European Film Star Postcards

Belgian stage and screen actress Berthe Bovy (1887-1977) was a regular performer at the Comédie Française since 1907. She also acted in some 30 early silent films, mainly for Pathé, and in some 20 sound films between the 1930s and early 1970s. Bovy also worked for TV.

French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix. Caption: Mlle Berthe Bovy of the Comédie Française.

Her Idol Sarah Bernhardt

Berthe Bovy, sometimes known as Betty Bovy, was born in 1887 in Cheratte, now part of the commune of Visé, in the province of Liège. Berthe was the daughter of Théophile Bovy, journalist, poet and playwright and best known as writer of the official anthem of Wallonia, Le chant des Wallons.

He made sure that his daughter was playing small roles already at the age of six in the Liège theaters. When she was thirteen, her father arranged by his friend, the composer Reynaldo Hahn, a personal encounter with her idol Sarah Bernhardt. After this meeting, Bovy decided to enroll at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, where she was in the class of Jeanne Tordeur, a former actress of the Comédie-Française. From 1904 to 1906 she studied further at the Paris Conservatory where she attended the class of Charles Le Bargy.

After a few minor roles played at the Théâtre de la Gaîté and Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, she starred alongside Sarah Bernhardt in the play L'Aiglon (The Eaglet) by Edmond Rostand. In 1907 she joined the Comédie-Française and she debuted there with a small role in the play Monsieur Alphonse by Alexandre Dumas fils. A first leading role she got in Le Baiser (The Kiss), an opéra comique by Adolphe Deslandres in which she took a transvestite role.

Her breakthrough as an actress came shortly thereafter in La Cousine Bette by Honoré de Balzac. In 1920 she became an effective member of the Comédie-Française. The following year she garnered much success with the play La Terre during her tour. At the Comédie-Française, she created roles in several plays by e.g. Maurice Maeterlinck, Tristan Bernard and Luigi Pirandello. Among her pupils were Madeleine Renaud, Fernand Ledoux, and her third husband, Pierre Fresnay.

French postcard by ND Phot., serie 14, no. 5. Photo: H. Manuel. Première Missive: Poses by Mlle Berthe Bovy [misspelled as Body] from the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. Caption: One would say I just accomplished a grave action, while it is exciting to think that this small wax print will protect my biggest secrets.

French postcard by ND Phot., serie 14, no. 2. Photo: H. Manuel. Première Missive: Poses by Mlle Berthe Bovy [misspelled as Body] from the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. Caption: Am I reasonable to write him at his place? He always forbid me so, yes, but I could not stand it any more, I poured out my soul; whatever may came of it, I moisten this...

Like a Stradivarius violin

In 1930 Berthe Bovy was very successful with the drama La Voix humaine (The Human Voice) which Jean Cocteau had written for her and in which she took on the role of a woman talking on the phone for the last time with her lover who has just dumped her to marry another.

Cocteau was smitten with her and said she vibrated like a Stradivarius violin. The one-act play was registered on two 78" records the same year by Columbia. In 1957, Bovy would do a second recording for Pathé.

In 1942, during World War II, Berthe Bovy refused to participate in a tour through Germany. Therefore she had to leave the Comédie-Française. Bovy then acted in boulevard theatre pieces such as Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring and created for the first time the role of an older dignified, spirited lady.

In 1946 she was reinstated in her honour and after she was admitted to a honorary membership, she went back to work at the Comédie-Française in 1950. Until 1963, she played roles in plays by e.g. André Gide.

Her last role at the famed theatre house was in Mary Stuart by Friedrich von Schiller in 1963. In 1967 at the age of eighty, with the role of Madame Pernelle in the play Tartuffe by Molière, she took farewell to the stage.

French postcard. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères. Caption: Berthe Bovy, Sociétaire de la Comédie Française.

Film d'Art

How major was Berthe Bovy's film career? While Wikipedia claims that Bovy played roles in a hundred silent films, IMDb only mentions some thirty titles.

In 1908 she debuted on the screen as a page in L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise, the first Film d’Art film, which brought prestige to the new medium of cinema, and attracted stage actors such as Charles Le Bargy, Gabrielle Robinne and Albert Lambert.

After that she became a regular actress at Pathé Frères in mostly historical dramas. Her first lead role was Queen Margaret of Valois in La reine Margot/Queen Margot (Camille de Morlhon, 1910). While De Morlhon, André Calmettes and Albert Capellani directed her in historical films, she also acted in modern dramas by Gerard Bourgeois and others.

Her main co-actors in her Pathé years were René Alexandre, Louis Ravet and Gabrielle Robinne. Until early 1914 Bovy had a steady output at Pathé of 8 to 10 films per year, but then quitted the silent screen and only returned in 1921 for the part of La Trouille in the film adaptation of La Terre by André Antoine, who just before had toured with the theatrical adaptation.

After a long absence, Bovy returned to the screen when sound film had been well established. Between 1938 and 1971 she played in twenty sound films and worked with directors such as Julien Duvivier and Christian-Jaque.

She was notable as Mme Bonnet in Boule de suif (Christian-Jacque, 1945). In L'Armoire volante (Carlo Rim, 1948), Bovy played alongside Fernandel, while in Rim’s La Maison Bonnadieu (Carlo Rim, 1951) she acted opposite Bernard Blier, Danielle Darrieux and Françoise Arnoul.

Other memorable titles were Le Joueur (Gerhard Lamprecht, Louis Daquin, 1938), and Fantômas contre Fantômas (Robert Vernay, 1948). In the 1960s, Bovy also played several roles in plays and serials on television.

Berthe Bovy was married and divorced three times, first to Charles Gribouval, secretary of the Comédie-Française, secondly with artist Ion Anton Ion-Don, and thirdly, in 1929, with Pierre Jules Louis Laudenbach, better known by his stage name Pierre Fresnay.

Berthe Bovy died in 1977 at Montgeron in France and she is buried in Liège, Belgium.

BOVY, Berthe_A. Christensen. 28. Comédie Française. Photo Tabbit

French postcard by FA, no. 28. Photo: Talbot. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona (Flickr).

Berthe Bovy_Comoedia (Nos Artistes dans leur Loge; 238)

French postcard by Comoedia in the Nos Artistes dans leur Loge series, no. 238. Photo: Comoedia. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona (Flickr).

Sources: Cine-Ressources, Wikipedia (French, Dutch and English), and IMDb.

The German silent film Madame DuBarry is an operatic version of the life, loves and death of the legendary 18th-century French courtesan. Pola Negri plays DuBarry, who sleeps her way to the court of King Louis XV, ultimately becoming his mistress. It was one of the spectacular productions which Ernst Lubitsch made in Germany before he became world-famous for his sophisticated sex farces in Hollywood.

Pola Negri and Harry Liedtke in Madame DuBarry (1919)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 627/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Union. Publicity still for Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919) with Pola Negri and Harry Liedtke.

Pola Negri. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 247/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

Victim of the Reign of Terror

Ernst Lubitsch's Madame Dubarry is a historical epic which opened as the premiere attraction of Berlin's impressive Zoopalast theatre on in 1919. Silent film diva Pola Negriplays the milliner’s apprentice Jeanne Marie Vaubernier, who has come to Paris from the country.

In a deal to save her lover Count DuBarry (Karl Platen) from financial ruin, the Parisian milliner's maid alias Madame DuBarry (Pola Negri) becomes the influential mistress of the reigning French king, Louis XV (Emil Jannings).

However, this relation is much to the dismay of the Minister of State and Finance, Choiseul (Reinhard Schünzel). This brilliant schemer had planned for his sister, the Duchesse de Grammont, to become the Queen of France. Choiseul thus starts a campaign to turn the people against the monarch and his new mistress.

Jeanne soon becomes a symbol for the extravagance of the much-hated aristocracy. When the king dies, Jeanne is ousted by the angry masses and she becomes one of the victims of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 627/4. Photo: Union Film. Pola Negri in Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919). By marrying the aristocrat Guillaume DuBarry (Karl Platen), Jeanne will be accepted at the Royal Court and become Louis XV's mistress. Back right on this card DuBarry's brother Jean (Eduard von Winterstein) who concocted the plan.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 627/5. Photo: Union Film. Pola Negri in Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).

Far from historical accuracy

Madame DuBarry (1919) had everything: sex, intrigue, war, violence. The film was a success in both Europe (except in France) and the U.S., where it was released as Passion, and successfully re-issued in 1928. It was one of the greatest triumphs of Pola Negri.

Negri's flirtatious Madame DuBarry is both comical and sympathetic. Emil Janningsis also excellent as a lecherous, bombastic King Louis XV. Harry Liedtke plays Jeanne's first love, the student Armand de Foix.

Madame DuBarry (1919) was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, written by Norbert Falk and Hanns Kräly. It strays far from historical accuracy, but the narrative is at least coherent.

In reality, King Louis XV died 15 years before the beginning of the French Revolution and Madame DuBarry was long gone from Versailles by the time of the storming of the Bastille. She was 50 when she was executed during the Reign of Terror.

Despite these flaws, Chuck Reilly reviews at IMDb, "the gigantic mob scenes and the final shots of poor Pola being carted off to the guillotine are well-staged and resonate even with modern viewers".

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 627/6. Photo: Union Film. Publicity still of Reinhold Schünzel and Pola Negri in Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919). After the death of king Louis XV (Emil Jannings), his minister Choiseul (Schünzel) chases DuBarry (Negri) from the Royal palace.

Pola Negri and Reinhold Schünzel in Madame DuBarry (1919)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 627/7. Photo: Union Film. Publicity still of Reinhold Schünzel and Pola Negriin Madame DuBarry (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Chuck Reilly (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Gaby Sylvia (1920-1980) had a remarkable career in French cinema of the late 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. She had an even more intense career on the French stage starring in plays by Jean Giraudoux and Jean-Paul Sartre.

French postcard by Ed. Chantal, Paris, no. 6. Photo: Filmsonor.

French postcard by S.E.R.P., Paris, no. 36. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

The First French Colour Film

Gaby Sylvia was born Gabriella Zignani in Cesena, Italy, in 1920. She was still a child, when her family moved to France.

While she already played secondary roles in films in the late 1930s and the war years, Gaby Sylvia started to have leading parts in the immediate postwar era.

In 1947 she had the female lead in Capitaine Blomet/ aptain Blomet (Andrée Feix, 1947), staring Fernand Gravey, as well as in the Pierre Loti adaptation Le Marriage de Ramuntcho/The Marriage of Ramuntcho (Max de Vaucorbeil, 1947), considered the first French colour film. The title role was played by André Dassary.

In the late 1940s her most interesting films include the resistance film Mission à Tanger (André Hunebelle, 1949), starring Raymond Rouleau, and the comedy L'Amant de paille/The Straw Lover (Gilles Grangier, 1950), with a debuting Louis de Funès and Jean-Pierre Aumont.

French postcard, no. 116. Photo: Roger-Carlet.

French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 104. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

Wealthy Baby Killer

Gaby Sylvia played Sylvia, a wealthy baby killer Estelle Rigault opposite Arletty in the Jean-Paul Sartre adaptation Huis clos/No Exit (Jacqueline Audry, 1954). She had also played Estelle in the first stage version of Huis clos, which had its first night on 27 May 1944, at the Théàtre du Vieux-Colombier, and was directed by Raymond Rouleau.

In addition to her role in Sartre's Huis clos, which she repeated on stage in 1961, Sylvia often played in plays by Jean Giraudoux, such as Amphytryon (1956, 1958), and also repeatedly performed in the comedy Piège pour un homme seul (1960, 1962, 1971) by Robert Thomas.

Her reperetory ranged from classics like Molière and Racine to modern writers like Giraudoux, Sarte and Thomas. Between the late 1930s and late 1950s Rouleau directed her in various stage plays.

From the late 1950s on, her stage directors were men like Raymond Gérôme (late 1950s), Jacques Charon (early 1960s), Antoine Bourseiller (mid-1960s), and Andréas Voutsinas (1970s). In 1976 Gaby Sylvia said goodbye to the stage with a performance in Huis clos, directed by Voutsinas.

In 1977 she also played her last film role in the comedy Nous irons tous au paradis/We Will All Meet in Paradise by Yves Robert.

Just turned sixty, Gaby Sylvia died in 1980 in Chamalières (Puy-de-Dôme) in the French Auvergne, because of a brain haemorrhage.

French postcard by Collection Chantal, Paris, no. 578. Photo: Discina, Paris.

Huis Clos/No Exit (1954). Sorry, no subtitles. Source: Classic Movies (YouTube).

Sources: Simon Condès (CinéArtistes - French), Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

Today in our series EFSP's Dazzling Dozen twelve postcards of stars with their pets. We did already a dazzling post on stars and their best friends, so dogs are excluded this time. But we easily can fill a zoo with all the other animals that had to go on a picture for a postcard with a film star. And did these pets always love the camera? Mwah. Just watch that grumpy cat in the arms of Yvonne De Carlo. We start and finish this post with that animal lover supreme, Brigitte Bardot.

Brigitte Bardot. Dutch postcard by Gebr, Spanjersberg N.V. , Rotterdam, no. 1024, Dutch licency holder for UFA. Sent by mail in 1959. Photo: UFA.

Anita Berber. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series. Photo: Becker & Maass. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Evi Eva. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1790/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Cilly Feindt. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3277/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin.

Roy Rogers. Dutch postcard. Photo: Republic Pictures.

Yvonne De Carlo. Dutch postcard by Takken, no. 3538. Photo: Universal International, 1949.

Lex Barker. German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 449. Photo: RKO Radio Film.

Peter Lorre. Dutch postcard, no. 850. Photo: Warner Bros.

Romy Schneider. Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1093. Photo: Ufa.

Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers. East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 86/89, 1969.

Jean-Paul Belmondo. Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Chinese Adventures in China (Philippe de Broca, 1965).

Brigitte Bardot. French postcard by Editions Lyna, Paris, no. 2104. Caption: Tu deviens reponsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Antoine de St-Exupéry

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.

Austrian actress Maria Perschy (1938-2004) was the sexy leading lady of many European films of the late 1950s before she made a short career in Hollywood in films by John Huston and Howard Hawks. In the 1970s she appeared in Spanish and Italian low-budget horror films and became a cult figure.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 99. Photo: Klaus Collignon.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/376. Photo: Lothar Winkler.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/403. Photo: Lothar Winkler.

Breeding for the Fatherland

Herta-Maria Perschy was born in 1938 in Eisenstadt, Austria in 1938. She moved to Vienna at the age of 17 to study acting at the prestigious Max Reinhardt Seminar. There she was awarded with the Kunstförderungspreis für Darstellende Kunst der Stadt Wien, an award of the city of Vienna to stimulate young and talented actors.

During her studies, the gorgeous and appealing brunette knockout made her film début with a small role in Roter Mohn/Red Poppy (Franz Antel, 1956) starring Joachim Fuchsberger. After finishing her studies, her teacher Susi Nicoletti helped to get her a contract at the Bavaria Filmstudiosin Germany.

Her first major success came with Nasser Asphalt/Wet Asphalt (Frank Wisbar, 1958). In this Film Noir about the dangers of tabloid reporting, she starred opposite the young Horst Buchholz.

Soon this success was followed by films like Der Schwarze Blitz/The Black Lightning (Hans Grimm, 1958) with former ski champion Toni Sailer, Die Landärztin vom Tegernsee/Lady Country Doctor (Paul May, 1958), with Marianne Koch, Natürlich die Autofahrer/Of Course the Drivers (Erich Engels, 1959) with comedian Heinz Erhardt, and Der Held meiner Träume/The Hero of My Dreams (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1960) with Carlos Thompson.

Another commercial success was the clichéd drama Lebensborn/Fountain of Life (Werner Klingler, 1960), loosely based on the super-race propagation plan by Nazi Heinrich Himmler, which recruited men and women for their fair skin, blond hair, and blue eyes alone. These specially selected Aryans were ordered to breed, for the Fatherland.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3984. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann / Inter-West Film / Europa.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 287. Photo: Europa / Ringpress / Vogelmann.

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. A 1546.

Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill

Her acting career would eventually take Maria Perschy to France, Italy, Great Britain and Hollywood. Among her European films were Il Moralista/The Moralist (Giorgio Bianchi, 1959), I Piaceri del sabato notte/Call-Girls (Daniele D'Anza, 1960) with Pierre Brice, Un Amore a Roma/Love In Rome (Dino Risi, 1960) with Mylène Demongeot, and The Password Is Courage (Andrew L. Stone, 1962) starring Dirk Bogarde.

Hal Erickson writes at AllMovie about her short Hollywood career: "Like many attractive European actresses, Perschy tended to be shunted into sexpot roles in her English-language films: her character name in Howard Hawks'Man's Favorite Sport (1964), for example, was 'Easy.' By far, her best non-European film assignment was the part of Magda in John Huston's Freud (1962)."

In this biopic the pioneering psychotherapist himself was played by Montgomery Clift, and Rock Hudson was her leading man in the comedy Man's Favorite Sport?. She also appeared with Cliff Robertson in the routine war film Squadron 633 (Walter Grauman, 1964) and the South-African adventure African Gold (David Millin, 1965).

Perschy lived in Spain and played in Hollywood and in European productions, both films and TV-series. In Germany she appeared in the Edgar Wallace Krimi Der Henker von London/The Mad Executioners (Edwin Zbonek, 1963) with Hansjörg Felmy, as partner of Horst Frank in the Thriller Weiße Fracht für Hongkong/Mystery of the Red Jungle (Helmut Ashley, Giorgio Stegani, 1964) and in the Sci-Fi adventure Der Chef wünscht keine Zeugen/No Survivors, Please (Hans Albin, Peter Berneis, 1964).

Later followed adventure films and Westerns like Die Banditen vom Rio Grande/The Bandits of the Rio Grande (Helmuth M. Backhaus, 1965) with Harald Leipnitz, Kommissar X – Jagd auf Unbekannt/Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill (Gianfranco Parolini, 1966), Mister Dynamit – morgen küsst Euch der Tod/Die Slowly, You'll Enjoy It More (Franz Josef Gottlieb, 1967) with Lex Barker, and The Castle of Fu Manchu (Jesus Franco, 1969), featuring Christopher Lee.

Her last big film success in Germany was the comedy Dr. med. Fabian – Lachen ist die beste Medizin/Dr. Fabian: Laughing Is the Best Medicine (Harald Reinl, 1969) in which she starred opposite Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff.

In those years she had longtime relationships with actor Joachim Hansen– her co-star of Lebensborn - and later with skier Roger Staub.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK-4797. Photo: Joe Niczky / Ufa. Publicity still for Lebensborn/Ordered to Love (Werner Klingler, 1961) with Joachim Hansen.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/373. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Low-grade Horror Films

While shooting in Spain in 1971, Maria Perschy's face was burned severely by an accidental fire which required several operations. She was bedridden for an extended period before she could resume her career.

In Italy and Spain she appeared in many low-grade horror films, including El Buque Maldito/Ghost Galleon (Amando De Ossorio, 1974) and the Spanish rip-off of The Exorcist, Exorcismo (Paul Naschy aka Jacinto Molina, 1964). These films made her a kind of cult figure.

In 1976 the Spanish state pressed her to get a Spanish passport, Perschy choose to return to her native Austria. She did not stay long though. From 1977 on she lived in Los Angeles and was married to a writer.

By then her career in America petered out. She only appeared on TV in the daytime soap General Hospital (1977) and as a guest star in Hawaii Five-O (1978), a detective series starring Jack Lord as the head of a special state police unit answering only to the Governor of Hawaii.

For a while she worked as a translator ans she also worked in the antique retail. Her husband committed suicide in 1983 and she returned again to Austria in 1985.

She performed in stage plays such as A. R. Curney's Love Letters and the mystery play Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. She continued to play in TV series like the popular Krimi Tatort (1998) and Rosamunde Pilcher (1998).

Her last feature films were the low-budget shocker Vultures (Paul Leder, 1983) starring Stuart Whitman, and the romantic comedy Eine Frau namens Harry/Harry and Harriet (Cyril Frankel, 1990).

In 2004 Maria Perschy died of cancer in Vienna. She was 66. She had been married twice and had one daughter.

American trailer for Lebensborn/Ordered to Love (1961). Source: Video Detective (YouTube).

Trailer for Squadron 633(1964). Source: Michael Appert (YouTube).

Trailer Freud (1962). Source: Cliff Held (YouTube).

El buque maldito/Ghost Galleon (1974). Source: 2ombieboy (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie d’Heil (Steffi-line), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Albert Lambert (1865-1941), a.k.a. Albert Lambert fils, was a French stage and screen actor, who was for a long time part of the Comédie-Française. He also played in several early French film d’art films, first of all L'Assassinat du duc de Guise (1908).

French postcard. Photo: Nadar, no. 232. The photo dates from the 1880s, but the card may be a bit newer.

French postcard by Eclair, no. 60. Photo: Nadar. Publicity still for the Comédie Française stage production of Le Cid (1906) by Pierre Corneille.

French postcard by Eclair, no. 57. Photo: Nadar. Publicity still for the Comédie Française stage production of Hernani (1920?) by Victor Hugo.

The respectable Film d'Art

Albert-Raphaël Lambert was born in Rouen in 1865 as son of the actor and sculptor Albert Lambert. Junior did the Conservatoire national, where in 1883 he obtained a first award in tragedy. Lambert’s father for a long time was Pensionnaire at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris. In the 1880s Lambert fils already acted at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in plays by e.g. François Coppée, Alphonse Daudet and William Shakespeare before entering the reputed Comédie-Française in 1885 with his part in Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo.

Lambert became sociétaire of the Comédie-Française in 1891, which he remained till 1935. At the famous stage company, his roles of Antioch (1893) in Bérénice by Jean Racine and Didier (1905) in Marion Delorme by Victor Hugo became so popular, that he repeated them in later years (resp. 1906 and 1922). While Lambert acted in many plays by Hugo, he also was a regular in plays by Shakespeare, Sophocles and Racine.

In 1930 he became doyen at the Comédie-Française and sociétaire honoraire in 1936. In 1934 he also performed at the London Cambridge Theatre in the lead of Hugo's Ruy Blas (1934), as Alcestis in Molière's Le misanthrope/The Misanthrope (1934), and as Rodrigue in Corneille's Le cid (1934).

Lambert was also one of the first actors to help launch the new film genre of the French Film d’art films. In order to raise the reputation of the new medium of cinema, reputed stage actors were attracted to act in cinematic adaptations of famous novels and stage plays, or reenactments of famous historical events.

Lambert played the lead of the Duc de Guise in the first of these films, L'Assassinat du duc de Guise/The Assassination of the Duke de Guise (1908), directed by André Calmettes and Charles Le Bargy, and scripted by Henry Lavedan. The film recounts a famous historical episode, the day of 23 December 1588, during which Henry I of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, rival of King Henry III (Charles Le Bargy), was summoned by the latter to his castle in Blois, despite the pleas of Marquise Noirmoutier, his mistress (Gabrielle Robinne), not to go. De Guise was stabbed to death by the guards of the royal army at the castle of Blois.

Everything was done to present the film L'Assassinat du duc de Guise/he Assassination of the Duke de Guise (1908) as artistic and respectable as possible, quoting famous historical paintings such as Paul Delaroche’s Assassinat du Duc de Guise (1834) but also having a purposely written score - probably the first in film history - by the famous composer Camille Saint-Saëns.

Paul Delaroche, L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise

French postcard by Union postale universelle. Early 20th century reproduction of Paul Delaroche's painting L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise (1834) at the Musée Condé, Chantilly. Quoted in the 1908 French silent film L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise by André Calmettes and Charles Le Bargy.

French postcard by Croissant, Paris, no. 3523. Photo: H. Manuel [?]. Albert Lambert as Orestes.

French postcard by F.C. et Cie, no. 166. Photo: Paul Boyer, Paris. Albert Lambert as Hernani.

Charles Pathé

The reception of L'Assassinat du duc de Guise/The Assassination of the Duke de Guise, which premiered 17 November 1908 in Paris, was so favourable, that the newly founded film company Le Film d’Art was backed by film magnate Charles Pathé to produce a whole range of such Film d’art films, though not all had the same success.

Lambert thus acted as Antinous opposite Paul Mounet as Ulysses and Julia Bartet (other sources erroneously indicate Régina Badet) as Penelope in Le retour d’Ulysse (André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy, 1909), and as Christ opposite Jean Mounet-Sully as Judas in Le baiser de Judas (Armand Bour, André Calmettes, 1909).

After that followed parts in Pygmalion (Daniel Riche, 1910), Oedipe roi (André Calmettes, 1910) after Sophocles and with Mounet-Sully and Berthe Bovy co-acting, Aux temps des premiers chrétiens (André Calmettes, 1910) a liberal adaptation of Sienkiewicz’s Quo vadis? with Lambert as Marcus Vinicius, and Roi d’un jour (André Calmettes, 1910) on the revolution of Masaniello (Lambert) in 17th century Naples against the Duke of Argos (Henri Étievant). IMDb also mentions Moderne Galathée (Georges Denola, 1911) and Chaines rompues (Henri Pouctal, 1912).

Lambert’s film career was short, but his Duc de Guise became film history. While not in Paris, Albert Lambert lived in La Bouille, near Rouen, where he had an eclectic, Neo-Gothic mansion, Le Nids, bought and restyled by his father in 1892.

Albert Lambert was married five times, e.g. with Odette-Jeanne Lévi, with whom he had a daughter Jacqueline Van Tieghem. Lambert died in 1941 in Paris at the age of 76 years.

Albert Lambert, Mounet-Sully, Madeleine Roch a.o.

French postcard, no. 26. Théâtre Antique d'Orange, August 1910. Group of artistic personalities. Left to right: Albert Lambert, Aimée Tessandier, Georges Rivollet (auteur of Alkestis, 1899), Yvonne Boucher, Balcourt (souffleur), Jeanne Rémy, Madeleine Roch, Boucher (director), Morcan, Jean Mounet-Sully, Petit, Marc Gérard. Alkestis by Euripides was reworked by Rivollet. Lambert had played the lead of Herakles in Alkestis already in 1900 in Paris, while Paul Mounet, Mounet-Sully's elder brother had played it at its premiere in 1899 at the Theatre d'Orange.

French postcard. Photo: Taille-Douce.

French postcard. Albert Lambert as the Egyptian prince Keth-Aour in the play Sémiramis by Josephin Peladan at the Théâtre Antique d'Orange.

French postcard. Photo: L.H., Paris. Publicity still for the stage production of Patrie! by Victorien Sardou, performed in Paris in 1901 at the Comédie Française, with Albert Lambert Fils as Karloo Van Der Noot.

Sources: Wikipedia (French), IMDb, Filmographie Fondation Jerome Seydoux Pathe, 1895 Revues, Mounet Sully et Paul Mounet.

The tiny, dainty blonde Cilly Feindt (1909-1999) was a German star of the circus ring. In her heyday, she was regarded as one of the finest haute école horse riders of her time. She alternated in the 1920s and 1930s between circus and the cinema.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3147/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Jacoby, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3277/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3869/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

The Greatest Lady School Rider of All Time

Cilly Feindt was born in Berlin, Germany in 1909. She was the daughter of film distributor and producer Wilhelm Feindt. Her father would later produce her first films.

When Cilly was nine she became interested in horses and receives an equestrian training. At 14, she started at the circus Paul Busch. With her horse Nestor, she performed as a high-school rider and she became very popular. Later Cilly appeared at the Variété Wintergarten and the Scala theatre in Berlin.

Soon she was spotted for the film. Cilly made her film début in Die Zirkusprinzessin/The Circus Princess (Adolf Gärtner, 1925), based on an operetta by Emmerich Kálmán. The film was produced by her father.

Other films of the silent era were Der Feldmarschall/The Field Marshall (Romano Mengon, 1927), Ein Mordsmädel/A Knock-off Gal (Sidney Morgan, 1927) with Werner Pittschau, and again in a new version of Die Zirkusprinzessin/The Circus Princess (Victor Janson, 1929) with Trude Berliner. In all these films she played high-school riders and performed with her horse Nestor.

In the following years she alternated between circus and cinema. The British Bertram Mills was so impressed by her abilities that he brought her to the Olympia in London, for his circus in the winter of 1931-1932, billing her as 'The Greatest Lady School Rider of all time'.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1193/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Filmhaus Wilhelm Feindt, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1961/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1900/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Lady Godiva

During a successful tour through South America Cilly Feindt conquers Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.

Back in Germany she continued her film career with the light comedies Ferien vom Ich/Holiday from Myself (Hans Deppe, 1934) with Carola Höhn, and Leichte Kavallerie/Light Cavalry (Werner Hochbaum, 1935) starring Marika Rökk.

Hereafter followed a tour through the half of Europe and the US. The Second World War meant a temporary halt to her career.

After the war she was signed on by Circus Althoffand in 1948 she got an offer from the Ringling Brotherscircus in the US. With this circus she went on tour till 1951 and appeared in the United States and Canada.

When her engagement ended she settled in California and devoted herself to her horses. Furthermore she appeared in small, uncredited parts in Gigi (Vincente Minnelli) with Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron and as well as Lady Godiva in Two Weeks in Another Town (Vincente Minnelli, 1962) with Kirk Douglas.

Cilly Feindt died in 1999, in Los Angeles, US. She was 90. For a while she had a relationship with boxer Max Schmeling.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3869/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Manuel Frères, Paris.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 4207/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin.

Commercial Schnellgang for Graham Paige. Source: ChrMiltenberger (YouTube). Music for Piano, Organ, Celesta, Mallet by Christopher Miltenberger.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), D. Nevil (The Independent), Film-Zeit.de (German), IMDb and Wikipedia.

Swedish film actress Mona Mårtenson (1902–1956) appeared in 28 films between 1923 and 1949. With her friend Greta Garbo she had her big breakthrough in the silent masterpiece Gösta Berlings saga (1924). Garbo went to Hollywood and became a legend, but Mårtenson had also an impressive stage and film career in Scandinavia.

German postcard by Trianon-Film, 1924. Photo: Svenska-Film. Publicity still for Gösta Berlings saga/The Atonement of Gosta Berling (Mauritz Stiller, 1924).

Mona Mårtenson and Bengt Djurberg in Karl XII (1925)

Romanian postcard. Photo: Monopol Gloria Film. Mona Mårtenson (Anna Ulfclou) and Bengt Djurberg (Sven Björnberg) in the Swedish silent film Karl XII (John W. Brunius, 1925), starring Gösta Ekman in the title role.

Lyricism and Vibrancy

Monica Ingeborg Elisabeth ‘Mona’ Mårtenson was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1902. She grew up in Helsingborg and studied at the Dramatens elevskola (Royal Dramatic Theater Academy).

She made her first film appearance in Anderssonskans Kalle på nya upptåg/Kalle Andersson's New Pranks (Sigurd Wallén, 1923). That same year Mona and her classmate Greta Gustafson (who would change her name into Greta Garbo that same year) were selected by the school to audition for noted Swedish film director Mauritz Stiller.

Both girls got parts in Stiller's upcoming film, the epic romance Gösta Berlings saga/The Atonement of Gosta Berling (Mauritz Stiller, 1924). The film was based on the book by Selma Lagerlöf and features Lars Hanson as the young and attractive minister Gösta Berling. Because Berling has a drinking problem and his preaches are far too daring, he is finally defrocked. Shamed, he is later hired by an unscrupulous and wealthy woman to be a tutor to her beautiful step-daughter (Mona Mårtenson).

At Film Reference, Ronald Bowers writes: “Gösta Berlings Saga is regarded by many as Sweden's Gone With the Wind. With an epic sweep, episodic structure, and numerous characters, it evokes 19th-century Swedish life and is imbued with a lyricism and vibrancy which places its director Mauritz Stiller among the masters of silent film. The film represents both the pinnacle and the swan song of the ‘golden age’ of Swedish cinema: 1913 - 1924. With its plot centering on the search for redemption by Gösta Berling, the defrocked priest, and the several women who disastrously fall in love with him, it numbers, along with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, among the earliest important films of social protest and one of the masterpieces of silent cinema."

After the huge success of the film Mårtenson did not leave Sweden for Hollywood like her director and co-stars although, as the site Moviediva suggests, Louis B. Mayer also offered her a contract. Mårtenson stayed in Stockholm and went to work for Dramaten, the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm.

She also appeared in such films as Skeppargatan 40/Skeppar Gate 40 (Gustaf Edgren, 1925) with Einar Hanson, the two-part Karl XII (John W. Brunius, 1925) featuring Gösta Ekman, and Ingmarsarvet/The Ingmar Inheritance (Gustav Molander, 1925) with Conrad Veidt.

Gustav Molander directed Lars Hanson and her in another Selma Lagerlöf adaptation Till österland/To the Orient (Gustav Molander, 1926), filmed in Jaffa, Israel. She starred again for Molander in Förseglade läppar/Sealed lips (Gustaf Molander, 1927), co-starring Fred Louis Lerch and Sandra Milowanoff, and based on a story by Guy de Maupausant. The film was a huge success in Sweden. Initially the French actress Geneviève Cargese would play the main role, but she fell ill in Stockholm and was replaced by Mona Mårtenson.

Danish postcard by Helsingin, Helsingfors, no. 451. Photo: Mona Märtenson and Harald Schwenzen in what could be the film Till österland (Gustav Molander, 1926).

Finnish postcard by Kerttikeskus Kortcentralen, Helsinki, no. 1311. Photo: publicity still for the Swedish silent film Laila (George Schnéevoigt 1929), starring Mona Mårtenson.

Pure Joie de Vivre

In Germany Mona Mårtenson starred in Die Frau im Talar/The Woman in the Robe (Adolf Trotz, 1929) with Aud Egede Nissen and Paul Richter.

In Norway she appeared in the romantic melodrama Laila (1929), directed by Danish-German filmmaker and noted cinematographer George Schnéevoigt. Martenson featured as Laila, a young girl separated from her parents as a baby and raised by a wealthy reindeer owner Aslag (Peter Malberg) in the frozen tundra of Scandinavia. Though she is returned a year later, Laila grows into a young woman of two worlds, at home with both her settled and nomadic upbringings. Laila soon finds herself in a love triangle with her foster brother Mellet (Henry Gleditsch) and her cousin Anders (Harald Schwenzen), played out against the backdrop of an encroaching plague.

For years Laila was rarely seen, but in 2006, it was digitally restored by the Norwegian Film institute and in 2011 it was released on DVD by Flicker Alley. At IMDb, reviewer Hyzenthlay_and_me writes about Laila: “She is played by Mona Mårtenson, who is a wonder to behold. The movie is a drama of faces, there is a number of hugely expressive faces in the film, and all you can do is sit there and take in their radiance and pure joie de vivre. Mona for example really is a damned livewire, it's all she can do to stop bursting out of her skin, happiness is written all over her face. With silent film it really does help if you have expressive actors, and they hit the jackpot of them with this movie.”

Schnéevoigt also directed her in Eskimo (George Schnéevoigt, 1930) with Paul Richter. In 1930 she left the theatre company of Dramaten and moved to Gösta Ekman and his Lorensbergsteatern in Göteborg. She would later return to Dramaten.

Mårtenson continued her film career smoothly into the sound era. In the Danish comedy I kantonnement/In the cantonment (Lau Lauritzen, 1932) she starred opposite the comic duo Fy og Bi(Carl Schenstrøm and Harald Madsen; also known as Pat & Patachon or Long & Short).

Other sound films in which she starred are I nöd och lust/In Sickness and Health (Ivar Johansson, 1938) and the drama Västkustens hjältar/West Coast heroes (Lau Lauritzen, Alice O'Fredericks, 1940) now as the mother of the hero, played by Fritiof Billquist. In the following years she played only small roles in Scandinavian films.

Her last film was Pippi Långstrump/Pippi Longstocking (Per Gunvall, 1949), the first film adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s classic children’s novel, only four years after the book was published in Sweden. Pippi was played by the 26-year old Viveca Serlachius (the eldest Pippi-actress ever) and Mårtenson played a supporting role as Pia.

Mona Mårtenson died in 1956 in Stockholm, aged 54.

Scene from Gösta Berlings saga/The Atonement of Gosta Berling (1924). Source: Kino International (You Tube).

Scene from Laila (1929). Source: Flickr Alley (YouTube).

Sources: Ronald Bowers (Film Reference), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Phillip Oliver (Greta Garbo – The Ultimate Star), Moviediva, Wikipedia (English and Swedish) and IMDb.

Hon dansade en sommar/One Summer of Happiness (1951) is a Swedish film by director Arne Mattsson, based on the 1949 novel Sommardansen (The Summer Dance) by Per Olof Ekström. It was the first Swedish film to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. The nude scenes in the film caused much controversy at the time and, together with Ingmar Bergman's Sommaren med Monika/Summer with Monika (1953), spread the image of Swedish 'free love' around the world. Leading actress Ulla Jacobsson became an international star.

Ulla Jacobsson in Hon dansade en sommar (1951)

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 548. Photo: Nordisk Tonefilm / Constantin-Film. Publicity still for Hon dansade en sommar/One Summer of Happiness (Arne Mattsson, 1951).

Ulla Jacobsson and Folke Sundquist in Hon dansade en sommar (1951)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 773. Photo: Constantin-Film. Publicity still for Hon dansade en sommar/One Summer of Happiness (Arne Mattsson, 1951).

German postcard by Kolibril-Verlag, no. 772. Photo: Constantin-Film. Publicity still for Hon dansade en sommar/One Summer of Happiness (Arne Mattsson, 1951).

She danced for a summer

Hon dansade en sommar (literally: She danced for a summer) tells the story about the 19-years old Göran (Folke Sundquist) who after graduating from high school spends a summer on his uncle Anders's farm. It's summer and there is a lot of work to do at the farm, but the city student isn't accustomed to that.

Göran falls in love with 17 year old Kerstin (Ulla Jacobsson), and suddenly he is very engaged in country life. The village youth are in a bitter conflict with the extremely strict vicar (John Elfström), who condemns all their activities as immoral. When the vicar forbids the youth to use the school for their meetings anymore, Anders (Edvin Adolphson) gives them an old barn, which they start renovating.

Kerstin has a strict mother, who in vain forbids her to take part in the youth activities. Kerstin goes there with Göran. She is a bit shy, but the romance between them develops step by step, until it is fulfilled on a summer night, when they swim naked in a lake.

They experience an intense summer together, and Göran dreads the idea of returning to university in the autumn. But a motorcycle accident puts an end to it all, with Kerstin dying in Göran's arms. Göran is accused by the vicar for being a seducer that had led Kerstin astray.

Hon dansade en sommar caused much international controversy, because of the nude swimming sequence and the love scene which included a close-up of Ulla Jacobsson's breasts, but also because of its very anti-clerical message. So, in spite of its awards, the film was banned in several countries, among them Spain, and it wasn't released in the United States until 1955.

Reviewer Max at IMDb: "This charming film should be restored and reissued. Its story line is simple, perhaps a bit trite. However, the central character Kerstin presents us with a rare glimpse of the blossoming of youth, emerging from innocence to passion to tragedy in a short season. No spectacular acting here, but one senses a freshness and spontaneity rarely grasped in low budget productions. No specific message here, other than raw warmth followed by pain and despair."

German collectors card. Photo: Constantin-Film. Publicity still for Hon dansade en sommar/One Summer of Happiness (Arne Mattsson, 1951).

German collectors card. Photo: Constantin-Film. Publicity still for Hon dansade en sommar/One Summer of Happiness (Arne Mattsson, 1951).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Fresh and charming Assia Noris (1912-1998) is best remembered as the star of several 1930s romantic comedies directed by Mario Camerini and co-starring Vittorio De Sica. Although Russian-born, she was nicknamed Italy's sweetheart.

Italian postcard by Rizzoli EC., Milano, 1938-XVI. Photo: Pesce.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit, no. 413-A. Photo: I.C.I. / Vaselli.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 207, 1941-1944. Photo: Difu.

Five Husbands

Assia Noris was born Anastasia Noris von Gerzfeld in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1912. Her father was a German official, her mother was from Ukraine.

After the Russian Revolution the family fled first to France, then to Italy in 1929. That year Assia also married count Gastone d’Assia, whose last name she would use as stage name, even if he was only the first of her five husbands.

In 1933 Assia Noris made her screen début in Tre uomini in frac/I Sing for You Alone, the Italian version of the French film Trois hommes en habit. Both versions were directed by Mario Bonnard and starred opera singer Tito Schipa.

In 1935-1936 she also played in both the French and the Italian version of Bonnard’s La marcia nuziale/La marche nuptiale (Mario Bonnard, 1936).

Noris’ fame, however, is linked to her performances in the comedies by Mario Camerini, with whom she had an affair from 1936 on, dropping her former lover Roberto Rossellini– whom she presumably married for a very short time. At that time Rossellini was a penniless playboy and working as an editor, Camerini was an acclaimed director.

Italian postcard by A. Scarmiglia Ed., Roma (ASER), no. 166. Photo: Vaselli.

Italian postcard by Ed. Rizzoli, Milano, 1936.

Italian postcard. Photo: SAPEC / Generalcine. Assia Noris in Voglio vivere con Letizia (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1938).

Angelic Looks

Assia Noris’ male co-partner in the Camerini comedies was heartthrob Vittorio De Sica. Often she played the honest lower or middle class girl, such as the circus girl Anna who has an affair with a millionaire who goes undercover as a bum in Darò un milione/I'll Give a Million (Mario Camerini, 1935)

Noris played the governess Lauretta who likes the newspaper vendor Gianni but dislikes the snob Max, not knowing they are one and the same man in Il signor Max/Mister Max (Mario Camerini, 1937). She is also the shopping girl in a department store who first dislikes, then falls in love with the new assistant and chauffeur, who becomes a local hero, in I Grandi magazzini/Department Store (Mario Camerini, 1939).

In all of these films De Sica pretends to be somebody else: a simple man while being millionnaire in Darò un milione, a millionaire while being a simple man in Il signor Max, while Assia Noris remains the honest, simple girl.

This pretense of a second character Noris played herself too in Batticuore/Heartbeat (Mario Camerini, 1939), in which she is a pickpocketing girl hired by a diplomat (John Lodge) but considered a baroness by others. She also played one and the same person but in three different stages of her life in Camerini’s Una romantica avventura/A Romantic Adventure (Mario Camerini, 1940) opposite Gino Cervi.

Guy Bellinger describes her star persona at IMDb: "Fresh and charming, she drew lots of fans into theaters. Not that the comedies she played in were masterpieces: they were in fact harmless and a bit artificial but constituted welcome escapism from the strange times the Italians were living. Not that Assia Noris was the greatest actress ever either: she never really changed face expressions, when she was supposed to cry she shed crocodile tears plus she could not go beyond the superficiality of the characters she was given to play. But how sizzling she was, how cute she was and what beautiful costumes and hats she wore!"

Noris demonstrated she could play the diva part as well in the comedy Dora Nelson (Mario Soldati, 1939), in which she really plays two characters opposite Carlo Ninchi: a bitchy Russian film star and as a simple girl replacing the impossible star, both at the Cinecittà studios as well as at home. Likeness causes problems but also offers attractive solutions.

During the war years Noris was a bit fed up with playing the ‘ingénue’, the fiancée; so she now also played dramatic roles as in Un colpo di pistola/A Pistol Shot (Renato Castellani, 1942) with Fosco Giachetti, and Una storia d’amore/Love Story (Mario Camerini, 1942) with Piero Lulli. With her romanticism and her angelic looks, she represented the Italian woman ‘par excellence’ for over a decade, despite her overacting, her foreign accent and her rather Northern European beauty.

Italian postcard by Mimosa.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit (Ballerini & Fratini Editori, Firenze), no. 2333. Photo: E.N.I.C.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit (Ballerini & Fratini Editori, Firenze), no. 4335. Photo: Lux Film / Foto Pesce.

Scandalous Bikini

Assia Noris was not a bit afraid to cause a scandal, being the first woman in Italy to wear a bikini in public, to great jealousy of rival actresses Doris Duranti and Clara Calamai.

One of her key moments in life was her encounter with Adolph Hitler, whom she described as a snowman with fake nose, eyes and moustache. While spitting her in the face, Hitler offered her to play at Ufa, which she gently declined, causing general embarrassment.

When war came on in 1940, Noris secured herself against her foreignness by marrying Mario Camerini, Italianizing her. The marriage ended in quarrels, though, in 1943.

Noris tried her luck in France with two films, Le voyageur de la Toussaint/The Traveller of All Saints' Day (Louis Daquin, 1943) withJules Berry, and Le capitaine Fracasse/Captain Fracasse (Abel Gance, 1943) featuring Fernand Gravey, but both were unsuccessful.

When the war was over, Noris’ career was over as well. People did not blame her for her career under Benito Mussolini; her anti-fascism was known, but her type was traded now for the more populist face of Anna Magnani and of course those of the non-professional actors and actresses of the Neorealist cinema.

Noris did two more films in 1945, and one in 1951, but none were successes. She tried her luck on stage but this wasn’t a success as well. In 1961 film director Carlo Lizzani gave her one last lead in his comedy La Celestina P... R... (Carlo Lizzani, 1965) with Venantino Venantini.

For years Noris lived in Egypt with her fifth husband, the Egyptian impresario Antoine 'Tony' Habib– he came after D’Assia, Rosselini, Camerini, and the British official Jacob Pelster.

In 1998 Assia Noris died in a hospital in San Remo, Italy, after a short illness.

Italian postcard by A. Scarmiglia Ed., Roma (ASER), no. 43. Photo: Vaselli / Juventus.

Italian postcard by A. Scarmiglia Ed., Roma (ASER), no. 111.

Italian postcard by A. Scarmiglia Ed., Roma (ASER), no. 222. Photo: Pesce / Lux Film.

Italian postcard by A. Scarmiglia Ed., Roma (ASER), no. 237.

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), CineArtistes (French), Wikipedia (Italian), and IMDb.

My partner, Ivo Blom, recently visited Sweden and he found in a Stockholm shop 70 rare vintage postcards of Swedish silent films. Ivo selected twelve dazzling postcards for us today. In beautiful sepia tones, these cards give an impression of how the Scandinavian directors Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller ruled the world cinema during the 1910s and 1920s. And then both were lured to Hollywood.

Victor Sjöström in Thomas Graals bästa film

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 876/3. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern. Publicity still for the comedy Thomas Graals bästa film/Thomas Graal's Best Film (Mauritz Stiller, 1917), scripted by Gustav Molander. The story deals with a screenwriter (Victor Sjöström) who falls in love with his secretary Bessie (Karin Molander) and imagines himself rescuing her from poverty. Reality is quite different as Bessie is a modern woman. The film also mocks the bored aristocracy involved in the modernity of filmmaking. Caption: The author Thomas Graal at sea.

Karin Molander in Tösen från Stormyrtorpet

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 843. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern. Publicity still for Tösen från Stormyrtorpet/The Girl from the Marsh Croft (Victor Sjöström, 1917), after the novel of Selma Lagerlöf. Story: Gudmund (Lars Hanson) is about to marry Hildur (Karin Molander). Suddenly, the girl Helga (Greta Almroth) claims that Gudmund is the father of her baby. The case is brough to court. Caption: Hildur dressed up as bride.

Hauk Aabel and Stina Stockenstam in Alexander den Store

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 877/1. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern. Publicity still for the comedy Alexander den Store/Alexander the Great (Mauritz Stiller, 1917). The story of the film deals with a provincial hotel cook, named Alexander the Great (Hauk Abel), in whose restaurant not only the dishes can be spicy. Caption: Alexander has rediscovered his beloved from his youth (Stina Stockenstam).

Victor Sjöström in Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 844/6. Photo: Svenska Biografteatern. Publicity still for Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru/The Outlaw and His Wife (Victor Sjöström, 1918). A stranger (Victor Sjöström) comes to work at the farm of widow Halla (Edith Erastoff). Halla and the stranger fall in love, but when he is revealed as Eyvind, an escaped thief forced into crime by his family's starvation, they flee and become two of the many outlaws of Iceland's mountains. The Outlaw and His Wife is one of the classics of Swedish silent cinema, shot in the mountains in North Sweden, and showing not only the hardship of nature but also the intolerance of humans. Caption: The Outlaw.

Victor Sjöström in Körkarlen - The Phantom Carriage

Swedish postcard by Ed. Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1117/7. Photo: Svensk Filmindustri. Publicity still for Körkarlen/The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1920). As he is the last one to die on New Year's Eve, the drunkard David Holm (Victor Sjöström) is forced to take over the phantom carriage for a full year, collecting the souls of the dead. Körkarlen is a classic from Swedish silent cinema.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 166. Photo: Skandia Film. Publicity still for Bomben/The Bomb (Rune Carlsten, 1920), starring Karin Molander. Caption: Elsa Vendel's first morning amidst her own possessions.

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1093/9. Photo: Svenska Biografteatren. Publicity still for Karin Ingmarsdotter/God's Way/ Karin Daughter of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1920), starring Tora Teje; here with Bertil Malmstedt as her son.

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1097/1. Photo: Svensk Filmindustri. Publicity still for Erotikon/Bounds That Chafe (Mauritz Stiller, 1920), starring Karin Molander; and not pictured here Anders de Wahl, Lars Hanson and Tora Teje.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 295. Photo: Skandia Film, Stockholm/Svensk Filmindustri. Publicity still for De landsflyktiga/The Emigrants/The Exiles (Mauritz Stiller, 1921), starring Jenny Hasselquist. This is a lost film, except for a few very short fragments.

Swedish postcard by Ed. Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 327. Photo: Skandia Film/Svensk Filminspelning. Publicity still for Det omringade huset/The Surrounded House (Victor Sjöström, 1922), starring Meggie Albanesi and Victor Sjöström.

Victor Sjöström and Jenny Hasselquist in Eld ombord

Swedish postcard by Ed. Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 336. Photo: Svensk Filminspelning. Publicity still for Eld ombord/Fire on board (Victor Sjöström, 1923), starring Victor Sjöström and Jenny Hasselquist.

Finnish postcard by Kerttikeskus Kortcentralen, Helsinki, no. 1311. Photo: publicity still for the Swedish silent film Laila (George Schnéevoigt 1929), starring Mona Mårtenson aka Mona Mårtensson.

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.

Blue-eyed and light-haired beauty Chrissie White (1895-1989) was one of the most famous stars of the British silent cinema. In 1907 the 12-years old started at the Hepworth company and soon became a popular child star. In the 1920s, she and husband Henry Edwards were regarded as one of Britain's most newsworthy celebrity couples.

British postcard. Photo: Hepworth Pictures.

British postcard. Photo: Hepworth Pictures. Publicity still for Broken Threads (Henry Edwards, 1917).

Creating Havoc Everywhere

Chrissie White was born Ada Constance White in Chiswick, London, in 1895 – the year film was introduced by the Lumière brothers. As a child, she made her first stage appearance in Bluebell in Fairyland.

She started her film career when joining the Hepworth company in 1907, when she substituted for her sister, Gwen. Another sister, Rosina White also worked for Hepworth.

Ada was 12 at the time and under the name of ‘Chrissie’ she soon became one of the first stars of the British cinema. She often performed in shorts by director Lewin Fitzhamon, such as The Cabman's Good Fairy (Lewin Fitzhamon, 1909).

When White was teamed with Alma Taylor, they became a popular comic duo as the naughty schoolgirls Tilly (Taylor) and Sally (White), who create havoc everywhere.

The Tilly girls featured in a popular series of comedies in the years 1910 and 1911. Typical examples are Tilly the Tomboy Visits the Poor (Lewin Fitzhamon, 1910) and Tilly's Party (Lewin Fitzhamon, 1911). Although she was a star now, White always rode to the studios on a bicycle.

British postcard by Hepworth.

British postcard. Photo: Hepworth Pictures.

British postcard by Hepworth Pictures. Photo Lallie Charles.

Most Popular British Star of Her Time

Chrissie White moved slowly from comedy to drama and romance. By 1912 she had become Hepworth’s leading lady and the blue-eyed beauty was the most popular British star of her time. In the same year she married Claude Whitten, who also worked for Hepworth.

One of her earliest features was a crime film set in the horse racing milieu: Kissing Cup (1913, Jack Hulcup). This film still survives in the Desmet Collection at the Eye Film Institute in Amsterdam, as well as the Tilly comedy Tilly in a Boarding House (1911).

Other memorable titles were The Vicar of Wakefield (Frank Wilson, 1913) with Violet Hopson, and At the Foot of the Scaffold (1913, Warwick Buckland) opposite Alec Worcester.

Among Chrissie White’s other male film partners were Lionelle Howard (from 1914 on), Stewart Rome (between 1914-1917), a.o. in Coward! (1915, Frank Wilson) and Her Boy (Frank Wilson, 1915), and Henry Edwards (from 1918 on).

Edwards also directed most of their films together, such as Possession (Henry Edwards, 1919), The City of Beautiful Nonsense (Henry Edwards, 1919), The Kinsman (Henry Edwards, 1919), The Bargain (Henry Edwards, 1921) and Lily of the Alley (Henry Edwards, 1923).

All in all they did some 22 films together. They were also a couple in real life, as White married Edwards in 1922. Edwards and White became real celebrities in Britain, the equivalent of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.

White's last silent film with Edwards was the romance The World of Wonderful Reality (Henry Edwards, 1924). When Hepworth collapsed in 1924, Chrissie White - who had worked only for Hepworth - retired from the screen, to the regret of her fans.

She returned briefly in the sound era to play in two more films with Edwards as her male partner: The Call of the Sea (Leslie Hiscott, 1930) and the comedy General John Regan (Henry Edwards, 1933), filmed in Northern Ireland. White definitively retired from the screen, and after the death of Edwards in 1952 she withdrew completely from publicity. She had worked in over 180 films, shorts and features.

At the age of 94, Chrissie White died of a heart attack in Liss, Hampshire, England, in 1989. She was buried at the Westwood Memorial Park. Actress Henryetta Edwards (1926) is her daughter. Clips of Chrissie White's films can be traced in the BBC / BFI documentary Silent Britain (2006).

British postcard by T.I.C.

British postcard. Photo: Stanborough.

With Henry Edwards. British postcard by TIC.

Sources: David Quinlan (IMDb), Hepworthfilm.org, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

July 2016 was an excellent month for EFSP. For the first time since May 2010 when we started counting, there were more than 90,000 pageviews in one month. So, what can I say?

Thanks!

Your views encourage me to continue this blog. But to be honest, EFSP is a product of many people, and I sincerely want to salute them - here and now.

First, a salute to the people who once created these film star postcards: the photographers, the publishers, and the stars. Happily for us, there were also the fans who collected and preserved all these - now - vintage cards.

Since we started this blog in 2008, many of you supported EFSP in one way or another. Some people have sent me postcards or other memorabilia to share here. Like Tatiana from the US who donated me postcards, photos and a clipping on the silent, Ukrainian-born film star Xenia Desni and her daughter Tamara Desni. Xenia and Tamara were Tatiana's aunt and niece.

A bittersweet memory is the mail by the partner of that glamorous British film star of the 1960s. He asked for a correction about her age: she was much younger than EFSP mentioned! All our sources were wrong, she had told it him herself! Of course, we respectfully skipped that post from EFSP.

I also salute our friends at Flickr, like Manuel, Veronique, Asa, Gill, Miss Mertens, Greta-g, etc., who were so generous to allow us to share their postcards in this blog.

Others of you shared information with me, commented and followed EFSP critically. We love that! A mystery to me is Erhanizzet. This anonymous film fan helped me to identify dozens of the film stills on our postcards, but never identified himself - or herself - to me and never answers my mails...

Thanks for being a source of information!

Doctor Macro at Doctor Macro's High Quality Movie Scans - who inspired me to scan pictures for the web for all to share.
La belle équipe at L'encinemathèque.
Philippe Pelletier at CinéArtistes.
André Siscot and the other contributors at Les Gens du Cinema.
Thomas Staedeli at Cyranos.
Stephanie D'heil at Steffi-Line.
Hal Erickson and all the other contributors at AllMovie.
Brian J. Walker at Brian's Drive-in Theater.
James Travers at Le Film Guide.
David Absalom at British Pictures.
Katherine Frances Nagels at Silents please!.
Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And everyone who I forget to mention here.

Thanks for being a friend!

Didier Hanson, collector extraordinaire from Spain. Don't miss our post next Friday for some of his latest acquistions!
Marlene Pilaete,'La collectionneuse' from Belgium, editor of the web's most beautiful film postcard site.
Egbert Barten of the Geoffrey Donaldson Institute. Check out our post about GDI's new acquisitions on 12 August.
Bunched Undies, for the best film reviews and recipees on the web.
Beth, keeper of the flame of Postcard Friendship Friday.
Ivo Blom, my partner in life and in passion for film history.

Greetings from Amsterdam!

Paul van Yperen a.k.a. Bob

Handsome actor Werner Pittschau (1902-1928) was the promising jeune premier of the silent Austrian cinema. Sadly he was killed in a road accident at the age of 26.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1713/1, 1927-1928 (sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1929). Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 2057/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3601/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Fayer, Wien.

Acting Bug

Werner Pittschau was the son of Austrian stage actor Ernst Pittschau and stage actress Hilda Pittschau-Hofer née Schützenhofer. His older stepbrother Ernst Pittschau was a well-known film actor.

After his school education Werner went to a cadet school to become an officer. When the political situation in Austria changed he chose for a commercial education.

But the acting bug was inside him and he got his first engagement at the Landestheater in Prague as a jeune premier. There he was spotted by Erika Glässner and Hans Junkermann who brought him to the cinema.

He made his film début in the German film Der krasse Fuchs/The Cool Fox (Conrad Wiene, 1925) with Hans Brausewetter.

To his other early films belong Die Anne-Liese von Dessau (James Bauer, 1925) with Valy Arnheim, the war drama Volk in Not/Nation in Distress (Wolfgang Neff, 1925) with Claire Rommer, Die letzte Droschke von Berlin/The Last Taxi of Berlin (Carl Boese, 1926) and the German-British co-production Die versunkene Flotte/When Fleet Meets Fleet: A Romance of the Great Battle of Jutland (Graham Hewett, Manfred Noa, 1926), starring Hans Albers and Nils Asther.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1494/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1627/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3305/1, 1928-1929. Photo: H. Natze.

Breakthrough

Werner Pittschau had a breakthrough in the box-office hit Dirnentragödie/Tragedy of the Street (Bruno Rahn, 1927) in whichAsta Nielsen starred as a prostitute.

He continued this success with a starring role in the comedy Ehekonflikte/Wedding Wars (Bruno Rahn, 1927), Die Geliebte des Gouverneurs/The Prince and the Dancer (Friedrich Fehér, 1927) opposite Magda Sonja, and another successful role in Sacco und Vanzetti (Alfréd Deésy - also credited as Alfred Kempf-Dezsi, 1927).

In 1928 the busy young actor appeared in a.o. Tragödie im Zirkus Royal/Tragedy at the Royal Circus (Alfred Lind, 1928) starring Bernhard Goetzke, Die weisse Sonate/The White Sonata (Louis Seemann, 1928) with Carla Bartheel, and Der erste Kuss/The First Kiss (Carl Lamac, 1928) with Anny Ondra.

He also appeared in the Hungarian production Mária növér/Sister Maria (Antal Forgács, 1929) and the Czech-German coproduction Známosti z ulice/ Strassenbekanntschaften/Pick-ups (Josef Medeotti-Bohác, Alwin Neuß, 1929).

After Erzherzog Johann/Archduke Johann (Max Neufeld), 1929 with Xenia Desni his promising career ended abruptly.

On 28 November 1928 Werner Pittschau was killed in a road accident in Spandau. During his much too short career he had appeared in more than 20 films.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1291/1, 1927-1928. Photo: National. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1494/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1768/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

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

Francisco Rabal (1926–2001) was one of the best known and most important Spanish film actors. He evolved from a handsome leading man into an impressive character actor, who starred in three masterpieces directed by his close friend Luis Buñuel.

Vintage postcard.

Romantic Leads and Rogues

Francisco 'Paco' Rabal Valera was born in Águilas, a small mining community in the Spanish province of Murcia, in 1926. His father, Benito Rabal, worked in the mines while his mother, Teresa Valera, ran a mill. In 1936, after the Spanish Civil War broke out, the family left Murcia and moved to Madrid.

Young Francisco had to support his family as a street salesboy and a worker in a chocolate factory, while studying in the night time at the Colegio Nuestra Señora del Recuerdo. Later on he worked as assistant electrician at Estudios Chamartín, a film studio.

While working at the studio, Rabal became interested in acting and began taking onscreen work as a bit player. Dámaso Alonso and other people advised him to try his luck with a career in theatre. During the following years, he got some roles from theater companies such as Lope de Vega or María Guerrero.

It was there that he met actress Asunción Balaguer. They married and remained together for the rest of Rabal's life. Their daughter, Teresa Rabal, is also an actor, while his son Benito Rabal is a director.

In 1947, Rabal got some regular jobs in the theatre. He used his full name, Francisco Rabal, as stage name. However, the people who knew him always called him Paco (Paco being the familiar form for Francisco) and 'Paco Rabal' became his unofficial stage name.

During the 1940s, Rabal began to act in films as an extra. In 1942 he played his first bit part in La rueda de vida. Rabal joined the theater company Compañía de Isabel Garcés, and he participated at the editing of Diario íntimo de la tía Angélica (José María Pemán, 1946).

Gradually his parts increased. On stage, he obtained a big success in 1952 with his part in the Spanish version of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. In 1946 he also had started to work as a supporting actor in such films as La pródiga/The Prodigal Woman (Rafael Gil, 1946).

It was not until 1950, however, that Rabal was first cast in speaking film roles. He played romantic leads and rogues in such films as La honradez de la cerradura/The honesty of the lock (Luis Escobar, 1950).

Rabal performed memorable stage parts on various occasions at the Festival de Teatro Romano at Mérida: in 1954 in Oedipus Rex, in 1955 in Julius Caesar, in 1956 Thyestes and in 1960 again in Oedipus, always under the direction of José Tamayo. But Rabal’s career moved more and more towards film.

His masculine good looks and easy charm quickly made him a popular leading man in Spain. In 1953 he received his first film award for La guerra de Dios/I Was a Parish Priest (Rafael Gil, 1953). The award was a Silver Lion at the Festival of Venice. That same year he won the award for best interpretation at the Festival of San Sebastián for Un camino a la derecha/There is a Path to the Right (Francisco Rovira Beleta, 1953), a crime drama about the black market set in a gritty Barcelona and its docks.

The following years he played in various successful films, including several leads in Italian films such as Prigionieri del male/Revelation (Mario Costa, 1955) with May Britt, La grande strada azzurra/The Big Blue Road (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1957) opposite Yves Montand, Marisa la civetta/Marisa (Mauro Bolognini, 1957) starring sexy Marisa Allasio, and the historical action drama Gerusalemme liberate/Jerusalem Liberated (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1957) with Sylva Koscina.

Spanish postcard. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

Spanish postcard. Photo: Wagner. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

Anticonventional Priest

In 1958 Francisco Rabal went to Mexico to play Father Nazario, an anticonventional priest who attempts to live a pure and honest life strictly according to Christian principles, in Luis Buñuel’s Nazarín (1959). Nazarín was Rabal’s definitive breakthrough as an international film actor. The two struck a long lasting friendship, and Rabal would star in three major films by Buñuel.

Rabal played another important role opposite Silvia Pinal and Fernando Rey in Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961). The script was initially approved by the Spanish authorities with a few minor changes. They had no opportunity to view the finished film until it played at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the Grand Prix. Nevertheless theSpanish authorities were sufficiently horrified by what they saw to ban the film.

Rabal’s measured performance came from years of stage acting training. The role made him for decades one of the most important actors of the Spanish cinema. Another major role was that of the intellectual fiancé of Monica Vitti’s Claudia in the Italian classic L’eclisse/Eclipse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962).

Interesting was also his part as the father confessor in La Religieuse/The Nun (Jacques Rivette, 1966), a faithful adaptation of a bitter attack on religious abuses by the Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot.

Rabal’s third film with Buñuel was Belle de jour (Luis Buñuel, 1967), starring Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli. Rabal incarnated revolutionary Che Guevara in El 'Che' Guevara (Paolo Heuchs, 1968).

American director William Friedkin thought of Rabal for the role of the French villain in The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971). However, he could not remember the name of 'that Spanish actor', and his staff hired by mistake another Spanish actor, Fernando Rey. Friedkin discovered that Rabal did not speak English or French, so he decided to keep Rey for the now legendary film. Later Rabal did work with Friedkin in the much less successful but Academy Award-nominated Sorcerer (William Friedkin, 1977), a remake of the cult classic Le salaire de la peur/The Wages of Fear (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953).

In Italy he appeared in Luchino Visconti's segment La strega bruciata viva/The Burnt Alive Witch of the anthology film Le Streghe/The Witches (1966) starring Silvana Mangano and Il deserto dei tartari/The Desert of the Tartars (Valerio Zurlini, 1976) with Jacques Perrin.

RABAL, Francisco_Photo Bosio Press (Roma)

Spanish postcard. Photo: Bosio Press. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

Spanish photo. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.

An Old and Invalid Film Director

As Francisco Rabal grew older, his waist thickened and his hairline receded, but he seized the opportunity to play less glamorous and more challenging roles. It is even said that Rabal's best performances came after Francisco Franco's death on 1975. His performance as the old Azarías in Los santos inocentes/The Holy Innocents (Mario Camus, 1984) won him the Award as Best Actor at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival (ex aequo with his compatriot Alfredo Landa who featured in the same film).

Other memorable films in the 1980s were La colmena/The Beehive (Mario Camus, 1982) with Victoria Abril, and Camorra (Lina Wertmuller, 1984). In 1989, Rabal played an old and invalid film director in Almodovar’s Átame!/Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodovar, 1989) starring Victoria Abril and Antonio Banderas.

On television, he played in Cervantes (Alfonso Ungría, 1981), the painter Francisco de Goya in the mini-series Los desastres de la guerra/The disasters of the war (Mario Camus, 1983), San Pedro de Alcántara in another miniseries Teresa de Jesús/St. Teresa of Avila (Josefina Molina, 1985), and he starred as the retired bullfighter Juncal in the exciting TV series Juncal (Jaime de Armiñán, 1989).

Rabal got many honours. In 1989, he was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. At the 1991 Montreal Film Festival he was named best Actor for L’Homme qui a perdu son ombre/The Man Who Lost His Shadow (Alain Tanner, 1991). In 1993 he received a gold medal from the Spanish film academy.

In 1999 he scored another late-career triumph with his acclaimed performance as the old Francisco Goya in Goya en Burdeos/Goya in Bordeaux (Carlos Saura, 1999). For this role he won the most prestigious Spanish film award, the Goya Award. And he is the only Spanish actor who received a honoris causa doctoral degree from the University of Murcia (1995).

Rabal's final film was the horror film Dagon (Stuart Gordon, 2001), based on short stories by H.P. Lovecraft. The film was dedicated to him: "Dedicated to Francisco Rabal, a wonderful actor and even better human being."

Rabal died in 2001 from compensatory dilating emphysema, while on an airplane travelling to Bordeaux, when he was coming back from receiving an Award at the Montreal Film Festival. One week later he was supposed to receive the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award at the San Sebastian film festival.

His grandson, actor Liberto Rabal, accepted the honorary award on behalf of his grandfather, honoring his name in what was an emotional reunion of all Rabal’s old friends and colleagues. Throughout his career, Francisco Rabal had worked on more than 200 films in Spain, France, Italy, Hollywood and Mexico.

Trailer for Viridiana (1961). Source: Kinetoskop – Internetowy Magazyn Filmowy (YouTube).

Trailer for Sorcerer/Wages of Fear (1977). Source: Jonno 773 (YouTube).

Trailer Átame!/Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down! (1989). Source: The Cult Box (YouTube).

The original US Trailer from Dagon (2001). Source: Deathdealeus1984 (YouTube).

Sources: Keith F. Hatcher (IMDb), AllMovie, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wikipedia (English, Spanish, Italian and German), and IMDb.

Elegant, redheaded Valerie Hobson (1917-1998) was a great beauty who became an impressive actress. The British actress landed some very choice roles in the later 1940s, and was at her best in those films in which she could exercise her comedy talent.

British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. W 862. Photo: Michael Balcon Prod.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 1210. Photo: Alexander Korda.

British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 1350.

British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 1454.

Baroness Frankenstein

Valerie Hobson was born Babette Valerie Louise Hobson in Larne, Ireland, UK (now Northern Ireland, UK) in 1917. She was the daughter of a British Army officer. She originally trained as a dancer but she caught scarlet fever, and during the long days in bed gained two inches. Unfortunately, she thus outgrew her strength. She was forced to abandon dancing and went to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.

She had barely begun her studies at the RADA, when at 16, she made her stage début as Grace in Ball at the Savoy at the Drury Lane Theatre. It was a small part which was specially written into the show for her by Oscar Hammerstein II, and one which gave her the opportunity to do a little singing and dancing as well as acting. Symmetrically enough, at the Drury Lane she would also make her final acting appearance as the governess in The King and I (1954).

Her film career soon began in modest British films. She made her credited film debut in Eyes of Fate (Ivar Campbell, 1933), and appeared in Badger's Green (Adrian Brunel, 1934). When she was only seventeen Hobson was given a contract by Universal Pictures in Hollywood.

There she appeared as Baroness Frankenstein in the classic horror film Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) with Boris Karloff and Colin Clive, taking over the role from Mae Clarke, who had played it in the original Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931).

That same year Hobson also appeared opposite Henry Hull in Werewolf of London (Stuart Walker, 1935), the first Hollywood werewolf movie, predating The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941) by six years.

After her return to England, there were a few more minor films before Technicolor made her a star in Alexander Korda's production The Drum (Zoltan Korda, 1938) starring Sabu.

She then had successes as a wisecracking reporter in the comedy thriller This Man is News (David MacDonald, 1938) opposite Barry K. Barnes and its sequel, This Man in Paris (David MacDonald, 1939). Both were produced by Anthony Havelock-Allan whom she married in 1939.

For her favourite director, Michael Powell, she was both sexy and resourceful in two popular wartime spy thrillers opposite Conrad Veidt, The Spy in Black (1939) and Contraband (1940).

David Absalom at British Pictures describes her thus: "She was typecast as the Iron Maiden of British cinema. Always perfectly groomed, nicely spoken, and with the sort of toughness that built the Empire. You can imagine her surviving The Black Hole of Calcutta without a hair out of place. You can't imagine her enjoying a 'knock-knock' joke. As a type it's gone out of fashion, but Valerie Hobson was cinema's best exponent of it at a time when the type was in demand, and therefore got to appear in some of the best films this country has ever produced."

Barry K. Barnes and Valerie Hobson in This Man in Paris (1939)

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, no. PC 284. Photo: Paramount British. Publicity still for This Man in Paris (David MacDonald, 1939) with Barry K. Barnes.

British postcard in Our Postcard Series.

Dutch postcard. Photo: J. Arthur Rank.

Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion.

British autograph card.

Sex Scandal

During the latter half of the 1940s Valerie Hobson played several memorable roles. She was the adult Estella in Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946) with John Mills, the passionate, ambitious heroine of Blanche Fury (Marc Allégret, 1947) opposite Stewart Granger, and as the selfish mother of John Howard Davies in the haunting The Rocking Horse Winner (Anthony Pélissier, 1949).

She was perfect as the refined, virtuous Edith D'Ascoyne in the black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949). David Absalom calls it 'the greatest of the Ealing comedies': "It was another wonderful performance as the lady so gracious, so understanding, so perfect that you could easily see why Dennis Price fell for her but still couldn't stand her for too long."

In 1952 she divorced Anthony Havelock-Allan, and married in 1954 John Profumo, then a junior minister in the Churchill government. Her last film, Monsieur Ripois/Knave of Hearts (René Clément, 1954) starring Gérard Philipe, showed her again as a mistress of subtle comedy.

She retired as an actress after starring as the governess, Anna, in the 1953 stage production of the musical The King and I in London. That role, The Daily Telegraph said in their obituary, was her greatest success, and "as an actress, she knew, like Garbo, when to quit." Then at Profumo's insistence, she retired from her acting career.

Years after her retirement she was reluctantly thrust back into the spotlight. In 1963 Profumo was forced to resign as minister for war, following revelations he had lied to the House of Commons about his affair with call girl Christine Keeler. The sex scandal brought down Britain's Conservative Government once it was revealed that Keeler was also involved with a Soviet military attache. Valerie Hobson stood by her husband during the scandal, and for the remainder of her life they worked together on behalf of mentally handicapped children and lepers.

Hobson's eldest son, Simon Anthony Clerveaux Havelock-Allan was born in 1944 with Down's Syndrome. This tragedy had reduced Hobson to a 'zombie' state for an entire year, during which she hardly spoke. The child became a resident patient at a Rudolf Steiner School for the handicapped, and she continued to love him devotedly. She later had two more sons, Mark Havelock-Allan (1951) (now His Honour Judge Sir Mark Havelock-Allan QC), and David Profumo (1955), who wrote a book, Bringing the House Down, about his father's scandal.

Valerie Hobson died in London in 1998, when she stopped taking her medication which led to a heart attack.

Trailer of Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Source: Movieclips (YouTube).

Scene with Conrad Veidt in Contraband (1940). Source: quixotandovideos (YouTube).

Trailer Great Expectations (1946). Source: Andy Beezer (YouTube).

Trailer of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). Source: Film365 (You Tube).

Sources: Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), David Absalom (British Pictures), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Eric Pace (The New York Times), BritMovie, Lenin Imports, Chalybs (IMdb), The Powell & Pressburger Pages, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

One of the most popular film stars of the German cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s was the American actress Fern Andra (1893-1974). She often co-directed and scripted her own films. A typical example is the melodrama Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915), produced by Kurt Matull Film and Fern Andra Atelier.

Fern Andra in Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne Series, no. 523/1. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Publicity still for Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915) with Fern Andra.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne Series, no. 523/2. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Publicity still for Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915).

Fern Andra in Es Fiel Ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht (1915)

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne Series, no. 523/3. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Publicity still for Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915).

A happy and harmonious marriage destroyed

In Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915), Fern Andra plays the wife of bank director Balten. She has a happy and harmonious marriage with her husband, crowned by their son.

Hans Berndt, a friend of her husband, disrupts this happy bond by clumsily courting her. When visiting the seaside with her son, Berndt is present as well and starts to annoy her with his declarations of love. Unluckily Balten witnesses one of those attempts and calls Berndt to a duel.

Balten is shot, and soon after he dies of a severe wound. Berndt, unaware of the death of his duelling adversary, visits Ms. Balten and asks to be pardoned for his bad behaviour lately. She leads him to the corpse of her husband and accuses him of destroying her happiness.

Shocked, Berndt commits suicide with a gun, but by an unfortunate course of events, Ms Balten is suspected of having killed him. She is trialed, but on the day of the ordeal Berndt's farewell letter is found in the garden. Ms. Balten is acquitted and finds in her lawyer, who so well defended her, a new love and happiness.

Es fiel ein Reif in der Frülingsnacht, scripted by Fern Andra herself, was a typical example of Andra's melodramas that were so beloved in Germany during the First World War. These melodramas were situated either in aristocratic circles or in the world of the circus.

The press show of the film took place at the Berlin Mozartsaal on 21 October 1915. From 29 October it was released for public showings.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 523/5 Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra in Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 523/6. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra in Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 523/7. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra and Ferdinand Robert in Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne Series, no. 523/8. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Publicity still for Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht/There was frost in the spring night (Fern Andra, Kurt Matull, 1915). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Two unhappy young lovers

The title of the film, Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht, refers to an old folk poem about two unhappy young lovers. It was noted by both Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) and Florentin von Zuccalmaglio (1803–1869). Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy composed a melody for the verse.

Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht.
Er fiel auf die zarten Blaublümelein,
sie sind verwelket, verdorret.

Es hatt‘ ein Knabe ein Mägdlein lieb,
sie wanderten heimlich von Hause fort,
es wußten‘s nicht Vater noch Mutter.

Sie sind gewandert wohl hin und her,
es hatten die beiden nicht Glück noch Stern;
sie sind verdorben, gestorben.

Auf ihrem Grabe Blaublümelein blühn,
umschlingen sich innig wie diese im Grab;
der Reif sie nicht welket, nicht dörret.

TMC Chamber Singers sing Es fiel ein Reif from Drei Volkslieder, Op. 41, No. 2-4. Source: eRobb5 (YouTube).

Sources: Deutsche Lieder. Bamberger Anthologie (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Carlo Ninchi (1896-1974) was an Italian stage and screen actor, who appeared in almost 130 Italian films between the 1930s and 1960s. He was the younger brother of Annibale Ninchi and a cousin of Ave Ninchi.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit (Ballerini & Fratini Editori), Firenze, no. 4452-A. Photo: Pesce / Scalera Film. Carlo Ninchi in Giarabub (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942).

Great productive resources and a supercast

Carlo Ninchi was born in Bologna, Italy in 1896.

He debuted in the theatre company of his brother Annibale Ninchi, as Pilades in Alfieri’s Orestes. From then on, he was engaged by the major Italian stage companies, where he shared the stage with such other future great actors as Paolo Stoppa and Gino Cervi.

From the start of the Italian sound cinema in 1930 he acted in films. He alternated leads with supporting parts, starting with Corte d’Assise/Before the Jury (Guido Brignone 1930) with Marcella Albani. It was followed by Terra madre/Mother Earth (Alessandro Blasetti, 1931) with Leda Gloria.

He was Hagenbach opposite Germana Paolieri’s Wally in La Wally (Guido Brignone, 1931), and Compare Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana (Amleto Palermi, 1939), both films based on famous operas. In the latter film he acted opposite Isa Pola and the sex symbol of the fascist regime, Doris Duranti.

Also in 1939 he acted in Mario Soldati’s romantic comedy Dora Nelson as a rich industrial whose runaway wife, a spoiled actress, is substituted on the set but also in private by a lookalike (a double role by Assia Noris). The husband finally dumps his diva and marries the simple girl.

During the war years Ninchi, who had already acted in the fascist propaganda film Camicia nera/Black Shirt (Giovacchino Forzano, 1933), alternated propaganda films such as the colonial film Giarabub (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942) and the anti-Soviet film Odessa in fiamme/Odessa in Flames (Carmine Gallone, 1942) with modern drama, romantic comedy and historical films, such as Catene invisibili/Invisible Chains (Mario Mattoli, 1942) and Stasera niente di nuovo/Nothing New Tonight (Mario Mattoli, 1942), both starring Alida Valli.

Ninchi acted opposite Maria Mercader in La porta del cielo/Heaven's Gate (Vittorio De Sica, 1945) and opposite Elio Parvo in Roberto Rossellini’s Desiderio (1943-46). Ninchi also played the tormented ‘Innominato’ in the Manzoni adaptation I promessi sposi/The Spirit and the Flesh (1941), directed by Mario Camerini and staged with great productive resources (the Milan Duomo as it looked like in 1627 was reconstructed on the studio lot) and a supercast.

Italian postcard by S.A. Grafitalia, Milano (Milan), no. 10. Photo: Film Lux. Publicity still for I Promessi Sposi/The Spirit and the Flesh (Mario Camerini, 1941) with Carlo Ninchi as L'Innominato.

Unforgettable comical personifications

In the later 1940s Carlo Ninchi was still highly active, for example in dramas with Clara Calamai such as L'adultera/The Adultress (Duilio Coletti, 1946) and Ultimo amore/Last Love (Mario Camerini, 1947). He also appeared opposite Rossano Brazzi and Valentina Cortese in Il passatore/The Ferryman (Duilio Coletti, 1947), which was co-written by Federico Fellini.

He also acted in comedies with Macario and Silvana Pampanini, such as Bellezze in bicicletta/Beauties on Bikes (Carlo Campogalliani, 1950), and in René Clair's fantasy film La beauté du diable/Beauty and the Devil (1950). In Camicie rosse/Red Shirts (Goffredo Alessandrini, Francesco Rosi, 1952), a biopic on Anita Garibaldi (Anna Magnani), Ninchi played the Italian revolutionary nationalist Ciceruacchio.

But perhaps Ninchi reached his highest peak after the war as Dante’s Count Ugolino in the homonymous film Il conte Ugolino/Count Ugolino (Riccardo Freda, 1949). Ninchi was always at ease in dramatic interpretations which permitted him to excel in his robust theatrical formation.

Ninchi also acted in the epic films Fabiola (Alessandro Blasetti, 1948), Messalina (Carmine Gallone, 1951), and Spartaco/Spartacus the Gladiator (Riccardo Freda, 1953), starring Massimo Girotti. Unforgettable are also his comical personifications in which he even parodied himself, in the first place his Pepè Le Mokò in the delicious Totò le Mokò (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1949).

From the 1950s the artistic value of his interpretations went down, apart from the TV series Il conte di Montecristo/The Count of Monte Cristo (Edmo Fenoglio, 1966) and La ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960) in which he played Jean-Paul Belmondo’s father.

Carlo Ninchi died in Rome in 1974. His nephew Alessandro, born 1935, also followed a career as actor before stepping over to direction.

Italian postcard by ASER (A. Scaramaglia Edizioni, Roma), no. 33. Photo: Scalera Film / Foto Pesce.

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

We were happy to receive new scans from Didier Hanson in Spain. He acquired interesting rare vintage postcards dating from the era of the Russian Empire. Included were postcards of legendary stage productions of the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Konstantin Stanislavsky. There was also a series of postcards of Feodor Chaliapin, probably the best opera singer ever. Didier also sent us postcards of the silent film divas Vera Kholodnaya, Vera Karalli and Pola Negri. My favourite is the one with a scene from Ernst Lubitsch's Die Augen der Mumie Ma/The Eyes of the Mummy (1918). Watch the mirror!

Vladimir Mayakovsky, 1909. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian poet and actor Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was a prominent figure of the Russian Futurist movement. He produced a large and diverse body of work: he wrote poems, wrote and directed plays, appeared in films, edited the art journal LEF, and created agitprop posters in support of the Communist Party during the Russian Civil War. Though Mayakovsky's work regularly demonstrated ideological and patriotic support for the ideology of the Communist Party, his relationship with the Soviet state was always complex and often tumultuous.

Russian postcard. Photo: Moscow Art Theatre. Publicity still for the stage play Tri sestry/Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. Vasily Kachalov played the part of Baron Nikolaj Lvovich Tuzenbach. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vasali Kachalov and Vera Vsevolodovna Baranovskaya in Three Sisters

Russian postcard. Photo: K. Fisher / Moscow Art Theatre. Publicity still for the stage play Tri sestry/Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre.Vasily Kachalov played the part of Baron Nikolaj Lvovich Tuzenbach and Vera Baranovskaya played Irina, the youngest sister. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian film and stage actor Vasily Kachalov (1875-1948) was one of Konstantin Stanislavsky's best known performers. He led the so-called Kachalov Group within the Moscow Art Theatre. He also appeared in four films.

Feodor Chaliapin. Russian postcard, no. 2036. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Feodor Chaliapin as Mephisto. Russian postcard, no. 499. Photo: K. Fisher. Publicity still for the stage production of Arrigo Boito's opera Mefistofele. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (Russian: Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин) (1873–1938) was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large, deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form.

Polaire. French postcard, no. 8307. Photo: H. Manuel. Publicity still for the stage play Claudine à Paris (1902) at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Karalli, 1917. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Russian postcard, no. 140. Photo: publicity still for Posledneiye tango/Last Tango (Vyacheslav Viskovsky, 1918) with Vera Kholodnaya. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Pola Negri. German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 3172. Photo: Alex Binder. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Charlie Chaplin and Pola Negri. Germna postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 453/2, 1919-1924. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Pola Negri in Die Augen der Mumie Ma (1918)

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2835. Photo: publicity still for Die Augen der Mumie Ma/The Eyes of the Mummy (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918) with Pola Negri. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Thanks, 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.

Yesterday, 5 August 2016, Dutch stage, TV and film actress Annet Nieuwenhuyzen (1930-2016) has died. She was one of the Grand Dames of the Dutch theatre. Nieuwenhuyzen won many awards, including a Golden Calf for her part in the film Leedvermaak (1989). She was 85.

Dutch card to promote the stage musical Ja, ik wil/I do! I do!, a coproduction by Nieuw Rotterdams Toneel and Paul Kijzer. Annet Nieuwenhuyzen and Eric Schneider were the leads.

One of the icons of the Dutch stage

Annet Nieuwenhuyzen (sometimes written as Nieuwenhuijzen) was born in 1930 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. In 1953, she made her stage debut at De Haagse Comedie in The Hague after being spotted in a student production of the play Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams. She was studying political and social sciences in Amsterdam at the time.

Although she never trained as an actress, Nieuwenhuyzen became one of the icons of the Dutch stage during her long career. She played important parts for the Dutch theatre companies De Haagse Comedie, Het Rotterdams Toneel, Globe, Publiekstheater and Toneelgroep Amsterdam. She starred in the Greek classics and the plays by Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen en Berthold Brecht.

Twice, she won the Dutch version of the Tony Award, the Theo d'Or for Best Actress, for her performances in the plays Barefoot in the Park (1965) / Mourning becomes Electra (1965) and for The Good Person of Szechwan (1975). She also appeared in lighter genres. She proved to be a gifted singer in musicals like Ja, ik wil/I do! I do! and A Little Night Music.

She was also a beloved television actress and appeared in such acclaimed TV drama series as Bij nader inzien/On closer inspection (Frans Weisz, 1991), Oud Geld/Old Money (Rudolf van den Berg, 1998-1999), Wet & Waan/Law & Delusion (Ben Sombogaart a.o., 2000), and Keyzer & De Boer Advocaten/Keyzer & De Boer Lawyers (Pim van Hoeve a.o., 2006-2007).

Annet Nieuwenhuyzen was the wearer of the Theo Mann-Bouwmeesterring; the highest award for a Dutch actress. In 1994 she forwarded the ring to actress Anne-Wil Blankers.

Dutch trailer for Zus & zo/Hotel Paraiso (2001). Source: Nederlands Film Festival (YouTube).

Polonaise

Annet Nieuwenhuyzen also appeared in several films. Her cinema debut was the comedy Kleren maken de man/Clothes make the man (Georg Jacoby, 1957), starring Kees Brusse. Later, Nieuwenhuyzen appeared in such films as Een pak slaag/Mr. Slotter's Jubilee (Bert Haanstra, 1979), again opposite Kees Brusse, and Afzien/Forgo (Gerrard Verhage, 1986), starring Gerardjan Rijnders.

For her role in the film Leedvermaak/Polonaise (Frans Weisz, 1989) about a Jewish family after WW II, she was awarded the Gouden Kalf, the Dutch Academy Award, for Best Actress. Chip Douglas at IMDb: “The film was critically lauded and received a number of prices, including 'Golden Calf' awards for (director Frans) Weisz, (actor Pierre) Bokma and Nieuwenhuijzen. This inspired the director, the playwright and the entire cast to reunite a dozen years later for Qui vive (following the same family in the Eighties) and another eight years after that with Happy End (the final part set in the Nineties).”

Other films in which Annet Nieuwenhuyzen appeared were Zus & zo/Hotel Paraiso (Paula van der Oest, 2001), and the mockumentary Master Class (Hans Teeuwen, 2007).

Annet Nieuwenhuyzen had a longtime relationship with former TV presenter Kick Stokhuyzen, and since 2012, she was married to theatre historian Xandra Knebel. Actor Victor Reinier is her nephew.

Trailer Happy End (2009). Source: Nederlands Film Festival (YouTube).

Sources: Chip Douglas (IMDb), De Volkskrant (Dutch), Theaterencyclopedie (Dutch), Dutch News, Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.