European Film Star Postcards

One of the finest online places to read original and always well-written reviews of old and new films is Bunched Undies. On 1 February this year, host David Anderson selected especially for EFSP twelve of his favourite European films, which were all produced before for 1960. And of course, we also wanted to know what he liked after 1960. So click on the film titles below for David's reviews of the films. The postcards all come from Truus, Bob & Jan Too! at Flickr, and the video clips from YouTube.

Red Desert (1964)

French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris, no CI 3. Photo: Carlo di Palma. Publicity still for Il desero rosso/Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964).

David Anderson: “Presented as a succession of set pieces, the film begins with a dazed Monica Vitti wandering along the perimeter of a gigantic power plant. Accompanied by her son (Valerio Bartoleschi), Vitti trudges through a toxic and barren landscape.”

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Scene from La battaglia di Algeri/The Battle Of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966). Source: Gahru Mar (YouTube).

“When a group of disaffected young men led by Ali (Brahim Hadjadj) begin a series of random shootings of police officers, their campaign of terror rapidly escalates. Eventually, a highly decorated French colonel with a reputation for ruthlessness (Jean Martin) is brought in the quell the violence, and all hell breaks loose.”

Kes (1969)

Scene from Kes (Ken Loach, 1969). Source: JoeDnufc4life (YouTube).

“Kes is short for kestrel, a type of falcon common in the UK, and out of the blighted potty-mouth of young Billy Casper (David Bradley), it’s a term of endearment in this story of an unlikely friendship between a bird of prey and a victim of industrial society.”

The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

Trailer for El espíritu de la colmena/The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973). Source: Robert Marshall (YouTube).

“One day a battered delivery van arrives at the town’s makeshift cinema bearing a print of Frankenstein, James Whale’s monster epic from 1931. Among the excited villagers in attendance are seven year-old Ana (Ana Torrent) and her sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria). But what should be an evening’s light entertainment has a profound effect on young Ana, eventually leading her to an existential crisis.”

Family Nest (1979)

Scene from Családi tűzfésze/Family Nest (Bela Tarr, 1979). Source: Mulhollnd (YouTube).

“Family patriarch Gabor Kun– in an amazing performance – holds court at his family’s tiny kitchen table, and loudly issues ill-formed opinions on everything from the virtues of watery soup to the deficient child rearing abilities of his long suffering daughter-in-law Irén (Laszlone Horvath). “

Stalker (1979)

Trailer for Сталкер/Stalker (1979). Source: bioreflex (YouTube).

“With access to the Zone forbidden by the authorities, shadowy men known as Stalkers act as guides for those with the determination - and the money - to risk an expedition into this secret Shangri-La. With a writer (Anatoliy Solonitsyn) and a professor (Nikolay Grinko) in tow, one such grim faced Stalker (Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy) heads out on a drizzly dawn to lead a furtive walk into the unknown.”

Pauline at the Beach (1983)

Arielle Dombasle. French postcard by Equilibres et Populations, Paris. Photo: Jean-Daniel Lorieux, 2003.

“Eric Rohmer's commentary on the perils of summer romances starts with the opening of a gate, as recent divorcee Marion (Arielle Dombasle) and her 14 year old cousin Pauline (Amanda Langlet) escape Paris for a brief holiday - brief by French standards anyway - at the shore near Mont Saint-Michelle.”

My Life as a Dog (1985)

Trailer Mitt liv som hund/My Life as a Dog (Lasse Halström, 1985). Source: Blondinka Inoz (YouTube).

“When Ingmar’s mother is stricken with tuberculosis, he is sent to the rural community of Emmaboda to live with his lively and eccentric uncle (Tomas von Brömssen). For one magical summer, amid a gallimaufry of rustic goofballs, Ingemar rediscovers the joys of childhood and thanks to a budding - in all senses of the word - tomboy named Saga (Melinda Kinnaman), he learns that growing up has its advantages too.”

Jean de Florette (1986)

Yves Montand. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/394. Photo: Gerard Decaux.

“Claude Berri’s Jean de Florette is part one of a sprawling Shakespearean-style tragedy; a multi-generational tale of parched, flinty soils and equally barren human souls. Set in the blinding sunlight of Provence circa 1920, it’s the story of the last surviving members of the Sobeyran family (Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil), a once flourishing clan laid low by decades of petty squabbles and shady dealings.”

Babette's Feast (1987)

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

“Like all good fairy tales, Babette’s Feast has a moral. Actually it has several morals, some obvious, some buried in subtext. It’s an example of film as palimpsest; charming and engaging on its rustic surface, but laden with deep veins of meaning and nuggets of existential truth for those willing to unearth them.”

The Double Life of Veronique (1991)

Irene Jacob in Trois couleurs: Rouge (1994)

Irene Jacob. British postcard by Articificial Eye for the video release of |Trois couleurs: Rouge/Three Colours Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994).

Appropriately, The Double Life of Veronique is actually two films in one. The first act deals with a young woman in Poland (Irene Jacob) who has just gotten a big break in her fledgling career as a classical singer. One day on the cobblestone streets of Krakow, she spots a French tourist (Jacob in a double role) who could be her identical twin, setting off a chain of heartbreaking events.

I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991)

Scene from J'entends plus la guitare/I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (Philippe Garrel, 1991). Source: Boris Varissa (YouTube).

“Gerard (Benoit Regent) is completely captivated by Marianne (Johanna ter Steege) who is beautiful, bewitching and 100 lbs. of trouble. Since neither one really trusts the notion of happiness, their brief interludes of domestic bliss cause a slow-simmering panic in each of them, because, to paraphrase their friend Martin (Yann Collette): the worst part of happiness is being afraid you’ll lose it.”

Rosetta (1999)

Belgian postcard by Ed. resp. P. Hurbain, Bruxelles, no. 148. Photo: Laurent Rebours / AP. Caption: Cannes 1999: Rosetta, the film by the Dardenne brothers, receives the Grand Prix, and Émilie Dequenne wins the award for Best Actress.

“Dequenne won the best actress award at Cannes for this performance, and her ability to lose herself in the film’s swirling maelstrom, usually with a camera lens just inches from her face, required confidence and skill far beyond her years. Her stunning work in Rosetta is nothing short of a revelation.”

Great, interesting choices! David, thank you very much.

The Italian silent film La nave (1921) was based on the play by Gabriele D'Annunzio. His son Gabriellino D'Annunzio directed the film together with Mario Roncoroni. The Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein was the star of Le nave.

Ida Rubinstein. Italian postcard. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Publicity still for La nave (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Mario Roncoroni, 1921).

Italian postcard. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Publicity still for La nave (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Mario Roncoroni, 1921).

Adding cruelty and sadomasochism

Russian dancer and actress Ida Lvovna Rubinstein (1883-1960) was a close friend of the poet and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio. Rubinstein had made her debut as Antigone before dancing in 1908 for a private performance of Oscar Wilde's Salomé in which she stripped nude for the Dance of the Seven Veils. In 1909-1911, she performed with Sergei Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes. She danced the title role of Cléopâtre in the Paris season of 1909, and Zobéide in Scheherazade in 1910. Both exotic ballets were choreographed by Michel Fokine, and designed by Léon Bakst.

After these successes she started her own ballet company. Rubinstein staged and starred in Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian) (1911), a poetic drama by Gabriele d’Annunzio, with incidental music by Claude Debussy, choreography by Fokine, and magnificent scenery and costumes by Bakst. For Paris audiences she embodied the erotic temptation of the East, a view enhanced by her unconventional private life, which included lovers of both sexes and posing nude for painters.

In 1921, Rubinstein played the lead of Basiliola in the film La nave/The Ship, directed by D'Annunzio's son Gabriellino and by Mario Roncoroni. The film was based on a play by D'Annunzio, which already had been turned into an opera and had been filmed in 1912 by the company Ambrosio, but without much success.

Guido Marussig, who had designed both the play and the opera, designed sets and costumes for the 1921 film. The directors shot the film in a style typical or the later silent epics in Italy, denying innovation in film language. Instead they focused on acting, set and costume design, harking back to earlier epics such as Cabiria, but adding cruelty and sadomasochism.

La nave is set in early medieval times. In the Venetian plains, at the town of Aquileia, Basiliola, daughter of the dethroned tribune Orso Faledro returns per ship and notices her father and brothers have been blinded by the Graticò brothers, of whom Marco (Alfredo Boccolini) is the new tribune and Sergio (Ciro Galvani) has become bishop.

Basiliola decides to ruin all involved. In an extended dance scene she seduces Sergio, the lecherous bishop. La nave contains the only moving images of Rubinstein dancing, and the dance scene owes a great deal to Wilde's and Strauss's'Salome.

Basiliola manages to have the soldiers arrested who were responsible for blinding her relatives. Through her femme fatale behaviour the men, locked in a pit, desire to be killed by her bow and arrows. She also manages to set up the brothers against each other, with the younger brother Marco killing his older brother Sergio. Marco, though, realises the danger of the temptress Basiliola and condemns her to be blinded too. After her death the whole community leaves by ship to escape the nearing barbarians and to found a new, Christian community on a nearby island, Venice.

Italian postcard. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Publicity still for La nave (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Mario Roncoroni, 1921).

Italian postcard. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Publicity still for La nave (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Mario Roncoroni, 1921).

Sources: Jewish Women's Archive, Wikipedia (English and Italian), and IMDb.

Blessed with a combination of charisma, good looks and impressive acting ability, Arletty (1898-1992) portrayed several femme fatales, vamps, prostitutes in French films and stage plays of the 1930s and 1940s. Her characters were down-to-earth, earthy, slightly comical female types, usually complex characters with a tough outer shell which concealed an inner vulnerability. She was unforgettable as the ethereal and mysterious Garance in the classic Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945). When the Second World War ended, Arletty's career was marked with controversy. During the occupation of France she had fallen in love with a German officer, and after the liberation she was jailed as a collaborator. Her career would continue after a suspension but never reached the same level as before and during the war.

French postcard by EPC, no. 235. Photo: Raymond Voinquel.

French postcard by S.E.R.P., Paris, no. 88. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 67. Offered by S.A. Victoria, Brussels, no. 639. Photo: Ch. van Damme / Les Mirages.

French postcard by SERP, Paris, no. 89. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions et Publications Cinematographiques (EPC), no. 44. Photo: Raymond Voinquel.

A Seductive Siren

Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie near Paris in 1898, to a working-class family. Her father was a streetcar driver, and her mother a linen maid.

In 1914 on the third day of First World War, she lost her lover, a boy whose eyes were so blue that everybody called him Ciel (Sky). She then swore she would never marry nor have children, so she could never become a war widow or the mother of a dead soldier. She would hold word despite affairs with Sacha Guitry and Aga Khan.

Arletty worked for a time in a factory and as a secretary before becoming a model for painters and photographers. In 1918 she started her stage career as a chorus girl in the music hall. In 1920 she joined the Théâtre des Capucines and appeared there in innumerable revues. At other Parisian theatres she also appeared in such operettas as Oui (Yes, 1928) and comedies such as Les Joies du Capitole (The Enjoyments of the Capitol, 1936) and Fric-Frac (Burglars, 1936).

Arletty was already a stage performer for ten years before she made her film début in La douceur d'aimer/The sweetness of loving (René Hervil, 1930). The arrival of sound cinema coincided with Arletty’s move into films. The following years she appeared in such comedies as Enlevez-moi (Léonce Perret, 1932) with Roger Tréville, Mademoiselle Josette, ma femme/Miss Josette, My Wife (André Berthomieu, 1933) starring Annabella, and Amants et voleurs/Lovers and Thieves (Raymond Bernard, 1935) opposite Michel Simon.

These early film appearances established her as the strong yet marginalised female character with which she would be most identified in later years. In 1935, Arletty was directed by Jacques Feyder in the film Pension Mimosas. She dazzled film audiences in Marcel Carné and Jacques Prevert's classics of French poetic realism, Hôtel du Nord/Hotel of the North (Marcel Carné, 1938) starring Annabella, Le Jour se lève/Daybreak (Marcel Carné, 1939) with Jean Gabin, and Les Visiteurs du soir/The Devil's Envoys (Marcel Carné, 1942) with Alain Cuny.

She played a marvelous leading lady full of cheeky humor and charm again opposite Michel Simon in the film comedies Fric-frac/Burglars (Claude Autant-Lara, Maurice Lehmann, 1939) and Circonstances atténuantes/Extenuating Circumstances (Jean Boyer, 1939). Arletty rarely received top billing although she outshone the lead actors in most of her films.

The anonymous biographer at Films de France writes: “In her films, Arletty was rarely the heroine, the kind of character to win the audience’s sympathy. Rather, she was usually the seductive siren, who would win a man’s heart and then abandon him. Arletty was arguably the first and the best, of the film femme fatales, a perfect subject for the poetic realists of the late 1930s.”

French postcard by Greff Editeur, Paris, no. 32. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Edit. Chantal, Rueil, no. 90A. Photo: C.C.F.C.

French postcard by Editions E.C., Paris, no. 90. Photo: Pathé.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 67.

French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 100. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

French postcard by Edit. Chantal, Rueil, no. 90. Photo: Roger Richebé. Publicity still for Madame Sans-Gêne (Roger Richebé, 1941).

Horizontal Collaboration

Arletty’s fourth and best role for Marcel Carné, the central part of Garance in Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945) would become her most famous film role. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Even in 1945, Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise was regarded as an old-fashioned film. Set in the Parisian theatrical world of the 1840s, Jacques Prévert's screenplay concerns four men in love with the mysterious Garance (Arletty). Each loves Garance in his own fashion, but only the intentions of sensitive mime-actor Deburau (Jean-Louis Barrault) are entirely honorable; as a result, it is he who suffers most, hurdling one obstacle after another in pursuit of an evidently unattainable goal.

In the stylised fashion of 19th-century French drama, many grand passions are spent during the film's totally absorbing 195 minutes. Amazingly, the film was produced over a two-year period in virtual secrecy, without the knowledge of the Nazis then occupying France, who would surely have arrested several of the cast and production staff members (including Prévert) for their activities in the Resistance. Children of Paradise has gone on to become one of the great romantic classics of international cinema.”

After the Liberation, Arletty’s career suffered a severe drawback owing to a liaison with a German Officer during the Occupation. For liberated France, she became the symbol of treason or what was called ‘horizontal collaboration’, and for that she had to pay. The price proved to be very high. She was arrested and sent to Drancy concentration camp then to Fresnes prison (near Paris) where she spent 120 days. In December 1944, she was put under house arrest for another two years and condemned to three years work suspension.

She was not invited to the premiere of Les Enfants du Paradis in March 1945. She allegedly later commented on the experience, "My heart is French but my ass is international." After the suspension she appeared in Carné’s La fleur de l'âge/The Flower of Youth (Marcel Carné, 1947) starring the young Anouk Aimée. In pre-war France, children were jailed under horrific conditions. The film tells of the massive escape that took place on the island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, and of the child hunt that ensued. The shooting of the film started several times, and was halted for censorship reasons - the project was banned by the Ministry of Justice - and harsh shooting conditions, and finally abandoned. All material of La fleur de l'âge was inexplicably lost in the 1950s.

Arletty next appeared in such film as Portrait d'un assassin/Portrait of a Murderer (Bernard-Roland, 1949) with Maria Montez and Erich von Stroheim, Huis clos/No Exit (Jacqueline Audry, 1954) based on the play by Jean-Paul Sartre, and L'air de Paris (Marcel Carné, 1954) opposite Jean Gabin.

However the cinema did not offer her the grand roles of the pre-war years any more. She returned to the theatre and enjoyed a moderately successful period as a stage actor in later life, notably as Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. Among her final screen appearances were a fleeting cameo as an elderly French woman in the international war epic The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, 1962) and a small part in the comedy-drama Le voyage à Biarritz/The Trip to Biarritz (Gilles Grangier, 1963) starring Fernandel.

In 1963, an accident left her nearly blind, and forced her to retire. She eventually returned to the stage, notably in the leading role in Jean Cocteau’s Les Monstres sacrés (The Holy Monsters, 1966), and to film as a madam in Jean-Claude Brialy’s Les Volets fermés/The Closed Shutters (Jean-Claude Brialy, 1972). In 1971 she published an autobiography, La Défense.

Arletty died in 1992. The funeral cortege made a stop in front of the Hotel du Nord in Paris where her famous film of 1938 is located. Christopher Gresecque at IMDb: “She always illuminated the screen with an unusual mixture of Parisian working-class sense of humor and her romantic beauty.”

Scene from Hôtel Du Nord (1938). Source: Disney Romain (YouTube).

75th Anniversary Trailer for Le Jour se lève/Daybreak (1939). Source: Studiocanal UK (YouTube).

Original trailer for Les Enfants du Paradis (1945). Source: neondreams 25 (YouTube).

U.S. Re-Release Trailer for Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (1945). Source: Janus Films (YouTube).

French trailer for the TV film Arletty, une passion coupable/Arletty, a guilty passion (Arnaud Sélignac, 2015) with Laetitia Casta as Arletty. Source: Flach Film Production (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Christophe Greseque (IMDb), Films de France, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, AlloCiné (French), Wikipedia and IMDb.

English actor Sir Alec Guinness (1914–2000) was one of the most versatile and subtle actors of his time, in the cinema and on television no less than on the stage. He was master of disguise in several of the classic Ealing Comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters. He later won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and he is probably even better known for playing Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. D 2367. Photos: J. Arthur Rank-Film. Publicity stills for The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955).

Mexican collector's card, no. 338. Photo: London Films.

British autograph card. Photo; publicity still for Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977).

Violent, shell-shocked veteran

Alec Guinness was born as Alec Guinness de Cuffe in London in 1914. His mother's maiden name was Agnes Cuff. On Guinness's birth certificate, the space for the mother's name shows Agnes de Cuffe. The space for the infant's name (where first names only are given) says Alec Guinness. The column for name and surname of the father is blank.

It has been frequently speculated that the actor's father was a member of the Irish Guinness family. However, it was an elder Scottish banker, Andrew Geddes, who paid for Guinness's private school education. From 1875, under English law, when the birth of an illegitimate child was registered, the father's name could only be entered on the certificate if he were present and gave his consent.

At five Alec became Alec Stiven, as a consequence of his mother's three-year marriage to Scottish army captain David Stiven, a violent, shell-shocked veteran of the Irish War of Independence. To persuade Alec's mother to submit to his demands, the captain was given to holding a loaded revolver to the boy's head, or hanging him upside down from a bridge.

It was a relief when, at six, Alec was sent away to a prep school, the fees being at least partly paid by Andrew Geddes. At school he directed performances of The Pirates of Penzance and Silas Marner. Later while working as a junior copywriter in an advertising agency, he studied at the Fay Compton Studio of Dramatic Art.

In 1934, he made his stage debut and in 1936, at the age of 22, he played the role of Osric in John Gielgud's successful production of Hamlet. With the Old Vic he starred in plays by William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and Anton Chekhov, and worked with actors and actresses who would become his friends and frequent co-stars in the future, including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Anthony Quayle, and Jack Hawkins.

In 1938, he starred in a famous modern dress production of Hamlet which won him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. He also appeared as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet (1939), as Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and as Exeter in Henry V in 1937, both opposite Laurence Olivier, and as Ferdinand in The Tempest, opposite Gielgud as Prospero. In 1939, he adapted Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations for the stage, playing the part of Herbert Pocket. The play was a success.

In World War II, Guinness served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, first serving as a seaman in 1941 and being commissioned the following year. He commanded a landing craft taking part in the invasion of Sicily and Elba and later ferried supplies to the Yugoslav partisans.

In 1946, he returned to the Old Vic and stayed until 1948, playing Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, the Fool in King Lear opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role, DeGuiche in Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Ralph Richardson in the title role, and finally starring in an Old Vic production as Shakespeare's Richard II.

After leaving the Old Vic, he played Eric Birling in J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls at the New Theatre in October 1946. He played the Uninvited Guest in the Broadway production of T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (1950, revived at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968). His third attempt at the title role of Hamlet, this time under his own direction at the New Theatre (1951), proved a major theatrical disaster.

British autograph card.

British postcard in the Film Star Autograph Portrait Series by L.D. LTD., London, no. 53.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 49454.

One of the great acting knights of the century

At British Pictures, David Absalom writes: “Alec Guinness was one of the great acting knights of the century. His reputation is sometimes overshadowed by that of the great triumvirate of Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson and it is true that his theatre work is slightly less distinguished than that of the big three, but when it comes to film acting, he far outstrips them.”

Beyond an extra part in Evensong (Victor Saville, 1934) with Evelyn Laye, Guinness’ film career began after World War II with the small but memorable role of Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946) starring John Mills.

Guinness and director David Lean would continue to work on acclaimed films together. Guinness appeared as a repulsive Fagin in Oliver Twist (David Lean, 1948), what was widely criticised for being a Jewish stereotype. Lean later gave him a starring role as the insanely uncompromising Colonel Nicholson opposite William Holden in The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957). For this performance Guinness won an Academy Award.

Despite a difficult and often hostile relationship, Lean, referring to Guinness as ‘my good luck charm’, continued to cast Guinness in character roles in his later films: Arab leader Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), the title character's half-brother, Bolshevik leader Yevgraf, in Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965), and Indian mystic Godbole in A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984). He was also offered a role in Ryan's Daughter (David Lean, 1970), but declined.

Initially Guinness was associated mainly with the Ealing comedies that made him one of the great character stars of British films. His virtuosity as a master of disguise reached a peak in Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949), when he played all eight members of the D'Ascoyne family whom Dennis Price bumped off on his way to the Dukedom of Chalfont.

Other memorable roles in Ealing classics include the mild and underpaid bank clerk who plots the perfect robbery in The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951), an inventor who, to the consternation of management and the unions, invents a fabric that never gets dirty and never wears out in The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick, 1951), and the unctuous, snaggle-toothed leader of a gang of incompetent burglars in the last great Ealing Comedy, The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955).

Director Ronald Neame cast Guinness in his first romantic lead role, opposite Petula Clark in The Card (Ronald Neame, 1952). His conversion to Roman Catholicism followed the shooting of Father Brown (Robert Hamer, 1954) in which he played G.K. Chesterton's cheery parish priest. The film was shot in Burgundy. Between takes Guinness, wandering about the local village in his clerical fig, found himself taken by the hand and subjected to the prattle of a local boy, who imagined he was a genuine priest. The confidence which the Church inspired in the child made a profound impression. Guinness became a Roman Catholic in 1956.

Other notable film roles of this period included the part of the Crown Prince in The Swan (Charles Vidor, 1956) starring Grace Kelly, in her second to last film role, and The Horse's Mouth (Ronald Neame, 1958) in which Guinness played the part of drunken painter Gulley Jimson as well as contributing the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.

He was a vacuum cleaner salesman enlisted into the secret service by Noel Coward in Our Man in Havana (Carol Reed, 1959), Marcus Aurelius in The Fall of the Roman Empire (Anthony Mann, 1964) starring Sophia Loren, Jacob Marley's Ghost in Scrooge (Ronald Neame, 1970) opposite Albert Finney, and Charles I of England in Cromwell (Ken Hughes, 1970) featuring Richard Harris.

He considered the title role in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (Ennio De Concini, 1973) as his best film performance, though critics disagreed. The Telegraph commented in its obituary: “Guinness, having discovered through his usual assiduous research that Hitler was a boring man, unfortunately succeeded brilliantly in bringing this interpretation to the screen.” Guinness won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance as poet Dylan Thomas in Dylan. He next played the title role in Macbeth opposite Simone Signoretat the Royal Court Theatre in 1966, a conspicuous failure.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano (Milan), no. 1291. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for To Paris with Love (Robert Hamer, 1955).

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano (Milan), no. 1500. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for The Horse's Mouth (Ronald Neame, 1958).

Alec Guinness in The Horse's Mouth (1958)

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3686. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for The Horse's Mouth (Ronald Neame, 1958).

Enigmatic Master Spy

From the 1970s, Alec Guinness made regular television appearances. He was perfect as the enigmatic master spy George Smiley in the two television series adapted from John Le Carré's novels, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John Irvin, 1979) and Smiley's People (Simon Langton, 1982). Le Carré was so impressed by Guinness's performance as Smiley that he based his characterisation of Smiley in subsequent novels on Guinness. In the cinema Guinness excelled as Jamessir Bensonmum, the blind butler, in the Neil Simon film Murder By Death (Robert Moore, 1976).

Guinness is now probably best known as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980), and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983). The part brought him worldwide recognition by a new generation.

Guinness agreed to take the part on the condition that he would not have to do any publicity to promote the film. He was also one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be a box office hit; he negotiated a deal for 2.5 % of the gross, which made him very wealthy in his later life. His role would also result in Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Despite these rewards, Guinness soon became unhappy with being identified with the part, and expressed dismay at the fan-following that the Star Wars trilogy attracted.

Guinness received an Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement in 1980. In 1988, he got an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Little Dorrit (Christine Edzard, 1988) starring Dereki Jacobi and Joan Greenwood. For his theatre work, he received an Evening Standard Award for his performance as T.E. Lawrence in Ross and a Tony Award for his Broadway turn as Dylan Thomas in Dylan. Guinness was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1955, and was knighted in 1959.

Guinness married the artist, playwright, and actress Merula Sylvia Salaman in 1938. In 1940, they had a son, Matthew Guinness, who later became an actor. In his biography, Alec Guinness: The Unknown, Garry O'Connor says that Guinness was arrested and fined 10 guineas for a homosexual act in a public lavatory in Liverpool in 1946. Guinness avoided publicity by giving his name to police and court as 'Herbert Pocket', the name of the character he played in Great Expectations. The incident did not become public knowledge until April 2001, eight months after his death.

Piers Paul Read, Guinness's official biographer, doubts that this incident actually occurred. He believes that Guinness was confused withJohn Gielgud, who was infamously arrested for such an act around the same period. According to Piers Paul Read, Guinness' friends and family knew of his bisexuality.

Guinness wrote three volumes of a bestselling autobiography, beginning with Blessings in Disguise (1985), followed by My Name Escapes Me (1996), and A Positively Final Appearance (1999). He continued to act almost until his death, submerging himself in an amazing array of characters. His final stage performance was at the Comedy Theatrein 1989 in the play A Walk in the Woods. Between 1934 and 1989, he had played 77 parts in the theatre.

His final film role was a one-scene cameo in the horror thriller Mute Witness (Anthony Waller, 1994) and his last TV role was in the TV-film Eskimo Day (Piers Haggard, 1996).

Alec Guinness died in 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex at the age of 86. In his obituary in The Guardian, Tom Sutcliffe calls him ‘a by nature an unostentatious and reserved man’: “Though he undertook a great variety of roles, all were informed, at heart, with the wisdom of the sad clown. It was that spiritual severity, together with those clear, wide-open eyes - capable of melting in close-up on screen into the most reassuringly serene of smiles - which lent his performances force and authenticity.“

Trailer Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). Source: Film365 (YouTube).

Trailer The Ladykillers (1955). Source: webothlovesoup (YouTube).

Trailer The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Source: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (YouTube).

Trailer Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Source: Cherry Movies (YouTube).

Video trailer Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Source: Video Detective (YouTube).

Sources: Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Cinema), Tom Sutcliffe (The Guardian), David Absalom (British Pictures), Ed Stephan (IMDb), The Telegraph, BritMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Diana Serra Cary (1918), best known as Baby Peggy, was one of the three major American child stars of the Hollywood silent movie era along with Jackie Coogan and Baby Marie. However, by the age of 8, her career was finished. She is now the last living star of the silent film era.

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

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 161.

French postcard in Les Vedettes de Cinema series by A.N., Paris, no. 47. Photo: Universal Film.

The Million Dollar Baby

Diana Serra Cary was born in 1918, in San Diego, California, as Peggy-Jean Montgomery, She was the second daughter of Marian (née Baxter) and Jack Montgomery. Her family soon moved to Los Angeles so that her father, Jack, an aspiring cowboy, could find stunt work in Western pictures. He supported himself as Tom Mix's double, but never achieved the rugged stardom he yearned for himself.

Baby Peggy was 'discovered' at the age of 19 months, when she visited Century Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood with her mother and a film-extra friend. Peggy had an unusually expressive face, matched with a distinctive bob haircut with short bangs.

Impressed by Peggy's well-behaved demeanour and willingness to follow directions from her father, director Fred Fishback (a.k.a. Fred Hibbard) hired her to appear in a series of short films with Century's canine star, the terrier Brownie the Wonder Dog.

The first film, Playmates (Fred Hibbard, 1921), was a success, and Peggy was signed to a long-term contract with Century Studios. Between 1921 and 1923 she made over 150 short comedies for Century. She appeared in film adaptations of novels and fairy tales, such as Hansel and Gretel (Alfred J. Goulding, 1923) and Jack and the Beanstalk (Alfred J. Goulding, 1924), contemporary comedies, and a few full-length films.

Many of Baby Peggy's popular comedies were parodies of films that grown-up stars had made, and she imitated such legends as Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Mary Pickford and Mae Murray. Film historian David Robinson, cited in the Hollywood Reporter: "She wasn't the first child star, (that would be the infant in Louis Lumiere's Repas de bébé/Baby's Dinner (1895)), but she was a naturally gifted comic, a very effective mimic, with a very distinctive personality and a great sense of grown-up mannerisms and affectations."

In 1922, the 4-year-old Baby Peggy received 1.2 million fan letters and by 1924 she had been dubbed 'The Million Dollar Baby' for her $1.5 million a year salary. She was an obsession for millions of Americans who bought Baby Peggy dolls, jewelry, sheet music, even brands of milk.

In 1923, Peggy began working for Universal Studios, appearing in full-length dramatic films. Among her works from this era were The Darling of New York (King Baggot, 1923), and the first screen adaptation of Captain January (Edward F. Cline, 1924). In line with her status as a star, Peggy's Universal films were produced and marketed as Universal Jewels, the studio's most prestigious and most expensive classification. During this time she also played in Helen's Babies (William A. Seiter, 1924) which featured a young Clara Bow.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin no. 967/2 Photo: Filmhaus Bruckmann.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 235.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin no. 967/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Filmhaus Bruckmann.

A Poor Extra

Baby Peggy's film career abruptly ended in 1925 when her father had a falling out with producer Sol Lesser over her salary and cancelled her contract. She found herself essentially blacklisted and was able to land only one more part in silent films, a minor role in the April Fool (Nat Ross, 1926). She was forced to turn to the vaudeville circuit for survival.

Despite her childhood fame and wealth, she found herself poor and working as an extra by the 1930s. Her parents had handled all of the finances; and money was spent on expensive cars, homes, and clothing. Nothing was set aside for the welfare or education of Peggy or her sister. Through reckless spending and corrupt business partners of her father, her entire fortune was gone before she hit puberty.

A Hollywood comeback in the early 1930s as Peggy Montgomery was short-lived. She loathed screen work and retired after appearing as an extra in the Ginger Rodgers comedy Having Wonderful Time (Alfred Santell, 1938). Peggy married bar tender Gordon Ayres whom she met on the set of Ah, Wilderness! (Clarence Brown, 1935). A few years later, she adopted the name Diana Ayres in an effort to distance herself from the Baby Peggy image. The couple divorced in 1948. In 1954, she married graphic artist Robert 'Bob' Cary and they had one son, Mark (1961).

Having an interest in both writing and history since her youth, Peggy found a second career as an author and silent film historian in her later years under the name Diana Serra Cary. She wrote an autobiography of her life as a child star, What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Pioneer Child Star, and a biography of her contemporary and rival, Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King: A Biography of Hollywood's Legendary Child Star.

Only a handful of Baby Peggy shorts, including Playmates (Fred Hibbard, 1921), Miles of Smiles (Alfred J. Goulding, 1923) and Sweetie (Alfred J. Goulding, 1923) have been discovered and preserved in film archives around the world. Century Studios burned down in 1926. Only the full-length films The Family Secret (William A. Seiter, 1924), Captain January (Edward F. Cline, 1924), Helen's Babies (William A. Seiter, 1924) with Edward Everett Horton, and April Fool (Nat Ross, 1926) have survived. In 2016, it was announced that her lost film Our Pet (Herman C. Raymaker, 1924) was found in Japan by silent film collector Ichiro Kataoka.

Diana Serra Cary herself is one of the few surviving actors of the silent film era. In 2015, she returned to the screen in the short Western Broncho Billy and the Bandit's Secret (David Kiehn, 2015), a tribute to Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, the first cowboy star, who made Westerns for the Essanay Film Company. Cary played 'the Movie Star'.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin no. 560/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Ivans Studio, Los Angeles / Unfilman.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin no. 550/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Unfilman.

Sources: Chris Gardner (The Hollywood Reporter), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Norwegian-American Greta Nissen (1906–1988) was a blonde bombshell, who appeared in more than 30 films in Denmark, the United States and England. Unfortunately she is now most famous for a role which was re-shot with another actress.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 878. Photo: Paramount-Film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3071/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount / FaNaMet.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3081/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Max Munn Autrey / Fox.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3173/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Max Munn Autrey / Fox.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3575/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Fox.

Dutch Postcard, no. 458. Photo: Hal Payfe / Fox Film.

Pat & Patachon

Grethe Rüzt-Nissen was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1906 (some sources say 1905). She was the daughter of Carl Andreas Frantz Nissen and Agnes Magdalene Larsen. After her parents divorced, her mother took her to Copenhagen, Denmark,

In 1911, her mother managed to get Grethe as a student at the Det Kongelige Teater's (Royal Theater) student school, after having 'made' her a year older. Grethe made her stage début as a member of the corps de ballet at the Royal Theater.

Some years later, when the famous choreographer and dancer Mikhail Fokin (or Michel Fokine) came to Denmark after the Russian Revolution, he invited her to come to Paris and she studied with him from 1918 to 1919. In 1922 she performed a series of acclaimed Fokine evenings in Norway.

Grethe made her screen début in the Danish comedies Daarskab, Dyd og Driverter/Folly, Virtue and Idler (Lau Lauritzen, 1924) followed by Lille Lise let-paa-taa/The Little Dancer (Lau Lauritzen, 1924), two vehicles for the comedy team of Fy og Bi (aka Pat & Patachon). These two comedies would be her only films in Scandinavia.

In 1924 she went to New York with a Danish ballet troupe, and there the blonde looker received an offer to appear on Broadway in George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly's lavish revue Beggar on Horseback. She changed her name to Greta Nissen. Later she worked for the famed Flo Ziegfield in the 1926 production of No Foolin'.

Only 19 years old, she was discovered by Jesse L. Lasky of Paramount Pictures, who signed her to a contract. Making her American screen debut as Greta Nissen in In the Name of Love (Howard Higgin, 1925) with Ricardo Cortez and Wallace Beery, Nissen was singled out by critic Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, who found her 'an appealing and clever actress with a striking personality'.

Swedish postcard by Eneret Mittet & Co, no. 13.Collection: Didier Hanson.

Italian postcard, no. 452. Photo: Films Paramount. Publicity still for Lost: A Wife (William C. de Mille, 1925).

Greta Nissen and William Collier in The Wanderer (1925)

Italian postcard by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (Florence), no. 458. Photo: SAI Filmo Paramount, Roma. Publicity still for The Wanderer (Raoul Walsh, 1925). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Italian postcard by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (Florence), no. 740. Photo: SAI Filmo Paramount, Roma. Publicity still for The Wanderer (Raoul Walsh, 1925).

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 358/1. Photo: Paramount-Film.

Hell's Angels

Greta Nissen played in several sophisticated comedies with Adolphe Menjou like The Wanderer (Raoul Walsh, 1925) also with William Collier and Blonde or Brunette (Richard Rosson, 1927).

She became an exotic seductress in such costume extravaganzas as The Lady of the Harem (Raoul Walsh, 1926) and Fazil (Howard Hawks, 1928) opposite Charles Farrell.

MGM, meanwhile, borrowed her for The Love Thief (John McDermott, 1926), to replace Greta Garbo. Among her other successful potboilers were Lost: A Wife (William C. de Mille, 1925), The Lucky Lady (Raoul Walsh, 1926) and The Popular Sin (Malcolm St. Clair, 1926).

In 1927 Nissen was the original choice as the leading lady of Hell's Angels (1930), Howard Hughes’ stunt-flying extravaganza set during World War I. This epic film could have made her a major contender.

Filming was well under way when it was decided that the film would be remade with sound. Unfortunately Greta was replaced because of her heavy Norwegian accent. Nissen had made $2500 a week when filming Hell's Angels and her replacement, Jean Harlow, worked for only $250. The film shot Harlow to stardom and Nissen lost much work due to the advent of sound films.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1760/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Parufamet.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1829/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Parufamet.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3575/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Autrey / Fox.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5824/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Fox.

Greta Nissen and Charles Farrell in Fazil (1928)

British postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3917/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Fox. Publicity still for Fazil (Howard Hawks, 1928).

B-films and Quota Quickies

Rebounding somewhat with a contract from Fox, Greta Nissen eventually proved that her accent could easily have been turned into an asset, but the fall-out from the Hell's Angels debacle followed her for the remainder of her film career.

She starred or co-starred in a series of B-films which included the lame Women of All Nations (Raoul Walsh, 1931), the Will Rogers comedy Ambassador Bill (Sam Taylor, 1931), the mystery drama The Circus Queen Murder (Roy William Neill, 1933) again opposite Adolphe Menjou, and the George O'Brien western Life in the Raw (Louis King, 1933).

In 1933 she moved to England where she appeared in a few ‘quota quickies’, including On Secret Service (Arthur B. Woods, 1933) and Honours Easy (Herbert Brenon, 1935) with Margaret Lockwood.

In 1934 she also appeared at the Palace Theatre in London in the original version of Agnes de Mille's ballet Three Virgins and a Devil, performed in the revue Why Not Tonight? After the spy film Cafe Colette (Paul L. Stein, 1937) she retired, and returned to the US.

Divorced from former Fox contract star Weldon Heyburn, Nissen married in 1941 industrialist Stuart Eckert and she lived quietly in California. Greta Nissen died at home in Montecito, California of Parkinson's disease in 1988. She was 82. Her husband said she still received fan letters. Greta had one son, Tor Bruce Nissen Eckert, who in 2005 gave his large collection of Greta Nissen Memorabilia to the Norwegian Emigrant Museum in Ottestad, Norway.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5035. Photo: Autrey / Fox.

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5037. Photo: Autrey / Fox.

British postcard in the Colourgraph Series, London, no. C 184. Photo: Fox.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 264.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 264b.

Sources: Hans Otto Christian Arent (Store Norske Lexikon - Norwegian), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Allure, Pat M. Ryan (Dance Chronicle), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia and IMDb.

André Mattoni (1900-1985) was an Austrian stage and film actor, performing mainly in the German, Austrian and Italian cinema. He worked with Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau on Tartüff (1925), but his dream role in another classic of the German silent cinema fell through.

Walter Slezak and André Mattoni in Die gefundene Braut (1925)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1027/1, 1926-1927. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Die gefundene Braut/The Found Bride (1925) with Walter Slezak.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3064/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Freundlich.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3745/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Willinger, Berlin.

Karlsbad mineral water dynasty

André Mattoni was born Andreas Leo Heinrich Edler von Mattoni in Karlsbad, Austria-Hungary (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) in 1900. He stemmed from the Karlsbad mineral water dynasty Mattoni.

Andreas visited the Theresianum in Vienna and had an acting training from the Burgtheater actor Franz Herterich. In the 1922-1923 season he had his stage début at the Burgtheater, the most prestigious theatre of Vienna. Subsequently he acted with the Wiener Kammerspiele, and then toured around Austria.

In 1924 Mattoni went to Berlin to pursue a stage career there. Right away he started to appear in films as well. He played Lysander in the William Shakespeare adaptation Ein Sommernachtstraum/A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hans Neumann, 1925) and soon he had leads in films like Die gefundene Braut/The Found Bride (Rochus Gliese, 1925) opposite Xenia Desni, and Das Fräulein von Amt/Love and Telephone (Hanns Schwarz, 1925).

Then followed a major part in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s masterly modernisation of Molière’s Tartüff/Tartuffe (F.W. Murnau, 1925), as the grandson in the modern section of the film. And then Mattoni was preselected as the protagonist Freder for Fritz Lang’s masterpiece Metropolis (1927). However after some weeks of shooting, Lang was unsatisfied and the part went to Gustav Fröhlich. (IMDb indicates that it was Mattoni himself who decided "- for whatever reason - to leave the production for good".)

In 1927 Mattoni stayed in Hollywood for a while, where he played a small part in The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg (Ernst Lubitsch, 1927), starring Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1013/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1121/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1121/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

Gallant lover

After embodying the gallant lover in some twenty silent German and Austrian films André Mattoni seemed to make the passage from silent to sound cinema relatively easy.

In the course of the early 1930s his film career slowed down though. In 1933 he returned to Austria and performed at the Theater in der Josefstadt. He appeared in the cinema in the operetta Hoheit tanzt Walzer/Majesty Dances Waltzes (Max Neufeld, 1935), shot in Prague, and in the Austrian production Immer wenn ich glucklich bin/Waltz Melodies (Carl Lamac, 1938) with Marta Eggerth.

Then Mattoni followed director Max Neufeld to Italy, and later performed in his Taverna Rossa/Red Tavern (Max Neufeld, 1940), starring Alida Valli. he was billed in Italy as Andrea Mattoni. From 1938 on, he lived in Rome, and worked in Italian films and in German films shot in Roman film studios (often directed by Ernst Marischka).

In 1942 Mattoni returned to Vienna, which became his homestead henceforth. In the postwar era he became production manager for films. He had one last film part in Willi Forst’s Wiener Mädeln/Viennese Girls (1949).

Between 1957 and 1964 Mattoni was an important collaborator of the Wiener Staatsoper under Herbert von Karajan. In 1978 he performed as the older Lord in the opera Der junge Lord.

André Mattoni died in Vienna in 1985. He was 84.

Romanian postcard. Photo: Ciolfi. Publicity still for Taverna Rossa/Red Tavern (Max Neufeld, 1940) with Alida Valli.

Comple version of Tartuffe (1925). Photo: iconauta (YouTube).

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

Austrian born starlet Jackie Lane (1937) was a stunningly beautiful model and film actress of the 1950s and 1960s, who starred both in European films and in Hollywood pictures. She was married to Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3566. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for Tickle Me (Norman Taurog, 1965).

German by ISV, Sort. 11/6.

German postcard by Fred. W. Sander-Verlag, Minden / Kolibri, no. 2051.

Not above fibbing about her age

Jackie Lane was born as Jocelyn Olga Bolton in Vienna, Austria, in 1937. She is the youngest daughter of a Russian-born pianist mother, Olga Mironova, and an English father, John Bolton, who worked for an American oil firm. She was educated in New Rochelle, New York, in the United States.

At the age of 14, she moved to Britain where she received dance training. Her elder sister, Mara Lane, was a well-known British model and actress in the 1950s. Jocelyn established herself as a popular model in the United Kingdom by the time she was 18, using the pseudonym Jackie Lane.

She appeared on hundreds of magazine covers around the world. H. David Schleicher at IMDb: "Jackie was not above fibbing about her age; in a 1957 photo pictorial by Russ Meyer in Modern Man, the 20-year-old Jackie is referred to as 'Mara's 18-year-old sister'. "

From 1954 on, she acted in several British films like the travel film April in Portugal (Euan Lloyd, 1954/1956). She also appeared in the Anglo-American science fiction film The Gamma People (John Gilling, 1955) starring Paul Douglas, and the Frankie Vaughan musicals These Dangerous Years (Herbert Wilcox, 1957) and Wonderful Things! (Herbert Wilcox, 1958).

She played a supporting part in The Angry Hills (Robert Aldrich, 1959), based on the novel by Leon Uris, and starring Robert Mitchum. She also appeared in the British thriller Jet Storm (Cy Endfield, 1959), with Richard Attenborough, and the Italian adventure film Robin Hood e i pirati/Robin Hood and the Pirates (Giorgio Simonelli, 1960) starring Lex Barker.

German by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H. Minden/Westf., no. 1614.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden-Westf., no. 1266.

German cigarette card.

Hell's Belle

In the early 1960s Jackie Lane appeared in several European film productions. She had a supporting part in the drama Aimez-vous Brahms?/Goodbye Again (Anatole Litvak, 1961), starring Ingrid Bergman. The screenplay was written by Samuel A. Taylor, based on the novel by Françoise Sagan.

In Britain, she played in Two and Two Make Six (Freddie Francis, 1962), starring George Chakiris, and the comedy Operation Snatch (Robert Day, 1962) starring Terry-Thomas and George Sanders. In Italy she starred in the Peplums Marte, dio della guerra/Venus Against the Son of Hercules (Marcello Baldi, 1962) opposite Roger Browne, and Le sette folgori di Assur/War Gods of Babylon (Silvio Amadio, 1962), with Howard Duff.

In 1964, Lane moved to Hollywood. As she was confused with another actress named Jackie Lane (known for starring in the TV series Doctor Who), she began to be credited with her full first name, Jocelyn Lane. Her resemblance to Brigitte Bardot was widely remarked upon.

In 1965, Jackie Lane co-starred with Elvis Presley in Tickle Me (Norman Taurog, 1965) and was featured in the September 1966 issue of Playboy magazine. Later, she appeared in several other Hollywood films, including the Western Incident at Phantom Hill (Earl Bellamy, 1966) with Robert Fuller and the action film Hell's Belles (Maury Dexter, 1969), as a biker chick.

Her final film was A Bullet for Pretty Boy (Larry Buchana, 1970), starring Fabian Forte as gangster Pretty Boy Floyd. Lane also made guest appearances on American television series. She retired in 1971.

Two years later, she married Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the playboy who turned the Spanish fishing village of Marbella into a glamorous resort. Lane gave birth to her only child, Princess Arriana Theresa Maria of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, in 1975. The divorce with the Prince was settled with $1m.

H. David Schleicher: "However, she remains in the memory, literally becoming a fixture of her cinematic times. One image of her, used on the poster of her film Hell's Belles (1969), features a ground-level shot of the 32-year old-Jocelyn (looking all of 22) in a black leather miniskirt and boots, staring haughtily at the camera, has become an icon of 1960s pop culture."

Spanish postcard by Ediciones JRB, no. 201/4. Photo: Mundial Film. Publicity still for The Truth About Women (Muriel Box, 1957).

Big German card by ISV, no. PX 4.

Trailer Hell's Belles (1969). Source: Vulture Graffix (YouTube).

Source: H. David Schleicher (IMDb), Michael Eaude (The Guardian), Wikipedia and IMDb.

L'Epopée napoléonienne/Napoleon Bonaparte (Lucien Nonguet, 1903) is an early biopic by Pathé Frères. The Historic drama shows some highlights of the career of Napoléon, like the Coronation, the battle of Austerlitz, the soldier sleeping during watch, the burning of Moscow, Waterloo and the Emperor's death. Several postcard series were produced for the film, including one in France by Rex and one in Italy by the famous postcard publisher Alterocca with also French captions.

French postcard by Rex, no. 4156. Photo: Pathé Frères. Publicity still for Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Napoléon blessé à Ratisbonne.

The image above was vaguely based on the painting Napoléon blessé à Ratisbonne (Napoleon hurt at Regensburg, 1810) by Pierre Gautherot. The scene depicted the only moment Bonaparte was hurt when fighting, on 23 April 1809. The painting is now at the Musée national du chateau de Versailles.

French postcard by PC, no. 4156. Photo: Pathé Frères. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Napoléon à Brienne.

The scene above depicts one of the Napoléon legends, also painted by Horace Vernet, and dazzingly staged on film by Abel Gance. Already at the military academy a young Bonaparte whould have showed his strategic leadership during a snowball fight.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4434. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Napoléon à l'école de Brienne (1781).

Bonaparte au pont d'Arcole (novembre 1796)

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4435. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Bonaparte au pont d'Arcole (novembre 1796).

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4436. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Napoléon á les Pyramides (1798-99).

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4437. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Passage du Mont St.-Bernard (mai 1800).

A worldwide cultural icon

Napoléon Bonaparte (1769-8921, born Napoleone di Buonaparte, was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution. He led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars.

He was born in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an artillery officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rapidly rose through the ranks of the military, becoming a general at age 24.

At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies—winning virtually every battle, conquering the Italian Peninsula in a year, and becoming a national hero. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic. His ambition and public approval inspired him to go further.

In 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. As Napoléon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and again in 1815. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars.

He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815.

Napoléon has become a worldwide cultural icon who symbolises military genius and political power. One of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoléon's political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.

Napoléon has been portrayed in many works of fiction, his depiction varying greatly with the author's perception of the historical character. Best known is probably the classic silent film Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927), with young general Bonaparte is portrayed as a heroic visionary.

L'Epopée napoléonienne (1903) was made by Lucien Nonguet, a former crowd-scene manager at several thetres, including the Ambigu and the Châtelet in Paris. He was specialised in actualités and historical reconstructions.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4438. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Une fête d'été à la Malmaison (1800).

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4440. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Le Couronnement de Bonaparte (1804).

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4441. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Napoléon à Austerlitz (2 déc. 1805).

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4442. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Napoléon et la sentinelle endormie.

Les adieux de Fontainebleau (avril 1814)

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4443. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Les adieux de Fontainebleau (avril 1814).

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 4444. Photo: Cinématographe Pathé. Publicity still for L'Epopée napoléonienne (Lucien Nonguet, 1903). Caption: Waterloo (18 juin 1815).

Sources: Richard Abel (The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Conrad Veidt (1893–1943) was the 'most highly strung and romantically handsome of the German expressionist actors'. From 1916 until his death, he appeared in over 100 films, including such classics as Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1920) as the sleep-walking killer Cesare, and Casablanca (1942) as Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser. He played in the 'first gay film', Anders als die Andern (1919) and his starring role in The Man Who Laughs (1928) was the inspiration for Batman's greatest enemy, The Joker.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1426/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Vaida M. Pál, Budapest.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 272/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 564/1, 1919-1924. Photo: R Film. Publicity still for Lady Hamilton (Richard Oswald, 1921).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 564/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Conrad Veidt Film. Publicity still for Paganini (Heinz Goldberg, 1923).

Russian postcard, no. 6, 1928.

A creature from Poe's nightmares

Hans Walter Conrad Veidt was born in 1893, in Potsdam, Germany. He attended the Sophiengymnasium (a secondary school) in the Schoeneberg district of Berlin, and graduated without a diploma in 1912.

Veidt received his basic acting training and stage experience from Max Reinhardt, and appeared at the age of 20 — just before World War I — at Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In 1914, he met actress Lucie Mannheim, with whom he began a relationship.

Later in the year he was drafted into the German Army during World War I. In 1915, Veidt was sent to the Eastern Front as a noncommissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea.

While recuperating, he received a letter from Lucie Mannheim informing him that she had found work at a front theatre. Intrigued, Veidt applied for the theatre as well. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theatre so that he could entertain the troops. It was also during this time that his relationship with Mannheim ended. In late 1916, he was reexamined by the Army and deemed unfit for service; he was given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt then returned to Berlin to pursue his acting career.

Director Richard Oswald encouraged him to go into films. He was seen in such silent films as Der Weg des Todes/The Road of Death (Robert Reinert, 1917) with Maria Carmi, Furcht/Fear (Robert Wiene, 1917), Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen/The Diary of a Lost Woman (Richard Oswald, 1918) with Erna Morena, Opium (Robert Reinert, 1919) with Werner Krauss, and as Lucifer in Satanas/Satan (F.W. Murnau, 1920) starring Fritz Kortner.

The anonymous biographer at Lenin Imports writes: "Veidt was the most highly strung and romantically handsome of German expressionist actors. He was a creature from Poe's nightmares - tall, gaunt, glowing with a mixture of illness and ecstatic anxiety. Amid so many overweight actors, Veidt was an attenuated, hypersensitive figure, the aesthete or artist tormented by dark forces and driven to violence. His movements were deliberately slowed and prolonged".

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 272/4, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 539/1. Photo: May Film. Conrad Veidt as the proud and cruel Maharajah of Eschnapur in the two-part monumental film Das indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Joe May, 1921-1922).

German postcard. Photo: Richard Oswald Film. Perhaps a publicity still for Lucrezia Borgia (Richard Oswald, 1922).

Dagny Servaes and Conrad Veidt in Carlos und Elisabeth (1924)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 674/5. Photo: Krabbe. Publicity still for Carlos und Elisabeth/Carlos and Elisabeth (Richard Oswald, 1924) with Dagny Servaes.

Conrad Veidt in Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 933/1, 1925-1926. Publicity still for Das Wachsfigurenkabinett/Waxworks (Leo Birinsky, Paul Leni, 1924).

Conrad Veidt in Graf Kostja/Le Comte Kostia

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 934/1, 1925-1926. Conrad Veidt starring in the Franco-German coproduction Le Comte Kostia/ Graf Kostja (Jacques Robert, 1925).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1561/2, 1927-1928. Photo: ?

Caligari

With his impressive height, handsomely gaunt face, high cheekbones and wide, thin-lipped mouth, Conrad Veidt seemed a natural to play sinister, tortured roles. To many silent film fans, he is primarily known for his Cesare, the sleep-walking killer in Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920). His first close-up of Cesare was riveting: a pale face and harrowed eyes, awakened from sleep. Unforgettable was also the rhythmic, boldly diagonal way he crept along a wall to kidnap Lil Dagover. Cesare became one of the most influential performances in the history of the fantasy and horror film.

Veidt did a brave appearance in Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering homosexual rights film Anders als die Andern/Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, 1919). It is credited as being the first gay film: it argued for reform of the harsh German laws regarding homosexuality. The film had a very short run in Germany before being pulled, and people who attended it were, according to the reviewer on IMDb, harassed.

Veidt then worked in the full range of the German cinema: the Jekyll and Hyde film Der Januskopf/The Two-Faced Man (F. W. Murnau, 1920) with Béla Lugosi, the exotic adventure epic Das Indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Joe May, 1921) starring Olaf Fønss and Mia May, the melodrama Der Gang in die Nacht/Journey Into the Night (F.W. Murnau, 1921), the historic film Danton (Dmitri Buchowetzki, 1922) starring Emil Jannings, and the drama Die Brüder Schellenberg/The Brothers Schellenberg (Karl Grune, 1926).

He starred in three classic horror films, in Das Wachsfigurenkabinett/The Three Wax Works (Paul Leni, Leo Birinsky, 1924) as Ivan the Terrible, in Orlacs Hände/The Hands of Orlac (Robert Wiene, 1924) as Orlac, and in Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague (Henrik Galeen, 1926) as the student and his doppelganger. In addition he directed also films himself, including Wahnsinn/Madness (1919) with Reinhold Schünzel, and Die Nacht auf Goldenhall/The Night at Goldenhall (1920) with his then-wife Gussy Holl.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1682/2, 1927-1928. Conrad Veidt preparing for his first trip to the United States. Caption: his most precious luggage item. The child is his daughter, Viola Veidt.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1682/3, 1927-1928. Conrad Veidt and his wife Felicitas Radke preparing for his first trip to the United States. Caption:"Do you think, Conny, one can wear such a coat in Hollywood?"

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1719/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Arthur Ziehm, Berlin. Publicity still for Kreuzzug des Weibes/The Wife's Crusade (Martin Berger, 1926) with Harry Liedtke.

Conrad Veidt in The Beloved Rogue (1927)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1670/1, 1927-1928. Photo: United Artists. Publicity still for The Beloved Rogue (Alan Crosland, 1927).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1670/2, 1927-1928. Photo: United Artists. Publicity still for The Beloved Rogue (Alan Crosland, 1927). Conrad Veidt plays a cruel and superstitious French king Louis XI.

Conrad Veidt in Der Student von Prag (1926)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1692/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Sokal Film. Publicity still for Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague (Henrik Galeen, 1926).

Conrad Veidt and Mary Philbin in The Man Who Laughs (1928)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 105/1. Photo: Universal Pictures Corp. Publicity still for The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928) with Mary Philbin.

The Joker

Conrad Veidt worked briefly in Sweden – Ingmarsarvet/The Ingmar Inheritance (Gustaf Molander, 1925) with Lars Hanson, and in Italy - the Luigi Pirandello adaptation Enrico I/The Flight in the Night (Amleto Palermi, 1926).

Then he took up an offer to play Louis XI to John Barrymore's Francois Villon in The Beloved Rogue (Alan Crosland, 1927). Veidt stayed in Hollywood for A Man's Past (George Melford, 1927), and The Last Performance (Paul Fejos, 1927).

In The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928) he played a disfigured circus performer, one of his most sublime performances. His grotesque grin was achieved with a prosthesis. Comic book artist and Batman creator Bob Kane, writer Bill Finger and artist Jerry Robinson used stills of Veidt in The Man Who Laughs as inspiration for the iconic supervillain The Joker.

Back in Germany, Veidt made Germany's first talking picture Das Land ohne Frauen/The Land Without Women (Carmine Gallone, 1929) about Australia in the days when the search for gold fused together men of all nations. His beautiful speaking voice consolidated his star position.

He was cast as Count Metternich in the immensely popular operetta Der Kongress Tanzt (Erik Charell, 1931) with Lilian Harvey, both in the original and in the English-language version, The Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931).

He also appeared oppposite Elza Temary in Rasputin (Adolph Trotz, 1932) as the legendary mystic who ruled the czarist court in its last years, as the czarina hoped he could heal her son's haemophilia. In 1916 Rasputin was murdered by a number of aristocrats, but not before predicting the downfall of the regime.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 135/2, 1929-1933. Photo: Lichtenstein / Gottschalk-Tonfilm. Publicity still for Rasputin (Adolph Trotz, 1931) with Elza Temary.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3919/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Roman Freulich.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 943/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Alex Binder.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 943/5, 1925-1926. Photo: Alex Binder.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 4200/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Conrad Veidt and Lil Dagover in Der Kongress tanzt

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 131/7. Photo: Ufa. Still with Conrad Veidt (Count Metternich) and Lil Dagover (Countess) in Der Kongress tanzt/The Congress dances (Erik Charell, 1931).

The Wandering Jew

Conrad Veidt then moved to England for the thriller Express Rome (Walter Forde, 1932) and The Wandering Jew (Maurice Elvey, 1933), the fantasy of the Jew who cursed Christ and found himself stuck on earth till the Second Coming.

Back in Germany he was in F.P.I. Antwortet Nicht/F. P. 1 Doesn't Answer (Karl Hartl, 1933). Veidt sang the title song Where the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay. It was a flop at the time, but became a hit in the United Kingdom in 1980. BBC presenter Terry Wogan had played it as a request on his breakfast show and was flooded afterwards with letters asking for a repeat.

Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime. His activities came under the scrutiny of the Gestapo, and a decision was made to assassinate him. Veidt found out about the plot, and managed to escape Germany in 1933 a week after marrying a half-Jewish woman, Illona Prager. He was married twice before, and reportedly he was bisexual. He was first married to actress Gussy Holl (1919-1922) and in 1923 he married Felicitas Radke, a woman from an aristocratic German family. They divorced in 1932. Their daughter, Viola Veidt, was born in 1925.

Her father settled in the United Kingdom and continued making films. In England, Veidt played in Jew Suss (Lothar Mendes, 1934), a satire of Nazi anti-Semitism, based on the novel by Lion Feuchtwanger. Although it was not a success with audiences, it did succeed in angering Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels who banned all of Veidt's films from Germany.

Veidt became a British citizen in 1938. His most interesting British pictures were two films directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Spy in Black (1939) and Contraband (1940). When the war started, producer Alexander Korda shipped Veidt to the United States to play the Vizier in The Thief of Baghdad (Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, Ludwig Berger, 1940)

TCM notes that Veidt added "immeasurably to his role as the demonic magician and grand vizier Jaffar. He spent his last years playing Germans in such Hollywood films as Escape (Mervyn Le Roy, 1940) - in which he and Norma Shearer made a dynamic pair as a German general and his American mistress, A Woman's Face (George Cukor, 1941) as the lover and onetime partner in crime of Joan Crawford, and Nazi Agent (Jules Dassin, 1942) - in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother.

But he is best known for playing the Nazi Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) opposite Humphrey Bogart. When Britain went to war, Veidt gave most of his estate to the war effort. He also donated a large portion of the salary from each of his films to the British war relief, as well - he was the highest paid actor in Casablanca.

His last film was Above Suspicion (Richard Thorpe, 1943), in which he played an Austrian undercover agent.

In 1943, Conrad Veidt suddenly died of a heart attack during a game of golf in Los Angeles. He was playing with Arthur Field of MGM and his personal physician, Dr. Bergman, who pronounced him dead at the scene. His death at just 50 was possibly a result of his heavy smoking. Because he had been blacklisted in Nazi Germany, there was no official announcement there of his death. His ex-wife, Felicitas, and daughter Viola, in Switzerland, heard about it on the radio.

Conrad Veidt in Ich und die Kaiserin (1933)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 7621/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Ich und die Kaiserin/The Empress and I (Friedrich Hollaender, 1933)

Vintage postcard. Photo: Paramount.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1365. Photo: British National. Publicity still for Contraband (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1940).

British postcard by Real Photograph, no. 167. Photo: Gaumont-British Pictures.

Dutch postcard, no. 142. Photo: Universal.

British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 33. Photo: Gaumont-British. Publicity still for Jew Süss (Lothar Mendes, 1934).

Trailer for Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920). Source: _ XYZT (YouTube).

DVD Trailer of Orlacs Hände/The Hands of Orlac (Robert Wiene, 1924). Source: Kino International (YouTube).

Conrad Veidt sings There's a lighthouse shines across the bay (1933). Source: Allanh53 (YouTube).

Sources: Peter Jacobs (Gay For Today), Roger Manvell (Film Reference), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Doug Sederberg (IMDb), Lenin Imports, Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Brad Pitt (1963) is executive producer of Barry Jenkins' masterpiece Moonlight (2016), nominated for eight 2017 Oscars, which will be presented tomorrow 26 February. The attractive and intelligent American actor and producer is one the most successful film makers of his era. He has received multiple awards and nominations including an Academy Award as producer under his own company Plan B Entertainment. As an actor, Pitt wildly varies his film choices, appearing in everything from high-concept popcorn flicks such as Troy (2004) to adventurous critic-bait like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Tree of Life (2011). He has received Best Actor Oscar nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). Will the astonishing successes keep on coming?

British postcard by Heroes Publishing LTD., London, no. SPC2617.

British postcard by Box Office, no. BO 034.

British postcard by Heroes Publishing LTD., London, no. SPC2569.

A wickedly sexy hitchhiker

William Bradley ‘Brad’ Pitt was born in 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and brought up in a strict Baptist household. His parents were William Alvin Pitt, who ran a trucking company, and Jane Etta (née Hillhouse), a school counsellor. He has a younger brother, Douglas (Doug) Pitt, and a younger sister, Julie Neal Pitt.

Following his graduation from high school, Pitt enrolled in the University of Missouri in 1982, majoring in journalism. Two weeks before earning his degree, he left the university and moved to Los Angeles, where he took acting lessons and worked odd jobs. Reportedly he chauffeured strippers to private parties, waited tables, and wore a giant chicken suit for a local restaurant chain. Pitt's acting career began with uncredited parts in such films as Less Than Zero (Marek Kanievska, 1987).

His television debut came in May 1987 with a two-episode role on the soap opera Another World. In November of the same year Pitt had a guest appearance on the sitcom Growing Pains. He appeared in four episodes of the legendary prime time soap opera Dallas (1987-1988). In 1989 he made his film debut with a featured role in the slasher Cutting Class (Rospo Pallenberg, 1989) with Donovan Leitch.

Pitt first gained recognition as a wickedly sexy hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991), who seduces Thelma (Geena Davis) and robs her blind. Biograpy.com: “Pitt's combination of charming bad boy charisma and sensual playfulness—particularly in a fiery love scene with Geena Davis—made him a genuine sex symbol (and wore out the rewind button on many a VCR).“

His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with the dramas A River Runs Through It (Robert Redford, 1992) and Legends of the Fall (Edward Zwick, 1994), for which Pitt received his first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the Best Actor category. Both films gave the actor a much-needed chance to prove that he had talent in addition to his handsome looks. He then starred opposite Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas as the brooding, gothic vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac in the romantic horror film Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994), based on the novel by Anne Rice.

Pitt also garnered attention for a brief appearance in the cult hit True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993) as a stoner named Floyd, providing comic relief to the action film written by Quentin Tarantino. Pitt gave critically acclaimed performances as an emotionally tortured detective investigating a series of gruesome crimes in the horror-thriller Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) and as visionary mental patient Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995). This latter role got him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Seven earned $327 million at the international box office. He also starred in the legal drama Sleepers (Barry Levinson, 1996).

Pitt then played Tyler Durden, the mysterious and anti-materialistic soap salesman in Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) about a bloody diversion for young professional males. This unglamorous, disturbing role was an interesting but odd choice for a man voted 'Most Sexy Actor Alive' by virtually every entertainment publication currently in circulation, but the film became a cult.

Jason Clark in his review at AllMovie: "A definitive case of a movie that has yet to find its time, David Fincher's unnerving and cataclysmic look at the male psyche takes no prisoners and makes no apologies, which is precisely why the film is so powerful. A kind of stepchild to Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in terms of its thematic relevancy and misunderstood nature, Fight Club looks and feels like almost nothing that has preceded it. Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter all successfully subvert their onscreen personas, and give fully committed portrayals that never get buried in the film's dazzling set pieces."

British postcard by Heroes Publishing Ltd, London, no. SPC2506. Publicity still for Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991).

Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire (1994)

British Exclusive Collectors' Artcard. Photo: Geffen Pictures. Publicity still for Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994). Caption: Louis de Pointe Du Lac (Brad Pitt) is a broken man, devastated by the loss of his beloved wife and infant daughter. Becoming a vampire is his only relief.

Male chemistry

Brad Pitt was cast as an Irish Gypsy boxer with a barely intelligible accent in the British gangster film Snatch (2000), Guy Ritchie's eagerly anticipated follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He then played Rusty Ryan in Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001) with George Clooney. It was a remake of the Rat Pack classic about a group of criminals who plot to rob a string of casinos.

Well received by critics, Ocean's Eleven was highly successful at the box office, earning $450 million worldwide. The heist film had two sequels, Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (Steven Soderbergh, 2007). Ocean's Twelve earned $362 million worldwide, and the third sequel earned $311 million at the international box office. CNN's Paul Clinton: "Plus, Clooney and Pitt have the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford."

Another commercial success was Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004), based on The Iliad by Homer. For his part as Achilles, Pitt spent six months sword training and it helped establish his appeal as action star. Troy was the first film produced by Plan B Entertainment, a film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures.

Pitt then had a hit with the stylish action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Doug Liman, 2005), opposite Angela Jolie. Mr. & Mrs. Smith earned $478 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005. Pitt starred opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative drama Babel (2006). His performance was critically well-received. Babel received seven Academy and Golden Globe award nominations, winning the Best Drama Golden Globe, and earned Pitt a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe.

Pitt then appeared in the black comedy Burn After Reading (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2008), his first collaboration with the Coen brothers. The film and Pitt's supporting role received a positive reception from critics. Andrew Pulver at The Guardian: "Clocking in at a crisp 95 minutes, Burn After Reading is a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy (...) Pitt, in fact, gets the best of the funny stuff, but has by some way the least screen time of all the principal cast."

The actor received his second Academy Award nomination for his leading performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher, 2008). Pitt played the title character, who is born as a 70-year-old man and ages in reverse. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button received thirteen Academy Award nominations in total, and grossed $329 million at the box office worldwide.

Pitt's next leading role came in the blistering war film Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009) which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Pitt played Lieutenant Aldo Raine, an American resistance fighter battling Nazis in German-occupied France. The film was a box office hit, taking $311 million worldwide, and garnered generally favourable reviews. Perry Seibert at AllMovie: "Tarantino has always cast his films to perfection, and the performers here know how to get the most out of the ornate language. Brad Pitt uses a hilarious Southern drawl, and his attempts at speaking Italian are a comic highlight."

Italian postcard by EdiBas S.r.l., Torino, no. Pc 1.338. Photo: Grazia Neri. Publicity still for Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004).

British postcard by Heroes Publishing Ltd, London, no. SPC 2742.

British postcard by A Bigger Splash, Manchester, no. X743, 1997.

Brangelina

Brad Pitt had another commercial success with World War Z (Marc Forster, 2013), a thriller about a zombie apocalypse. Pitt produced the film which grossed $540 million against a production budget of $190 million. He also produced The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006) and 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Another success as a producer and as an actor was The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2009), based on the autobiography of Solomon Northup. In this experimental drama, he gave one of the best performances of his career, playing a disciplinarian father. At AllMovie, Rebecca Flint Marx describes The Tree of Life as "a sprawling, cerebral phantasmorgia on the meaning of life and death". The film became one of the critical sensations of the year."

Pitt's list of successes seems endless. His productions Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011) and the comedy-drama The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015), garnered Best Picture nominations too. Moneyball received six Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Pitt. Besides this Oscar nomination, his role as Billy Beane in Moneyball also earned him Best Actor nominations from the BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Association, the Golden Globes, and won him the New York Film Critics Circle award (the award was also for his role in Tree of Life).

Not only his work, his personal life is also the subject of wide publicity. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pitt was involved in successive relationships with several of his co-stars, including Robin Givens, Jill Schoelen and Juliette Lewis. In addition, Pitt had a much-publicized romance and engagement to his Seven co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, whom he dated from 1994 to 1997.

From 2000 till 2005, he was married to actress Jennifer Aniston. During their divorce, he fell in love with actress Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The entertainment media dubbed the couple 'Brangelina' and they married in 2014. They have six children together, three of whom were adopted internationally. In 2015, Pitt starred opposite Jolie, in her third directorial effort, By the Sea, a romantic drama about a marriage in crisis, based on her screenplay. In September 2016, Angelina Jolie filed in real life for divorce from Pitt.

Pitt’s most recent film is the World War II romantic thriller Allied (Robert Zemeckis, 2016) in which he and Marion Cotillard play an intelligence officer and resistance fighter, respectively, who fall in love during a mission to kill a German official. In 2017 Brad Pitt can be seen with Tilda Swinton in War Machine (David Michôd, 2017), a satire of America's war with Afghanistan with a focus on the people running the campaign. Announced is also World War Z 2 (2017), with David Fincher rumoured as director.

As an executive producer, Brad Pitt has another amazingly huge success with Moonlight (2016), directed by Barry Jenkins. The film about the life of a young black and gay man struggling to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami, is nominated for eight Academy Awards. The film gets our vote!

Trailer 12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995). Source: Movieclips (YouTube).

Trailer Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000). Source: Juliana Mendes Mendonça (YouTube).

Trailer Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).

Sources: Rebecca Flint Marx (AllMovie), Jason Clark (AllMovie), Perry Seibert (AllMovie), Paul Clinton (CNN), Andrew Pulver (The Guardian), Biography.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Tonight is the 89th Oscars show. Nominated for the Best Actress in a leading role award is French actress Isabelle Huppert (1953) for her amazing turn in Elle (2016). Huppert plays a top exec for a video-game company who turns the tables after being raped in her own home. The versatile and brave actress appeared in more than 90 film and television productions since 1971. She won 89 awards for her work, but the Oscar nomination for Elle is her first.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Casually Poisoning Her Parents

Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert was born in Paris in 1953 (some sources say 1955). She is the youngest of five daughters of Annick Beau, a teacher of English, and Raymond Huppert, a safe manufacturer.

At age 13, she announced her intention to be an actor, and was encouraged by her mother. She studied at the Versailles Conservatoire and later attended the CNSAD (National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Paris).

Huppert made her film debut in Faustine et le bel été/Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (Nina Companeez, 1972). Five years later, she already had appeared in 15 films and had worked with major directors. She played Romy Schneider's younger sister in César et Rosalie/Cesar and Rosalie (Claude Sautet, 1972).

In Bertrand Blier’s road movie Les valseuses/Going Places (1974), she played a bored teenager who runs off with three young vagabonds (Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou). For director Otto Preminger, Huppert made her English-language debut in Rosebud (1975) starring Peter O’Toole.

Her international breakthrough came with her guileless performance as a simple, provincial girl destroyed by a summer romance with a middle-class student in La Dentelliere/The Lacemaker (Claude Goretta, 1977). For this unforgettable portrayal she was awarded with both a BAFTA award (British Academy Award) and a David di Donatello (the Italian Oscar).

At the next Cannes film festival, she won the Best Actress award for Violette Nozière (Claude Chabrol, 1978). In this true story, she portrayed a woman who scandalized France in 1933 by casually poisoning her parents. She tied the award with Jill Clayburgh.

Marie-France Pisier, Isabelle Huppert and Isabelle Adjani in Les soeurs Brontë

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Les soeurs Brontë/The Bronte Sisters (André Téchniné, 1979) with Marie-France Pisier as Charlotte Bronte, Isabelle Huppert as Anne Bronte, and Isabelle Adjani as Emily Brontë.

Dominique Sanda and Isabelle Huppert. Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Publicity still for Les ailes de la colombe/The Wings of the Dove (Benoît Jacquot, 1981).

Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, Loulou

French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Nancy, in the collection Cinéma Couleur, no. MC 39. Publicity still for Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1979) with Gérard Depardieu.

Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Dépardieu in Loulou (1980)

French card. Photo: publicity still for Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980).

Legendary Disaster

Isabelle Huppert made her American film debut in the blockbuster Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980), which proved to be a legendary disaster at the box office.

In France she continued to explore enigmatic and emotionally distant characters, such as an upper-class woman who is physically attracted by a young vagabond (Gérard Depardieu) in Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980), a prostitute in Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Slow Motion (Jean-Luc Godard, 1980), the mistress of Philippe Noiret’s character in Coup de torchon/Clean Slate (Bertrand Tavernier, 1981) and a Jewish refugee in Coup de foudre/Entre nous (Diane Kurys, 1983).

She used her influence to help non-commercial projects get off the ground, like Joseph Losey's La Truite/The Trout (1982) and sister Caroline Huppert's Signé Charlotte/Sincerely, Charlotte (1984).

For her role in Une Affaire de Femmes/Story of Women (Claude Chabrol, 1988), she received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice film festival. This time, she tied with Shirley MacLaine. She won the Volpi Cup again for her role in La Cérémonie (Claude Chabrol, 1995) as a shy but manic and homicidal post-office mistress in a French village. This time she tied the award with her co-star in that film, Sandrine Bonnaire. For La Cérémonie, she also won her only César award.

The offspring of her cinematic relationship with director Claude Chabrol also includes the widely acclaimed literary adaptation Madame Bovary (1991), the crime comedy Rien ne va plus/The Swindle (1997), and the thriller Merci pour le chocolat/Thanks for the Chocolate (2000).

Stuart Jeffries in The Observer about their cooperation: “Huppert has excelled in the spiteful, the nasty, the unpleasant and - regularly - the murderous. More than that, she carries herself with imperious intelligence, and thus seems to be self-conscious about her own wickedness. No doubt that is why Chabrol has cast her so often. He's interested in guilt, manipulativeness and shame - all of which she loves portraying.”

French collectors card in the series 'Portrait de Stars; L'encyclopédie du Cinéma' by Edito Service, 1994. Photo: Harcourt. Caption: France, 1975.

French postcard, no. 222.

French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron in the Signes Zodiaque series, no 8, Isabelle Huppert - Poissons (Pisces).

French postcard by Humour a la Carte, Paris, no. ST-159.

Greeted With A Mixture Of Boos And Applause

In 2001, Isabelle Huppert started a new interesting collaboration with Austrian film director Michael Haneke. In La Pianiste/The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001), an adaptation of the novel by Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, she played a sexually repressed and self-destructive piano teacher, who embarks on a dark journey into sadomasochism. Regarded as one of her most impressive turns, her performance won the 2001 acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The film also took the Grand Prix (second prize) and was greeted with a mixture of boos and applause, provoking the main debate of the festival.

Huppert continued to work hard. In 2002, the entire cast of the popular black comedy 8 femmes/8 Women (François Ozon, 2002), also including Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux and Fanny Ardant, was voted Best Actress at the European Film Awards. The same cast won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, at the 2002 Berlin film festival.

Then Huppert was back at the set with Haneke for the disturbing Le temps du loup/The Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke, 2003) with Béatrice Dalle. In Ma mere/My Mother (Christophe Honoré, 2004) based on a novel by George Bataille, Huppert starred as an attractive middle-aged mother who has an incestuous relationship with her teenage son (Louis Garrel).

Since Heaven's Gate, Huppert only made a few more American movies. In The Bedroom Window (Curtis Hanson, 1987) she played Steve Guttenberg’s mistress, and in Amateur (Hal Hartley, 1994) a former nun writing porn. In I [Heart] Huckabees (David O. Russell, 2004) she portrayed author Catherine Vauban, nemesis of existential detectives Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.

At the 2005 Venice film festival, Huppert received a special Lion for her role in Gabrielle (Patrice Chéreau, 2005). The following year, she reunited with Claude Chabrol for L'ivresse du pouvoir/The Comedy of Power (2006). On the Paris stage, she appeared as the suicidal Hedda Gabler, in Henrik Ibsen's play.

In 1994 she was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Mérite and in 2005 she was promoted to Officier (Officer). She was also made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1999 and was promoted to Officier (Officer) in 2009. With her spouse, director Ronnie Chammah, she has three children: actress Lolita Chammah (1983), Lorenzo Chammah (1986) and Angelo Chammah (1997). Huppert likes to keep her private life private though. Her work is her main issue in interviews.

In 2012, two of her films competed for the Palme d'Or in Cannes: Amour/Love (Michael Haneke, 2012) and the South-Korean production Da-reun na-ra-e-seo/In Another Country (Sang-soo Hong, 2012). Her part as the daughter of Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva in Amour also got her another César nomination.

In Valley of Love (Guillaume Nicloux, 2015, she reunited with Gérard Depardieu. They play two famous actors who used to be a couple and had a son 25 years ago. They reunite after the son's death, and receive a letter asking them to visit five places at Death Valley, which will make the son reappear. Valley of Love was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

But Elle (Paul Verhoeven, 2016) was the real sensation lately. This provocative and disturbing comedy-thriller divided many film fans, as a Verhoeven picture should. Elle got rave reviews in leading newspapers but was snubbed by the jury of the Cannes Film Festival and by the Academy in the 2016 Best Foreign Language Film Category. To me it's one of the wildest and most disturbing films of this century in the disguise of a stylish thriller. The core of the film is one of the most daring and sexy performances of a 50-plus actress ever. With each new view, Elle and Huppert get more interesting.

Xan Brooks at The Guardian: "Turn off the lights and let the horror begin. Paul Verhoeven’s new film, Elle, is an outrageous black comedy, volatile and deadly; a film that opens up with a sexual assault and then cleans off the blood ahead of a posh restaurant dinner. (...) Huppert gives a performance of imperious fury, holding the audience at bay, almost goading us to disown her. Audaciously, Elle presents her not so much as a victim but as the casualty of a world she is very much a part of; maybe (still more troublingly) an accessory to."

Since Cannes, Elle and its lead actress did win 41 international awards, including Golden Globes for both Best foreign film and Best leading actress. Tonight (or tomorrow in Europe) we will know if Isabelle Huppert adds her first Oscar to this list.

Trailer Coup de torchon/Clean Slate (1981). Source: WorleyClarence (YouTube).

Trailer Amour/Love (2012). Source: MovieclipsTrailers (YouTube).

French trailer Elle (Paul Verhoeven, 2016). Source: cinémaniak (YouTube).

Sources: Stuart Jeffries (The Observer), Xan Brooks (The Guardian) Rebecca Flint Marx (AllMovie), Yahoo! Movies, Wikipedia and IMDb.

French stage actor and film star Michel Serrault (1928-2007) appeared from 1954 to 2007 in more than 150 films. He is best known as Albin Mougeotte, alias the outrageous drag queen Zaza Napoli in the play and the film series La Cage aux Folles (The Bird Cage). In the following decades, the comedian also proved to be a noted dramatic film actor. He would win three Césars - the French version of the Oscar, and became one of the grand old men of French cinema.

French postcard by La Roue Tourne, Paris.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 866. With Jean Poiret.

The bumbling innocent

Michel Serrault was born in Brunoy, south of Paris, in 1928. Although he wanted to be a circus clown, Serrault's parents sent him to a seminary to study for the priesthood. He spent only a few months there before taking-up acting.

His first professional job was in a touring production in Germany of Molière's Les Fourberies de Scapin. After military service in Dijon, he returned to Paris and joined Robert Dhéry's burlesque troupe and appeared in their second hit show, Dugudu.

In 1948, he began his career in the theatre with Robert Dhéry in Les Branquignols. His first film was Ah! Les belles bacchantes/Peek-a-Boo (Jean Loubignac, 1954), starring Robert Dhéry. Then Serrault played in the suspense thriller Les Diaboliques/Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955), starring Simone Signoret.

In the early 1950s, he met Jean Poiret. Ronald Bergan at The Guardian: “This led to a song-and-comedy cabaret act, and their playing together in 18 films, from 1956 to 1984, and in a number of plays written by Poiret. Usually, Poiret was the calculating smoothie while Serrault was the bumbling innocent. With his flat voice, short stature, nondescript looks and little moustache, Serrault was perfect playing Everyman roles.”

The films he made with Poiret include the box office hit Cette sacrée gamine/Mademoiselle Pigalle (Michel Boisrond, 1956) in which they played two police officers opposite Brigitte Bardot, and Sacha Guitry's last film, Assassins et Voleurs/Murderers and Thieves (Sacha Guitry, 1957) with Poiret as a man about to commit suicide and Serrault as a burglar who interrupts him.

In the 1960s, Serrault was very active on screen. He made an average of four films a year, most of them comedies for the French market. Internationally known are La Belle Américaine/The American Beauty (Robert Dhèry, Pierre Tchernia, 1961), the title of which refers to a Cadillac; Roger Vadim's Le repos du Guerrier/Warrior's Rest (1962), with BB; the charming Bébert et L'Omnibus/Bebert and the Train (Yves Robert, 1963), and Le roi de Coeur/King Of Hearts (Philippe de Broca, 1966), in which Serrault played a crazy barber, one of the asylum escapees who have taken over a town.

Michel Serrault in La Cage aux Folles (1978)

French collectors card in the series 'Portrait de Stars; L'encyclopédie du Cinéma' by Edito Service, 1994. Photo: the Kobal Collection. Publicity still for La Cage aux Folles (Edouard Molinaro, 1978).

Michel Serrault in Il lupo e l'agnello (1980)

French postcard by Editions Hazan, Paris, no. 6274, 1991. Photo: Edimedia. Publicity still for Il lupo e l'agnello/The Wolf and the Lamb (Francesco Massaro, 1980).

The Bird Cage

From February 1973 through 1978, Michel Serrault portrayed the role of Albin/Zaza opposite Jean Poiret in Poiret’s play La Cage aux Folles (The Bird Cage), about a transvestite nightclub in St Tropez. He recreated the role of the effeminate, temperamental and middle-aged performer for the film version of the play, La Cage aux Folles (Edouard Molinaro,1978), now opposite Ugo Tognazzi.

Ronald Bergan in The Guardian: “Albin's volatile yet loving relationship with his longtime companion Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) is put to the test when they must pose as a ‘normal’ family to please the puritanical future in-laws of Renato's son. The film, which was to break all box-office records in the US for a foreign-language film to that date”.

For his part, Serrault won both the César award in France and the David di Donatello in Italy. The success lead to progressively awful sequels, La Cage aux Folles II (Edouard Molinaro, 1980) and La cage aux folles 3 - 'Elles' se marine/La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding (Georges Lautner, 1985).

He played the neighbour of Carole Laure, Gérard Dépardieu and Patrick Dewaere in the romantic comedy Préparez vos mouchoirs/Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Bertrand Blier, 1978), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 51st Academy Awards.

Other noted films in which he appeared were L'Argent des autres/Dirty money (Christian de Chalonge, 1978) starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, the crime thriller Buffet froid/Cold Cuts (Bertrand Blier, 1979) starring Gérard Depardieu, and Garde à Vue/The Inquisitor (Claude Miller, 1981) for which he won his second César.

He gave another great performance in Les fantômes du chapelier/The Hatter's Ghost (Claude Chabrol, 1982), playing a respected citizen of a small town who murders his bedridden wife and other local women. He appeared opposite Isabelle Adjani in the thriller Mortelle randonnée/Deadly Circuit (Claude Miller, 1983).

Serrault won this third César Award for Best Actor in Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud/Nelly and Mr. Arnaud (Claude Sautet, 1995) with Emmanuelle Béart. Other interesting films were Artemisia (Agnès Merlet, 1997) the biographical film about Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, the crime-comedy Rien ne va plus/The Swindle (Claude Chabrol, 1997) with Isabelle Huppert, and Les enfants du marais/The Children of the Marshland (Jean Becker, 1999).

In 1999, Serrault was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, and two years later, he published his memoirs, Vous Avez Dit Serrault? (Did You Say Serrault?). His later films include Le papillon/The Butterfly (Philippe Muyl, 2002), the WW I drama Joyeux Noël/Happy Christmas (Christian Carion, 2005) and Pars vite et reviens tard/Have Mercy on Us All (Régis Wargnier, 2007) about the return of the Plague to modern Paris, and based on the 2003 novel by Fred Vargas.

In 2007, Serrault died from relapsing polychondritis at his home in Équemauville at age 79. He was buried in Sainte-Catherine's cemetery in Honfleur and was transferred in 2009 to the cemetery of Neuilly-sur-Seine to be near his wife, Juanita Saint-Peyron, and daughter, Caroline, who had died in a car accident in 1977. He was survived by his daughter, actress Nathalie Serrault.

Michel Serrault and Valentina Cervi in Artemisia (1997)

French postcard by Cart.com. Promotion card for the 1998 video release by Arte Video and FilmOffice of Artemisia (Agnès Merlet, 1997) with Valentina Cervi.

Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Margaret 'Grete' Mosheim (1905-1986) was a German film, theatre and television actress of Hungarian Jewish ancestry. In the late 1920s and early 1930s she was a star of the Weimar cinema.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3752/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Jacobi.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4240/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Jacobi.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 7410/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin.

A Superstar Almost Overnight

In 1905 Grete Mosheim (originally Mohsheim) was born in Berlin as the daughter of family doctor Markus Mosheim and his wife Clara.

After visiting the Viktoria Lyzeum in Berlin she started her acting career at the age of 17, studying together with Marlene Dietrich at the school of the Deutschen Theaters under Berthold Held in early 1922, as well as at the Reicherschen Hochschule für dramatische Kunst.

Mosheim became established under Max Reinhardt, and - when she was only seventeen - he gave her the chance to substitute in the American play The Speaking Ape when the female lead became ill. Mosheim learned the difficult role from Albert Bassermann in just 24 hours and became a superstar almost overnight.

'Die Mosheim' was a member of the Deutsches Theater, Berlin from 1922 to 1931. From 1931 to 1932 she played at the Lessingtheater, from 1932 to 1933 at the Metropoltheater and afterwards at the Komödienhaus and the Volksbühne.

Mosheim appeared in numerous German films, mostly silent films, starting with Carl Theodor Dreyer’s film Michael (1924) starring Walter Slezak.

Subsequent films were Derby (Max Reichmann, Joe May, 1926), Der Geiger von Florenz/Impetuous Youth (Paul Czinner, 1926), and Junges Blut/Young Blood (Manfred Noa, 1926) starring Lya De Putti.

From 1927 on Mosheim had the female leads in Faschungszäuber/Carnival magic (Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1927) opposite Harry Liedtke, Die spork’schen Jäger/The Hunters of Sporck (Holger-Madsen, 1927) with Otto Gebühr, Primanerliebe/Students' Love (Robert Land, 1927), Höhere Töchter/Higher daughters (Richard Löwenbein, 1928) with Gustav Fröhlich, and Die Siebzehnjährigen/The 17-year-old (Georg Asagaroff, 1928).

In these films of the late 1920s Grete Mosheim often represented the popular type of the proud and mischievous girl.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3467/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin.

German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 3162/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Rembrandt, Berlin.

German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5064/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Elli Cahn, Berlin.

Players from Abroad

Until she fled Germany in 1933, Grete Mosheim starred in many early German sound films, including a woman who dies of a forced abortion in Cyankali (Hans Tintner, 1930). Cyankali criticised the German abortion interdiction, reason why it was soon forbidden.

In the early 1930s Mosheim also played Alfred Dreyfus’ (Fritz Kortner) wife Lucie in Dreyfus (Richard Oswald, 1930), the daughter of the main character (played by Werner Krauss) in the period piece Yorck (Gustav Ucicky, 1931), and an audacious steno typist who eventually marries her boss, a banker in Arm wie eine Kirchenmaus/The Church Mouse (Richard Oswald, 1931).

Mosheim was also pre-eminent in the Berlin theatre scene, appearing in a wide variety of roles, and being equally at home in drama and comedy. In 1933 she emigrated to Austria and in 1934 to Britain.

After intensive study, she mastered English well enough to appear in the play Two Share a Dwelling in London in 1934. It became a special success for Mosheim, because she met the American railroad king Howard Gould, who had financed the performance, and who became in 1937 her second husband.

She also played in the British film Car of Dreams (Graham Cutts, Austin Melford, 1935) opposite John Mills. In 1938 Mosheim accompanied Gould to New York. Acceding to Gould's desire she spend more time with him, she retired from acting for a few years, but in 1941 she returned to the stage and played with Players from Abroad, a German speaking theatre company she had help to found.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1520/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Mahrenholz, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4590/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Elli Markus.

Dutch postcard. Photo: UFA.

Sally Bowles

In 1952 Grete Mosheim appeared in Germany for the first time after the war. First she appeared in Berlin as Sally Bowles in John van Druten‘s play Ich bin eine Kamera (I am a Camera, 1952), based on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin novels. Later this play would be the basis for the musical and film Cabaret.

In 1963 Mosheim received the critics award for performing arts for her part of Hannah Jelkes in Tennessee Williams' play Die Nacht des Leguan (Night of the Iguana) and in 1971 she was honoured with the Deutsche Filmpreis (Filmband in Gold) for her outstanding services to German cinema, plus the Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1974.

After her war Mosheim hardly played in films again, beside her part as the grandmother in the German teenager drama Moritz, lieber Moritz/Moritz, Dear Moritz (Hark Bohm, 1978). She did play on German television though, such as in the Rosa von Praunheim TV documentary Underground and Emigrants (1976), and in fiction series such as the episode …wie die Wolfe/Like the Wolves (Wolfgang Staudte, 1970) of the Krimi series Der Kommissar/The Commissioner, starring Erik Ode.

From 1928 until 1933 Grete Mosheim was married to Austrian actor Oskar Homolka– with whom she had played in Die Rothausgasse, Dreyfus and Moral und Liebe (Georg Jacoby, 1933) - but they divorced. In London Mosheim married a second time to American industrial Howard Gould (1937-1947), and a third time to journalist Robert Cooper. She had no children.

Her sister was stage actress Lore Mosheim aka Lori Lahner and Laurie Lane, who had a film career from the early 1930s on, appearing in films like Summer Storm (Douglas Sirk, 1944). Until her the end of her life, Grete Mosheim lived in New York and often returned to Germany for theatre performances. She died in New York in 1986 from cancer, aged 81.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3204/1. Photo: Atelier Willinger, Berlin.

French postcard by Edition Victoria PW, no. 616.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), USC Libraries, www.filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

Square-jawed, craggy-looking Jack Hawkins (1910-1973) was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. One of the most popular British film stars of the 1950s, he often played coolly efficient military officers in such films as The Cruel Sea (1953), Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

British postcard in the Picturegoer series, no. W 44. Photo: British Lion.

Jack Hawkins in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 8304. Photo: Columbia. Photo: The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957).

Journey's End

John Edward ‘Jack’ Hawkins was born in London in 1910. He was the youngest child to Thomas George Hawkins, a master builder and Phoebe (nee Goodman). He was educated at Wood Green’s Trinity County Grammar School, where, aged eight, he joined the school choir. By the age of ten by, his singing had developed so well that he had joined the local operatic society, making his stage debut in Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan.

His parents enrolled him in the Italia Conti Academy and whilst he was studying there he made his London stage debut, when aged eleven, playing the Elf King in Where the Rainbow Ends, a Christmas pantomime that also included the young Noël Coward. The following year, aged 14, he played the page in a production of Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw.

Five years later he was in a production of Beau Geste alongside Laurence Olivier. By the age of 18, he appeared on Broadway as Second Lieutenant Hibbert in R. C. Sherriff’s Journey’s End, directed by James Whale. At 21, he was back in London playing a young lover in Autumn Crocus. He married his leading lady, Jessica Tandy.

In the 1930s Hawkins' focus was on the stage. He worked in the companies of Sybil Thorndike, John Gielgudand Basil Dean. His performances included Port Said by Emlyn Williams (1931), Below the Surface by HL Stoker and LS Hunt (1932), Red Triangle by Val Gielgud (1932), Service by CI Anthony, for director Basil Dean (1933), One of Us by Frank Howard, As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1933) and Iron Flowers by Cecil Lewis (1933), with his wife Jessica Tandy.

He did start appearing in films, predominantly ‘quota quickies’ of the time: including an uncredited bit role in the mystery Birds of Prey (Basil Dean, 1930), his first proper role in the sound version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger (Maurice Elvey, 1932), starring Ivor Novello, the comedy The Good Companions (Victor Saville, 1933), and the romance Autumn Crocus (Basil Dean, 1934).

Stage roles included Iron Mistress (1934) by Arthur Macrae; then an open air Shakespeare festival - As You Like It (1934) with Anna Neagle, Twelfth Night (1934), and Comedy of Errors (1934). In the years leading up to the Second World War, he often worked with Gielgud, most notably in the 1940 production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, in which Hawkins excelled in the role of Algernon Moncrieff.

Films in the late 1930s included the comedy Beauty and the Barge (Henry Edwards, 1937) with Gordon Harker, the crime film The Frog (Jack Raymond, 1937), the war film Who Goes Next? (Maurice Elvey, 1938), and the crime film The Flying Squad (Herbert Brenon, 1940).

Italian postcard by Bromostampa, Milano, no. 78.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1288. Photo: Rank Film. Publicity still for The Long Arm (Charles Frend, 1956).

The fourth most popular British star

During World War II, Jack Hawkins volunteered as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He spent most of his military career arranging entertainment for the British forces in India. One of the actresses who came out to India was Doreen Lawrence who became his second wife after the war. During his military service he made The Next of Kin (Thorold Dickenson, 1942) for Ealing Studios.

Hawkins left the army in July 1946. Two weeks later he appeared on stage in The Apple Cart at ten pounds a week. The following year he starred in Othello, to a mixed reception. Hawkins's wife became pregnant and he became concerned about his future. He decided to accept a contract with Alexander Korda for three years at £50 a week.

Hawkins had been recommended to Korda by the latter's production executive, Bill Bryden, who was married to Elizabeth Allen, who had worked with Hawkins. The association began badly when Hawkins was cast in Korda's notorious flop Bonnie Prince Charlie (Anthony Kimmins, 1948) as Lord George Murray. However he followed it with a good role in the successful, highly acclaimed The Fallen Idol (1948) for Carol Reed. He played Detective Ames opposite Ralph Richardson.

Also acclaimed was the war-time thriller The Small Back Room (1949), for Powell and Pressburger. Hawkins then impressed as the villain in State Secret (Sidney Gilliat, 1950), withDouglas Fairbanks Jnr. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to support Tyrone Power and Orson Welles in an expensive historical epic, The Black Rose (Henry Hathaway, 1950).

He made another film with Powell and Pressburger for Korda, The Elusive Pimpernel (1950), playing The Prince of Wales. Hawkins played the lead in The Adventurers (David MacDonald, 1951), shot in South Africa, then he had a good role in another Hollywood-financed film shot in England, No Highway in the Sky (Henry Koster, 1951), with James Stewart. It was followed by a British thriller directed by and starring Ralph Richardson, Home at Seven (1952). In the spring of 1951 he went to Broadway and played Mercutio in a production of Romeo and Juliet with Olivia de Havilland.

Hawkins became a star with the release of three successful films in which he played stern but sympathetic authority figures: Angels One Five (George More O'Ferrall, 1951), as a RAF officer during the war; The Planter's Wife (Ken Annakin, 1952), as a rubber planter combating communists in the Malayan Emergency with Claudette Colbert; and Mandy (Alexander Mackendrick, 1952), the gruffly, humane headmaster of a school for deaf children. All films ranked among the top ten most popular films at the British box office in 1952 and British exhibitors voted him the fourth most popular British star at the local box office.

British postcard by L.D. LTD., London, in the Film Star Autograph Portrait series, no. 96. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD. Publicity still for The Seekers (Ken Annakin, 1954).

British autograph card.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Jack Hawkins consolidated his new status with The Cruel Sea (Charles Frend, 1953). Suffering from lifelong real life sea sickness, he played the driven Captain Ericson of the Compass Rose, a naval officer during the war. Clive Saunders at BritMovie: “The film is a triumph as an unsentimental depiction of the ugly realities of war at sea, the hardships the crews go through, their highs and lows together, the sense of pride when the job is done. Hawkins is superb as the Captain of the Corvette, Saltash Castle, tasked with protecting the convoys, and gives a vivid portrayal of a man with the heavy responsibility of making life-or-death decisions that affect hundreds of his colleagues.”

The Cruel Sea was the most successful film of the year and saw Hawkins voted the most popular star in Britain regardless of nationality. Malta Story (Alexander Mackendrick, 1953) was another military story, with Hawkins as an RAF officer in the Siege of Malta during the war. It too was a hit, the ninth most popular film in Britain in 1953. He had a guest role in Twice Upon a Time (1953) for Emeric Pressburger.

The Seekers (Ken Annakin, 1954) was partly shot in New Zealand and cast Hawkins in a rare romantic role. It was followed by The Prisoner (Peter Glenville, 1955), an unconventional drama, playing the interrogator of a priest (Alec Guinness). None of these films were that successful but Hawkins was still voted the fifth biggest star at the British box office for 1954, and the most popular British one.

Hawkins received a Hollywood offer to play a pharaoh in Land of the Pharaohs (Howard Hawks, 1955). He returned home to make an Ealing comedy, Touch and Go (Michael Truman, 1955), which was not particularly popular. He was more comfortably cast as a police officer in The Long Arm (Charles Frend, 1956) and a test pilot in The Man in the Sky (Charles Crichton, 1957). He was an insurance investigator in Sidney Gilliat's Fortune Is a Woman (1957).

Hawkins's career received a major boost when given the third lead in The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957), supporting William Holden and Alec Guinness as Major Warden, the fervent demolition expert. This was a massive hit and highly acclaimed. Clive Saunders: “Hawkins was somewhat unlucky not to win either of the Best Supporting Actor Awards for his portrayal of the determined and indomitable explosives expert, played with the archetypal ‘stiff-upper-lip, jolly good show’ attitude of a British officer, intent on completing his mission at all costs.”

Hawkins next played the lead role of Inspector George Gideon, the over-worked police detective in Gideon's Day/Gideon of Scotland Yard (John Ford, 1958). He had a good role as a double agent in a war film, The Two-Headed Spy (Andre de Toth, 1958) then was given another third lead in a Hollywood blockbuster Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959), playing the Roman soldier who befriends Charlton Heston. Melinda Hildebrandt in the Encyclopedia of British Film: “his most commanding turn of all, Quintus Arrius.”

Ben-Hur was even more successful than The Bridge on the River Kwai. In 1958, Hawkins was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama. He appeared as one of The Four Just Men (1959) in the Sapphire Films TV series for ITV, one of the most ambitious British TV series ever made.

In sharp contrast to his conservative screen image, Hawkins was politically liberal, and an emotional man. One of his favourite films, the heist movie The League of Gentlemen (Basil Dearden, 1960), was considered quite groundbreaking for its time in its references to sex. The film was popular at the British box office. However, though initially sought for the role of a gay barrister in Victim (Basil Dearden, 1960), the ground-breaking film examining the persecution and blackmail of homosexuals. Reportedly, Hawkins turned it down fearing that it might conflict with his masculine image. The role was eventually played by Dirk Bogarde.

Yugoslavian postcard by Sedmo Silo / IOM, Beograd.

Jack Hawkins and Cliff Robertson in Masquerade (1965)

Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Masquerade (Basil Dearden, 1965).

Lawrence of Arabia

A three-packet-a-day chain smoker, Jack Hawkins began experiencing voice problems in the late 1950s. Unknown to the public he had undergone cobalt treatment in 1959 for what was then described as a secondary condition of the larynx, but which was probably cancer. Hawkins became worried about his voice and was concerned he would lose it. This caused him to take any work going.

This may explain why he took the part of General Cornwallis in the French-Italian biographical epic Lafayette (Jean Dréville, 1961). He was third lead to Shirley MacLaine and Laurence Harvey in Two Loves (Charles Walters, 1961), and supported Rosalind Russell in Five Finger Exercise (Daniel Mann, 1962).

He was in another big hit in Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), as General Allenby. Zulu (Cy Endfield, 1964) gave him a good role as Otto Witt, a pacifist missionary with a drink problem, continually imploring Stanley Baker‘s men to lay down their arms or die. It was however clearly a support part and Hawkins' days as a star seemed to be over.

He had supporting parts in Guns at Batasi (John Guillermin, 1964) and Lord Jim (Richard Brooks, 1965). In December 1965, Hawkins was diagnosed with throat cancer. His entire larynx was removed in January 1966. In March of that year, he appeared at a royal screening of Born Free attended by Queen Elizabeth II and received a standing ovation. Thereafter his performances were dubbed, often (with Hawkins's approval) by Robert Rietti or Charles Gray. Hawkins continued to smoke after losing his voice. In private, he used a mechanical larynx to aid his speech.

He resumed his acting career, with his voice dubbed and dialogue kept to a minimum: Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968) with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot, Great Catherine (Gordon Flemyng, 1968) featuring Jeanne Moreau, and the musical Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969). He had an operation to restore his voice in 1968. It did not work; Hawkins could talk but it was a in a croaking voice.

Some rare comedies followed: Monte Carlo or Bust (Ken Annakin, 1969), Twinky (Richard Donner, 1970), and The Adventures of Gerard (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970). More typical were Waterloo (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1970), When Eight Bells Toll (Etienne Perier, 1971) with Anthony Hopkins, Nicholas and Alexandra (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1971) and Kidnapped (Delbert Mann, 1971) with Michael Caine.

The Last Lion (Elmo De Witt, 1972), shot in South Africa, offered him a rare lead. It was followed by Young Winston (Richard Attenborough, 1972), Escape to the Sun (Menahem Golan, 1972), and the horror film Tales That Witness Madness (Freddie Francis, 1973). In his last major part, that of Solomon Psaltery in the comedy-horror Theatre of Blood (Douglas Hickox, 1973), he was very cleverly cast in a substantial role that required no dialogue whatsoever. It was so well conceived that the viewer never realises this.

Hawkins also produced the film adaptation of Peter Barnes's The Ruling Class (Peter Medak, 1972), with Peter O'Toole and Alastair Sim. In May 1973 Hawkins undertook an experimental operation on his throat to insert an artificial voicebox. He started hemorrhaging and was admitted to a hospital, forcing him to drop out of The Tamarind Seed (Blake Edwards, 1974), in which Hawkins was to have played a Russian general.

Jack Hawkins died in 1973 of a secondary hemorrhage. He was 62. His final appearance was in the television miniseries QB VII. Ironically, Hawkins' biography was titled Anything for a Quiet Life. It was published after his death. Jack Hawkins was married to Jessica Tandy from 1932 to 1940 and later to Doreen Lawrence from 1947 until his death in 1973. He had a daughter, Susan, with Tandy and two sons, Nicholas and Andrew, with Lawrence.

Trailer The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957). Source: Dubbing Studio (YouTube).

Trailer The League of Gentlemen (1960). Source: Night of the Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: Clive Saunders (BritMovie), Melinda Hildebrandt (Encyclopedia of British Film), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Dale O'Connor (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

During the First World War, the German government stimulated the film industry and the star system in Germany by subsidising film postcards. It worked. One of the most popular series was the Film Sterne series by publisher Rotophot. A typical example is the set of postcards made for Die Tochter der Gräfin Stachowska/The Daughter of Countess Stachowksa (Otto Rippert, 1917), produced by the great Erich Pommer for the Decla studio. The film's star is Hella Moja.

Hella Moja in Die Tochter des Gräfin Stachowska (1917)

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 511/1. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Die Tochter der Gräfin Stachowska (Otto Rippert, 1917) with Hella Moja.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 511/2. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Die Tochter der Gräfin Stachowska (Otto Rippert, 1917) with Hella Moja.

A poor Polish aristocrat

During the First World War and the following years Hella Moja (1890-1951) was one of the most popular stars of the German silent cinema. There was even a Hella Moja serial and in 1918 she founded her own film company.

In Die Tochter des Gräfin Stachowska/The Daughter of Countess Stachowksa (Otto Rippert, 1917) Moja plays a poor Polish aristocrat, who marries a rich man. She loves another man, but eventually returns to the other.

Die Tochter der Gräfin Stachowska was scripted by Paul Otto and photographed by Carl Hoffmann. The film was co-produced by Moja and legendary producer Erich Pommer. Moja's co-actors were Werner Krauss, Tony Tetzlaff, Thea Sandten, and a young Hans Albers, whose fourth film this was and his first substantial part.

Our sources differ about which film company produced the film. Filmportal.de indicates this was a Decla-Film-Gesellschaft Holz & Co., but the Murnau Stiftung claims it was produced by Moja's own film company Hella Moja Film-GmbH. We think Filmportal.de is right here. German Wikipedia writes that Moja founded her film company in 1918, and the postcards definitively show the Decla logo.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 511/3. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Die Tochter der Gräfin Stachowska (Otto Rippert, 1917) with Hella Moja.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 511/4. Photo: Decla. Publicity still for Die Tochter der Gräfin Stachowska (Otto Rippert, 1917) with Hella Moja.

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

French singer Mireille Mathieu (1946) has recorded over 1200 songs in eleven languages, with more than 150 million albums sold worldwide. She also appeared in a few films.

East-German postcard by VEB Bild und Heimat Reichenbach i.V., no. G 6645, 1972. Photo: Ariola / Marouani / Archiv Weise, Berlin.

East-German postcard by VEB Bild und Heimat Reichenbach i.V., no. G 6646. Photo: Ariola / Marouani / Archiv Weise.

Very stubborn

Mireille Mathieu was born in 1946 in Avignon, France. She was the eldest daughter of fourteen children of Roger and Marcelle Mathieu. The Mathieu family lived in poverty, with a huge improvement in their living conditions in 1954, when subsidised housing was built in the Malpeigné quarter. Roger once dreamed of becoming a singer, but his father disapproved, inspiring him to have one of his children learn to sing with him in church. Mireille included his operatic voice on her 1968 Christmas album, where it was mixed in with the Minuit Chrétiens song.

Mireille's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop when she sang on Christmas Eve 1950 during Midnight Mass. A defining moment was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television. Mireille performed poorly in elementary school because of dyslexia, requiring an extra year to graduate.

At age 14, she abandoned higher education, and began work in a local factory where she helped with the family income and paid for her singing lessons. Popular at work, she often sang songs at lunch, or while working. Mathieu began her career by participating in an annual singing contest in Avignon called On Chante dans mon Quartier (We sing in my neighbourhood). Talent scouts made this a worthwhile event for singers within hundreds of kilometers to participate in.

Self-described as very stubborn in her autobiography, she wrote about singing love songs that the audience thought were inappropriate for a young girl. Thus, losing to Michèle Torr in 1962 when she sang Les cloches de Lisbonne at the first contest, and losing again in 1963 singing Édith Piaf's L'Hymne à l'amour. In 1964, though, she won the event with another Piaf song: La Vie en rose.

Her win was rewarded with a free trip to Paris, and a pre-audition for the televised talent show Jeu de la Chance (Game of Luck). This was a talent segment of the popular program Télé-Dimanche (TV Sunday), where amateur singers competed for audience and telephone votes.

During a 1965 summer gala, she met her future manager Johnny Stark. Stark had worked with singers such as Yves Montand, and the relationship between him and Mathieu is often described as resembling that between Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley. Stark is credited with making her a star and the successor to Piaf. By 1968, under his careful management, she was France's most popular singer.

Mathieu appeared in cameos in several films, including the Russian production Zhurnalist/The Journalist (Sergey Gerasimov, 1967), the French comedy L'événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la lune/A Slightly Pregnant Man (Jacques Demy, 1973) with Catherine Deneuve, the comedy La bonne année/Happy New Year (Claude Lelouch, 1973) and the French short C'est plus fort que moi/It’s stronger than me (Gilles Marchand, 1999).

Belgian postcard by Edt. Decker, Brussels, no. A 106.

French postcard by Ed. Lyna, Paris, no. 2011, offered by Corvisart.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. With Sacha Distel.

The Sparrow from Avignon

In 1965, Mireille Mathieu was invited to Paris to sing on the TV show Song Parade and competed live on the Sunday 21 November 1965 episode of Jeu de la Chance. Both the studio audience and telephone voters gave her a slight lead over five-time winner Georgette Lemaire, so the producers called it a tie.

Johnny Stark officially became her manager that night, and helped prepare Mireille to win the contest the following week and bury Georgette. In the middle of her seven consecutive performances on Télé-Dimanche, she performed a concert at the Paris Olympia, which propelled her to stardom. She performed the only three Édith Piafsongs she had memorized, and was hailed in the press, in France and abroad, as the Piaf d'Avignon (Sparrow from Avignon), in reference to Piaf's nickname Sparrow of the Streets.

Stark then abandoned the Piaf direction he was taking her. The Olympia performance convinced a skeptical Paul Mauriat to work with Mathieu, and song writer André Pascal joined forces to develop her into a successful act. Together they wrote new modern material for her: Mon crédo, Viens dans ma rue, La première étoile and many other hit songs.

Her first album En Direct de L'Olympia was released in 1966. Highly acclaimed, the album made her a star outside France. A regular early contributor of material was Francis Lai, who wrote two songs: C'est ton nom, and Un homme et une femme for her first album, and often accompanied her with his accordion on television. Mireille spent all of 1966 and 1967 touring.

Her first major purchases were a vehicle for her father's business and a large home for her parents and siblings. She had a telephone installed for the family, so her parents no longer had to go to the pharmacy to talk to her while she was in Paris. Mireille sang twice at the London Palladium during royal performances in 1967, and in 1969. Her French cover of Engelbert Humperdinck's The Last Waltz (La dernière valse) generated much publicity in Great Britain and became a hit. She also toured Canada and the United States, where she appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Danny Kaye Show. While on a visit to Hollywood, she met Elvis Presley, and in Las Vegas, Nevada she sang with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

French postcard by PSG, no. 475. Photo: Alain / Disques Barclay.

French postcard by PSG, no. 1290. Photo: Alain / Barclay.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 509. Photo: Sam Lévin.

A conservative relic

During the next decades, Mireille Mathieu remained a popular artist in France and Europe. In 1971, Barclay was unable to meet the demands for records. Johnny Stark then made a contract for Philips Records to issue all the singles, and EPs, resulting in a US$1 Million lawsuit from Barclay for breach of contract. Barclay's contract was to run until 1972.

In 1972, Mathieu toured Canada and produced a live album. Johnny Stark suffered his first heart attack while making arrangements for this concert. In 1986, Mathieu performed a concert in Beijing, China. In 1988, Mathieu published her autobiography with co-author Jacqueline Cartier, Oui Je Crois (Yes, I Believe) which is taken from the lyrics of Mon crédo, her first recording.

The book was seen as a final chapter in her career. The French public had pretty much disowned her, as a conservative relic. She was considered a pre-revolution (1968) Gaullist figurehead. In 1989, President François Mitterrand invited Mathieu to sing a tribute to General Charles de Gaulle. Johnny Stark died the same year after his second heart attack.

Her sister Monique stepped in to become her business manager, and the two women have remained profitable in the industry ever since. In 1990, she gave a series of concerts at the Palais des Congrès in Paris. In 1993, she released two albums devoted to her idol, Édith Piaf, essentially retracing her roots. One album was in French; the other, in German.

In January 1996, Vous lui Direz was released, followed in 1999, by a German album Alles nur ein Spiel, with Francis Lai on accordion. In 2002, Mathieu released her thirty-seventh French album: De tes Mains, followed by a series of concerts at the Paris Olympia. In 2008, she was a guest of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and performed a concert in his honor. The two visited the tent of visiting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

In 2010, Mireille Mathieu was awarded the Russian Medal of Friendship by President Dmitry Medvedev In January 2011, Mireille was promoted from Chevalier (1999) to Officier of the Légion d'honneur. Mathieu has never been married and has no children. She has recorded about 1200 songs in 9 different languages and has released 38 studio albums to date.

Original scopitone clip with Mireille Mathieu singing Mon crédo (1966). Source: TBH (YouTube).

Mireille Mathieu sings La vie en rose. Source: Hugo Reyes (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Maxime Desjardins (1861-1936) was a French stage and screen actor, who peaked in the French silent cinema of the 1920s. From 1912 Desjardins acted in cinema, first in short films at Pathé Frères and at Eclair, later in feature films by such acclaimed directors as Abel Gance, Julien Duvivier and Henri Diamant-Berger.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 94. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

The Three Musketeers

Maxime Desjardins was born in 1861 in Auxerre (Burgundy), France.

He started his stage acting career in Paris around 1890 at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique, shifting around 1895 to the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, and around 1902 to the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt. Between 1906 and 1917 he was a regular actor at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, where he often played under the direction of André Antoine.

From 1912 Maxime Desjardins acted in cinema, first in short films at Pathé Frères and at Eclair. For Pathé he appeared in Patrie (Albert Capellani, 1914), starring Henry Krauss and Paul Capellani, and for Eclair in L'aiglon (Emile Chautard, 1913), with Emile Chautard as Napoleon.

In 1916 Desjardins acted in four films at Pathé, including Coeur de Française (Gaston Leprieur, 1916), a propagandist spy drama in which he had the male lead as inventor Aubry opposite André Pascal as his wife. All the actors in the film were acclaimed stage actors, such as Albert Dieudonné.

Desjardins' film career really set off after the First World War. He was Maria Lazare in Abel Gance's J'accuse (1919) with Séverin-Mars and Romuald Joubé. He played Tréville in Les trois mousquetaires (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921) with Aimé Simon-Girard, and Commander Doguereau and General petit in L'agonie des aigles (Dominique Bernard-Deschamps, Julien Duvivier, 1922) with Gaby Morlay and Séverin-Mars.

In 1922, he also appeared as the count Marnay in Mimi-Trottin (Henri Andréani, 1922) with Louise Lagarange in the title role, the protagonist François Roquevillard in Les Roquevillard (Julien Duvivier, 1922), the Grandduke in Les mystères de Paris (Charles Burguet, 1922), and king Charles I in Vingt ans après (Henri Diamant-Berger 1922), the sequel to Les trois mousquetaires.

French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 133. Photo: Comoedia.

The Titanic disaster

In 1924, Maxim Desjardins was the abbott D'Areynes in La mendiante de Sainte-Sulpice (Charles Burguet, 1924), starring Gaby Morlay and Charles Vanel, and he played Pierre Millot in the murder mystery La double existence de Lord Samsey (Maurice Kéroul, Georges Monca, 1924), starring Geneviève Félix.

In 1925 he was baron D'anvilliers in Nantas (Donatien, 1925), avoiding the suicide of the main character (Donatien) by offering him to marry the baron's daughter Flavie (Lucienne Legrand) who expects an illegitimate child.

Afterwards, Desjardins was the Regent in Le bossu (Jean Kemm, 1925), starring Gaston Jacquet, and Jean Sérès in Le coeur des gueux (Alfred Machin, Henri Wulschleger, 1925), starring Ginette Maddie.

In 1926-1927 Desjardins acted again under the direction of Donatien in Simone (1926) and Florine, la fleur du Valois (1927). His last silent film was La grande épreuve (1928), directed by André Dugès-Delzescauts and Alexandre Ryder.

Desjardins did make the passage to sound cinema in Marcel L'Herbier's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (1930), starring Roland Toutain and Huguette Duflos, and the French version of E.A. Dupont's Atlantic, called Atlantis (1930), co-directed by Jean Kemm. He actually had one of the leads in this film based on the Titanic disaster, which co-starred Alice Field and Constant Rémy.

However, Desjardins's sound film career was brief. His last role was in the Agatha Christie adaptation Le coffret de laque (1932), starring Danielle Darrieux, and based on Christie's The Red Lacquer Case.

From 1921 to 1930 Desjardins was also 'sociétaire' at the Comédie-Française, playing in the classic repertory of plays by Molière and Shakespeare, but also more recent authors such as Mérimée and Maeterlinck. Maxime Desjardins died in 1936 in Venice, Italy.

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 1. Caption: Scene in the Salon of the Regent. Maxime Desjardins as The Regent in Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925). The story deals with Chevalier Lagardère (Gaston Jacquet), who wants to avenge the death of his friend, killed by the Prince of Gonzaga many years ago. The film was based on the homonymous novel by Paul Féval, who was co-scenarist for the film as well. Jealous of the other man's riches, Gonzaga (Marcel Vibert) kills Nevers (Jean Lorette) in a treacherous duel and marries his widow, Aurore (Claude France). But Lagardère steals Irène, the child of Nevers and Aurore. Several years after, he returns pretending to be the hunchback of the Rue Quincampoix. He unmasks Gonzaga and holds Irène's (Nilde Duplessy) hand in return. Le Bossu was probably the first production of cinema owner Jacques Haïk, who would become an active French film producer and film distributor in the early sound era.

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 9. Publicity still for Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925) with Maxime Desjardins as Le Régent. Caption: "Le luxe n'est rien sans le goût et la mesure. 'Le Bossu' est monté avec goût et la mesure: voici un film Français." (Luxury is nothing without taste and measure. 'The Bossu' is mounted with taste and measurement: here is a French film.)

Sources: Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

Today's post is a carte blanche for my friend, collector Carla Bosch (a.k.a. Meiter). Carla: "My postcard collection started when my husband gave me a book: Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. It is an imagined biography about Marilyn Monroe. I was sold. I wanted to know everything about her and started reading books about Marilyn and collecting her postcards. I did not realise there were so many modern postcards. I decided to restrict myself to the original, old postcards. They are, however, rather expensive, so I don't have too many of those. That makes it easier to choose, fortunately."

"A few years ago, it did bring me into contact with a new friend in the UK: she has a very extensive postcard collection of Marilyn Monroe. Once in a while I buy a few from her (modern cards). When I told her about the list, she sent me pictures of a few of her 'old' Marilyn postcards. There is, I think, a difference between our collections: I always have liked (kitschy) pin up cards of the sixties and seventies, so my cards are mostly pictures of Marilyn in bathing suit or sexy outfit. My friend's cards are more virtuous (yes Tink, they are), though that is rather difficult in the case of sex bomb Marilyn Monroe. "

"Here they are, a combination of my friend's and my original postcards:"

1. "My absolute pride. I have not seen this card very often. I think it was made to promote River of No Return, but I am not sure. On the back it only says Nr. PU 13. Perhaps it is part of a series P(in) U(p) cards. It does not matter: I think it's beautiful, I like to boast of it and I am very careful with it."

2. "I think this is the kind of card which many beginning film stars had made. I like those cards; they are not vulgar. They radiate a kind of optimism; maybe it has something to do with the period after the Second World War when everybody was relieved and hopeful. There is a similar postcard, but coloured:"

3. "Beautiful! The colours make it more radiant. She has a combination of vulnerability and provocative sex appeal. Marilyn was not the only pin up, of course. She was one of many who tried to make it as an actress. She eventually made it in Hollywood, yet always remained a pin up girl. I have one more original pin up card of her:"

4. "On this card she seems older, with a fuller figure. Wonderful, just like an ordinary woman. Enough about Marilyn's body. She was more than that."

5. "Even on promotional cards for her films, she did not lose the air of being a pin up. This is a German card for River of No Return in 1954. Her sex bomb charisma probably did contribute to her success in movies, yet she did have talent as a comedic actress: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot, and The Seven Year Itch are all funny movies which still stand firm today."

6. "You always had the feeling with Marilyn that she laughed with every fibre of her being. This is such a picture. Strange, when you consider she did not lead a very happy life. She was afraid she would end the way her mother did: in a mental institution. There was definitely a flaw in Marilyn's character, but she tried to laugh it away bravely."

7. "This is an Italian Rotalfoto card. I have no idea when or where it was taken. I guess in 1953 when Gentlemen Prefer Blondes came out. I like it. With the flowers in front of her. I wonder what it would have looked like if the card was coloured..."

8. "In this picture Marilyn seems to be a celebrated, happy movie star. I will not say it again: that the opposite was true."

9 and 10. "These are German publicity cards for Let's Make Love (1960). Shooting this movie had been rather stressful: the other main character, Yves Montand, did not speak English and had difficulties to understand and pronounce his lines. Marilyn already had a reputation of coming too late on the set and forgetting her text. On top of that Yves and Marilyn became romantically involved while their respective spouses, Simone Signoret and Arthur Miller, were present. Marilyn looks older in this picture. Is it the hair, her laugh, her more composed appearance? But beautiful as ever."

11. "With Marilyn, you never knew whether she was acting or just being herself. There probably was not much difference between Marilyn, the actress, and Marilyn, the 'original'Norma Jeane Mortenson. I guess it was difficult for her to make a distinction between real life and movies. She always knew when there were cameras present and acted accordingly. Unfortunately, she was always being filmed and photographed and her life became a real-life soap."

12. "There are numerous modern cards of Marilyn Monroe. Many photographers photographed her (Richard Avedon, Milton Greene, Bernard of Hollywood, Bert Stern....). I cannot choose a favourite photographer, because Marilyn Monroe is photogenic and all cameras love her. Yet, there are also many editors that edit modern cards of her. And I do have a favourite editor: Zoetrope Images. Zoetrope Images publishes cards which all combine this innocent and sex bomb charisma. This card is one of them: Marilyn in We're Not Married (1952).

As you could read: it is difficult to talk/write about Marilyn Monroe and not mention her appearance. She was not fit for a modelling career, because she did not have the right body. She did, however, make it in the world of movies. Her body and appearance certainly helped. But let's not forget she was a talented comedic actress and received a Golden Globe for Best Actress in 1960.

I think it would also be interesting to make a list with actresses and pin up models who resembled Marilyn Monroe. Some thought it a compliment to be compared to Marilyn, others thought it was an insult to be compared to her. Perhaps an idea for the next list?"

Great idea. Thank you so much for this guest post, Carla! And also thanks to Tink for borrowing her postcards for this post!

British film actress Anne Heywood (1932) started her career as Miss Great Britain in 1950. In the mid-1950s, she began to play supporting roles as the ‘nice girl’ for Rank. Gradually she evolved into a leading lady, best known for her dramatic roles in the pioneer lesbian drama The Fox (1967) and the 'nunsploitation' La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969).

Italian postcard by Bromophoto, Milano, no. 1283. Photo: Rank Film. Publicity still for Dangerous Exile (1958).

Knockout Brunette

Anne Heywood was born as Violet Joan Pretty in Handsworth (now Birmingham), England in 1932. She was one of seven children. Her father, Harold Pretty, was a former orchestral violinist, turned factory worker. Her mother died when Violet was just 13.

Violet had to leave school at 14 to look after the younger members of her family. This frustrated her wish to go to art school. Instead she joined in 1947 the Highbury Little Theatre in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and stayed there for two years gaining stage experience.

At only 17, the knockout brunette won the National Bathing Beauty Contest in 1950, later renamed as the Miss Great Britain contest. Her prizes were £1000 and a silver rose bowl. The following year she made her film debut as a beauty contestant in the comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (Frank Launder, 1951) with Dennis Price.

That year she also became the personal assistant of Carroll Levis, a talent spotter on a radio show, which toured along the main theatres of Great Britain. She stayed at the show for four years and even appeared three times with the show on television. Heywood attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

While playing the principal boy in Aladdin at the Chelsea Palace, she was spotted by a talent scout for the Rank Organisation. In 1956, she signed a seven-year contract and her name was changed to Anne Heywood. According to Glamour Girls at the Silver Screen she later recalled: “I always hated my name. It sounded unreal.”

For Rank, she appeared in supporting roles as the 'nice girl'. Her films included the comedy Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) starring Dirk Bogarde, the crime drama Violent Playground (Basil Dearden, 1958) opposite Stanley Baker, and the adventure Dangerous Exile (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1958) starring Louis Jourdan. Gradually Heywood evolved into a leading lady.

British postcard in the Celebrity Autograph Series, London, no. 335. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1958).

Nunsploitation

Anne Heywood met producer Raymond Stross in 1959 at the set of A Terrible Beauty/The Night Fighters (Tay Garnett, 1960) starring Robert Mitchum. A year later they married in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 16 years her senior. Stross started to reshape her image with such sexy, offbeat dramas as The Very Edge (Cyril Frankel, 1963) with Richard Todd, and 90 Degrees in the Shade (Jiri Weiss, 1965). At the Berlin Film Festival, the latter won the International Critics' Prize.

Her breakthrough role was Ellen March in The Fox (Mark Rydell, 1967), co-starring Sandy Dennis. This film adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence novella caused controversy at the time due to its lesbian theme. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb on Heywood and Dennis: “the two were quite believable as an unhappy, isolated couple whose relationship is irreparably shattered by the appearance of a handsome stranger (Keir Dullea). At the height of the movie's publicity, Playboy magazine revealed a ‘pictorial essay’ just prior to its 1967 release with Anne in a nude and auto-erotic spread.”

Heywood was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. The Fox, a Canadian film, did win the Best Foreign Film Golden Globe. Heywood did not win. The Fox is now respected as a pioneer, ground-breaking lesbian film.

Heywood’s next film was La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (Eriprando Visconti, 1969) with Hardy Krüger. This controversial drama tells the tale of how a 17th-century Italian nun's long repressed sexual passion is awakened when a handsome nobleman rapes and impregnates her. Later she is captured and captured and given a horrible life sentence. This ‘true story’ of Sister Virginia, the nun of Monza, was shot in a fifteenth-century castle 27 miles north of Rome and in medieval churches in Lombardy, where the original story took place. This quite nasty and exploitative drama grossed more than $1,000,000 in its initial run in Italy and paid back its negative cost in three weeks. The box office success lead to an Italian sub-genre of ‘nunsploitation’ films in the 1970s.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no 1498. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1958).

The Killer Is on the Phone

Anne Heywood and Raymond Stross moved from Switzerland to the US. Despite the Golden Globe nomination and the Playboy spread, Heywood never endeared herself to American filmgoers. Her Hollywood productions as the caper Midas Run (Alf Kjellin, 1969) with Fred Astaire, and the action drama The Chairman (J. Lee Thompson, 1969) with Gregory Peck were no successes.

She seemed drawn toward highly troubled, flawed characters, like in I Want What I Want (John Dexter, 1972) and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1979).

In the 1970s, she also appeared in several Italian films, including the Giallo L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (Alberto De Martino, 1972) with Telly Savalas and Willeke van Ammelrooy, the nunsploitation Le monache di Sant'Arcangelo/The Nun & The Devil (Domenico Paolella, 1973) with Ornella Muti, and the romantic drama La prima volta sull'erba/Love Under the Elms (Gianluigi Calderone, 1975).

Her career declined in the 1980s. Her final feature was What Waits Below (Don Sharp, 1985). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “a goofy fantasy filmed on the cheap by the ever-canny Don Sharp. The story involves a team of anthropologists and military men who busy themselves exploring a serpentine system of subterranean caves. They discover of lost race of Albinos, which wreaks havoc upon the surface dwelling humans. The British actor Robert Powell and Timothy Bottoms star. According to some sources, Sharp and co. approached the production with extreme carelessness; thanks to an unfortunate accident, a large percentage of the cast and crew were almost fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide in the caves where the movie was filmed.”

Heywood's penultimate role was as Manon Brevard Marcel on the American TV series The Equalizer (1988), starring Edward Woodward. In 1988 her husband Raymond Stross died. The following year she was seen in a final television movie, Memories of Manon (Tony Wharmby, 1989) based on the character from The Equalizer.

After this role she retired. She remarried to George Danzig Druke, a former New York Assistant Attorney General. Anne Heywood Druke resides with her husband in Beverly Hills, USA. She has one son, Mark Stross (1963), with Raymond Stross.

Scene from The Fox (1967). Source: mrahole (YouTube).

Belgian journal item about La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969). Source: patsofilm (YouTube).

Trailer L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (1972). Source: CG Entertainment (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.