Nadja Tiller

November 2, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Marcelino, pan y vino (1955)

Austrian actress Nadja Tiller (1929) was one of the vamps of the European cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. Her international breakthrough role was that of the high class prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt in Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (1958).

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhoff, no. CK-170. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa. Publicity still for Das Mädchen Rosemarie/The Girl Rosemarie (Rolf Thiele, 1958).

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhoff, no. CK 216. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 136. Photo: DEB-Paris.

German promotion card for Luxor.

German promotion card for Lux Soap.

Miss Austria

Maria Nadja Tiller was born into a theatrical family in Vienna, Austria, in 1929. Her parents were the actor Anton Tiller and the operetta singer and actress Erika Körner.

From 1945 on, she studied at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar and till 1949 at the Musik- und Schauspielakademie. She got an engagement at the Theater in der Josefstadt. Meanwhile she also worked as a model, and won the Miss Austria contest twice, in 1949 and 1951. The Miss Austria title caused her dismissal at the Theater in der Josefstadt, but it turned out to be her ticket into film making.

In 1949, she acted opposite O.W. Fischerin Märchen vom Glück/Kiss Me Casanova (Arthur de Glahs, 1949). Many roles as a vamp in German and Austrian light entertainment films followed.

In 1954 she worked with director Rolf Thiele in the successful Sie/She with Marina Vlady. Her next film for Thiele, Die Barrings/The Barrings (1955) with Dieter Borsche, became her artistic breakthrough. Until 1970 Thiele and Tiller would make eleven films together, including Friederike von Barring (1956) and Lulu/No Orchids for Lulu (1962), with Mario Adorf.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. FK 3814. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), Paris, no. 812. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Belgian collectors card, no. 81. Photo: Klaus Collignon.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-215. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-205. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa.

Scandal

Nadja Tiller’s international breakthrough role was that of the high class prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt in Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (Rolf Thiele, 1958). The film, based on a murder scandal of the year before, was a huge, international success. It confirmed the assumption of post-war, American audiences that European actresses were somehow more sensuous and erotic than their Hollywood counterparts.

Tiller won a Best Actress award at the Film Festival of Venicefor the role. There she was offered roles in Antonioni's La notte (1961), Fellini's La dolce vita (1960), and Visconti's Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and his Brothers (1960), but she had to decline all three for familiar reasons (she was pregnant).

Later she would appear at the side of such international stars as Jean Gabin, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Rod Steiger, Yul Brynner and Michael Caine, but it did never bring her the status which she could have had with the three roles she had to say no to.

She did appear in the international productions The Rough and the Smooth (Robert Siodmak, 1959), Du Rififi chez les femmes/Rififi Among the Women (Alex Joffé, 1959) with Robert Hossein, An einem Freitag um halb zwölf/On Friday at Eleven (Alvin Rakoff, 1961), L'Affaire Nina B./The Nina B. Affair (Robert Siodmak, 1961), the thriller La chambre ardente/The Burning Court (Julien Duvivier, 1962), and Anima nera/Black Soul (Roberto Rossellini, 1962) with Vittorio Gassman, and she stayed popular among the art house public.

German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-123. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

With husband Walter Giller. German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 47. Photo: Huster.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-14. Photo: Arthur Grimm.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-106. Photo: Eberhardt Schmidt / Ufa.

Traumpaar

Nadja Tiller would act in more than 70 films, but since the 1970s she works mainly for theatre and television. During the 1970s and 1980s she worked for theatres in Lübeck, Berlin and Vienna. A great success was her leading role in the Kurt Weill musical Lady in the Dark.

In 1997 she appeared at the Hamburger Kammerspielen as the elder Hollywood diva Joan Crawford in the play Nächte mit Joan (Nights with Joan) by Cas Enklaar. A year later she also starred in the TV-adaptation directed by Horst Königstein with Rita Tushingham as Bette Davis.

Her most recent feature films were the road movie Barfuss/Barefoot (Til Schweiger, 2005) in which she played the mother of the main character played by director Til Schweigerhimself, and the crime comedy Dinosaurier/Dinosurs (Leander Haussmann, 2009) with Eva-Maria Hagen.

In 1956, Nadja Tiller married actor Walter Giller, whom she had met at the set of the music film Schlagerparade/Hit Parade (Erik Ode, 1953). They were called the 'Traumpaar der Wirtschaftswunder-Ära' (Dream Couple of the Wirtschaftswunder era) in the 1950s, and often worked together.

Nadja Tiller was honoured with many awards, including the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Germany's Cross of Merit) in 2000. Together with her husband she received a Bambi Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Giller died in 2011. They had two children, Natascha (1959) and Jan-Claudius (1964). Nadja Tiller lives in a retirement home in Hamburg.

Vintage card.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3842. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Wesel / Kurt Ulrich Film. Publicity still for 3 Mann auf einem Pferd/Three Men on a Horse (Kurt Meisel, 1957).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2476, 1965.

A scene from Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (Rolf Thiele, 1958). Source: sammy123de (YouTube).

Sources: Dieter Bartetzko (Frankfurter Allgemeine - German), Christian Schröder (Der Tagesspiegel - German), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line -German), Filmportal.de (German), IMDb, and Wikipedia.

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Marcelino, pan y vino (1955)

November 3, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: René Navarre

≪ Previous: Nadja Tiller

The Spanish tragi-comedy Marcelino, pan y vino/The Miracle of Marcelino (Ladislao Vajda, 1955) was an international success. It made little Pablito Calvo (1948–2000) a European film star.

Pablito Calvo in Marcellino, Pan y Vino (1955)

Italian postcard by Ed. Villaggio del Fanciullo, Bologna. Photo: E.N.I.C. Publicity still for Marcelino, pan y vino/The Miracle of Marcelino (1955).

Italian postcard by Ed. Villaggio del Fanciullo, Bologna. Photo: E.N.I.C. Publicity still for Marcelino, pan y vino/The Miracle of Marcelino (1955).

Orphan in a monastery

Pablito Calvo was 8 years old when he played the lead role in Marcelino, pan y vino (1955), literally Marcelino, bread and wine.

The Spanish film was written by José María Sánchez Silva, who based it on his novel, and directed by Ladislao Vajda. The story, revised and modernised in both the book and film, dates back to a medieval legend, one of many gathered together in a volume by Alfonso el Sabio. Cinematographer Heinrich Gartner was responsible for the beautiful black-and-white photography.

Pablito plays Marcelino, an orphan abandoned as a baby on the doorstep of a monastery in nineteenth-century Spain. The monks raise the child, and Marcelino grows into a a mischievous young sprout. Yearning for friends his own age, the boy inadvertently causes all sorts of havoc. One day when he eats his small meal in a room full of old things, he gives a piece of his bread to an old wooden Jesus figure - and indeed it takes the bread and eats it. Getting a wish granted for his donation Marcelino wishes to see his mother...

At the 1955 Cannes Film Festival the film won an award, and at the 5th Berlin International Film Festival it won the Silver Bear. Pablito, who had received a special mention from the Cannes festival jury, became Spain's most famous child actor. The film became one of the first Spanish films to become successful in the USA.

The following year Pablito appeared in Mi tío Jacinto/Pepote (Ladislao Vajda, 1956) which won the Golden Bear (Audience Award) at the Berlin International Film Festival. After some more films, he retired from acting in 1963. He was 16 and had decided to become an industrial engineer.

Marcelino, pan y vino (1955) remains one of the most famous and successful Spanish films ever made. There were many remakes, including a Philippine TV version, Marcelino pan y vino (Mario O'Hara, 1979), an Italian remake, Marcellino (Luigi Comencini, 1991), an animated TV series, Marcelino Pan y Vino (2000-2001, 2004), and a Mexican remake, Marcelino Pan y Vino (Jose Luis Gutierrez, 2010), with the basic storyline and framed by the Mexican Revolution of 1910. None of these remakes was as successful as the original.

Italian postcard by Ed. Villaggio del Fanciullo, Bologna. Photo: E.N.I.C. Publicity still for Marcelino, pan y vino/The Miracle of Marcelino (1955).

Pablito Calvo and Rosita Valero in Marcellino, Pan y Vino (1955)

Italian postcard by Ed. Villaggio del Fanciullo, Bologna. Photo: E.N.I.C. Publicity still for Marcelino, pan y vino/The Miracle of Marcelino (1955) with Pablito Calvo and Rosita Valero.

Spanish trailer for Marcelino, pan y vino/The Miracle of Marcelino (1955) with the voice of Fernando Rey. Source: Ce Blacas (YouTube).

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

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René Navarre

November 4, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

≪ Previous: Marcelino, pan y vino (1955)

René Navarre (1877-1968) was a star of the French silent cinema. He appeared in 109 films between 1910 and 1946. Navarre is best remembered as the mysterious master criminal Fantômas in the legendary serial by Louis Feuillade.

French postcard. Photo: DIX, Paris.

French postcard by Cinémagazine, no. 109.

Master Criminal

Victor René Navarre was born in Limoges in 1877.

At the age of 16 he already debuted on stage at the Théâtre de Montmartre in Victorien Sardou’s play Patrie (Homeland). For 15 years he would perform everywhere, in Paris and all over the country.

Late 1909, he started to work for the Gaumont film company and would become part of the regular cast of Gaumont dramas and comedies, directed by Albert Capellani, Georges Denola, Etienne Arnaud, Michel Carré, Georges-André Lacroix, Henri Fescourt, Léonce Perret, and above all, Louis Feuillade.

He often performed next to child star Clement Mary, the future René Dary, in Feuillade’s series of Bébé. He also played detective Jean Dervieux in Le proscrit/The outlaw (Louis Feuillade, 1912) and various other shorts in 1912-1913.

Feuillade immortalised Navarre by offering him the role of the master criminal in Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913-1914), a serial based on the dime novels by Marcel Allain. This enormously popular serial had five episodes: Fantômas – A’ l’ombre de la guillotine/Fantômas - In the Shadow of the Guillotine, Juve contre Fantômas/Juve Against Fantômas, Le mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed, Fantômas contre Fantômas/Fantômas Against Fantômas, and Le faux magistrat/The False Magistrate.

The story of Fantômas's exploits and adventures are also those of the woman he loves and the men trying to catch him. In a time when films still used novelty to draw crowds these shorts entertained audiences with exhilarating escapes, astounding disguises, and taboo violence. Next to Fantômas and the head of police Juve (Edmund Breon), there were three supporting characters, the journalist Jerome Fandor (Georges Melchior), Fantomas’ mistress Lady Beltham (Renée Carl) and princess Danidoff (Jane Faber) who returned in almost every episode.

French postcard (both sides). Photos: Société des Cinéromans. René Navarre, Gina Manès and many others in the French silent film Le 7 de trèfle/Le sept de trèfle (1921), directed by René Navarre. The film was scripted by Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera). It was a serial in 12 episodes and was released in France on 16 September 1921. This card promotes its screening at the Toulouse based cinema Olympia, 13, rue St Bernard. It still exists as Cinema ABC.

Vidocq

When the Great War broke out, Navarre was conscripted, interrupting the Fantomas series. He managed to get back to the studios in 1915, having become a star.

He first did Le grand souffle/The Great Breath for Gaston Ravel and then decided to found his own production company, Films-René-Navarre, and to direct his own films.

In 1916 he co-directed with Gérard BourgoisChristophe Colomb/Christopher Columbus, starring Georges Wague and Jean Garat. The following year he produced four animation films by Emile Cohl and Benjamin Rabier but after a quarrel with Cohl the series was interrupted.

In September 1919 Navarre founded the company Société des Cinéromans, which until 1922 produced eight prestigious productions based on scripts by Gaston Leroux and Arthur Bernède, such as Tue-la-mort/Kill the Dead Man (René Navarre, 1920) with Navarre in the title role, Jacqueline Arly and Madeleine Aile, L’aiglonne (René Navarre, Emile Keppens, 1921) with Cyprian Gilles and Suzy Prim, Vidocq (Jean Kemm, 1923) with Navarre in the title role, Jean Chouan (Luitz-Morat, 1925) with Navarre and Maurice Schutzin the title role, and the serial Belphégor/The Phantasm of the Louvre (Henri Desfontaines, 1927).

In 1920, producer Serge Sandberg had appointed him manager of the Studios de la Victorine in Nice, and he also continued with his Films René Navarre as for Ferragus (Gaston Ravel, 1923) in which he had the title role, next to Stewart Rome.

French postcard for Production Charles Le Fraper, Paris. Photo: L. Pierson. Publicity still for Judex (Maurice Champreux, 1934).

Forgotten

The arrival of sound film drastically cut René Navarre’s career short. His performance was considered too theatrical.

He had to be satisfied with minor parts, as in Jean Gabin’s debut Mephisto (Henri Debain, Georges Vinter, 1930). He also played supporting parts in a sound version of Fantômas (Paul Féjos, 1932), and that of Judex (Maurice Champreux, 1933).

In 1937 Léon Mathot gave him the role of Monsieur Charles in Chéri-Bibi (Léon Mathot, 1938), in which Pierre Fresnay played the title role. Other small parts Navarre played were in La route enchantée/The Enchanted Road (Pierre Caron, 1938) with Charles Trenet, and in Brazza ou l’épopée du Congo/Brazza of the Epic of the Congo (Léon Poirier, 1939).

After a last performance in Les surprises de la radio/The surprises of the radio (Marcel Aboulker, 1940), he quited the screen altogether. René Navarre was married to the actress Nelly Palmer and subsequently to Elmire Vautier. He had with both actresses a child, but both marriages ended in a divorce.

In 1968, the man who as Fantômas had frightened millions, died forgotten in Azay-sur-Cher, France. René Navarre was 90.

Scenes from Erreur tragique/Tragic Error (Louis Feuillade, 1913) with Suzanne Grandais and René Navarre. Music: Patrick Laviosa. Source: tonytony9292 (YouTube).

DVD Trailer of Fantômas (1913-1914). Source: Kino International / Kino Classics (YouTube).

Sources: Philippe Pelletier (CinéArtistes - French), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

November 5, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Imported from the USA: Debra Paget

≪ Previous: René Navarre

We continue our new series of a dozen postcards with a theme, especially for Postcard Friendship Friday. Last Friday we had 12 vintage postcards of boy stars, and now of course the floor is to the girls.

Olinda Mano in La nouvelle mission de Judex

French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Still for La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade 1917-1918).

Olinda Mano (1911-1962) was a child actress in the French silent crime serials by Louis Feuillade. Here as the boy Petit Jean.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 130.

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

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 550/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Unifilman.

Diana Serra Cary (1918), best known as Baby Peggy, was one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent movie era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1113/2, 1937-1938. Photo: Mondial-Film.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 533. Photo: Carlton - Film National. Publicity still for Das Doppelte Lottchen/Two Times Lotte (Josef von Baky, 1950).

German twin sisters Isa and Jutta Günther (1938) are former child actresses. In 1950 they were a huge success in the Erich Kästner adaptation Das Doppelte Lottchen/Two Times Lotte. Several more light entertainment films with the twins followed during the 1950s.

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 395. Photo: Lilo / FONO / Allianz-Film.

Afro-German actress Toxi (1946) starred as a child in a successful drama about racism. As a young adult, she appeared under her real name Elfi Fiegert in a few more films and on TV.

German postcard by Film und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. A 1799. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Film.

English actress Hayley Mills (1946) began her acting career as a popular child star and was hailed as a promising newcomer for Tiger Bay (1959), and Pollyanna (1960). During the late 1960s she played in more mature roles. Although she has not maintained the box office success she experienced as a child actress, she has always continued to make films.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel. Photo: Schönbrunn/Constantin-Film.

Conny Froboess (1943) was a teen idol in the late 1950s and early 1960s and would later as Cornelia Froboess become a respected stage actress.

Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 5220. Photo: Hafbo.

Marisol(1948) was a Spanish child star in the sixties. When she became an adult she stayed a popular actress and singer under her real name, Pepa Flores.

Catherine Demongeot in Zazie dans le metro (1960)

French card. Photo: René Mansat. Publicity still for Zazie dans le métro/Zazie in the Metro (1960).

Catherine Demongeot (1950) made her film debut in the lead role of Zazie dans le metro/Zazie in the Metro (Louis Malle, 1960), based on the novel by Raymond Queneau. She only made two more films. Later on, Demongeot went on to become a teacher.

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg, no. 5009, 1969. Photo: Constantin / Rialto / Vogelmann. Publicity still for Klassenkeile/Spanking at School (Franz Josef Gottlieb, 1969) with Walter Giller and Wilma.

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, sweet little Wilma (1957) was a popular Dutch child star. At 11, she had hits in both the Netherlands and Germany and also appeared in some Schlager films.

Dutch postcard by Semic International, 1971. Photo: publicity still for Pippi Langstrump/Pippi Longstocking (Olle Hellbom, 1969) starring Inger Nilsson as Pippi Langstrump.

Based on the books by Astrid Lindgren, a hugely popular Pippi Langstrump (Pippi Longstocking) television series was created in Sweden in 1968. Inger Nilsson (1959) gave a confident oddball performance as Pippi. The series, directed by Olle Hellbom, was re-edited as three feature films for the cinema: Pippi Långstrump/Pippi Longstocking (1969), Pippi går ombord/Pippi Goes on Board (1969) and Här kommer Pippi Långstrump/Here Comes Pippi Longstocking (1973). Another two feature film spin-offs were also shown in the cinemas: Pippi Långstrump på de sju haven/Pippi in the South Seas (1970) and På rymmen med Pippi Långstrump/Pippi on the Run (1970). They became weekend television staples throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.

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Imported from the USA: Debra Paget

November 6, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Léon Mathot

≪ Previous: EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Exotic American actress Debra Paget (1933) is perhaps best known for Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments (1956) and Elvis Presley’s film debut Love Me Tender (1956). Later, she had a career in Europe too. In Germany she starred in Fritz Lang's two-film adventure saga Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) and Das Indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (1960) and in Italy she also made a pair of films.

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 240. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 977. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

An Arabian Nights princess

Debra Paget was born as Debralee Griffin in Denver, Colorado, in 1933. She was one of the five children born to former actress Margaret Allen (née Gibson) and painter Frank Henry Griffin.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “She may have hailed from Denver, but actress Debra Paget had the sensual, exotic demeanor of an Arabian Nights princess.” And yes, the family moved from Denver to Los Angeles, California, in the 1930s to be close to the developing film industry. Debra was enrolled in the Hollywood Professional School when she was 11.

Stage mother Margaret was determined that Debra and her siblings would also make their careers in show business. And indeed, three of her siblings, Marcia (Teala Loring), Leslie (Lisa Gaye), and Frank (Ruell Shayne), entered show business. Paget had her first professional job at age 8, and acquired some stage experience at 13 when she acted with Charles Coburn in a 1946 production of William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Her first notable film role was as Teena Riconti, girlfriend of the character played by Richard Conte, in the Film Noir Cry of the City (Robert Siodmak, 1948). Fresh out of high school in 1949, she acted in three other films before being signed by 20th Century-Fox. Her first vehicle for Fox was the successful Western Broken Arrow (Delmer Daves, 1950) with James Stewart. Paget played an Native American maiden, Sonseeahray (Morningstar), who gives up her life to save Stewart's character.

Paget co-starred with Louis Jourdan in Bird of Paradise (Delmer Daves, 1951), a remake of the 1932 film starring Joel McCrea and Dolores del Rio. It was followed by roles in successful films like the Film Noir Fourteen Hours (Henry Hathaway, 1951), the adventure film Anne of the Indies (Jacques Tourneur, 1951) with Jean Peters and Louis Jourdan, and Prince Valiant (Henry Hathaway, 1954) starring Robert Wagner. Hal Erickson: “Most of her subsequent roles were merely decorative, though she was a more than adequate Cosette in the 1952 version of Les Miserables.”

Louis Jourdan and Debra Paget in Bird of Paradise (1951)

Vintage postcard, no. 552. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Bird of Paradise (Delmer Daves, 1951) with Louis Jourdan.

The most beautiful girl in the world

After the campy costume drama Princess of the Nile (Harmon Jones, 1954) was released, the fan mail Debra Paget received at 20th Century-Fox was topped only by that for Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable.

The Hollywood studio system dominated American feature film production in the first half of the 20th century. Under it, an actor would sign an exclusive contract to make films for a major studio, such as Fox. The system worked well at first for Paget as her early Fox films did well, so the studio bolstered her film career. In 1955, she broke the exclusivity clause of her contract.

For Fox, she played another Native American girl, Princess Appearing Day, in the Western White Feather (Robert D. Webb, 1955) along with Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter and later at MGM replaced Anne Bancroft as an Indian girl in another Western The Last Hunt (Richard Brooks, 1956), starring Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger.

Then Fox lent her to Paramount for the part of Lilia, the water girl, in Cecil B. DeMille's biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956), She had to wear brown contact lenses to hide her blue eyes. At the time of its release, it was the most expensive film made. The Ten Commandments (1956) became her most successful film, grossing approximately $122.7 million at the box office during its initial release. It was the most successful film of 1956 and the second-highest grossing film of the decade. In 1957, the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

Paget followed it up with Love Me Tender (Robert D. Webb, 1956), the film debut of Elvis Presley. According to Elizabeth Ann at IMDb, Elvis called Debra ‘the most beautiful girl in the world’ but her mother would not allow them to date. The River's Edge (Allan Dwan, 1957) with Anthony Quinn and Ray Milland was the last film she made for Fox. After that, her career began to decline.

British postcard in the Celebrity Autograph Series, no. 105. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Prince Valiant (Henry Hathaway, 1954).

Her blood pressure-raising belly dance

Debra Paget was typically cast in exotic roles such as South Sea Island maidens or middle-east harem girls. In 1958, she travelled to Germany and India to star opposite Paul Hubschmid and Walter Reyer in Fritz Lang's sumptuous international production Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959) and its sequel Das Indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (1959). She gained extensive publicity coverage for her blood pressure-raising belly dance in the film.

In 1960 American International Pictures obtained the rights to both films for the USA and combined them into one film called Journey to the Lost City. Tom Wiener at AllMovie: “Contemporary audiences might find Hubschmid and Paget's acting stiff, but psychological nuance is not what Lang was looking for here, and the two do generate genuine sexual chemistry, especially in their flight across the desert which ends this installment.”

In Italy, Paget then appeared in the historical drama Il sepolcro dei re/Cleopatra's Daughter (Fernando Cerchio, 1960) set in Egypt during the reign of the pharaoh Khufu (r. 2589-2566 BC). Wikipedia: “For some reason, the English version was translated very differently from the original Italian script, setting the film in the 1st century BC, rather than the early Bronze Age.”

In the USA, Paget appeared on TV in episodes of the Western series, Riverboat (1959) starring Darren McGavin, Rawhide (1960 and 1962) with Clint Eastwood, and Johnny Ringo (1960). In Italy, she starred in another historical film I Masnadieri/Rome, 1585 (Mario Bonnard, 1961) with Antonio Cifariello.

Her final feature film was the horror film The Haunted Palace (Roger Corman, 1963) with Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr. Her last television performance was in an episode of Burke's Law (1965), starring Gene Barry. She retired and later became a born-again Christian. She hosted her own show, An Interlude with Debra Paget on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), a Christian network, in the early 1990s.

Paget was married three times. First she wed actor and singer David Street in 1958. Their marriage was annulled after four months. In 1960, she married prominent director Budd Boetticher in a Mexican café in Tijuana. He was 44; she was 27. She had acted for him in Seven Men From Now (1955). They separated after just 22 days, and their divorce became official in 1961. In 1962, she married Ling Chiech (Louis) Kung, a Chinese-American oil industry executive and nephew of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. This third marriage produced a son, Gregory, but ended in divorce in 1980. Gregory would graduate from Texas A&M University and become a lawyer. Today Debra G. Kung lives a quiet life in Houston, Texas.

Trailer Love Me Tender (1956). Source: PickOfTheFlicks Tony (YouTube).

Debra Paget's Snake Dance Scene in Das Indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (1959). Source: SnipsOfClips (YouTube).

Trailer The Haunted Palace (1963). Source: Sleaze-O-Rama (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Brian G. Walker (Brian's Drive-In Theater), Tom Wiener (AllMovie), Elizabeth Ann (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Léon Mathot

November 7, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Mia Pankau

≪ Previous: Imported from the USA: Debra Paget

Prolific French actor Léon Mathot (1886-1968) became well-known for his role of Edmond Dantès in the French silent serial Le comte de Monte Christo/The Count of Monte Christo (1918). He is also known for his role in two classic silent films by Jean Epstein, Coeur fidèle/The Faithful Heart (1923) and L’Auberge Rouge/The Red Inn (1923). In 1927 he turned director and directed over 20 films in all genres until 1953.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 389.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 15. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma.

French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Publicity still for L'empereur des pauvres/The Emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1921).

An Overnight Star

Léon Désiré Joseph Mathot was born in Roubaix, France in 1886. After passing his youth in Liège, Belgium, and following the Conservatory there, he started to play on stage in Lyon, and later in Brussels and Paris.

Thanks to his friend Lucien Nonguet who shot short comedies at Pathé, Mathot started in cinema in 1906 as an extra. His first appearance was in the short and silent André Deedcomedy La course à la perruque/The Wig Chase (Georges Hatot, André Heuzé, 1906).

Between 1911 and 1914 he played in dozens of the Gontran comedies, often directed by Lucien Nonguet. He also played in dramatic films by directors Henri Andréani and Alfred Machin, mainly for the Belge-Cinéma. During the First World War Mathot switched to the Film d’Art company, where he worked with the young director Abel Gance, such as in Les gaz mortels/Mortal gases (Abel Gance, 1916).

His collaboration with Henri Pouctal started with the film Volonté/Will (Henri Pouctal, 1917) and culminated in the serial Le comte de Monte Christo/The Count of Monte Christo (Henri Pouctal, 1917-1918), which made Mathot an overnight star. Mathot played Edmond Dantès, the leading character in Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel. Dantès takes revenge on the people who ruined and imprisoned him, after he has come into possession of a huge treasure and a new identity.

This success was followed by other films by Pouctal like Travail/Work (Henri Pouctal, 1919), a film in seven chapters taking place at a steel factory, in which Mathot again had the male lead, opposite Huguette Duflos.

Mathot’s reputation only grew during the 1920s while playing in popular French silent films like L'ami Fritz/The Friend Fritz (René Hervil, 1920) again with Duflos, the serial L'empereur des pauvres/The emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1922) with Gina Relly, the classic drama Cœur fidèle/The Faithful Heart (Jean Epstein, 1923) with Gina Manès, the Honoré de Balzac adaptation L’Auberge Rouge/The Red Inn (Jean Epstein, 1923) again with Manès, Mon oncle Benjamin/My Uncle Benjamin (René Leprince, 1923), Le puits de Jacob/A Daughter of Israel (Edward José, 1926) with American star Betty Blythe, Le mystère de la Villa Rose/Mystery of the Pink Villa (René Hervil, Louis Mercanton, 1930), and La maison de la flèche/The house of the arrow (Henri Fescourt, 1930) with Annabella.

French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Publicity still for L'empereur des pauvres/The Emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1921). Standing front, Léon Mathot.

French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Publicity still for L'empereur des pauvres/The Emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1921). Visible are Gina Relly as Sylvette and Léon Mathot as Marc Anavan.

French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Publicity still for L'empereur des pauvres/The Emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1921). Standing in the middle, Léon Mathot.

Gina Relly and Léon Mathot in L'empereur des pauvres

French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinema. Gina Relly and Léon Mathot in the French silent film L'empereur des pauvres (René Leprince, 1921), an adaptation of the novel by Felicien Champsaur.

Film Direction

When he sensed that his star was descending, Léon Mathot started to combine acting with directing, first with Carmine GalloneCelle qui domine/The one who dominates (Carmine Gallone, Léon Mathot, 1927) and afterwards with André LiabelDans l’ombre du harem/In the Shadow of the Harem (André Liabel, Léon Mathot, 1928), L’appassionata (André Liabel, Léon Mathot, 1929) with Fernand Fabre and L’instinct/Instinct (André Liabel, Léon Mathot, 1930) with Madeleine Carroll.

When sound cinema became the norm in French cinema, Mathot exclusively focused on film direction. He performed only twice again: in Passeport 13.444/Passport 13444 (1931) which he directed himself, and in Deuxième Bureau contre Kommandantur/Military Intelligence Service against kommandantur (René Jayet, Robert Bibal, 1939), his last role as actor.

In the 1930s he first directed various vehicles for the comic singer Georges Milton such as La bande à Bouboule/Bouboule's Gang (Léon Mathot, 1931) about a carefree Parisian taxi driver, Bouboule 1er roi des nègres/Bouboule the first, king of the negroes (Léon Mathot, 1933), and Le comte Obligado/Count Obligado (Léon Mathot, 1935).

He also directed La Mascotte/The Mascot (Léon Mathot, 1935), an operetta adaptation for the comedian Armand Dranem. He then focused on spy films, and filmed two of the four adventures of Capitaine Benoît based on the novels by Charles-Robert Dumas: Les loups entre eux/Wolves between them (Léon Mathot, 1936) and L’homme à abattre/A Man To Kill (Léon Mathot, 1937).

Mathot then switched again, adapting Gaston Leroux’ Chéri-Bibi (Léon Mathot, 1938), starring Pierre Fresnay. According to Ciné-Ressources, it is one of Mathot’s best films. A year later Mathot also adapted Maurice Larroy’s novel Le révolté/The Rebel (Léon Mathot, 1938), which was scripted by the young Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Former child star René Dary played one of his first serious roles in this film, and four years later, Mathot would direct Dary again in Forte tête/Strong head (Léon Mathot, 1942). After a short return to comedy with Le bois sacré/Sacred Woods (Léon Mathot, 1939) starring Elvire Popesco, Mathot filmed Rappel immédiat/Immediate Call (Léon Mathot, 1939) with Erich von Stroheim and Mireille Balin, a striking spy film.

He also tried his luck with exotic melodrama in Aloha, le chant des ïles/Aloha (Léon Mathot, 1937) starring Arletty, and showed interest in nomads with Cartacalha, reine des gitans/Cartacalha, Queen of the Gypsies (Léon Mathot, 1941) which confirmed the career of Viviane Romance. That same year, the critics appreciated Mathot’s adaptation of Alphonse Daudet’s Fromont jeune et Risler aîné/Fromont junior and Risler senior (Léon Mathot, 1941) with Mireille Balin.

French postcard by Europe, no. 189. Photo: Film Aubert. Publicity still of Huguette Duflosand Léon Mathot in Yasmina (André Hugon, 1927).

French postcard by A.N., Paris, series Les Vedettes de Cinéma, no. 96. Photo: Sartony.

Film Policier

After the war Léon Mathot alternated melodrama such as La route du bagne/The road to the penal colony (Léon Mathot, 1945) starring Viviane Romance, with ‘film policiers’ like Le dolmen tragique/The tragic dolmen (Léon Mathot, 1948) starring Paulette Dubost, and adventure such as La dernière chevauchée/The last ride (Léon Mathot, 1948) with Mireille Balin and Jacques Dumesnil.

Mathot also shot a pseudo-biography of Marcel Cerdan, L’homme aux mains d’argile/The man in the hands of clay (Léon Mathot, 1949) played by the famous boxer himself.

After having supervised La rue sans loi/The Lawless Street (1950), directed by Marcel Gibaud, Mathot finished his career with a return to comedy: Mon gosse de père/My Childish Father (Léon Mathot, 1953).

Mathot was vice-chair (1938-1959) and later chair of the Cinémathèque française (1959-1967). He was also chairman of the l’Union Européenne des Techniciens du Film et de la Télévision. Léon Mathot died in 1968 in Paris, at the age of 82.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 252. Photo: Production Natan.

Dutch postcard by N.V. De Faam, Breda. Photo: Jacques Haik.

Sources: Jean-Pascal Constantin (Les Gens du Cinéma - French), Ciné-Ressources (French), Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

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Mia Pankau

November 8, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Dora van der Groen (1927-2015)

≪ Previous: Léon Mathot

Mia Pankau (1891-1974) was a star of the German silent cinema. Most of her films were directed by her husband, Jaap Speyer.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1031/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1755/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

When Women Love and Hate

Martha Elisabeth Pankau was born in Friedland, Upper Silesia (now Korfantów in Poland), in 1891.

She made her film debut in 1917 in the film Wenn Frauen lieben und hassen/When Women Love and Hate (1917), directed by Dutch film director Jaap Speyer, with whom she would later marry.

Quite soon she was the leading actress of all of Speyer’s films of the late 1910s. They worked for such companies as Horos Film, Althoff & Co., and the Hamburg based Vera Filmwerke. Their films include Heddas Rache/Hedda's Revenge (1919) with Reinhold Schünzel, Lilli (1919) and the sequel Lilli’s Ehe/Lilli's Marriage (1919).

In the early 1920s followed the two-parter Zügelloses Blut/Unbridled blood (Jaap Speyer, 1920) with Bernhard Goetzke, Entblätterte Blüten/Stripped Blossoms (Jaap Speyer, 1920), Die rote Nacht/The Red Night (Jaap Speyer, 1921) with Oscar Marion, Das blonde Verhängnis/The Blonde Fate (Jaap Speyer, 1921) opposite Ernst Hofmann, Jimmy, ein Schicksal von Mensch und Tier/Jimmy, a destiny of Man and Animal (Jaap Speyer, 1922), and Der allmächtige Dollar/The Almighty Dollar (Jaap Speyer, 1923).

Incidentally she played in films by other directors such as Wolfgang Neff (Der Heiratsschwindler/The marriage swindler, 1922), Leo König (Die Hermannschlacht/The Battle of Hermann, 1924), and Friedrich Zelnik (Briefen die ihn nicht erreichten/Letters He Never Received, 1925).

She continued to work with her husband on the films Elegantes Pack/Elegant stack (Jaap Speyer, 1925), Die Moral der Gasse/The Morals of the Alley (Jaap Speyer, 1925) starring Werner Krauss, Hotelratten/Hotel Rats (Jaap Speyer, 1927) with Nils Asther, and Die drei Frauen der Urban Hell/The Three Wives of Urban Hell (Jaap Speyer, 1928).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1031/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1009/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

White Slave Trade

In the late 1920s, Mia Pankau appeared in supporting parts in such popular productions as Durchlaucht Radieschen/Highness radish (Richard Eichberg, 1927) starring Xenia Desni, and the Anny Ondra vehicle Der erste Kuss/The First Kiss (Carl Lamac, 1929).

Probably her best known is the fantasy/horror film Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny (Henrik Galeen, 1928) featuring Brigitte Helm. Pankau plays a prostitute who is artificially inseminated by a sociopathic scientist (Paul Wegener) with the semen of an executed murderer. The result, the angelic Alraune (Brigitte Helm) is incapable of feeling any real emotions and kills all the men who fall in love with her.

Pankau easily switched from comedy to drama, from war film to horror film, but she had more difficulty to switch to the sound cinema. She appeared in a short sound film, Besuch um Mitternacht. Nachtgespenst in Berlin/Visit at midnight. The ghost of Berlin (Jaap Speyer, 1930) – a film she had co-produced herself.

After that she performed only in one sound feature: Tänzerinnen für Süd-Amerika gesucht/Girls For Sale (1931), again directed by Speyer. She was clearly not the big star anymore, as the female lead had gone to Dita Parlo. Pankau played a matchmaker involved in white slave trade, Parlo a young victim.

After that Mia Pankau retired from the screen. She died in Hoisdorf near Hamburg, Germany in 1974, at the age of 83.

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 4355. Photo: Max Lutze.

Alraune (1928). Full film with Italian inter titles. Source: Александр Ющинский (YouTube).

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

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Dora van der Groen (1927-2015)

November 9, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: All'ombra di un trono (1921)

≪ Previous: Mia Pankau

On 8 November, Belgian actress and theatre director Dora van der Groen (1927-2015) passed away. She starred with Julien Schoenaerts in the 'first Belgian film'Meeuwen sterven in de haven/Seagulls Die in the Harbour (1955) and with Kees Brusse in the Dutch classic Dokter Pulder zaait papavers/Doctor Pulder Sows Poppies (1975). She appeared in more than 120 films and television shows between 1945 and 2003.

Dora van der Groen in Meeuwen sterven in de haven

Belgian postcard by Ed. Privot, Antwerp. Photo: Metropool Film. Publicity still for Meeuwen sterven in de haven/Seagulls Die in the Harbour (Rik Kuypers, Ivo Michiels and Roland Verhavert, 1955) with Dora van der Groen as the Prostitute.

The first Belgian film

Dora van der Groen was born on March 10, 1927 in Antwerp, Belgium.

She began her acting career at the Koninlijke Nederlandse Schouwburg (Royal Dutch Theatre) in Antwerp. Later, she played at the Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg (Royal Flemish Theatre) in Brussels. For many years, she was also artistic director of the theatre department of the Royal Flemish Conservatory in Antwerp.

She made her film debut in the Belgian comedy Baas Gansendonck/Boss Gansendonck (Gaston Ariën, 1945), based on a novel by Hendrik Conscience.

In 1955, she played the female lead as a prostitute opposite Julien Schoenaerts in the Belgian drama film Meeuwen sterven in de haven/Seagulls Die in the Harbour (Rik Kuypers, Ivo Michiels and Roland Verhavert, 1955), which was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. The film made a great impression on the press and public. Both the theme and the stylistic program introduced a new, more internationally oriented sensibility in the cinema for Flanders. In many reviews Meeuwen was unreservedly hailed as ‘the first Flemish' or even the ‘first Belgian film'.

Van der Groen became a much sought-after television actor, and played in series such as Wij, Heren van Zichem/We, Gentlemen of Zichem (Maurits Balfoort, 1969), Tussen wal en schip/Between two stools (Eimert Kruidhof, 1977), De Bossen van Vlaanderen/The woods of Flanders Marc Lybaert, 1991), Moeder, waarom leven wij/Mother, why do we live (Guido Henderickx, 1993), and Terug naar Oosterdonk/Back to Oosterdonk (Frank Van Passel, 1997).

Wij, heren van Zichem/We, Gentlemen from Zichem (Maurits Balfoort, 1969) was a very authentic Flemisch TV series. A soap avant-la-lettre about a devout Catholic village, with numerous story-lines on human themes such as affection, jealousy, greed, family - and social life. The series elaborates on the adventures of the blond rascal Lewie, the title character of Ernest Claes' hit-novel De Witte/The White One. Lewie's eternal mischief makes life difficult for his family, friends, people at school and the other inhabitants of the village.

Belgian postcard by Best, Antwerpen, no 30. Photo: Humo. Publicity still for the TV series Wij, heren van Zichem/We, gentlemen from Zichem (Maurits Balfoort, 1969) with Robert Marcel as Jef de Smid and Dora van der Groen as Melanie.

Belgian postcard by Best, Antwerpen, no. 34. Photo: Humo. Publicity still for the TV series Wij, heren van Zichem/We, gentlemen from Zichem (Maurits Balfoort, 1969) with Dora van der Groen as Melanie.

Feminist fairy-tale

Dora van der Groen also appeared in several Belgian and Dutch films. In 1969, she appeared in the Belgian-Dutch drama Monsieur Hawarden (Harry Kümel, 1969) with Ellen Vogel as a woman who disguises herself as a man to avoid prosecution for murdering her lover fifteen years ago. Van der Groen also appeared in Kümel’s fantasy-horror Malpertuis/The Legend of Doom House (Harry Kümel, 1971) with Orson Welles.

She had a small part in the French film La Maison sous les arbres/The Deadly Trap (René Clément, 1971) starring Faye Dunaway. She co-starred with Kees Brusse in the drama-comedy Dokter Pulder zaait papavers/Doctor Pulder Sows Poppies (Bert Haanstra, 1975), which was entered into the 26th Berlin International Film Festival.

Other successful films were Dagboek van een Oude Dwaas/Diary of a Mad Old Man (Lili Rademakers, 1987) based on a book by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, the Dutch drama Havinck (Frans Weisz, 1987) with Willem Nijholt, and the feminist fairy-tale Antonia/Antonia's Line (Marleen Gorris, 1995) featuring Willeke van Ammelrooy. Antonia won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 68th Academy Awards.

In the film Pauline & Paulette (Lieven Debrauwer, 2001), Van der Groen played the mentally handicapped Pauline opposite Ann Petersen as her sister Paulette. Van der Groen herself stayed for several years in a housing project for people with dementia. Earlier, she had performed a demented woman in the short film Leonie (1996), and in Villa des Roses (Frank Van Passel, 2002).

Dora van der Groen was married to the actor Tone Brulin and later to actor and TV host Wies Andersen. Both marriages ended in a divorce. She had three sons. Her youngest son is director Brick de Bois. Dora van der Groen was 88.

Trailer Meeuwen sterven in de haven/Seagulls Die in the Harbour (1955). Source: Ximon NL (YouTube).

American trailer for Pauline & Paulette (Lieven Debrauwer, 2001). Source: Lieven Debrauwer (YouTube).

Sources: HLN.be (Dutch), Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

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All'ombra di un trono (1921)

November 10, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Jean-Claude Brialy

≪ Previous: Dora van der Groen (1927-2015)

Polish diva Soava Gallone (1880-1957) starred in the Italian silent melodrama All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (1921) directed by her husband Carmine Gallone for their own production company Films Gallone. Other actors were Umberto Casilini, Piero Schiavazzi and the child actor Marcella Sabbatini.

Italian postcard by G. B. Falci, Milano. Photo: publicity still for All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (Carmine Gallone, 1921).

Italian postcard by G. B. Falci, Milano, no. 94. Photo: publicity still for All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (Carmine Gallone, 1921).

Italian postcard by G. B. Falci, Milano, no. 224. Photo: publicity still for All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (Carmine Gallone, 1921).

Ruritania-like story

All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne aka L'Ombra di un trono (Carmine Gallone, 1921) was based on Fleur d'ombre, a French novel by Charles Folly.

When the legitimate heir to a throne has mysteriously killed himself, his brother (Piero Schiavazzi) becomes king. The iron law obliges the young and inexpert prince to abandon his affair with a bourgeois girl (Soava Gallone), with whom he is in love.

The renouncement of (but then revocation) of real love, the court intrigues, and a final duel are the ingredients of this Ruritania-like story.

All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne was released in Italy only in 1923. While press though it was outdated, audiences flocked to see it.

Italian postcard by G. B. Falci, Milano, no. 115. Photo: publicity still for All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (Carmine Gallone, 1921).

Italian postcard by G. B. Falci, Milano, no. 117. Photo: publicity still for All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (Carmine Gallone, 1921).

Italian postcard by G. B. Falci, Milano, no. 172. Photo: publicity still for All'ombra di un trono/In the Shadow of a Throne (Carmine Gallone, 1921).

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano 1921-1922 - Italian) and IMDb.

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Jean-Claude Brialy

November 11, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: new postcards from the collection of Didier Hanson

≪ Previous: All'ombra di un trono (1921)

Jean-Claude Brialy (1933-2007) was a dashing and strikingly versatile French actor. He became a star in the late 1950s when he was one of the best known faces of the Nouvelle Vague. Brialy worked with such New Wave filmmakers as Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, and François Truffaut, and he also directed a number of films himself. It made him an embodiment of the French cinema for a global audience.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 67. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 273, offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Sam Lévin.

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

French postcard by E.D.U.G. (Editions du Globe), no. 165. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by E.D.U.G. (Editions du Globe), no. 327. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Acting as an early form of rebellion

Jean-Claude Brialy was born in Aumale, French Algeria (now Sour El-Ghozlane, Algeria), in 1933. He was the son of Roger Brialy, a colonel stationed in colonial Algeria with the French Army, and Suzanne Abraham. At the age of nine, he went with his family to various cities in France, settling after the war in Strasbourg, where he took his ´baccalaureate´.

Brialy showed great promise in drama and won first prize at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg. He detested his strict upbringing, and acting became an early form of rebellion. He had violent arguments with his father, who once locked the 15-year-old boy in to prevent his attending rehearsals of a school play. Jean-Claude responded by smashing up the furniture. No doubt there was further trouble when Jean-Claude revealed that he was homosexual.

Against the wishes of his parents, he enrolled at the Centre Dramatique de l’Est (Eastern Centre of Dramatic Art in Strasbourg), to train to be an actor. Military service then intervened and Brialy found himself attached to an army film unit in the German town of Baden-Baden. There he made his first film, a short entitled Chiffonard et Bon Aloi/Chiffonard and Good Taste (Phierre Lhomme, 1954). His job also enabled him to go to shows, and to meet actors, including Jean Marais.

Demobilized, he moved to Paris in 1954. There he scratched a living by small roles on stage and entertaining the queues outside the first-run cinemas on the Champs Elysees. He became friendly with a group of young critics and aspiring filmmakers who were taking over the influential journal Cahiers du Cinéma. At 21, he joined a Cahiers outing to Arles to see Jean Renoir's stage production of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

He made his film debut in a short directed by one of the Cahiers critics, Le Coup du berger/Fool's Mate (Jacques Rivette, 1956). Cahiers editor Eric Rohmer cast him as the lover in his 10-minute short La sonate à Kreutzer/The Kreutzer Sonata (1956), an adaptation of the short story by Leo Tolstoy. Brialy appeared uncredited in two features by Louis Malle: Les Amants/The Lovers (Louis Malle, 1958) and Ascenseur pour l’échafaud/Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958), two instant classics starring Jeanne Moreau.

His first lead was in Le beau Serge/Handsome Serge (Claude Chabrol, 1958) as an idealistic Parisian student who returns after a ten-year absence to his provincial village and becomes obsessed with saving an old school friend who has become a hopeless alcoholic (played by the brooding Gérard Blain, often called the James Dean of France). The film, which won an award in Locarno, and the Jean-Vigo Prize, immediately attracted attention, and the performers (Brialy, Blain, and Bernadette Lafont) were widely acclaimed. Le beau Serge was followed by another film by Claude Chabrol, Les Cousins/The Cousins (1959), in which Brialy played the sardonic town cousin to Blain's simple country cousin.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 775. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

French postcard by Editions P.I., presented by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 1104A. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 1383. Photo: Union-Film. Publicity still for Le gigolo/The Gigolo (Jacques Deray, 1960).

French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), no. 832. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German postcard for Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4505. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Cinepress / Pallas Film.

A Period of Frantic Renaissance

The young Turks of the Cahiers du Cinema formed the core of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). This film movement was a rebellion against the conventions of the French cinema. As James Travers comments at Films de France: ”Out went polished scripts, well-rehearsed performances and meticulously staged productions. In came spontaneity, improvisation, subversive politics, real human emotion, and fun.”

The Cahiers critics were starting to have an impact far greater than they could have anticipated and the French cinema seemed to be going through a period of frantic renaissance. The director became the intellectual author of the film; the stars were made more human, the stories more enigmatic. Jean-Claude Brialy made several films with Nouvelle Vague filmmakers including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Agnès Varda, Pierre Kast, and Jacques Rozier.

Ronald Bergan stated in The Guardian: “Where (Jean-Paul) Belmondo represented anarchy, (Jean-Pierre) Léaud youthful innocence and Blain sensitivity, Brialy brought cynicism, charm and sophistication to the films of the period.”

Brialy was the leading man in Godard’s ‘neo-realist musical’ Une Femme est une femme/Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961), in which Anna Karina plays a stripper who wants to have his baby and turns to his best friend Jean-Paul Belmondo when he refuses. In the film Brialy directly addresses the audience with a line that became an epigram for the Nouvelle Vague: “It’s hard to tell if this is a comedy or a tragedy, but either way it’s a masterpiece.”

For Truffaut he appeared opposite Jeanne Moreau in La Mariée était en noir/The Bride Wore Black (François Truffaut, 1968), and for Rohmer he starred in Le Genou de Claire/Claire’s Knee (Éric Rohmer, 1970), in which he played a bearded cultural attache who is taking his last summer holiday as a bachelor at Annecy and becomes filled with desire for a young woman’s knee.

French postcard by Editions P.I., offered by Delespaul, Lille, no. FK 85. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa. (Editions P.I. was the licence holder for the Ufa postcards in France.)

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 864. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 1023. Photo: Sam Lévin.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 19/71. Photo: Steffen.

East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1/972.

Gay Uncle

Besides his work for the Nouvelle Vague, Jean-Claude Brialy also worked with many other well known filmmakers. He made his feature film debut in Jean Renoir’s Elena et les hommes/Elena and her Men (1956) and played his first substantial role, in L’Ami de la famille/A Friend of the Family (Jacques Pinoteau, 1957). Then came a supporting role in Christine (Pierre Gaspard-Huit, 1958), starring Romy Schneider, who would become a close personal friend.

Brialy appeared with Alida Valli in Le Gigolo/The Gigolo (Jacques Deray, 1960), with Anthony Perkins in Le Glaive et la Balance/The Sword and the Balance (André Cayatte, 1963) and with Jane Fonda in La ronde/Circle of Love (1964), Roger Vadim's adaptation of the classic Arthur Schnitzler play about various people having affairs. He was an asylum inmate in Le Roi de Coeur/King of Hearts (Philippe de Broca, 1966), which became a US hit.

In the following decades he worked with major film directors like Luis Buñuel (Le Fantôme de la liberté/The Phantom of Liberty, 1974), Bertrand Tavernier (Le Juge et l’assassin/The Judge and the Assassin, 1976) and Ettore Scola (La Nuit de Varennes/That Night in Varennes, 1982). He was equally attracted to popular comedies, such as Le Maître-nageur/The Swimming Instructor (Jean-Louis Trintignant, 1978) and Pinot simple flic/Pinot, Simple Cop (Gérard Jugnot, 1984).

He reunited with Claude Chabrol and Bernadette Lafont for Inspecteur Lavardin/Inspector Lavardin (Claude Chabrol, 1986) in which he played a gay uncle. Other notable appearances include Les uns et les autres/Bolero (Claude Lelouch, 1981), Mortelle Randonnée/Deadly Circuit (Claude Miller, 1982), and La Reine Margot/Queen Margot (Patrice Chéreau, 1994) starring Isabelle Adjani.

Brialy also directed a dozen (TV) films himself, including Églantine (1971), an enchanting story set in the 19th century of a boy's visit to his grandmother, and Un Amour De Pluie/Loving in the Rain (1974) starring Romy Schneider as a woman who takes her daughter to a summer resort in search of a love affair. He often appeared in supporting roles, and was nominated for a César for the best supporting actor for his role in Le Juge et l’Assassin/The Judge and the Assassin (Bertrand Tavernier, 1976), but he won the César for Les Innocents/The Innocents (André Téchiné, 1988).

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 43. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Vintage card. Photo: Unifrance Film.

French postcard by C.B.

Spanish postcard by Postalco, Barcelona, no. 20/7. Photo: Unifrance Film.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 220. Photo: Studio Petri.

Bon Vivant

Jean-Claude Brialy came to personify all that is best in French culture. A bon vivant, he started his own restaurant in 1966: the popular L'Orangerie, on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, which he owned for two decades. He was a natural conteur, and he revelled in his numerous television and radio appearances.

As a lover of literature, he read extensively and wrote several best-selling books, including the memoirs, Le Ruisseau des singes (River of Monkeys) (2000) and J'ai oublié de vous dire... (I Forgot to Tell You ...) (2004). And he was also a man of the stage. His theatrical successes include Georges Feydeau’s La Puce à l’oreille (A Flea in Her Ear, 1968) and Hotel Paradiso (1974), and Sacha Guitry’s Desiré (1984).

When he wasn’t treading the boards, he was helping to direct theatres and film festivals. As James Travers writes at Films de France: “It’s no wonder that he became one of the best loved and most highly respected figures in France.” For his exceptional contribution to French culture, he was awarded the Légion d’honneur (the Legion of Honour).

In his last film, made for television, Brialy gave his best performance in years, as the gay Jewish poet Max Jacob in Monsieur Max (Gabriel Aghion, 2007), who converted to Catholicism and died in a Gestapo internment camp.

Following a long illness, Jean-Claude Brialy died of cancer in 2007, in his house in Monthyon, France. He was 74. In over more than a half-century, Brialy appeared in 185 films and television shows. He is cited in The Guardian saying: "Out of the 185 films, I must admit that I've enjoyed myself 185 times".

Trailer Le beau Serge/Handsome Serge (1958). Source: Gaumont (YouTube).

Trailer Les Cousins (1959). Source: Malenpis (YouTube).

Trailer for Une Femme est une femme/Woman Is a Woman (1961). Source: Kanál uživatele precija (YouTube).

Trailer of Le genou de Claire/Claire’s Knee (1970). Source: Video Detective (YouTube).

French trailer of Inspecteur Lavardin (1986) . Source: Cohen Film Collection (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (Films de France), Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Tim Weiner (The New York Times), Jean Roy (L’Humanité), Adam Bernstein (Washington Post), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), The Independent, Film Reference, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: new postcards from the collection of Didier Hanson

November 12, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Imported from the USA: John Saxon

≪ Previous: Jean-Claude Brialy

In September, we posted 24 rare, recently acquired postcards from the collection of Didier Hanson. Didier keeps sending us wonderful scans. So, today we can post again a dazzling dozen of his a-century-old postcards from Germany and Russia. These include postcards of Das Mirakel/The Miracle (Cherry Kearton, Max Reinhardt, 1912), portraits of the great stage innovators Max Reinhardt and C.S. Stanislavsky, and three cards of Russian silent film diva Vera Karalli.

German postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Anna Pavlova (Russian: Анна Павлова; 1881–1931) was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. She was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. Pavlova is most recognized for the creation of the role The Dying Swan and, with her own company, became the first ballerina to tour ballet around the world.

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 8615. Photo: Hofphot. E. Bieber, Hamburg. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German actor-director Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) was one of the great innovators of the theatre. He also directed several films, including Sumurûn (1910) and Das Mirakel (1912). In 1934, he went into exile and made in Hollywood A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).

French postcard, no. R 9. S. Photo: A. Gubtschewsky. C.S. Stanislavsky as Verchinine in the stage production of Les trois soeurs/Three Sisters (Anton Chekhov) by Théâtre Artistique de Moscou (Moscow Art Theatre). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Constantin Sergeievich Stanislavsky (Константи́н Серге́евич Станисла́вский) (1863–1938) was a Russian actor and theatre director. The eponymous Stanislavsky method, or simply 'method acting', has had a pervasive influence on the American theatre and cinema, especially in the period after World War II.

German postcard by Verleih Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, no. 7758. Publicity still for Das Mirakel/The Miracle (Cherry Kearton, Max Reinhardt, 1912). Collection: Didier Hanson.

With her aristocratic air, her severe looks but also her sweet undertones, Italian silent film star and stage actress Maria Carmi(1880-1957) was the cinematic translation of the 19th century Primadonna. Later she became Princess Norina Matchabelli and was co-founder of the perfume company Prince Matchabelli.

German postcard by Verleih Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, no. 8634. Photo: Hänse Hermann. Publicity still for Das Mirakel/The Miracle (Cherry Kearton, Max Reinhardt, 1912). Collection: Didier Hanson. Mary Dietrich as the nun.

German postcard by Verleih Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, no. 8500. Photo: Hänse Hermann. Publicity still for Das Mirakel/The Miracle (Cherry Kearton, Max Reinhardt, 1912). Collection: Didier Hanson. Mary Dietrich as the nun.

Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

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.

Vera Kholodnaya, Vitold Polonsky, Ossip Runitsch

Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson. Vera Kholodnaya, Vitold Polonsky and Ossip Runitsch.

Vitold Polonsky (1879-1919) was one of the most popular actors in pre-Revolutionary Russian cinema.

Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian actor, producer and stage director Ossip Runitsch (1889-1947) was one of the first idols of the Russian silent cinema.

Russian postcard, 1916. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Karalli(1889-1972) was a Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and actress in the early 20th century.

Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson. Vera Karalli.

Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson. Vera Karalli.

Thanks again, Didier!

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.

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Imported from the USA: John Saxon

November 13, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Ellen Terry

≪ Previous: EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: new postcards from the collection of Didier Hanson

American actor John Saxon (1935) worked on over 200 film and TV projects during the span of seven decades. Saxon appeared in many Italian films, mainly in Spaghetti Westerns.

Yugoslavian postcard by Izrada Nas Glas, Smederevo, no. 163.

Yugoslavian postcard by IZK, no. 2181.

Running Wild

John Saxon was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935. He is the son of immigrants from Calabria, Italy.

He studied acting with famous acting coach Stella Adler. Wikipedia: "According to Robert Hofler's 2005 biography, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson, agent Willson saw Saxon's picture on the cover of a detective magazine and immediately contacted the boy's family in Brooklyn. He brought the 18-year-old Orrico to Hollywood and renamed him Saxon."

He started his Hollywood career as a juvenile delinquent in Running Wild (Abner Biberman, 1955) starring Mamie van Doren.

Thanks to 'hunk' assignments in films like Summer Love (Charles F. Haas, 1958), The Restless Years (Helmut Käutner 1958), and The Reluctant Debutante (Vincente Minnelli, 1958), Saxon was briefly the object of many a teenage crush.

Although he worked in these years with many notable directors including Blake Edwards, John Huston, Frank Borzage, and Otto Preminger, he never developed into a major star.

Austrian postcard by Bild und Ton, Wien, no. 503.

Dutch postcard by Int. Filmpers, Amsterdam, no. 1121.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1348. Photo: Universal International.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

John Saxon is now best known for his work in Westerns like Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972) starring Clint Eastwood, and horror films, such as the Italian giallo film, La ragazza che sapeva troppo/The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava, 1963) with Leticia Roman, and Queen of Blood (Curtis Harrington, 1966) with Basil Rathbone and Dennis Hopper.

Saxon appeared in many Italian films, mainly in Spaghetti Westerns like I tre che sconvolsero il West (Vado, vedo e sparo)/One Dollar Too Many (Enzo G. Castellari, 1968) and such police thrillers as Napoli violenta/Violent Naples (Umberto Lenzi, 1976).

He also co-starred with Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly in the classic Hong Kong martial arts action film Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973). Another classic genre film is Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) in which he played the heroine's (Nancy Thompson's) father.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Fans could watch Saxon's expertise as an actor increase (and his hairline recede) during his three-year (1969-1972) stint as Dr. Ted Stuart on the NBC television series The Bold Ones. He later appeared as a semiregular on the prime-time TV soaper Dallas. In 1988, John Saxon made his directorial debut with the low-budget feature Death House."

Hopefully, Saxon can be seen soon as a Bounty Hunter in a new Western by Enzo G. Castellari, Keoma Rises, which is announced at IMDb. It has an all-star cast including Bud Spencer, Tomas Milian, Fabio Testi, George Hilton, and Franco Nero as Keoma.

John Saxon was married twice. He has one son, Antonio Saxon, with his former wife Mary Ann Saxon. His current wife is Gloria Martel.

Scene from Rock Pretty Baby! (1956). Source: TaylorHamKid (YouTube).

Italian trailer I tre che sconvolsero il West (Vado, vedo e sparo)/One Dollar Too Many (1968). Source: neverlando74 (YouTube).

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

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Ellen Terry

November 14, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Claudia Cardinale, Part 1

≪ Previous: Imported from the USA: John Saxon

English stage actress Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928) was the leading lady of legendary stage actor Henry Irving and the Queen of Britain’s stage of the Victorian era. She later starred in several silent films. Her warmth, gentleness, and beauty made her one of the most popular actresses in Britain and the U.S., and she continued to act until 1925. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 151 I.

British postcard by The Rapid Photo printing Co. Ltd., London, no. 1658.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 2917 A. Photo right: Window & Grove.

A Family of Actors

Alice Ellen Terry was born in Coventry, England in 1847 into a family of actors. Her parents, Benjamin Terry of Irish descent, and Sarah Terry (née Ballard), of Scottish ancestry, were comic actors in a touring company based in Portsmouth, and had eleven children. At least five of them became actors: Kate, Ellen, Marion, Florence and Fred. Two other children, George and Charles, were connected with theater management. Kate's grandson, Sir John Gielgud, became one of the 20th century's most respected actors.

Ellen Terry's first appearance on stage came at the age of eight, when she appeared as Mamillius the child under the direction of Charles Kean in William Shakespeare’s A Winter's Tale at the Princess Theater in London on 28 April 1856, with Queen Victoria in attendance. She continued to appear on stage as a teen, in London and on tour.

At sixteen she married the famous painter George Frederick Watts, thirty years her senior, and she retired from the stage. Watts's famous portraits of Terry, including Choosing and Ophelia, were more successful than their domestic affairs, however, and they separated within a year. She briefly returned to acting and in 1867, she first played opposite Henry Irving in the title roles of Katherine and Petruchio, David Garrick's one-act version of The Taming of the Shrew.

Then she began a relationship with the progressive architect-designer and essayist Edward William Godwin. With him she retreated to a house in Hertfordshire, retiring for six years from acting. They could not marry, as Terry was still married to Watts and did not finalize a divorce until 1877 – then a scandalous situation. With Godwin she had a daughter, Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig, in 1869 and a son, Edward Gordon Craig, in 1872. She returned to acting in 1874, separating from Godwin in 1875.

In 1875, Terry gave an acclaimed performance as Portia in The Merchant of Venice at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. Oscar Wilde wrote a sonnet, upon seeing her in this role: "No woman Veronese looked upon / Was half so fair as thou whom I behold." She recreated this role many times in her career until her last appearance as Portia at London's Old Vic Theatre in 1917. Terry married again, in November 1877, to actor/journalist Charles Clavering Wardell Kelly, but they separated in 1881.

George Frederick Watts, Choosing, 1864. Source: Freeparking@Flickr.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, nr. 151 J. Sent by mail in 1905.

Ellen Terry as Queen Katherine in Henry VIII (1892)

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 214 T. Photo: publicity still for a stage production of Henry VIII (1892-).

A Star-studded Gala Performance

In 1878, the 30 years-old Ellen Terry joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre as its leading lady, at a generous salary, beginning with Ophelia opposite Irving's Hamlet. Her association with Irving was to become the most successful of her career, and over the next two decades she played many of the great Shakespearean heroines, including Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Viola, Queen Katherine, Juliet, and Cordelia.

Two of her most famous roles were Portia in The Merchant of Venice, which ran for an unusual 250 nights in 1879, and perhaps most notably Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, a role she first performed at the Lyceum in 1882 and later revived in 1884, 1891, and 1893. She and Irving also toured with great success in America and Britain. They reigned together the British theatre in the Shakespeare canon and in Alfred Tennyson, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Charles Reade, Victorien Sardou, and plays by other contemporary playwrights until they left the Lyceum in 1902.

In 1903, she formed a new theatrical company, taking over management of the Imperial Theatre with her son. Here she had complete artistic control and could choose the works in which she would appear. She focused on the plays of George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen. In the 1890s, Terry had struck up a friendship, and conducted a famous correspondence, with Shaw. Theatre management turned out to be a financial failure for Terry, who had hoped the venture would showcase the set design and directing talents of her son and the costume designs of her daughter. She then toured and later also lectured.

On 12 June 1906, after 50 years on the stage, a star-studded gala performance was held at the Drury Lane Theatre for Terry's benefit and to celebrate her golden jubilee, at which Enrico Caruso sang, Eleanora Duse, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Lillie Langtry, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Nellie Melba, and more than twenty members of Terry's family performed in an act of Much Ado about Nothing with her, among other performances. The benefit raised £6000 for Terry.

In 1907 she toured America in Shaw’s Captain Brassbound's Conversion under the direction of Charles Frohman. During that tour, she married her co-star, American actor James Carew, who had appeared with her at the Court Theatre. She was thirty years older than Carew. Terry's acting career continued strongly, but her marriage broke up after only two years.

Ellen Terry and Henry Irving in The Vicar of Wakefield

British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., London, no. 185. Sent by mail in 1905. Photo: Window & Grove. Publicity still for the stage play The Vicar of Wakefield with Henry Irving.

British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., London, no. 185 C. Sent by mail in 1907. Photo: Window & Grove. Publicity still for the stage play The Vicar of Wakefield with Henry Irving.

British postcard by J.B. & Co, 190C. Photo: Window & Grove. Ellen Terry as Madame Sans Gêne in the stage play Madame Sans Gêne (1897) by Victorien Sardou and Emile Moreau.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 1994 E. Publicity photo for the stage play Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1906) by George Bernard Shaw.

Her Greatest Performance

In 1911, Ellen Terry recorded scenes from five Shakespeare roles for the Victor Talking Machine Company, the only known recordings of her voice. During World War I she performed in many war benefits. In 1916, she appeared in her first film as Julia Lovelace in Her Greatest Performance (Fred Paul, 1917) and continued to act in London and on tour.

She made a few more films through 1922, including The Invasion of Britain (Herbert Brenon, 1918), Victory and Peace (Herbert Brenon, 1918) with Matheson Lang, Pillars of Society (Rex Wilson, 1920), Potter's Clay (H. Grenville-Taylor, Douglas Payne, 1922), and The Bohemian Girl (Harley Knoles, 1922) as Buda the nursemaid, with Ivor Novelloand Gladys Cooper.

She continued to lecture on Shakespeare throughout England and North America. She also gave scenes from Shakespeare plays in music halls under the management of Oswald Stoll. Her last fully staged role was as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet at the Lyric Theatre in 1919. In 1920 she retired from the stage and in 1922 from film, although she returned to play Susan Wildersham in Walter de la Mare's fairy play Crossings, in November 1925 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

In 1922, St. Andrews University conferred an honorary LLD upon Terry, and in 1925 she was made a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire, only the second actress to be so honoured. In her last years, she gradually lost her eyesight and suffered from senility. Stephen Coleridge anonymously published Terry's second autobiography, The Heart of Ellen Terry in 1928.

Ellen Terry died of a cerebral haemorrhage at her home at Smallhythe Place in Kent, England, at age 81. Her career had lasted nearly seven decades. After her death, her correspondence with G. B. Shaw was published.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 151D.

British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., London, no. 537 C. Sent by mail in 1906. Photo: Window & Grove.

British postcard by Rotary Photo E.c., no. P.1822.a. With James Carew.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 4493 G. With James Carew.

British postcard by Rotary Photo in the Opalette Series, no. 0.3032.B.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 3982 T. Sent by mail in 1909. Photo: Lallie Charles.

Sources: Roger Manvell (Encyclopaedia Britannica), Gale Encyclopedia of Biography, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Claudia Cardinale, Part 1

November 15, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Claudia Cardinale, Part 2

≪ Previous: Ellen Terry

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale (1938) is one of Europe's iconic and most versatile film stars. The combination of her beauty, dark, flashing eyes, explosive sexuality and genuine acting talent virtually guaranteed her stardom. Her most notable films include the classics 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963), Il Gattopardo (Luchino Visconti, 1963), and Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968). Cardinale's film career is a major one and there are too many great postcards of her for just one post. So tomorrow follows Part 2.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/164. Photo: Georg Michalke / UFA.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/132. Photo: Sam Levin / Ufa.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 243, offered by Les Carbones Korès Carboplane. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. H 72.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/115.

The most beautiful Italian girl in Tunisia

Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale was born in La Goulette in Tunisia in 1938 (some sources claim 1939). Her mother, Yolande Greco, was born in Tunisia to Italian (Sicilian) emigrants from Trapani, Italy. Her father was an Italian (Sicilian) railway worker, born in Gela, Italy.

Her native languages were Tunisian Arabic and French. She received a French education and she had to learn Italian once she pursued her acting career.

She had her break in films after she was voted the most beautiful Italian girl in Tunisiain 1957. The contest of the Italian embassy had as a prize a trip to the Venice Film Festival. She made her film debut in the French-Tunisian coproduction Goha (Jacques Baratier, 1958) starring Omar Sharif.

After attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome for two months, she signed a 7-year contract with the Vides studios. The contract forbade her to cut her hair, to marry or to gain weight.

Later that year she had a role in the heist comedy I soliti ignoti/Big Deal On Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958) with Vittorio Gassman and Renato Salvatori. The film was an international success, and her film career was off and running.

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. FK 104. Photo: Herbert Fried / Ufa.

German postcard by Kolibri (W. Sander Verlag, Minden), no. 1865.

German postcard by Kolibri (W. Sander Verlag, Minden), no. 1968.

Dutch postcard.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, French licency holder for Ufa, presented by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. FK 99 B Photo: Gérard Décaux / Ufa.

After BB Comes CC

At this point, the press, noting her initials, announced that CC was the natural successor to BB (Brigitte Bardot), and began beating the drum on her behalf.

Dozens of alluring photographs of Claudia Cardinale were displayed in newspapers and magazines throughout the world. According to IMDb, she has appeared on more than 900 magazine covers in over 25 countries.

The contrast between these pictures and those of Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield is striking. Cardinale never appeared in a nude or fully topless scene. Her pictures promoted an image of a shy family girl who just happened to have a beautiful face and a sexy body.

A photograph of Cardinale was featured in the original gate fold artwork to Bob Dylan's album Blonde on Blonde (1966), but because it was used without Cardinale's permission, the photo was removed from the cover art in later pressings.

Claudia Cardinale, Yvonne Monlaur and Francoise Darnell in Tre straniere a Roma (1958)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 1187, 1960. Publicity still for Tre straniere a Roma/Three Strangers in Rome (Claudio Gora, 1958) with Yvonne Monlaur and Francoise Darnell.

Claudia Cardinale and Leonardo Botta in Tre straniere a Roma (1958)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb. Publicity still for Tre straniere a Roma/Three Strangers in Rome (Claudio Gora, 1958) with Leonardo Botta.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2569, 1965.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2388, 1965.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2268, 1965.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2949, 1967.

Manager-Producer-Husband

Claudia Cardinale's early career was largely managed producer Franco Cristaldi. Because of her film contract, she told everyone that her son Patrizio (who was born out of wedlock when she was 17; the father was a mysterious Frenchman) was her baby brother. She did not reveal to the child that he was her son until he was 19 years old. In 1966, she married Cristaldi, who adopted Patrizio.

In only three years she made a stream of great films. First she made three successful comedies, Un Maledetto imbroglio/The Facts of Murder (Pietro Germi, 1959), Il Bell'Antonio/Bell'Antonio (Mauro Bolognini, 1960) featuring Marcello Mastroianni, and Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Fiasco in Milan (Nanni Loy, 1960).

Then followed a supporting part in the epic drama Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960) in which she played the sister-in-law of Alain Delon and Renato Salvatori.

And then followed leading parts in La Ragazza con la valigia/Girl with a Suitcase (Valerio Zurlini, 1961), La Viaccia/The Lovemakers (Mauro Bolognini, 1961) with Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Senilità/Careless (Mauro Bolognini, 1961).

German postcard by Krüger.

French postcard.

German postcard by ISV, Sort. 10/6.

Dutch postcard, Serie 6.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1084, offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Ektachrome Anders.

Spanish postcard by Postal Oscar Color, Hospitalet (Barcelona), no. 521, 1963.

Deep voice and heavy accent

Claudia Cardinale had a deep, sultry voice and spoke Italian with a heavy French accent, so her voice was dubbed in her early films.

In Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), she was finally allowed to dub her own dialogue. In the film, she plays a dream woman - a character named Claudia, who is the object of the fantasies of the director in the film, played by Marcello Mastroianni. With Fellini's surrealistic masterpiece she received her widest exposure to date with this film.

That same year, she also appeared in another masterpiece of the Italian cinema, the epic Il Gattopardo/The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963) with Burt Lancasterand Alain Delon.

The combined success of these two classic films made her rise to the front ranks of the Italian cinema, and it also piqued Hollywood's interest.

To be continued tomorrow.

Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale in Otto e Mezzo (1963)

French postcard by Edition La Malibran, Paris, no. MC 38, 1990. Photo: Claude Schwartz. Publicity still for Otto e Mezzo/8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963) with Marcello Mastroianni.

merican trailer for I soliti ignoti/Big Deal On Madonna Street (1958). Source: Criterion Dungeon (YouTube).

Original Italian trailer of 8½ (1963). Source: Raúl Quintanilla (YouTube).

Original Italian trailer of Il Gattopardo/The Leopard (1963). Source: Blondinka Inoz (YouTube).

Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Roger Fristoe (TCM), IMDb and Wikipedia.

↧

Claudia Cardinale, Part 2

November 16, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Dora Doll (1923-2015)

≪ Previous: Claudia Cardinale, Part 1

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale (1938) is one of Europe's iconic and most versatile film stars. The success of her films 8½ (1963) and Il Gattopardo/The Leopard (1963) piqued Hollywood's interest in her. But she returned to Italy to make the ultimate Spaghetti Western and is still appearing in many interesting European films.

Spanish postcard by Toro de Bronce, no. 160, dep. legal B. 20.666-1964. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 183. Photo: Sam Lévin.

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

Big French card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Edition P.I., Paris, no. 1102. Photo: Kasparian. Publicity still for Cartouche (1962).

Pink Panther

In 1963 Claudia Cardinale played the princess who owned the Pink Panther diamond in The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1963) which was filmed in Italy. It was the first in the series of detective comedies starring Peter Sellers as bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau (the mishap-prone snoop was actually a supporting player in his debut).

The film was an enormous success and brought CC to English speaking audiences. In 1964 she co-starred with John Wayne and Rita Hayworth in her first American production, Circus World (Henry Hathaway, 1964). It was another box-office hit.

The following year she appeared with Rock Hudson in Blindfold (Philip Dunne, 1966), an offbeat mixture of espionage and slapstick comedy.

The Professionals (Richard Brooks, 1966) is her favourite among her Hollywood films. In this Western she is a gutsy Mexican woman married against her will to a rich American. The film received Academy Award nominations for Best Direction (Richard Brooks), Best Screenplay (Brooks again), and Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall).

Cardinale continued dividing her time between Hollywood and Europe for the remainder of the decade.

Postcard by Moviestar 1961, no. F 73. Photo: publicity still for Circus World (1964).

Claudia Cardinale and John Wayne in Circus World (1964)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Publicity still for Circus World (Henry Hathaway, 1964) with John Wayne.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 225/69, 1969. Photo: publicity still for Il giorno della civetta/The Day of the Owl (Damiano Damiani, 1968).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 20/70, 1970. Photo: publicity still for Il giorno della civetta/The Day of the Owl (Damiano Damiani, 1968).

Franco Nero and Claudia Cardinale in Il giorno della civetta (1967)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 427. Photo: publicity still for Il giorno della civetta/The Day of the Owl (Damiano Damiani, 1968) with Franco Nero.

Claudia Cardinale in Les pétroleuses (1971)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 154/73. Publicity still for Les pétroleuses/Frenchie King (Christian-Jaque, 1971). The billing of BB vs CC in this Western didn't live up to expectations.

The Ultimate Spaghetti Western

Throughout the 1960s, Claudia Cardinale also appeared in some of the best European films. In France she appeared in the Swashbuckler Cartouche (Philippe de Broca, 1962) featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Back in Italy, she played in I Giorno della civetta/The Day of the Owl (Damiano Damiani, 1968) with Franco Nero, and Nell'anno del Signore/The Conspirators (Luigi Magni, 1969) with Nino Manfredi.

Mesmerizing is her performance in Sandra/Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa... (Luchino Visconti, 1965) as a Holocaust survivor with an incestuous relationship with her brother (Jean Sorel).

Another highlight in her career is C'era una volta il West/Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968), the ultimate Spaghetti Western. Lucia Bozzola writes in her review at AllMovie: "In Sergio Leone's epic Western, shot partly in Monument Valley, a revenge story becomes an epic contemplation of the Western past. (...) As in his 'Dollars' trilogy, Leone transforms the standard Western plot through the visual impact of widescreen landscapes and the figures therein. At its full length, Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's operatic masterwork, worthy of its legend-making title."

German collectors card by Bergmann-Verlag, Unna, in the series Show-Top-Stars.

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

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

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/47.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/115.

International arthouse hit

In the following decades, Claudia Cardinale remained mainly active in the European cinema. She played a small part for Visconti in Gruppo di famiglia in un interno/Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, 1974) starring Burt Lancaster and Silvana Mangano.

She worked with other major Italian directors at Goodbye e amen (Damiano Damiani, 1977), the TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth (Franco Zeffirelli, 1977) as the adulteress, and La Pelle/The Skin (Liliana Cavani, 1981) starring Marcello Mastroianni and based on the bitter novel by Curzio Malaparte concerning the Allied liberation of Naples.

An international arthouse hit was Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982), the story of an obsessed impresario (Klaus Kinski) whose foremost desire in life is to bring both Enrico Caruso and an opera house to the deepest jungles of South America. In his diary of the making of Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog writes: "Claudia Cardinale is great help because she is such a good sport, a real trouper, and has a special radiance before the camera. In her presence, [Klaus Kinski] usually acts like a gentleman."

Other interesting films include the Luigi Pirandello adaptation Enrico IV/Henry IV (Marco Bellocchio, 1984) with Marcello Mastroianni, the epic La révolution française/The French Revolution (Robert Enrico, Richard T. Heffron, 1989), the nostalgic drama Mayrig/Mother (Henri Verneuil, 1991), and the romantic thriller And now... Ladies and Gentlemen (Claude Lelouch, 2002) starring Jeremy Irons.

On Television she gave another well-received performance in the TV drama La storia/History (Luigi Comencini, 1986), in which she plays a widow raising a son during World War II.

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

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 316. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Alberto Sordi and Claudia Cardinale in Bello, onesto, emigrato Australia sposerebbe compaesana illibata (1971)

Italian postcard by Gruppo Editoriale Lo Vecchio, Genova in the Alberto Sordi series. Photo: publicity still for Bello, onesto, emigrato Australia sposerebbe compaesana illibata/A Girl in Australia (Luigi Zampa, 1971) with Alberto Sordi.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Strong political convictions

Claudia Cardinale is a liberal with strong political convictions. She is involved in many humanitarian causes, and pro-women and pro-gay issues, and she has frequently stated her pride in her Tunisian and Arab roots - as evidenced by her appearance as herself in the Tunisian film Un été à La Goulette/A Summer at La Goulette (Férid Boughedir, 1996).

She has managed to combine her acting work with a role of goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, and advocate for the work of Luchino Visconti with whom she made four films.

She wrote an autobiography, Moi Claudia, Toi Claudia (Me Claudia, You Claudia). In 2005, she also published a French-language book, Mes Etoiles (My Stars), about her personal and professional relationships with many of her directors and co-stars through her nearly 50 years in show-business.

In 2002, she won an honorary Golden Bear award of the Berlin Film Festival, and previously in 1993 she was awarded an honorary Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Cardinale works steadily on and in recent years she has also worked in the theatre. In the cinema she appeared recently in the French-Tunisian gay drama Le fil/The String (Mehdi Ben Attia, 2009), the Algerian drama Un balcon sur la mer/A View of Love (Nicole Garcia, 2010) in which she played the mother of Jean Dujardin, and the costume drama Effie Gray (Richard Laxton, 2014) with Dakota Fanning.

Claudia Cardinale currently lives in Paris. Now 76, she has made over 135 films in the past 60 years, and still does two or three a year.

At the set of C'era una volta il West by Sergio Leone with Claudia Cardinale

Italian postcard by Cineteca Bologna for the exhibition Un Altro West (2008). Photo: A. Novi. Sergio Leone and Claudia Cardinale at the set of C'era una volta il West/Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968).

Trailer for The Professionals (1966). Source: The Western Review (YouTube).

Trailer for C'era una volta il West/Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Source: retrotrailer (YouTube).

Trailer for Fitzcarraldo (1982). Source: Film Society of Lincoln Center (YouTube).

Trailer for Le Fil/The String (2009). Source: TLA Releasing (YouTube).

Sources: Lucia Bozzola (AllMovie), Steve Rose (The Guardian), IMDb and Wikipedia.

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Dora Doll (1923-2015)

November 17, 2015, 4:27 pm

≫ Next: Die Claudi vom Geiserhof (1917)

≪ Previous: Claudia Cardinale, Part 2

On 15 November 2015, French actress Dora Doll passed away at her home in Gard, France. She appeared in such classic French films as Henri-Georges Clouzot's Manon (1949), Jacques Becker's Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) and Jean Renoir's French Cancan (1955). Later she played in international films like The Young Lions (1958) with Marlon Brando and Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977) with Jane Fonda. And she was the grandmother in the first French soap opera, Cap des Pins/Tide of Life (1998-2000). Dora Doll was 93.

Vintage postcard, no. 5224.

French postcard by Edition du Globe, Paris, no. 445. Photo: Sam Lévin.

The Bitch or the Sexy Flirt

Dora Doll was born Dorothea Hermina Feinberg in Berlin in 1922. Her father was a banker. When she was two, her family moved from the German capital to Paris.

Against the will of her parents, she aspired to become an actress. As an auditor she attended the courses taught by Louis Jouvet at the Conservatory. At the end of the 1930s, she started to appear as an extra in the cinema, in French films by Marc Allégret or Marcel Carné.

One of her first bigger screen appearances was as Juliette in Henri-Georges Clouzot's Manon (1949), an adaptation of Abbé Prevost's classic novel Manon Lescaut, updated to post-World War II France. That same year, she married the actor Raymond Pellegrin and soon they had a daughter, Danielle.

Doll appeared in many French comedies, often as the bitch or the flirt with blond hair and too narrow sweaters. These comedies include Rendez-vous avec la chance/Bed for two (Emil-Edwin Reinert, 1950), with Danièle Delorme and La Rose rouge/The Red Rose (Marcello Pagliero, 1951). In both films, Louis de Funès featured in a supporting part.

An important role for her career was Lola, a cabaret dancer with a big heart and smile, in Touchez pas au grisbi (Jacques Becker, 1954) opposite Jean Gabin. Doll co-starred again with Gabin in Jean Renoir's French Cancan (1955).

In 1954, Raymond Pellegrin met Gisèle Pascaland he divorced from Doll in 1955.
A few years later, she could be seen as Simone in The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958), an American war drama shot in Paris. The film is based upon a novel by prolific American author Irwin Shaw, and stars Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 444. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Dutch postcard by DRC, Holland, no. 1640. Photo: Ufa / Hoche Production, Paris.

The French Miss Ellie

In the following decades, Dora Doll kept playing supporting parts but mostly in TV productions. She also regularly returned to the theatre. In 1965, she married singer François Deguelt, but the two separated six years later.

She regularly could be seen in French and international films. In the celebrated Hollywood drama Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977), she is the woman passenger accompanying Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) when Lily smuggled $50,000 through Nazi Germany for her friend Julia (Vanessa Redgrave).

In that same year, she played the gym teacher in the popular coming-of-age drama Diabolo Menthe (Diane Kurys, 1977). Another small part in an interesting film was Madame Mayeul in Violette Nozière (Claude Chabrol, 1978). Isabelle Huppert stars as an adolescent girl, who poisons her parents in order to back up her gold-digger boyfriend to elope together. In 1982, Doll played in another masterpiece, Ettore Scola's La nuit de Varennes/That Night in Varennes with Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcello Mastroianni.

Between 1998 and 2000, Dora Doll played the grandmother Louise Chantreuil in the TV series Cap des Pins/Tide of Life. In that first French soap opera, she was the mother of Paul Barge and mother-in-law of Claude Jade. Her Louise Chantreuil can be seen as the French 'Miss Ellie'.

In 1993 Dora Doll was awarded the first Prix Reconnaissance des cinéphiles for French actresses in honour of her life's work. She was made Knight of France's Ordre national du Mérite (National Order of Merit) in 2000.

Doll continued to act and IMDb counts a total of 223 film and TV credits. Her final film was Jacquou le Croquant (Laurent Boutonnat, 2007) featuring Gaspard Ulliel, and her last TV appearance was in the miniseries Les châtaigniers du désert/Chestnut desert (Caroline Huppert, 2010).

Dora Doll died of complications from a fall on 15 November 2015 at her home in Gard, France. She was 93.

Trailer for Touchez pas au grisbi (1954). Source: Rialto (YouTube).

Trailer for French Cancan (1955). Source: BFI trailers.

Sources: Les Gens du Cinema (French), AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Die Claudi vom Geiserhof (1917)

November 18, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: the Eurospy Craze

≪ Previous: Dora Doll (1923-2015)

Henny Porten was the star of the silent mountain drama Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917). This Messter Film production premiered at the Mozartsaal in Berlin, on 28 September 1917. The later director Karl Freund did the cinematography of the beautiful mountain landscapes.

Henny Porten in Die Claudi vom Geiserhof

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 145. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 509/1. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 509/3. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

Shame and scorn

In Die Claudi vom Geiserhof (1917), simple but honest Claudi (Henny Porten) suffers under her grim and taciturn father (Eduard von Winterstein), who always had wanted a son instead of a daughter. The situation worsens when Claudi gets pregnant from the son (Paul Hartmann) of a rich farmer, who refuses to marry her.

Unable to stand the shame and scorn, the father kicks his daughter and her young baby out of the Geiserhof farm. The old farmhand Jörgl (Lupu Pick) and the father (Josef Klein) of the scoundrel who caused Claudi's misery prevent her from throwing herself from a cliff.

Years pass. Claudi has moved in with her lover's father, while the lover has left long ago as he disobeyed his father to marry the girl. Claudi's own father has become a recluse and misanthropist. When an avalanche buries him, Claudi returns to life. The lover's father offers to marry Claudi to turn her into a respectable woman, while Claudi's son manages to reconcile Claudi and her father, who miraculously has survived the avalanche.

When noticing this all, the lover repents and throws himself into an abyss on the spot where Claudi wanted to jump, together with her child.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 509/4. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne, no. 509/5. Photo: Messter Film. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

Henny Porten in Die Claudi vom Geiserhof (1917)

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 509/6. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 509/7. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Die Claudi vom Geiserhof/Claudi of the Geiserhof (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

Sources: The German Early Cinema Database, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

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EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: the Eurospy Craze

November 19, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Imported from the USA: Gloria Swanson

≪ Previous: Die Claudi vom Geiserhof (1917)

During the 1960s, the hugely successful James Bond film series initiated a new European film genre, the Eurospy film. In 1964, two years after the release of the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962), and the same year of the release of Goldfinger (1964), a large wave of espionage films was released. These European international co-productions imitated and/or parodied the 007 films.

British postcard by Klasik Kards, London, no. 1543. Photos: publicity stills for From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963) with Sean Connery as James Bond, Daniela Bianchi and Martine Beswick. Scottish superstar Sean Connery (1930) played the original secret agent 007 in seven James Bond films between 1962 and 1983 - all were big box-office hits.

Serbian postcard by Cik Razolednica. Photo: publicity still for Dr. No (1962). Stunning Swiss sex symbol, starlet and jet-setter Ursula Andress (1936) will always be remembered as the first and quintessential Bond girl. In Dr. No (1962) she made film history when she spectacularly rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini.

Gert Fröbe and Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964)

Dutch postcard. Sent by mail in 1966. Publicity still for Goldfinger (1964) with Sean Connery as James Bond and Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger.

A Spy Wave

Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962) and especially Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964) - the third and quintessential episode of the James Bond series - created a large wave of Eurospy films.

Michael Caine became the cool special agent Harry Palmer, and Richard Johnson played agent Bulldog Drummond.

There were popular Eurospy films from France (a series around Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, aka OSS 117) and Germany (the Kommissar X and the Jerry Cotton series), but most of the Eurospy films were produced in Italy.

There, the Eurospy trend replaced the Peplum films, the declining sword and sandal genre. The heroes of these films were secret agents who were often given a name similar to James Bond (Charles Bind, Charles Vine or James Tont), or a code name matching, or similar to, James Bond's '007'.

Many films featured former Hollywood B-stars like George Nader, Gordon Scott, Lex Barkerand Jacques Bergerac.

And British TV followed the trend with such delightful sixties series as The Saint, Danger Man and especially The Avengers.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg, no. 4250. Photo: Constantin / Studio Hamburg / Allianz / Astoria / Winterstein. Publicity still for Schüsse aus dem Geigenkasten/Operation Hurricane: Friday Noon (Fritz Umgelter, 1965) with George Nader as Jerry Cotton. Ruggedly handsome American actor George Nader (1921-2002) was a Universal star of second features in the 1950s. During the 1960s, Nader’s career had a second life in the European cinema as secret agent Jerry Cotton.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg. Photo: Constantin. Publicity still for Der Tod im Roten Jaguar/Death in the Red Jaguar (Harald Reinl, 1968) with George Nader as Jerry Cotton.

British postcard by Boomerang. Photo: Everett Collection. Michael Caine (1930) became an unusual but ultra cool star of the British cinema of the 1960s with his role of the spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965) and its four sequels.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for the Italian-French-Spanish Eurospy film Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966) with Daniela Bianchi and Jacques Bergerac. The film was a part of the Secret Agent 077 trilogy and starred Ken Clark. Italian actress Daniela Bianchi (1942) also played luscious Soviet cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (1963). One of her otherEurospy films was Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (Alberto de Martino, 1967), a James Bond spoof starring Sean Connery's younger brother, Neil Connery.

The Avengers, Diana Rigg, Patrick MacNee

French postcard by Universal Collections, 2002. Photo: Canal+ Image UK Ltd. The Avengers (1961-1969) is a delicious, quirky Spy-Fi television series set in cold war Britain. In one hour episodes, The Avengers focused on the adventures of eccentric, suave British agent John Steed (Patrick Macnee) working for the 'Ministry'. His most popular investigative partner was Diana Rigg's Emma Peel, who combined self-assuredness with superior fighting skills, intelligence, and a contemporary fashion sense.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Deadlier than the male (Ralph Thomas, 1967) with Richard Johnson as Bulldog Drummond and Suzanna Leigh. Johnson was considered for the role of James Bond in the first Bond film, Dr. No (1962). He declined the part as he did not favour a lengthy contract. He then played a modern-day Bulldog Drummond (reimagined as a 007-type hero) in Deadlier Than the Male (Ralph Thomas, 1967) and its less satisfactory sequel, Some Girls Do (Ralph Thomas, 1969) .

Christopher Lee and Roger Moore in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Dutch postcard by Loeb Uitgevers BV, Amsterdam, no. 5992109, 1985. Photo: Eon Productions / Gilrose Publications / Danjaq S.A. Publicity still for The Man with the Golden Gun (Guy Hamilton, 1974) with Christopher Lee and Roger Moore as James Bond. In 1973 Moore replaced Sean Connery as 007 and till 1983 Moore starred in seven Bond films.

British postcard by Danjaq A.S. / United Artists, 1987. Photo: publicity still for The Living Daylights (John Glen, 1987). Timothy Dalton (1944) played James Bond in The Living Daylights (John Glen, 1987) and Licence to Kill (John Glen, 1989). His first outing as Bond, The Living Daylights (1987), was critically successful, and grossed more than the previous two Bond films with Roger Moore .

British postcard by Santoro Graphics, London, no. BW 136. Photo: Paul Cox / Idols. British actor Jason Connery (1963) is the son of Sean Connery. Jason portrayed author Ian Fleming in the television drama Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming (Ferdinand Fairfax, 1990). Fleming was the creator of the James Bond character, which had made father Sean into an icon and had started the Eurospy craze.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Imported from the USA: Gloria Swanson

November 20, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Caterina Valente

≪ Previous: EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: the Eurospy Craze

American actress Gloria Swanson (1899–1983) is best known for her role as the reclusive silent film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Swanson herself was one of the most prominent stars and fashion icons during the silent film era. She often played under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, but also produced her own films, including Sadie Thompson (1928). Her fashion, hair styles, and jewels were copied around the world and by the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. In France she made her personal favourite of all her films, the now lost Madame Sans-Gêne (1925).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1488/3, 1927-1928. Photo: Paramount / Parafumet. Publicity still for Stage Struck (Allan Dwan, 1925).

Gloria Swanson and Émile Drain in Madame Sans-Gêne

Italian postcard, no. 139. Photo: Films Paramount Roma. Publicity still for Madame Sans-Gêne (Léonce Perret, 1925) with Emile Drain. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Spanish postcard by Casa Molina, Madrid. Gloria Swanson and Walter Byron in Queen Kelly (Erich von Stroheim, 1929).

The Lion's Bride

Gloria May Josephine Swanson was born in Chicago in 1899 to Adelaide (née Klanowski) and Joseph Theodore Swanson, a soldier. (Some sources list 1897 as the year of her birth.) Because of her father's attachment to the U.S. Army, the family moved frequently and Swanson ended up spending most of her childhood in Puerto Rico, where she learned Spanish. She also spent time in Key West, Florida.

It was not her intention to enter show business, but on a whim one of her aunts took her to a small film company in Chicago called Essanay Studios for a visit and Swanson was asked to come back to work as an extra. According to Wikipedia, she made her film debut there in the short The Song of Soul (1914) and according to Ed Stephan at IMDb in The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (Richard Foster Baker, 1915).

After a few months working as an extra, Swanson left school to work full-time at Essanay. She auditioned for the leading female role opposite Charlie Chaplin in His New Job (Charles Chaplin, 1915), but he instead cast her in the brief role of a stenographer. Her parents separated and she and her mother moved to California in 1916. There she appeared in Mack Sennett's Keystone comedies opposite Bobby Vernon.

In 1919 she signed a seven-year contract with Famous Players-Lasky. There director Cecil B. DeMille turned her into a romantic lead in such films as Don't Change Your Husband (1919), Male and Female (1919) with the famous scene posing as ‘the Lion's Bride’ with a real lion, Why Change Your Wife? (1920), Something to Think About (1920), and The Affairs of Anatol (1921).

In only two years, Swanson rocketed to stardom and became one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. She next appeared in a series of films directed by Sam Wood, including Beyond the Rocks (1922) with Rudolph Valentino. Long believed to be a lost film, Beyond the Rocks was rediscovered in 2004 in The Netherlands. In a series of costume dramas, Swanson became the screen's first clotheshorse, ornamented with beads, jewels, peacock and ostrich feathers, and other extravagant pieces haute couture of the day.

Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino in Beyond the Rocks (1922)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1091/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Paramount-Film. Publicity still for Beyond the Rocks (Sam Wood, 1922) with Rudolph Valentino.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3451/1, 1928-1929. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères, Paris.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3451/2, 1928-1929. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères, Paris.

One of the most legendary unfinished films

Gloria Swanson favourite film was Madame Sans-Gêne (Léonce Perret, 1925), the first French-American coproduction in which both countries had a hand in the film’s development. Filming was allowed for the first time at many of the historic sites relating to Napoleon. According to Julie Buck at the Women Film Pioneers Project, “Swanson was deeply involved in every aspect of the production, including having a say in who directed and who was cast.”

Madame Sans-Gêne was well received at the time, but it is now unfortunately considered to be a lost film. During the production, Swanson met her third husband Henri, Marquis de la Falaise, who had been hired to be her translator during the film's production. After a four months residency in France she returned to the United States as European nobility, now known as the Marquise. She got a huge welcome home with parades in both New York and Los Angeles.

Swanson made a number of films for Paramount, among them Stage Struck (Allan Dwan, 1925) and Fine Manners (Richard Rosson, Lewis Milestone, 1926). In 1927, she turned down a million dollar a year contract with Paramount to join the newly created United Artists, where she was her own boss and could make the films she wanted.

Her first independent film, The Love of Sunya, (Albert Parker, 1927) is the story of a young woman granted the ability to see into her future. The production was a disaster and on the advice of Joseph Schenck, Swanson returned to Hollywood.

There she filmed the controversial Sadie Thompson (Raoul Walsh, 1928), based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham. On Broadway it had been a huge hit, but the Hays Office had explicitely banned it. Swanson tricked Hays into giving her permission to shoot and Sadie Thompson became a smash hit. The film made the top ten best pictures of the year list as well and Swanson was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar.

Her next production would become one of the most legendary unfinished films. Queen Kelly (1929) was directed by Erich von Stroheim and produced by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., father of the future President John F. Kennedy. Swanson starred in the title role opposite Walter Byron. Production of the costly film was shut down after complaints by Swanson about von Stroheim and the general direction the film was taking. In later interviews, she claimed that she had been misled by the script, which referred to her character arriving in, and taking over, a dance hall. Looking at the rushes, it was obvious the 'dance hall' was actually a brothel.

Von Stroheim was fired from the film. Swanson and Kennedy shot an alternative ending, photographed by Gregg Toland. The film was not theatrically released in the United States due to a clause in Stroheim's contract, but it was shown in Europe and South America with the Swanson ending tacked on. A short extract of the film appears in Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), representing an old silent picture Swanson's character Norma Desmond had made. Ironically, Von Stroheim is also a primary character in Sunset Boulevard as her ex-director, ex-husband, and current butler.

Italian postcard by Ed. Ballerini & Fratini, no. 764. Photo: publicity still for Zazà (Allan Dwan, 1923).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1997/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Parufamet. Publicity still for Fine Manners (Richard Rosson, Lewis Milestone, 1926).

A glorious come-back

To try to recover from the Queen Kelly fiasco, Gloria Swanson jumped into making talkies. Her sound debut, The Trespasser (Edmund Goulding, 1929), earned Swanson her second Academy Award nomination, and was a smash hit. Follow-ups like What a Widow! (Allan Dwan, 1930), Indiscreet (Leo McCarey, 1931), and Music in the Air (Joe May, 1934) proved to be box-office flops.

Swanson relocated permanently to New York City in 1938, where she began an inventions and patents company called Multiprises, which kept her occupied during the years of World War II. This small company had the sole purpose of rescuing Jewish scientists and inventors from war-torn Europe and bringing them to the United States. She helped many escape, and some useful inventions came from the enterprise.

Swanson made another film for RKO, Father Takes a Wife (Jack Hively, 1941), began appearing in the legitimate theatre, and starred in her own television show in 1948. She threw herself into painting and sculpting, writing a syndicated column, touring in summer stock, engaging in political activism, radio and television work, clothing and accessories design and marketing, and making occasional appearances on the big screen.

In 1950 she made a glorious come-back with Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), for which she earned her third Academy Award nomination. After Mae West, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri had declined the role, Swanson portrayed Norma Desmond, a faded silent movie star who falls in love with the younger screenwriter Joe Gillis, played by William Holden. Desmond lives in the past, assisted by her butler Max, played by Erich von Stroheim. Cecil B. DeMille plays himself in a pivotal scene. Some of the lines from the film have become pop-culture mainstays, including "I am big; it's the pictures that got small"; "We didn't need dialogue, we had faces"; and "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

Swanson received several subsequent acting offers but turned most of them down, saying they tended to be pale imitations of Norma Desmond. Her last major Hollywood role was the poorly received Three for Bedroom "C" (Milton H. Bren, 1952). In Italy, Swanson made the historical comedy Mio figlio Nerone/Nero's Mistress (Steno, 1956), which also starred Alberto Sordi, Vittorio de Sica and Brigitte Bardot. Her final screen appearance was as herself in Airport 1975 (Jack Smight, 1974).

Although Swanson only made three films after Sunset Boulevard, she starred in numerous stage and television productions during her remaining years. She was active in various business ventures, traveled extensively, wrote articles, columns, and an autobiography, painted and sculpted, and became a passionate advocate of various health and nutrition topics. In 1980, Swanson's autobiography, Swanson on Swanson, was published and became a national bestseller. Kevin Brownlow and David Gill interviewed her for the classic TV series Hollywood (1980), a history of the silent era.

French postcard by Ed. Cinémagazine, no. 162. Gloria Swanson in The Humming Bird (Sidney Olcott, 1924), released in France as Les loups de Montmartre.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1588/2, 1927-1928. Photo: United Artists.

French postcard, no. 76. Photo: Melbourne Spurr.

Forever Miss Swanson

Throughout her life and her many marriages, Gloria Swanson was always known as Miss Swanson. Though she legally took the names of her husbands, her own personality and fame always overshadowed them. Her first husband was the actor Wallace Beery, whom she married on her 17th birthday. In her autobiography Swanson on Swanson, Swanson wrote that Beery raped her on their wedding night. He also impregnated her in 1917. Not wanting her to have the child, he reportedly tricked her into drinking a concoction that induced an abortion and although they still worked together at Keystone, they separated and finally divorced two years later.

In 1919. she married Herbert K. Somborn, then president of Equity Pictures Corporation and later the owner of the Brown Derby restaurant. They had a daughter, Gloria Swanson Somborn (1920-2000) and Swanson adopted a baby boy, Sonny Smith (1922–1975), whom she renamed Joseph Patrick Swanson. Her divorce from Somborn in 1925 was sensational when he accused her of adultery with thirteen men including Cecil B. DeMille, Rudolph Valentino, and director Marshall Neilan.

Swanson's third husband was the French aristocrat Henri, Marquis de la Falaise de la Coudraye, whom she married after the Somborn divorce was finalized. Swanson was the first film star to marry European nobility, and the marriage became a global sensation. She conceived a child with him, but had an abortion, which, in her autobiography, she said she regretted. Later, Henri became a film executive representing Pathé (USA) in France through Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., who was running the studio. This marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Soon after, Henri remarried, to actress Constance Bennett.

While still married to Henri, Swanson had an affair with the married Joseph P. Kennedy for a number of years. He became her business partner and their relationship was an open secret in Hollywood. He took over all of her personal and business affairs and was supposed to make her millions. Unfortunately, Kennedy left her after the disastrous Queen Kelly and her finances were in worse shape than when he came into her life.

In 1931, Swanson married Michael Farmer with whom she had a daughter, Michelle Bridget Farmer (1932). Swanson and Farmer divorced in 1934, after she became involved with married British actor Herbert Marshall. The media reported widely on the and after almost three years, Swanson left him once she realized he would never divorce his wife, Edna Best, for her. In 1945, Swanson married William N. Davey but divorced him in 1946.

For the next thirty years Swanson would remain unmarried and able to pursue her own interests. Swanson's final marriage, to writer William Dufty, occurred in 1976 and lasted until her death. In 1983, Gloria Swanson died in New York City in New York Hospital from a heart ailment, aged 84. Miss Swanson was survived by both of her daughters (her son had died in 1975), several grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in the United States and France.

Italian postcard, no. 58. Photo: Artisti Associati (United Artists). Publcity still for The Love of Sunya (Albert Parker, 1927).

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 904. Photo: United Artists / Verleih Projectograph-Film.

Trailer for Madame Sans-Gêne (1925). Source: historycomestolife (YouTube).

Trailer Sunset Boulevard (1950). Source: Ageless Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: Julie Buck (Women Film Pioneers Project), Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Caterina Valente

November 21, 2015, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Geneviève Félix

≪ Previous: Imported from the USA: Gloria Swanson

Italian singer, dancer and actress Caterina Valente (1931) was in the late 1950s and early 1960s the queen of the German Schlager music. Her popularity was global, and she played and sang in fifteen films. The Guinness Book of World Records recognised her as Europe's most successful female recording artist, with over 1350 albums to her credit.

Vintage postcard.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 23. Photo: Ringpress.

Caterina Valente and Dietmar Schönherr in Bonjour Kathrin (1956)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. F 32. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann. Publicity still for Bonjour Kathrin (Karl Anton, 1956) with Dietmar Schönherr.

Peter Alexander, Caterina Valente, Silvio Francesco

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 73. Photo: Lantin. With Peter Alexander and Silvio Francesco.

German postcard by ISV, no. L 2. Photo: Klaus Collignon.

Initial Years

Caterina Valente was born in Paris, France, in 1931 in an Italian artist family. Her father Giuseppe Valente was a well-known accordion player, her mother Maria Valente a musical clown. She had three siblings. With her older brother, the late singer and actor Silvio Francesco, she made later many records together, and he would be a frequent guest and musical director in her stage as well as TV-shows.

Caterina started her career as a singer and dancer at the circus Grock. In 1952 she married juggler Erik van Aro who recognised her talent and accompanied her in her initial years of worldwide success. Their son is the singer Eric van Aro, Jr.

A year later, she made her first recordings for Polydor with the orchestra of Kurt Edelhagen. Soon afterwards she achieved great success with songs such as Dreh dich nicht um (Don't Turn Around). Her hit Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe (1954), based on the Cole Porter song I Love Paris, sold more than 500,000 copies.

After her first musical successes, she sang and danced in the crime film Mannequins für Rio/Party Girls for Sale (Kurt Neumann, 1954) starring Johanna Matz and Raymond Burr. The next year she performed in such German musicals as Ball im Savoy/Ball at Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955), and with Peter Alexanderin Liebe, Tanz und 1000 Schlager/Love, Dance, and 1000 Songs (Paul Martin, 1955).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 3928. Photo: Ufa.

Caterina Valente in Bonjour, Kathrin (1956)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, no. 175, 1956. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: publicity still for Bonjour, Kathrin (Karl Anton, 1956).

Caterina Valente and Rudolf Prack in Das einfache Mädchen (1957)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 2952. Photo: CCC / Gloria. Publicity still for Das einfache Mädchen/The simple girl (Werner Jacobs, 1957) with Rudolf Prack.

Dutch postcard by N.V. v.h. Weenenk & Snel, Baarn, no. 880. Photo: Hafbo. Publicity still for Hier bin ich, Hier bleib ich/Here I Am, Here I Stay (Werner Jacobs, 1959).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1159. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof.

Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 4197.

Bossanova Girl

In 1954 and 1955 Caterina Valente had international success with Malagueña. The song which introduced the Bossanova in Europe was written for her by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona. It charted first in Europe and eventually in England and the US.

Malaguena was featured on American TV in the Colgate Comedy Hour with Gordon MacRae. Malaguena was followed by Analucia, also written by Lecuona, which when re-released in an English version as The Breeze and I became a top ten hit in both Great Britain and the US.

By this time Valente had become a truly multi-lingual artist, performing her cabaret act and issuing recordings in six languages: French, German, Italian, English, Spanish and Swedish. In France she made the musical Casino de Paris (André Hunebelle, 1957) with Gilbert Bécaud and Vittorio de Sica, and in Germany she continued to make popular Schlagerfilms like Hier bin ich - hier bleib' ich/Here I Am, Here I Stay (Werner Jacobs, 1959) with Hans Holt. In the US she was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1959.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden (Westf.), no F 31. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann. With Silvio Francesco.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-55. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/22. Photo: Teldec / Farabola.

Dutch postcard, mailed in 1964.

German postcard by Kruger, no. 902/19. Photo: Teldec / Farabola.

Girltalk

During the early 1960s Caterina Valente switched alliances to Decca Records and scored several hits with them, including Itsy Bity Teenie Weenie Honolulu Strand Bikini, and Quando, Quando, Quando. Valente worked with the legendary Claus Ogerman and recorded material in both Italian and English. Her version of La Golondrina appeared on one of the first charity albums, All Star Festival (1963). The proceeds from that album went to aid refugees.

Between 1966 and 1972 she was a frequent guest on the Dean Martin Show and other American TV shows. From the mid 1950s to the 1980s German, Italian, Swiss and Austrian television produced more than a dozen series of Valente-Shows.

Over the years, she has recorded or performed with many international stars, including Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Woody Herman, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Chet Baker.

In 1988 she issued Caterina 86, a recording made with the Count Basie Orchestra. In 1986 she enjoyed her fiftieth year on stage jubilee with the German TV show Bravo, Catrin! which attracted 17 million spectators. The Italian jazz CD A briglia sciolta (1989) became Valente’s best selling CD worldwide.

In 2001, she released her latest album of newly recorded material Girltalk, with harpist Catherine Michel. Among her many awards are the German Bundesverdienstkreuz (Cross of merit) (1968) and Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz (Grand Cross of merit) (1985), and the Italian Premio Gabardi (Lifetime Achievement Award) (2004). In 1972, Valente married her musical director, British composer and jazz pianist Roy Budd. They had a son, Alexander Budd, but they divorced in 1979. Today, Caterina Valente lives in her villa at the lake of Lugano in Switzerland.

Caterina Valente, Silvio Francesco, Peter Alexander in Bonjour, Kathrin (1956)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, no. 164, 1956. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: publicity still for Bonjour, Kathrin (Karl Anton, 1956) with Silvio Francesco and Peter Alexander.

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 4198. With her son Eric.

German promotion card by Decca, no. 225.

Caterina Valente and Bully Bulhan sing Schnurri-burri-bum in Die Grosse Starparade 1954 (Paul Martin, 1954). Source: Mr. Steamhammer100 (YouTube).

Young Caterina Valente singing and dancing in Liebe, Tanz und 1000 Schlager (Paul Martin, 1955). Source: SunJohann (YouTube).

Caterina Valente sings Es gibt noch Märchen (There are still fairy tales) in the schlagerfilm Das einfache Mädchen/The Ordinary Girl (Werner Jacobs, 1957). Source: Wyrubowa (YouTube).

Sources: Stacia Proefrock (AllMusic), Carola Bernasconi (IMDb), CaterinaValente.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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Forgotten

An Arabian Nights princess

The most beautiful girl in the world

Her blood pressure-raising belly dance

An Overnight Star

Film Direction

Film Policier

When Women Love and Hate

White Slave Trade

The first Belgian film

Feminist fairy-tale

Ruritania-like story

Acting as an early form of rebellion

A Period of Frantic Renaissance

Gay Uncle

Bon Vivant

Running Wild

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A Family of Actors

A Star-studded Gala Performance

Her Greatest Performance

The most beautiful Italian girl in Tunisia

After BB Comes CC

Manager-Producer-Husband

Deep voice and heavy accent

Pink Panther

The Ultimate Spaghetti Western

International arthouse hit

Strong political convictions

The Bitch or the Sexy Flirt

The French Miss Ellie

Shame and scorn

A Spy Wave

The Lion's Bride

One of the most legendary unfinished films

A glorious come-back

Forever Miss Swanson

Initial Years

Bossanova Girl

Girltalk

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