European Film Star Postcards

Austrian stage and film actor Heinrich Peer (1867–1927) belonged to the pioneers of the German cinema and appeared in more than hundred films between 1911 and 1927. The tall, thin actor with the distinctive, almost sinister face often played supporting parts in adventure and detective films, but also played in melodramas and historical films.

German postcard by NPG. no. K 116. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by NPG. no. 547. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

The famous sleuth Harry Reep

Heinrich Friedrich Peer was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1867. He began his stage career at the Raimundtheater in Vienna and from 1892 on, he played in a theatre in Esseg (now Osijek, Croatia). After stopovers in Innsbruck and Pressburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia), he made his Berlin debut in 1902 at the Intimen Theater.

Heinrich Peer often appeared in operettas, especially at the Theater des Westens. There he played leading roles in Oscar Straus' Ein Walzertraum (A Waltz Dream) and Franz Lehár’s Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow).

Already in 1911, he made his film debut. That year he played in the short silent melodrama Nachtfalter/Moth (Urban Gad, 1911), which was only the second German film with Danish diva Asta Nielsen. The shooting took place in Bioscope-Atelier Chausseestrasse in Berlin, a studio with glass walls and artificial lighting with electric light. The silent film is now considered lost, like many other films of this period.

Peer also played in the silent short Mutters Todestag/Mother’s death (Adolf Gärtner, 1911) for the Messter studio. Peer then appeared for the Vitascope studio in the very popular detective comedy Wo ist Coletti?/Where is Coletti? (Max Mack, 1913), featuring Hans Junkermann, and in the comedy Die blaue Maus/The Blue Mouse (Max Mack, 1913), featuring Fritzi Lustig.

Peer also played a count in Der Geheimsekretär/The private secretary (Joe May, 1915), a part in another popular crime series about detective Joe Deeb played by Max Landa. He next played the best friend of the title figure in the comedy Hampels Abenteuer/Hampel's Adventure (Richard Oswald, 1915) with Georg Baselt as Hampel and a supporting part in Schlemihl (Richard Oswald, 1915) starring Rudolph Schildkraut and his son Joseph Schildkraut.

Peer also appeared in dramas such as Die Ruf der Liebe/The call of love (Rudolf Biebrach, 1916) with Henny Porten, and Die Liebe der Hetty Raymond/The love of Hetty Raymond (Joe May, 1917), featuring Mia May.

In the late 1910s, Peer now and then played leading roles, such as in Im stillen Ozean/In the Silent Ocean (Danny Kaden, 1917). He played the famous sleuth Harry Reep in Eine Nacht in der Stahlkammer/A night at the vault (Felix Basch, 1917) with Harry Liedtke as a shameless bank director, and Leopoldine Konstantin as his accomplice.

In 1918, he played an English officer in Ernst Lubitsch´s silent drama Carmen (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918), which established the stardom of actress Pola Negri. Carmen was based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée. Peer played another detective, Council Anheim, in a fairly short-lived detective series, including Der grüne Vampyr/The green Vampire (William Kahn, 1918). This crime film with horror elements was one of the first films that brought vampirism on the screen.

German postcard by Verlag Louis Blumenthal, Berlin, no. 6003. Caption: `Janz feudal! Heinrich Peer als Leutnant von Grumow in Der fidele Bauer.` Der fidele Bauer (The Merry Farmer) is a 1907 German-language operetta composed by Leo Fall with a libretto by Viktor Léon. It premiered at the Mannheim Hoftheater on 27 July 1907 and was Fall's first major hit.

German postcard by Pm. no. 5342.

Heinrich Peer in Eine Nacht in der Stahlkammer

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K.2025. Photo: Union Film. Heinrich Peer in the German silent film Eine Nacht in der Stahlkammer/A night in the tack room (Felix Basch, 1917).

Premature end

During the early 1920s, Heinrich Peer was often cast opposite Lya Mara by director Friedrich a.k.a. Frederic Zelnik, such as in the Tolstoi adaptation Anna Karenina (1920), and in Die Tochter Napoleons/Napoleon’s Daughter (1922).

Peer had supporting roles in such German silent films as the comedy Die Geliebte des Grafen Varenne/Count Varenne's Lover (Friedrich Zelnik, 1921) again opposite Lya Mara, Graf Festenberg/Count Festenberg (Urban Gad, Friedrich Zelnik, 1922) starring Charles Willy Kayser, and the drama Der Evangelimann/The Evangelist (Holger-Madsen, 1924) starring Paul Hartmann.

In 1925, Heinrich Peer had another supporting part in the silent historical film Bismarck (Ernst Wendt, 1925). It portrays the life of the nineteenth century German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck (Franz Ludwig) and was part of a popular trend of Prussian films released in Germany after the First World War.

Bismarck was followed by a second film, Bismarck 1862-1898 (Kurt Blachy, 1927), also starring Ludwig and with Peer again as an Austrian diplomat. In between, Peer appeared in another Prussian film, Die Mühle von Sanssouci/The Mill at Sanssouci (Siegfried Philippi, Frederic Zelnik, 1926) about an episode in the life of the Prussian king Friedrich II (Otto Gebühr), the construction in the 18th Century of the historic mill of Sanssouci. Peer played the king’s chamberlain.

In 1927, Heinrich Peer suddenly died in Vienna, Austria. He was 59. Peer was married to actress Bella Friese. Thomas Staedeli at Cyranos: “his career was ended premature, a career which would have certainly continued in a great way in the 30's.”

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin. no. 5296. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin, 1916.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin. no. K. 115. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 167. Photo: Alex Binder.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-Line – German), Filmportal,de, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She appeared both as the tragic heroin in many dramas and as the zany girl in comedies. We love the images of the postcards produced for her comedy Ihr Sport/Her Sport (Rudolf Biebrach, 1919).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 609/1. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in the German silent film Ihr Sport (1919).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 609/2. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in the German silent film Ihr Sport (1919).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 609/3. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in the German silent film Ihr Sport (1919).

The Man Hater

Henny Porten plays in Ihr Sport/Her Sport (Rudolf Biebrach, 1919) Adelina von Gentz, known as 'Männerfresserin' (man hater) .

When her friend Helga (Wally Koch) is about to marry old-fashioned Rudolf Walters (George Schnell), Adelina writes Helga to rebel against her new husband.

On their honeymoon the newly married couple travel to the Silesian Karpates where Adelina lives. Upon their arrival, the couple is at odds with each other.

This is the ideal condition for Adelina to try to break up her friend's new marriage. She disguises herself as a maid and assumes a position in the hotel where the couple Walters has descended. She wants to tease Helga's husband.

In the hotel, Adelina meets namesake Rudi Walters (Hermann Thimig), who causes Adelina to quickly cast aside her hostile attitude towards men. At the end of the film, Adelina has not only found love, but has also reconciled Helga and her husband.

As the shooting in the snow proves, Ihr Sport was shot in early 1919, immediately after the shooting of the Porten film Irrungen. The script was written by Robert Wiene, cinematography was by Willibald Gaebel, and the sets were designed by Ludwig Kainer. Actress Wally Koch (Helga) also edited the film.

The film passed censorship in March 1919, but was forbidden for young people. Ihr Sport premiered at the Berlin Mozartsaal cinema on 12 April 1919. In the weekly Austrian film programme Paimann’s Filmlisten, Franz Paimann wrote about the film: "Humor very good. Cinematography, acting and sets excellent."

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 609/4. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in the German silent film Ihr Sport (1919).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 609/5. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in the German silent film Ihr Sport (1919).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 609/6. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still of Henny Porten in the German silent film Ihr Sport (1919).

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Yvonne Monlaur (1939) starred in several European film productions of the late 1950s and 1960s. The glamorous French starlet is best known for her roles in a few Hammer horror films.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/395. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

The Year's Sexiest Screen Newcomer

Yvonne Monlaur was born Yvonne Bèdat de Monlaur in Pau, France in 1939. Her father was a White Russian count and her mother was a ballet dancer, who had great plans with her daughter. Yvonne followed her mother's footsteps and took ballerina lessons.

She eventually worked as a teenage model for magazines like Elle, when director André Hunebelle discovered her. He gave her small parts in his films Treize à table/Thirteen at the Table (André Hunebelle, 1955) with Micheline Presle, and Mannequins de Paris/Mannequins of Paris (André Hunebelle, 1956) starring Madeleine Robinson. She then had a supporting part in the Fernandel comedy Honoré de Marseille/Honoré from Marseille (Maurice Régamey, 1956).

Then Italian director Franco Rossi called her to Rome for the Italian-Spanish co-production Amore a prima vista/Love at First Sight (Franco Rossi, 1958) starring Walter Chiari. She appeared in more Italian films such as Non sono più Guaglione/I am not Guaglione anymore (Domenico Paolella, 1958) with Sylva Koscina, and Tre straniere a Roma/Three Strangers in Rome (Claudio Gora, 1958) with Claudia Cardinale in one of her first leading roles.

That year Monlaur was also spotted by the British producer Anthony Hinds. He asked to come to England to play in the an episode of the TV series Women in Love (1958) with George Sanders as the host.

In 1959 she suddenly seemed to be ‘hot’ all over Europe. In France a Paris magazine voted her the year's sexiest screen newcomer, in Great Britain she was featured with a four-page pictorial in the September issue of Male magazine and in Italy she is on the cover of a June issue of Tempo magazine and an Italian newspaper called her 'the year's most promising actress'. But during the shooting of the comedy Avventura a Capri/Adventure on Capri (Giuseppe Lipartiti, 1959) she had a serious accident. She suffered bad facial burns in a speedboat accident, resulting in months of recovery at a hospital.

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

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

Hammer Horror

In 1960 Yvonne Monlaur travelled, accompanied by her mother, to England for a series of films. First she co-starred in the comedy Inn for Trouble (C.M. Pennington-Richards, 1960). Then followed the Hammer horror film The Brides of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1960). She was introduced in the trailer as 'the latest sex kitten from France'.

Hal Erickson writes at AllMovie: “One of the best of the Hammer horrors, Brides of Dracula stars Peter Cushing as tireless vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing. Though Drac himself doesn't make an appearance, his influence is felt thanks to teenaged bloodsucker Baron Meinster (David Peel). The baron's loving mother (Martita Hunt) shelters her son from harm, all the while scouring the countryside for potential female victims. When misguided schoolteacher Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) falls in love with young Meinster, Van Helsing is forced to take drastic measures to show her the error of her ways. Excellent (and very bloody) special effects highlight this sumptuous production.”

In Circus of Horrors (Sidney Hayers, 1960), this time produced by Amalgamated studios, Monlaur appeared alongside Donald Pleasance and Anton Diffring as a deranged German plastic surgeon.

She played a Chinese lady in the Hammer production The Terror of the Tongs (Anthony Bushell, 1961) with Christopher Lee as the vicious leader of a Chinese Tong gang operating in 1910 Hong Kong. Hal Erickson describes it as “a gory, garishly colored melodrama written by Jimmy Sangster in the tradition of the Fu Manchu films.”

Back in Italy she had a small part in the romantic comedy It Started in Naples (Melville Shavelson, 1960) starring Clark Gable and Sophia Loren.

She continued to work in England too and appeared in Time to Remember (Charles Jarrett, 1962), one of a series of second feature films based on Edgar Wallace novels released in the UK between 1960 and 1965.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 791. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

Lemmy Caution

In France Yvonne Monlaur played a supporting part in Lemmy pour les dames/Ladies’man (Bernard Borderie, 1962), one of the cult action films starring Eddie Constantine which were based on the crime novels by Peter Cheney.

She stayed in France for the crime comedy À cause, à cause d'une femme/Because of a Woman (Michel Deville, 1963) with Jacques Charrier and Mylène Demongeot, and the crime potboiler Le concerto de la peur/Night of Lust (José Bénazéraf, 1963) with a fabulous free-jazz score by Chet Baker.

The latter was a thriller about two rival mobsters who fight for control of the local drug traffic. The film also included a lesbian nightclub act, which was featured prominently on the international posters.

Monlaur then screentested for the role of Domino Derval in the James Bond film Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965). In his book The James Bond Films (1981), author Steven Jay Rubin features a picture of Monlaur posing in a 'Domino' bathing suit. The role eventually went to another French actress, Claudine Auger.

Yvonne Monlaurs moment seemed to be over. After the German crime thriller Die Rechnung - eiskalt serviert/Tip Not Included (Helmut Ashley, 1966) with George Nader as G-man Jerry Cotton, Monlaur left the cinema to return to France. Her last appearance was in the German TV series Der Tod läuft hinterher/The death runs behind (Wolfgang Becker, 1967) starring Joachim Fuchsberger.

Today Yvonne Monlaur lives in Paris and - now and then - she attends film conventions, which salute her Hammer films or her other Eurospy and action films. She also writes on her own official Yvonne Monlaur blog, on which she shares memories of her 1960s fantasy films, souvenirs of her career and confidences about her present activities.

Trailer for The Brides of Dracula (1960). Source: SuperNaturalEarth (YouTube).

Hammer Homage: The Terror of The Tongs (1961). Source: Time For Toast Productions (YouTube).

Sources: Yvonne Monlaur (Official blog), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Cult Sirens, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Stars and their privacy is an interesting subject. We are curious about the people we admire and desire at the Silver Screen. Are they married? How does their home look like? And what about their kids? Many famous people want to shield their private lives from the cameras, but others believe it's all in the game. Today, a dozen postcards with stars from the past photographed at home or with their loved ones.

Asta Nielsen at home. German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, no. 8645. Photo: Willinger.

Max Landa at home. German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 9554.

Fern Andra at her home. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 288/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

Erna Morena and her child. German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no.311/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Wasow, München (Munich).

Ivy Close and her sons Derek and Ronald Neame. British postcard in the Philco (PPC) Series, no. 1070-3. Photo: Elwyn Neame.

Mr. and Mrs. George Robey, Master Teddie & Miss Eileen Robey. British postcard by Rotary Photo EC., no. 4134 B.

Husband Mickey Hargitay and wife Jayne Mansfield at home. Dutch postcard by Uitgeverij Takken, no. 3674. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Dutch singer Corry Brokken with her only child, daughter Nancy, born in 1959.Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 5625.

Italian-Belgian singer and actor Adamo with his many siblings. Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht / Uitgeverij Takken, no. AX 5826. Photo: NV Bovema.

British teen idol Tommy Steele at home. German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 345. Photo: Dezo Hoffman / UFA.

American postcard, no. 821. Residence of Joan Crawford, Brentwood, LA, California.
Crawford lived here between 1929 and 1956, at 426, North Bristol Avenue. The house was decorated by her friend Billy Haines.

House of Robert Taylor, Beverly Hills, LA

American postcard, no. 62679. Home of Robert Taylor, 510, Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills, LA, California.

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.

Mexican-American actor Anthony Quinn (1915-2001) started as a contract player at Paramount, where he mainly played villains and ethnic types. He moved to Broadway and replaced Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. This performance boosted his film career. For his role as Brando's brother in Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan, 1952), Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He gave one of his best performances as the circus strongman in Federico Fellini's masterpiece La Strada (1954). Quinn won his second Supporting Actor Oscar in 1957 for his role as Gauguin in Lust for Life (Vincente Minnelli, 1956), opposite Kirk Douglas as Vincent van Gogh. Over the next decades Quinn alternated between Hollywood and the European cinema.

Dutch postcard, no. GR-5082.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 209. Photo: Universal International.

The Son-in-law of Cecil B. DeMille

Antonio Rudolfo Oaxaca Quinn was born in 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico. His parents were Manuela (Oaxaca) and Francisco Quinn. After starting life in extremely modest circumstances in Mexico, his family moved to Los Angeles, where his father became an assistant cameraman at the Selig Film Studios. Quinn often accompanied his father to work, and became acquainted with such stars as Tom Mix and John Barrymore, with whom he kept up the friendship into adulthood.

He attended Polytechnic High School and later Belmont High, but eventually dropped out. The young Quinn boxed which stood him in good stead as a stage actor, when years later, he played Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. He won a scholarship to study architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the great architect's studio, Taliesin, in Arizona. Quinn was close to Wright, who encouraged him when he decided to give acting a try.

After a brief apprenticeship on stage, Quinn hit Hollywood. He made his film debut with a character role in the crime drama Parole! (Lew Landers, 1936). Quinn picked up a variety of small roles in several films at Paramount, including a Cheyenne Indian in The Plainsman (1936), which was directed by his future father-in-law, Cecil B. DeMille. As a contract player at Paramount, Quinn mainly played villains and ethnic types, such as a gangster in the crime drama Dangerous to Know (Robert Florey, 1938), a Chinese gangster in Island of Lost Men (Kurt Neumann, 1939) and an Arab chieftain in the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope vehicle Road to Morocco (David Butler, 1942). He also played the sympathetic Crazy Horse in They Died with Their Boots On (Raoul Walsh, 1941) with Errol Flynn.

As a Mexican national (he did not become an American citizen until 1947), he was exempt from the draft. With many actors in the service fighting World War II, Quinn was able to move up into better supporting roles. He had married DeMille's daughter Katherine DeMille, which afforded him entrance to the top circles of Hollywood society. However, he became disenchanted with playing supporting parts as Chief Yellow Hand in Buffalo Bill (William A. Wellman, 1944) and a Chinese in China Sky (China Sky (Ray Enright, 1945). His first lead was the Indian farmer Charlie Eagle in Black Gold (Phil Karlson, 1947) opposite his wife, Katherine DeMille.

By 1947, he had appeared in more than fifty films and was still not a major star. He did not renew his Paramount contract despite the advice of others, including his father-in-law whom Quinn felt never accepted him due to his Mexican roots. Instead, he returned to the stage. His portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire in Chicago and on Broadway, where he replaced Marlon Brando, made his reputation.

However, IMDb also gives another explanation for his move to the stage: “Became a naturalized United States citizen in 1947, just before he was ‘gray-listed’ for his association with Communists such as screenwriter John Howard Lawson and what were termed ‘fellow travelers’, though he himself was never called before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. When warned of his gray-listing by 20th Century-Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck (a liberal), Quinn decided to go on the Broadway stage where there was no blacklist rather than go through the process of refuting the suspicions.”

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, no. T 882. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for Blowing Wild (Hugo Fregonese, 1953).

French postcard by Editions P.I. / Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. 3356. Photo: United Artists.

The first Mexican-American Oscar winner

Anthony Quinn’s success on Broadway boosted his film career. He returned to the cinema in The Brave Bulls (Robert Rossen, 1951). Director Elia Kazan then cast him as Marlon Brando's brother in his biographical film of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, Viva Zapata! (1952). Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for 1952, making him the first Mexican-American to win an Oscar.

It was not to be his lone appearance in the winner's circle: he won his second Supporting Actor Oscar five years later for his portrayal of painter Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's biographical film of Vincent van Gogh, Lust for Life (1956), opposite Kirk Douglas.

Over the next decade Quinn lived in Italy and became a major figure in world cinema, as many studios shot films in Italy to take advantage of the lower costs. He appeared in several Italian films, giving one of his greatest performances as the dim-witted, thuggish and volatile circus strongman who brutalises the sweet soul played by Giulietta Masina in her husband Federico Fellini's masterpiece La Strada (1954).

Alternating between Europe and Hollywood, Quinn built his reputation and entered the front rank of character actors and character leads. He received his third Oscar nomination (and first for Best Actor) for Wild Is the Wind (George Cukor, 1957). Quinn starred in The Savage Innocents (Nicholas Ray, 1959) as Inuk, an Eskimo who finds himself caught between two clashing cultures. He played a Greek resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation in the box office hit The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) and received praise for his portrayal of a once-great boxer on his way down in Requiem for a Heavyweight (Ralph Nelson, 1962).

Back on Broadway, he was nominated for the 1961 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for his part as as King Henry II opposite Laurence Olivier as Thomas Becket in Becket (Becket ou l'honneur de Dieu) by Jean Anouilh. He returned to the cinema to play ethnic parts, such as an Arab warlord in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and he played the eponymous lead in the Sword-and-sandal blockbuster Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961) opposite Silvana Mangano.

Two years later he reached the zenith of his career, playing Zorba in Alexis Zorbas/Zorba the Greek (Michael Cacoyannis, 1964)), which brought him his fourth, and last, Oscar nomination as Best Actor. The 1960s were kind to him: he played character leads in such major films as The Shoes of the Fisherman (Michael Anderson, 1968) opposite Laurence Olivier, and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Stanley Kramer, 1969), with Anna Magnani. However, his appearance in the title role in the film adaptation of John Fowles' novel, The Magus (Guy Green, 1968), did nothing to save the film, which was one of that decade's notorious turkeys.

Anthony Quinn and Claude Akins in Flap (1970)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 166. Photo: publicity still for Flap (Carol Reed, 1970).

Big East-German collectors card by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 15/82.

Not an authentic black hero

The following decade saw Anthony Quinn slip back into playing ethnic types again. He starred as the Hispanic mayor of a rapidly growing city in Southwest United States in the TV series The Man and the City (1971).

IMDb writes about an interesting incident: “Around 1972, he announced his desire to play Henry Cristophe, the 19th-century emperor of Haiti. Upon this announcement, several prominent black actors, including Ossie Davis and Ellen Holly, stated that they were opposed to a ‘white man’ playing ‘black’. Davis stated, ‘My black children need black heroes on which to model their behavior. Henry Cristophe is an authentic black hero. Tony, for all my admiration of him as a talent, will do himself and my children a great disservice if he encourages them to believe that only a white man, and Tony is white to my children, is capable of playing a black hero.’”

Quinn’s career lost its momentum during the 1970s. Aside from playing a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in the cinematic roman-a-clef The Greek Tycoon (J. Lee Thompson, 1978), his other major roles of the decade were as Hamza in the controversial The Message/Mohammad, Messenger of God (Moustapha Akkad, 1976), as the Italian patriarch in L'eredità Ferramonti/The Inheritance (Mauro Bolognini, 1976) opposite Dominique Sanda, yet another Arab in Caravans (James Fargo, 1978) and a Mexican patriarch in The Children of Sanchez (Hall Bartlett, 1978) with Dolores Del Rio.

In 1983 he reprised his most famous role, Zorba the Greek, on Broadway in the revival of the musical Zorba, for 362 performances. Though his film career slowed during the 1990s, he continued to work steadily in films and television, such as in the HBO original crime drama Gotti: The Rise and Fall of a Real Life Mafia Don (Robert Harmon, 1996). Quinn lived out the latter years of his life in Bristol, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his time painting and sculpting. His final film was the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Avenging Angelo (Martyn Burke, 2002).

In 2001, Anthony Quinn died in a hospital in Boston from pneumonia and respiratory failure linked to his battle with lung cancer. Quinn was 86 years old. He was married three times. After divorcing Katherine DeMille in 1965, he married Italian costume designer Jolanda Addolori (1966-1997) and after their divorce with his secretary, Kathy Benvin (1997-2001). He had ten children, five with DeMille, three with Addolori, and two with Benvin.

Trailer La Strada (1954). Source: Blondinka Inoz (YouTube).

Trailer Alexis Zorbas/Zorba the Greek (1964). Source: Fernando Braz (YouTube).

Trailer The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).

Sources: Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

André Baugé (1893-1966) was a French baritone, active in opera and operetta. He also appeared in films in the 1930s.

French postcard by E.C. (Editions Chantal), no. 73. Photo: J. Pervez.

French postcard by E.C. (Editions Chantal), no. 100. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

French postcard, no. 42. Photo: Roger Corbeau / Distrib. Français.

First Baritone

André Gaston Baugé was born in Toulouse, France, in 1893. He was the son of Alphonse Baugé, a vocal teacher, and Anna Tariol-Baugé a soprano active in operetta.

André studied with his parents and appeared in the French provinces billed as André Grilland. However, he also painted and had an exhibition at the Salons de la Société des Artistes Français. He decided to choose for the operetta, like his mother.

In 1917, he made his debut as first baritone at the Opéra-Comique in Paris as Frédéric in Lakmé. A pensionnaire at the Opéra-Comique until 1925, he appeared as Clément Marot in La Basoche, Sylvanus in Au Beau Jardin de France, Figaro in Le Barbier de Séville, Escamillo in Carmen, Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana, Don Giovanni, Clavaroche in Fortunio, Lescaut in Manon, d’Orbel in La Traviata, Marcel in La boheme, Albert in Werther etc.

Baugé sang in the first performances at the Salle Favart of Béatrice, Masques et Bergamasques and Véronique. In 1925 he played Germont in Traviata and the title role in Mârouf. In 1925 he sang in the French premiere of Monsieur Beaucaire and moved into the field of comédie musicale and Viennese operetta.

A succession of appearances in that genre followed: Venise (alongside his mother) in 1927, Paganini in 1928, Vouvray in 1929 (for which he wrote the text), Le Clown amoureux in 1929, Robert le Pirate in 1929, Cinésonor in 1930 (also writing the text), Nina-Rosa in 1931, Valses de Vienne in 1933, Au temps des Merveilleuses in 1934, Au soleil du Mexique in 1935 and Le Chant du tzigane in 1937.

French postcard by Ajax, no. 54. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères. Caption: André Baugé de l'Opéra-Comique.

French postcard by P-C, Paris, no. 55. Image: Editions Cinéphoniques, 1932. Text and music of the title song of Pour un sou d'amour (1932), words by Pierre Maudru and music by Albert Chantrier.

French postcard by AN, Paris, no. 763. Photo: Studio G.L. Manuel Frères.

Multiple-language versions

In the cinema, André Baugé made his debut in the silent film La fleur des Indes/The Flower of the Indies (Théo Bergerat, 1921) starring Huguette Duflos.

Nine years later he appeared in La Route est belle (Robert Florey, 1930), one of the first French sound films with music by Szulc. As no French studios had been converted for sound film, it was shot at Elstree Studios in Britain.

In Germany he starred opposite Liane Haid and Willi Forst in Petit officier... Adieu! (Géza von Bolváry, 1930), an alternate-language version of the operetta Das Lied ist aus (Géza von Bolváry, 1930). Multiple-language versions were common in the years following the introduction of sound film, before the practice of dubbing became widespread.

The next year, he had a supporting part in another example, Le petit café/The Little Cafe (Ludwig Berger, 1931), a French-language American Pre-Code musical film starring Maurice Chevalier. The film is a foreign-language version of Playboy of Paris (Ludwig Berger, 1930). The film received a better reception from critics than the English-language version had.

In the following years, he appeared in some other films including the opera adaptation Le barbier de Séville/The Barber of Seville (Hubert Bourlon, Jean Kemm, 1936), and Le roman d'un jeune homme pauvre/The novel of a young poor man (Abel Gance, 1935) featuring Pierre Fresnay.

Then Baugé returned to the theatre. He also contributed to the books of several productions (Vouvray, Cinésonor) he designed the cover for the score of Venise by Richepin. He was for a time the director of the Trianon-Lyrique in Paris. Baugé was the author of the libretto of an opéra-bouffe in three acts entitled tableaux Beaumarchais, using Rossini's music arranged by Eugène Cools, which was premiered at the Théâtre des Variétés in Marseille in 1931.

After the war he taught at the École Normale, returning to the theatre in 1958 as Johann Strauss senior in Valses de Vienne. He left recordings of songs from many of his roles, and some of these have been re-issued on CD.

André Baugé died in 1966 in Clichy-la-Garenne, France. He was 73. His wife was the singer Suzanna Laydeker, who also appeared as Laydeker-Baugé. She died in 1980.

French postcard by E.C., no. 42. Photo: Var.

French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 141. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 139. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

Sources: Wikipedia (English and French) and IMDb.

Lia Franca aka Lya Franca (1912-1988) was an Italian film actress. After a breakthrough in 1930 and a peak in 1932 with Gli uomini che mascalzoni, she married and pulled the plug on her acting career.

Italian postcard. Cines-Pittaluga, Roma.

Miss Trieste

As Pietro Spirito wrote in Il Piccolo in 2010, Lia Franca is "emblematic and representative of an era of cinema in which the Italian star system was modeled on styles and ways of Hollywood’s star system".

She was baptized in the New Church of St. Anthony as Livia Caterina Petra Penso in 1912. When she was just 14, her compatriot Marcella Battellini won a competition organized by the Fox Film Corporation, looking for new faces to be launched in Hollywood cinema. The winners chosen from the approximately forty thousand and thirty thousand women participants were respectively Alberto Rabagliati, who would become a popular Italian singer, and Marcella Battellini.

The news that a girl from Trieste could establish herself in film gave way to a whole series of competitions. The first was the Miss Trieste pageant in 1927, with thousands of participants, won by Argelia Lazardi, Ermy Metlica and Livia Penso. On the contest also a short film was made, Il trionfo di Venere/The Triumph of Venus, projected 20 to 23 May 1927 at the Cinema Corso in Trieste Corso.

Livia then moved to Turin, where she tried to work for the company Anonima Stefano Pittaluga but failed and finally moved to Rome. There she debuted in 1930 as Lia Franca in the short film Arietta antica, and then she had one of the leads in the courtcase drama Corte d’Assise/Before the Jury (Guido Brignone, 1930), starring Marcella Albani, Franca and Elio Steiner.

After that, she performed in Resurrectio/Resurrection (Alessandro Blasetti, 1931), about an orchestra conductor (Daniele Crespi) who premeditates suicide because of his lover dumping him but then is held back by an innocent young girl (Franca), who inspires him and causes his resurrection. The film was Italy’s first feature sound film produced, but producers considered it better to release it after La canzone dell’amore, in 1931. The film was shot twice after the negative was burned and the film sequestered, but critics had no mercy and still condemned the film. Blasetti himself judged it his biggest flop.

Marcella Albani and Lya Franca in Corte d'Assise

Italian postcard. Photo: Produzione Cines-Pittaluga. Marcella Albani and Lya Franca in the courtcase melodrama Corte d'Assise (Guido Brignone, 1930, released in 1931).

Marcella Albani in Corte d'Assise (1930)

Italian postcard. Photo: Produzione Cines-Pittaluga. From left to right: Lya Franca, Renzo Ricci, Marcella Albani, and Mercedes Brignone, and at far right Elio Steiner, in the courtcase melodrama Corte d'Assise (Guido Brignone, 1930-1931).

Parlami d’amore

Lia Franca then played a minor part in La stella del cinema/The movie star (Mario Almirante, 1931), starring Grazia Del Rio.

Franca finally got her big role as Mariuccia, the shopgirl, in the romantic comedy Gli uomini, che mascalzoni…/What Rascals Men Are (Mario Camerini, 1932). Here a young Vittorio De Sica dedicates the famous song Parlami d’amore, Mariù to Franca’s Mariuccia. The film and the song were huge successes at the time, both inside and outside of Italy, turning De Sica into a full blown film star.

An important innovation in a time when most Italian films were shot in studios was to have a great deal of the film shot in exteriors, in Milan and on the Lakes. The story deals with private chauffeur Bruno who pretends he owns the rich family's car and takes shopgirl Mariuccia to the lakes. He meets the family there who order to drive them back to Milan, leaving Mariuccia behind. Afterwards he crashes the car trying to pick up the girl left behind and is fired. After many more adventures the two can finally reunite.

During this the production of the film, Franca met the assistant director Mario Sequi. They married shortly after the premiere of their film. Lia abandoned the cinema forever and never spoke to the press again.

Lia Franca died in Rome in 1988.

Tribute to Lia Franca. Source: I MILLE OCCHI (YouTube).

Sources: La burbuja rosa (Italian), Wikipedia (English and Italian) and IMDb.

Passionate Jany Holt (1909-2005) was a red-haired French actress of Romanian origin. From the 1930s on, she had an extensive career in the French cinema and theatre. She reached her zenith during the late 1930s and the war years playing nuns as well as prostitutes.

French postcard, no. 540. Photo: R. Voinquel / Flora Films. Publicity still for Raspoutine/Rasputin (Marcel L'Herbier, 1938). Collection: Didier Hanson.

French postcard by O.P., Paris, no. 16. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Flaming Red Hair and a Skinny Figure

Jany Holt was born as Ruxandra Ecaterina Vladescu Olt in Bucharest, Romania in 1909 (some sources write 1911). In 1926 she was sent to Paris by her parents to do commercial studies. Instead she preferred to inscribe for a dramatic course with Charles Dullin and Gabrielle Fontan.

Working as a stand-in on stage, she replaced Jackie Monnier opposite Harry Baur in David Golder. In 1935, Ludmilla and Georges Pitoëff engaged her to play in La Créature by Ferdinand Bruckner, which set off her stage career but also led her to the cinema.

In 1931, she had already made her film debut with the film Un homme en habit/A man in dress (Robert Bossis, René Guissart, 1931) with Fernand Gravey, but it was from 1935 on that she had an extensive cinema career. Passionate Jany Holt knew how to conquer the hearts of the film audiences.

With her sharp profile, flaming red hair and skinny figure she could not become a soubrette, so she set for the more melancholic, neurotic characters. She was Ludwig von Beethoven's 'immortal beloved' Giulietta Giucciardi opposite Harry Baur in Un grand amour de Beethoven/Beethoven's Great Love (Abel Gance, 1936) and the unhappy lover of Pierre Richard-Willm in Courrier-Sud/Southern Carrier (Pierre Billon, 1936).

On the set of Un grand amour de Beethoven she met Marcel Dalio, who was impressed by her slightly sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. They married in 1936, though the Jewish Dalio refused to convert to Catholicism as Holt's parents had wanted him to do.

From 1936 on, she played quite extreme characters such as the hallucinating daughter of a rabbi with whom the Golem falls in love in Le Golem/The Golem (Julien Duvivier, 1936), the prostitute Nastia in Jean Renoir’s Les Bas-Fonds/The Lower Depths (Jean Renoir, 1936) starring Jean Gabin, and a bar hostess involved in an intrigue between Louis Jouvet and Erich von Stroheim in L’Alibi (Pierre Chenal, 1937).

One of the roles in which she best expressed her melancholy and ardour was in La Maison du Maltais/The House of the Maltese (Pierre Chenal, 1938), in which Holt plays the consumptive prostitute Greta, who dies in Morocco while dreaming of her beloved Normandy. After La Tragédie impériale/Rasputin (Marcel L’Herbier, 1938), in which Holt played a nun who accepts she has to kill, Holt’s best parts followed in the 1940s.

In the meanwhile she divorced Dalio, who fled to Hollywood in 1940. That same year Holt married man-about-town Jacques Porel, son of the legendary stage actress Gabrielle Réjane, who had fallen in love with her radiating personality and her red hair.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris. Photo: Teddy Piaz, Paris.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 29. Photo: Studio Piaz.

Mystical Setting

Jany Holt played Anne, the adopted daughter of a countess in Le Baron fantôme/The Phantom Baron (Serge de Poligny, 1942) with dialogues by Jean Cocteau. The countess’ daughter Elfy (Odette Joyeux) who is forced to do a mariage de raison, doesn’t know that the object of her passion, Hervé (Alain Cuny), is in love with the enigmatic Anne.

In Robert Bresson's remarkable directorial debut, Les Anges du péché/Angels of Sin (Robert Bresson, 1943), Holt plays Thérèse, a woman innocently imprisoned. When released she kills the man who committed the crime for which she was sentenced, then seeks refuge at the convent of a nun (Renée Faure) who previously befriended her.

Ronald Bergan wrote in his 2005 obituary on Holt for The Guardian: "Despite Bresson's later rejection of professional actors - 'Art is transformation. Acting can only get in the way' - Holt, who moves from resentful moroseness into a spiritual awareness of her crime, gives an affecting and natural performance. 'I found the film so good that I hardly realised that I was in it,' she once remarked."

Another mystical setting surrounded Holt In La Fiancée des ténèbres/The fiancée of the darkness (De Poligny, 1944), shot at the fortified city of Carcassonne and referring to the cult of the Cathars. Holt played the central character Sylvie, who believes she is cursed.

During the occupation of France by the Nazis, Holt was working for the résistance. In June 1945, she was decorated by general Charles de Gaulle with the Croix de Guerre for services rendered.

In the postwar era, she played some memorable roles as the unfaithful wife of Michel Simon in Non coupable/Not Guilty (Henri Decoin, 1947) and the avenger in Mademoiselle de La Ferté/Miss de La Ferté (Roger Dallier, 1949) with Jean Servais. After that, Holt focused on her stage work.

Remarkable - but clearly smaller - roles in later years were in Gervaise (René Clément, 1955) starring Maria Schell, Die linkshändige Frau/The Left-Handed Woman (Peter Handke, 1978) featuring Edith Clever, La Passerelle/The Catwalk (Jean Claude Sussfeld, 1987), and Métisse/Café au Lait (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1992) with Vincent Cassel.

She also played some supporting parts in Paris-set English-language productions, a French countess in The Green Glove (Rudolph Maté, 1952) with Glenn Ford; Philippe Noiret's mother in the British film A Time for Loving (Christopher Miles, 1971), and a hotel owner in Arthur Penn's thriller Target (Arthur Penn, 1985), starring Gene Hackman.

Her last film was the thriller Noir comme le souvenir/Black for Remembrance (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1994) starring Jane Birkin. Holt's stage career spanned from the 1930s to the 1960s, working with stage directors like Paulette Pax, Jean Cocteau and Robert Murzeau. She had also been active on television from the 1960s to the 1980s, and she translated the correspondence between Gustave Flaubert and Georges Sand in Romanian in 1991. In total she had appeared in 48 films and television productions between 1931 and 1995.

Jany Holt died in a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine near Paris in 2005, reaching the high age of 96.

French card by Massilia. Collection: Amit Benyovits.

Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), James Travers (Le Film Guide), Ciné-Ressources (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

María Denis plays the lead in the Italian melodrama Sissignora/Yes, Madam (1942) produced under the Fascist rule of Mussolini. The beautiful star was very successful during the 1930 and 1940s with these melodramas and her Telefoni Bianchi-films, the typical Italian society comedies.

Italian postcard for Sissignora (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942), with María Denis.

Italian postcard for Sissignora (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942), with María Denis and Anna Carena.

Italian postcard for Sissignora (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942), with María Denisand Emma or Irma Grammatica.

Malice, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy and egoism

María Denis plays in Sissignora young Cristina Zunio. She is an orphan after the death of her only aunt.

Cristina needs work and asks sister Valeria (Rina Morelli) for help. She thus becomes a domestic with the two old ladies Robbiano (Emma and Irma Grammatica) who treat her with austerity and narrow-mindedness.

Then their nephew, the young sailor Vittorio (Leonardo Cortese), returns from a long cruise. The two young people fall in love, opposed by the two old spinsters who won't accept he ties himself to a 'maid'. So they fire her to get rid of her.

Cristina thus starts working for the Bracco-Rinaldi family, who pretend to be high society but are debt-ridden, and they send Cristina away without payment. Meanwhile Vittorio manages to find Cristina and the two decide to marry, so Cristina rejects a marriage offer by the shy Emilio (Elio Marcuzzo), a young man from her native village.

But then sister Valeria conspires with the Robbiani ladies and demands Cristina to break with Vittorio, so he sails away. Alone again, she gets a job at signora Valdata (Evi Maltagliati), widow with a small boy (Silverio Pesu), whose 'cousin' around proves to be her lover. When the child falls ill, they charge Cristina to take care of it, without telling her it suffers from chicken pox, so she is contaminated as well.

It will be Emilio to help her, but too late. When a doctor orders Cristina to recover in hospital she is already dying and soon she blows her last breath. Malice, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy and egoism have caused the death of the girl.

The novel on which the screenplay of Sissignora/Yes, Madam is based is called La servetta di Masone. It was serialised in the Genovese weekly periodical Il Lavoro between January and March 1940 in which Maria Steno, the author, wrote under the nom-de-plume of Vittoria Greco. Emilio Cecchi and Alberto Lattuada wrote the screenplay.

The film was shot in the Fall and Winter of 1941 at the Cinecittà studios and on location in Genoa for the exteriors. It was produced by Artisti Tecnici Associati (ATA), founded in 1937 by Carlo Ponti, and was distributed in Italy by Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane (ICI).The premiere was in 1942.

The film is unusual for the Italian cinema at the time, because the plot focuses on the maid. Actor Leonardo Cortese, cited by Wikipedia: "it was one of the first films that was shot on the streets." These realist locations were praised by many critics: a sense of truth emanates from those beautiful, external locations, like the markets between sea and rail, and the dance hall where maids and sailors meet in their free time. María Denis later said that for her Neorealism was born with Sissignora/Yes, Madam (1942).

Italian postcard for Sissignora (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942), with María Denis, Emma and Irma Grammatica and Leonardo Cortese.

Italian postcard for Sissignora (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942), with María Denis, Evi Maltagliati and Silverio Pisu.

Italian postcard. Photo: ICI / ATA. Maria Denis and little Silverio Pisu in Sissignora (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1942).

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Scottish music hall and vaudeville theatre singer and comedian Harry Lauder (1870-1950) was perhaps best known for his long-standing hit I Love a Lassie and his other simplehearted Scottish songs. With his performances, he promoted the kilt and the cromach (walking stick) worldwide, especially in America. By 1911, Lauder had become the highest-paid performer in the world, and was the first Scottish artist to sell a million records. He raised huge amounts of money for the war effort during World War I, for which he was subsequently knighted in 1919. He appeared in several films.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. T 2. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 1162 L. Photo: W. Whiteley Ltd.

British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 1162 M. Photo: S ph. C.

The highest-paid performer in the world

Sir Henry ‘Harry’ Lauder was born in 1870 in his maternal grandfather's house in Edinburgh. He was the eldest of seven children to John Lauder, a Master Potter, and his wife Isabella Urquhart Macleod née McLennan. Upon his father's death, Harry worked part-time at the local flax mill to fund his education and from 1884 on he worked in the cole mine in Hamilton.

In 1891, at age 21, Lauder married Ann Vallance, daughter of a colliery manager in Hamilton. Lauder often sang to the miners in Hamilton who encouraged him to perform in local music halls. He quit the coal mines and became a professional singer in 1894.

In 1900, Lauder travelled to London and was an immediate success at the Charing Cross Music Hall and the London Pavilion. In 1905 Lauder became a national star when he lead the Howard & Wyndham pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, for which he wrote I Love a Lassie. Lauder then made a switch from music hall to variety theatre and undertook a tour of America in 1907. The following year, he performed a private show before Edward VII at Sandringham, and in 1911, he again toured the United States where he commanded $1,000 a night.

In 1912, he was top of the bill at Britain's first ever Royal Command Performance, in front of King George V. Harry wrote most of his own songs, favourites of which were Roamin' In The Gloamin', I Love a Lassie, A Wee Deoch-an-Doris, and The End of the Road, which is used by Birmingham City Football Club as their club anthem.

Lauder undertook a world tour extensively during his forty-year career, including 22 trips to the United States — for which he had his own railroad train, the Harry Lauder Special, and made several trips to Australia, where his brother John had emigrated. Lauder was, at one time, the highest-paid performer in the world, making the equivalent of £12,700 a night plus expenses.

During the First World War (1914-1918), Lauder worked tirelessly to organise and recruit performers for shows given to troops serving abroad. Harry raised huge sums of money for war charities and entertained troops in the trenches in France, where he came under enemy fire. His entertainment activities were made poignant by the death in action of his only son, Captain John Lauder, at the end of 1916. Despite his son's death he continued to publicly rally support for the war, ending each of his wartime shows with his theme tune, Keep Right on to the End of the Road. For his many services he was knighted in 1919. After The Great War, Sir Harry Lauder continued to tour the now declining variety theatre circuits until his final tour in North America in 1932.

British postcard in the Star Series by G.D. & D., London. Photo: Whitlock.

British postcard by the Philco Publishing Company, London, no. 3445 B. Sent by mail in Great Britain in 1909.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 1162 H. Photo: W. Whiteley Ltd.

Roamin' in the Gloamin'

Harry Lauder appeared in several British films. In 1907, he appeared in a short film for British Gaumont singing I Love a Lassie. In 1914, Lauder appeared in 14 Selig Polyscope experimental short sound films, including Harry Lauder Singing Roamin' in the Gloamin' (1914).

He also appeared in a test film for the Photokinema sound-on-disc process in 1921. This film is part of the UCLA Film and Television Archive collection; however, the disc is missing.

Later, he starred in three feature films: the silent Huntingtower (George Pearson, 1927) with Vera Voronina, the early musical Auld Lang Syne (George Pearson, 1929) and The End of the Road (Alex Bryce, 1936).

He was semi-retired in the mid-1930s, until his final retirement was announced in 1935. However, he again entertained troops throughout Britain during World War II, despite his age, and made wireless broadcasts with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He also appeared immediately after the war to thank the crews of American food relief ships docking at Glasgow.

Lauder wrote a number of books, which ran into several editions, including Harry Lauder at Home and on Tour (1912), A Minstrel in France (1918), Between You and Me (1919), Roamin' in the Gloamin' (1928 autobiography), My Best Scotch Stories (1929), Wee Drappies (1931) and Ticklin' Talks (circa 1932).

Lauder leased the Glenbranter estate in Argyll to the Forestry Commission and spent his last years at Lauder Hall, his Strathaven home in Scotland, where he died in 1950, in his 80th year. His funeral was covered by Pathe News and wreaths were received from all over the world, including one from Queen Elizabeth (today’s Queen Mother) and another from Mr & Mrs Winston Churchill.

British postcard in the Philco Series, no. 3256 B.

British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 1162 B. Photo: Rotary.

Harry Lauder, That's the Reason noo I wear the Kilt

British postcard, no. 0034. By arrangement with Harry Lauder, A.B. Kendall, and Francis, Day and Hunter. Caption:

That's the Reason noo I Wear the Kilt.

Every night I used to hing my trousers up
On the back o' the bedroom door.
I rue the day - I must have been a jay!
I'll never hing them up any more;
For the wife she used to ramble through my pooches.
When I was fast asleep aneath the quilt;
In the mornin' when I woke, I was always stoney broke -
That's the reason noo I wear a kilt.

In this short film, Harry Lauder joins Charlie Chaplin for a couple of skits, including a mimicry of each other's well-known gait. This eight-minute short was part of an unfinished fund-raising project for injured soldiers during the war effort. Source: Dasinfogod (YouTube).

Sources: Gregory Lauder-Frost (Electric Scotland), Michael Duffy (First World War.com), Encyclopædia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.

EFSP loves the niches of the film star postcard world. I just found these French playing cards with film stars. The photos were made in colour by the great Sam Lévin, probably around 1960. His dazzling portraits were part of sittings of which we know other pictures which were used for postcards, but the photos used for these playing cards I had never seen before. The producer of the cards gave a bit of thought about which actor would be right for which card. So the sparkling Fernandel became the King of Diamonds and handsome Jean Sorel became the King of Hearts, but I wonder who is the Joker?

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

With his dreamy features and glossy, immovable hair, French actor Jean Sorel (1934) was one of the most handsome leading men of the European cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked in the French, Italian and later in the Spanish cinema with such directors as Luis Buñuel and Luchino Visconti. Since 1980 he appeared mostly on television.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French actress Françoise Christophe (1923-2012) specialized in aristocratic roles. She landed his first major role in Fantômas (Jean Sacha, 1946) as princess Daniloff. Twenty years later, she played Lady McRashley in Fantômas contre Scotland Yard/Fantômas against Scotland Yard (André Hunebelle, 1967), the final part of the trilogy starring Jean Marais and Louis de Funès. In 1966, she made a remarkable interpretation of Queen Mary Tudor in the TV film Marie Tudor/Queen Mary Tudor (Abel Gance, 1966). Since 1948 Christophe was a Pensionnaire of the Comédie-Française and acted in plays by Alfred de Musset, Jean Giraudoux, Molière and Edmond Rostand.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

In her long career, French actress Perrette Pradier (1938-2013) appeared mainly in the theatre and on stage. In the early 1960s she was one of the most promising actresses of the French cinema, but neither her French films nor her international productions made her a star.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Actor and singer Fernandel (1903–1971) was for more than forty years France's top comedy star. He was perhaps best-loved for his portrayal of Don Camillo. His horse-like teeth and shy manner became his trademark.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Between 1951 and 1966, French actress Christine Carère or Carrère (1930–2008) appeared in 25 films and the television series Blue Light (1966). She was brought to America to appear in A Certain Smile (Jean Negulesco, 1958), based on the book by Francoise Sagan. Then followed a brief Hollywood career, including a leading role in the Pat Boone musical Mardi Gras (Edmund Goulding, 1959).

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French actor Claude Sainlouis or St. Louis (1933-2014) had a short film career in the late 1950s. He is best known for Chaleurs d'été/Heat of the Summer (Louis Félix, 1959).

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Alain Delon (1935) was the breathtakingly good-looking James Dean of the French cinema. The 'male Brigitte Bardot' soon proved to be a magnificent actor in masterpieces by Luchino Visconti and Michelangelo Antonioni. In the late sixties Delon came to epitomise the calm, psychopathic hoodlum in the 'policiers' of Jean-Pierre Melville, staring into the camera like a cat assessing a mouse.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Canadian actress Alexandra Stewart (1939) started her film career in the French comedy Les Motards (1958), and has since then enjoyed a steady career in both French- and English-language films. Among her best films are some classics by Nouvelle Vague directors Louis Malle and François Truffaut.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French actress Nicole Courcel (1931-2016) appeared in 43 films between 1947 and 1979. Though she is mostly unknown outside of France, she graced the screen with a number of sensitive performances through the 1950s and 1960s.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French actor Pierre Brasseur (1905 – 1972), who appeared in some 150 films and TV productions, was renowned for playing charming and flamboyant characters. He is best known as 19th century actor Frédérick Lemaître in Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945) and as Docteur Génessier in the horror film Les Yeux sans visage/Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960). Brasseur was also a poet and playwright.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French actress Françoise Prévost (1930–1997) also worked as a journalist and author. She appeared in over 70 films between 1949 and 1985. She emerged with the Nouvelle Vague, with roles of weight in films by Pierre Kast, Jean-Gabriel Albicocco and Jacques Rivette. From the 1960s on, she was also pretty active in the Italian cinema, starring in leading roles in dramas, comedies and genre films. In 1975 Prévost gained critical appreciation and commercial success as an author, with an autobiographical book about her struggle against an incurable disease, Ma vie en plus.

French playing card. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Doe-eyed French actress Juliette Mayniel (1936) appeared in 35 films and TV films between 1958 and 1978. Her film career made a jump start with two masterpieces, Claude Chabrol’s Les Cousins (1959) and the horror film Les Yeux Sans Visage/Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960).

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

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Dutch postcard, no. GR-5082.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 209. Photo: Universal International.