of Being Earnest which he first performed at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1930 and which remained in his repertory until 1947. And there was a legendary production of Romeo and Juliet (1935) which Gielgud directed and alternated the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with a young Laurence Olivier. His early important film roles included Inigo Jollifant in Victor Saville's comedy The Good Companions (1933) with Jessie Matthews, and the lead in Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936) opposite Madeleine Carroll. In 1937/38, he produced a season of plays at the Queen's Theatre. He presented Richard II, The School for Scandal, Three Sisters, and The Merchant of Venice with a permanent company that included himself, Peggy Ashcroft, Michael Redgrave, Harry Andrews, Dennis Price and Alec Guinness. He set a precedent and shaped the development of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. In August 1938, Gielgud was offered a big salary to play in Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus with Marie Tempest and tired of the worry of management, he accepted. He spent over ten months in the play at the Queen's Theatre. A revival of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Globe Theatre followed, but on 3 September 1939 war was declared 'and the Globe Theatre went dark.' Gielgud volunteered for active service but in October 1939 was told he would not be enlisted for at least six months. Hugh Beaumont arranged a provincial tour of The Importance of Being Earnest and it returned to the Globe to run until the end of February 1940. Gielgud was involved in the first major theatrical event of the war, the re-opening of the Old Vic, in a special Shakespearean season with Tyrone Guthrie as co-director, and then, July 1940, toured military camps with a programme of three short plays. In January 1941 he returned to the West End, where only nine theatres were open, in Dear Brutus by J.M. Barrie, a whimsical fantasy about an enchanted wood. He also played Benjamin Disraeli in the film The Prime Minister (1941, Thorold Dickinson).


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 762. Photo: Dorothy Wilding.


British postcard by Raphael Tuck & Sons in the Real Photograph Series, no. 27-B. Photo: Gaumont-British. Publicity still for The Good Companions (1933, Victor Saville) with a.o. John Gielgud (third from left), A.W. Baskcomb (fifth from left) and Jessie Matthews (third from right).

Distinctive New Voices
John Gielgud was a restless seeker. According to Nicholas de Jongh, he learned to rise above the prejudice of his first impressions and to cast aside hide-bound convictions: “In the 1950’s when the new wave of dramatists broke excitedly upon the London theatre, when Bertolt Brecht and theatre of the absurd began to threaten the hold of the upper-middle class drawing room comedy and the regimen of the well-made play, Gielgud was at first left bothered and bewildered, though he did confess himself thrilled by John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and Harold Pinter's The Caretaker.” Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, he performed his one-man recital Ages of Man of Shakespearean excerpts. He won a Tony Award for the Broadway production, a Grammy Award for his recording of the piece, and an Emmy Award for producer David Susskind for the 1966 telecast on CBS. In the 1950’s he also played Sherlock Holmes for BBC radio and the American Broadcasting Company, with Ralph Richardson as Watson. Gielgud's brother, radio producer Val Gielgud, appeared in one of the episodes as the great detective's brother Mycroft and in the last episode, Orson Welles appeared as Professor Moriarty. In the cinema he appeared as Cassius in Julius Caesar (1953) for which he won a BAFTA Award for Best British Actor, as George, Duke of Clarence to Laurence Olivier's Richard III (1955), and Henry IV to Orson Welles' Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight (1966). Gielgud made his final Shakespearean appearance on stage in 1977 in the title role of John Schlesinger's production of Julius Caesar at the Royal National Theatre. As he aged, Gielgud sought out distinctive new voices in the theatre, appearing in plays by Edward Albee (Tiny Alice), Alan Bennett (Forty Years On), Edward Bond (Bingo, in which Gielgud played William Shakespeare), and Harold Pinter (No Man's Land). He also worked often for the cinema. He won a BAFTA Award for Murder on the Orient Express (1974, Sidney Lumet), and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Providence (1977, Alain Resnais) with Dirk Bogarde. He won an Academy Award for his supporting role as a sardonic butler in the comedy Arthur (1981, Steve Gordon), starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli. His performances in the war film The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968, Tony Richardson), The Elephant Man (1981, David Lynch), and Shine (1996, Scott Hicks) with Geoffrey Rush were also critically acclaimed. On television Gielgud gave a particularly notable performance in the acclaimed BBC series Brideshead Revisited (1981, Charles Sturridge, Michael Lindsay Hogg), and won an Emmy Award for Summer's Lease (1989, Martyn Friend). It looked as though Gielgud had retired from the stage after appearing in Half Life at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1978, but he made a successful comeback in 1988 in Hugh Whitemore's play The Best of Friends as museum curator Sydney Cockerell. Gielgud was able to satisfy his life's ambition by immortalising his Prospero on screen in Peter Greenaway's version of The Tempest, the film Prospero's Books (1991) in which Gielgud voiced every single character in the play. In 1994, he gave one of his final radio performances as King Lear. It was mounted to celebrate his 90th birthday, and the cast included Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh and Derek Jacobi. Gielgud's final onscreen appearance in a major release motion picture was as Pope Pius V in Elizabeth which was released in 1998. His final (silent) acting performance was in a film adaptation of Samuel Beckett's short play Catastrophe, opposite long-time collaborator Harold Pinter and directed by American playwright David Mamet. He died mere weeks after production was completed in Wotton Underwood, England at the age of 96 of natural causes. John Gielgud was homosexual. He lived and worked in an era when there was a conspiracy of silence around homosexuality outside of theatrical circles. Shortly after he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor in 1953, Gielgud was arrested for trying to pick up a man in a public lavatory. The police made an attempt to prevent the press from learning of the incident, but an Evening Standard journalist was in the court that morning. The afternoon edition came out with a headline "Sir John Gielgud fined: See your doctor the moment you leave here." Deeply humiliated, Gielgud considered suicide. Gielgud was told by the British embassy in Washington to forget about a planned American production of The Tempest, as he might prove 'an embarrassment'. Doubtfully he continued to rehearse N. C. Hunter's play A Day at the Sea in which he was scheduled to direct and act. At the opening he stood in the wings unable to bring himself to make his first entrance. His co-star Sybil Thorndike brought him onstage, whispering "Come on, John darling, they won't boo me." The house was brought down by a standing ovation for Gielgud. His partner for over 30 years, Martin Hensler died in December 1998, 16 months before Gielgud's own death in 2000. Following his death it was revealed that late in his life Gielgud had made financial contributions to the gay rights lobby group Stonewall, but had insisted that his support not be made public.


British postcard in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre series, no. 33. Sent by mail in 1963. Photo: Angus McBean. Publicity still for a 1950 stage production of Much Ado About Nothing with John Gielgud as Benedick and Peggy Ashcroft as Beatrice.

Sources: Nicholas de Jongh (The Guardian), Rhoda Koenig (The Independent), Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Vera Kholodnaya

April 12, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Vera Kholodnaya (1893 - 1919) was the first star of the Russian silent cinema. Only 26, the ‘Queen of Screen’ died of the Spanish flu during the pandemic of 1919. Although she worked only three years for the cinema, she must have made between fifty and hundred short films. The Soviet authorities ordered to destroy many of the Kholodnaya features in 1924, and only five of her films still exist.


Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Russian postcard, no. 118. Collection: Didier Hanson.

A Woman of Outstanding BeautyVera Kholodnaya (Russian: Вера Холодная, and also also romanized as Vera Kholodnaia and Vira Kholodna) was originally named Vera Vasilyevna Levchenko. She was born into a respectable well-to-do family in Poltava, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) in 1893. Her whole family enjoyed acting in plays. At the age of ten, she was sent to Moscow to live with her widowed grandmother. There she attended the elite Perepelkina Grammar school. The girl dreamed of a career in classical ballet and even enrolled at the Bolshoi Theatre ballet school. That changed in 1908, when Vera attended a performance of the film Francesca da Rimini, with ballerina Vera Komissarzhevskaya in the title role. She was deeply impressed with Komissarzhevskaya's artistry, and now was set on becoming an actress. In 1910, the 17-years old married student Vladimir Kholodny, one of the first Russian car racers. Later he became the editor of the magazine AVTO. 1915. Vera would often accompany him in races which resulted in road accidents. She also adopted his surname, which translates as ‘the cold one’ Their daughter Eugenia Kholodnaya was born in 1912, and they adopted another daughter, Nonna Kholodnaya, a year later. After her husband was drafted to fight in World War I, she decided to venture into film acting. She first approached Vladimir Gardin, a leading Russian film director, who cast her in a minor role in his grand production of Anna Karenina (1914, Vladimir Gardin) with Mariya Germanova in the title role. Then director Yevgeni Bauer was looking for a woman of outstanding beauty for a new film. When Kholodnaya was introduced to him, Bauer reportedly was spellbound of the small, intense woman with her commanding grey eyes and mop of black hair. Bauer at once approved her for the part, the lead role in the Ivan Turgenev adaptation Pesn torzhestvuyushchey lyubvi/The Song of the Triumphant Love (1915, Yevgeni Bauer). This mystical love drama was a major box-office hit, and she signed a three-years contract with the Khanzhonkov studio. The impatient Bauer immediately made another film with his new discovery, Plamya Neba/Flame of the Sky (1915, Yevgeni Bauer). It was a typical melodrama about guilty love of a young woman married off to an old widower, and his son. In the end the lovers perish of a thunderbolt. Her next picture was Deti veka/The Children of the Age (1915, Yevgeni Bauer), a drama with pretensions to revealing social problems. Bauer’s death in 1917 robbed the Russian cinema of one of its great talents, and Kholodnaya of her discoverer. Soon followed more films for her made by other directors. At first, Kholodnaya imitated the acting of Asta Nielsen, but gradually she developed her own style. Another tremendous success was the tragic melodrama Mirazhi/The Mirages (1915, Pyotr Chardynin). Her extravagant costumes and large gray eyes made her an enigmatic screen presence which fascinated audiences all over Russia.


Russian postcard, no. 143. Collection: Didier Hanson. Publicity still for Сказка любви дорогой/Tale of dear love (?, ?) with Vladimir Maksimov.


Russian postcard, no.108. Collection: Didier Hanson. A Who is Who of the Russian silent cinema. In a circle from left: actor Vladimir Maksimov (with bear), actress Vera Kholodnaya, actor Vitold Polonsky, actor Ivan Khudoleyev, actor Ivan Mozzhukin, director Petr Cardynin and actor Ossip Runitsch.


Russian postcard, no. 132. Collection: Didier Hanson. Publicity still for Posledneiye tango/Last Tango (1918, Vyacheslav Viskovsky) with Ossip Runitsch. Only about 10 minutes of this film are known to exist. The rest of the film is believed lost.


Russian postcard, no. 146. Collection: Didier Hanson. Publicity still for Posledneiye tango/Last Tango (1918, Vyacheslav Viskovsky) with Ossip Runitsch.


Russian postcard, no. 75. Collection: Didier Hanson. Publicity still for Posledneiye tango/Last Tango (1918, Vyacheslav Viskovsky) with Ossip Runitsch.

The Queen of Screen
The melodrama Zhizn za zhizn/A Life for a Life (1916, Yevgeni Bauer) became one of the most popular films in Vera Kholodnaya’s career. After this film she was called ‘the Queen of Screen’. Author of this title was the famous singer Alexander Vertinsky who venerated the actress and frequented her house. In 1916 Khanzhonkov’s company started making the film Pierrot with Vertinsky and Kholodnaya playing the leads. Unfortunately, the film was never completed. By the time of the Russian Revolution, a new Kholodnaya film was released every third week. U kamina/By the Fireplace (1917), based on a popular romance, was another resounding commercial success. The film ran in cinemas until 1924, when the Soviet authorities ordered to destroy many of the Kholodnaya features. During the Russian Civil War, the Bolshevik authorities requested film companies to produce less melodrama and more adaptations of classics. Accordingly, Kholodnaya was cast in a screen version of Tolstoy's Zhivoy trup/The Living Corpse (1917, Cheslav Sabinsky). Her acting abilities in this film were applauded by Stanislavsky, who welcomed Vera to join the troupe of the Moscow Art Theatre. Her last box-office sensation was Molchi, grust... molchi/Be Silent, My Sorrow, Be Silent (1918, Pyotr Chardynin, Cheslav Sabinsky). Like many of her films, it was based on a Russian traditional love song. By that time, Kholodnaya turned from just a popular and admired actress into a legend of the Russian cinema. She decided to move with her film company to Odessa. There she died at the age of 25 in the 1918 flu pandemic. A director with whom she had worked for several years filmed her grand funeral. Ironically, this seems to be her best known film today. The other five extant films with Vera Kholodnaya are: Deti veka/The Children of the Age (1915), Mirazhi/The Mirages (1915), Zhizn za zhizn/A Life for a Life (1916), Zhivoy trup/The Living Corpse (1918), and Molchi, grust... molchi/Be Silent, My Sorrow, Be Silent (1918). Official Russian records state that Vera Kholodnaya died of the Spanish flu. While that seems quite likely, there is much speculation around her death. Оther stories claim she was poisoned by the French ambassador with whom she reportedly had an affair and who believed that she was a spy for the Bolsheviks. Her husband, Vladimir Kholodny, died 2 months after her. Her mother, Yekaterina Sleptsova, also died shortly after her. Her life was dramatized in Nikita Mikhalkov's film Raba lyubvi/A Slave of Love (1975), and in director Oleg Kovalov made a documentary on her life, Ostrov Myortvykh/Island of the Dead (1992). A year later, her image was depicted on a postage stamp and in 2003 a life-size bronze statue of her was erected in Odessa, Ukraine; created by the artist Alexander P. Tokarev.


Russian postcard, no. 47. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Russian postcard, no. 93. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Russian postcard, no. 143. Collection: Didier Hanson.


Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Sources: Jessica Keaton (Silence is platinum), KinoTV.com (German), Russia-IC, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And a special thanks to Didier Hanson for sending us the scans of these really rare postcards!

Susan Shaw

April 13, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Lovely blonde Susan Shaw (1929 – 1978) was an English actress, who was groomed for stardom in Rank’s charm school. She was a promising starlet, but after the tragic death of her husband Bonar Colleano, she would never be the same again and became an alcoholic.


British card.

Charm School
Susan Shaw was born as Patsy Sloots in Norwood in 1929. She began her career as a model. In 1946 she was signed to a contract by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation and trained at their ‘charm school’. Her film debut was a bit part in the musical London Town (1946, Wesley Ruggles) with Sid Field as an aging music hall performer. It is generally regarded as one of the most infamous flops in the history of British cinema. The following year she had a bigger part in It Always Rains on Sunday (1947, Robert Hamer). In its gritty, unsentimental depiction of post-war Britain, and in its exploration of the frustration and desperation wrought by poverty, the film is an interesting precursor to the ‘kitchen sink’ dramas that would become fashionable with the British New Wave of the late 1950’s. Craig Butler at AllMovie: “The cast is excellent, despite a few obviously affected accents, with a surprising effective turn from Googie Withers and a quietly affecting one from Edward Chapman. All in all, an excellent melodrama.” Shaw often played a pretty young blonde with her nose in the air, and her early career showed promise. Susan was seen to good advantage in such crowd-pleasers as Holiday Camp (1947, Ken Annakin), My Brother's Keeper (1948, Alfred Roome, Roy Rich), and Quartet (1949, Ken Annakin a.o.). Her popularity reached a peak around 1950 with such films as the Gainsborough comedy Here Come the Huggetts (1948, Ken Annakin). This was the first of the Huggetts Trilogy about a working class English family, with Jack Warners as the father and Shaw as one of the daughters. One of her best films was the murder mystery The Woman in Question (1950, Anthony Asquith) with Jean Kent and Dirk Bogarde. In 1949, she married actor Albert Lieven, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1953.


British postcard, no. F.S. 24. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Publicity still for Here Come The Huggetts (1948, Ken Annakin). Caption: "Susan Huggett - otherwise Susan Shaw poses for the portrait camera in her bridesmaid's headdress, worn at her sister Jane's wedding in the first of the Huggett Family Films - Here Come The Huggetts."


Dutch postcard, no. AX 495. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Silly Space Opera
In 1951, Susan Shaw featured in the crime drama Pool of London (1951, Basil Dearden). Her co-star was American actor Bonar Colleano, known for his roles as the wisecracking Yank in British films. In 1954 they married and Susan with her petite blondeness and Bonar with his loud mouth and dark good looks made a handsome couple. A year later, their son Mark was born. Shaw’s films came incidentally. Probably her worst film was the silly space opera Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956, Cy Roth) starring Anthony Dexter as an astronaut. Shaw co-starred as a ‘fire maiden’ from the thirteenth moon of Jupiter. She also played a supporting part in the crude and funny farce Carry On Nurse (1959, Gerald Thomas). This was the second Carry On comedy and the top grossing film of 1959 in the UK. With an audience of 10.4 million, it had the highest cinema viewing of any of the Carry On films. It was also highly successful in the US. In 1958 Susan Shaw’s husband, Bonar Colleano was suddenly killed in a traffic accident. Badly affected by her husband’s death, Shaw began to drink heavily and was unable to care for her young son. Colleano's mother, a contortionist, became Mark’s legal guardian. She groomed the boy for an acting career. Susan remarried in 1959, but divorced again a year later. She resumed her career, but was unable to sustain it. Her final film was The Switch (1963, Peter Maxwell) starring Anthony Steel. She would never be the same person as she was before Colleano’s death and she spent most of the rest of her life battling alcoholism. In 1978, Susan Shaw died of cirrhosis of the liver and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, North London. She was penniless and the Rank Organisation paid for her funeral. She was only 49. Her son actor Mark Colleano became an actor. In 1970, he played opposite Rock Hudson in the war film Hornet's Nest (1970, Phil Karlson, Franco Cirino), as a 14-year-old Italian youth.


Scene from Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1956). Source: (YouTube).

Sources: Craig Butler (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Happy Birthday, Claudia Cardinale!

April 14, 2013, 11:00 pm

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CC was born on 15 April 1938. 53 years ago she appeared in Luchino Visconti's heartbreaking Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His brothers (1960). This year, four new films with her are to be expected in the cinemas: the American thriller Joy de V. (2013, Nadia Szold), the star-studded British drama Effie (2013, Richard Laxton), the romantic adventure The Silent Mountain (2013, Ernst Gossner) and the romantic drama Deauville (2013, Miguel Cruz Carretero). And in between she made so many wonderful films for which we salute her.


German postcard by ISV, no. H 72.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 229. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 230. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by E.D.U.G.,nr. 183. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/47.


German postcard by ISV, no. H 126. Sent by mail in 1967.


German postcard by Krüger/Ufa. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1967. Photo: Fried Agency.

A Quote from a 2011 interview in The Guardian: "When I was young, I wanted to go everywhere and be everyone, and with this work, I have. The interesting thing for an actress is not to do what she wants to do, but to be somebody else. I was blonde, I was brunette, I was a princess, I was a whore. I was everything. You are not yourself in front of the camera. You can live many lives, instead of one. I think I've been lucky." Tanti auguri, sig.a Cardinale.

Sources: Steve Rose (The Guardian) and IMDb.