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Susannah York

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Lovely and free-spirited English film, stage and television actress Susannah York (1939-2011) epitomised the sensuality of the swinging Sixties. Her appearances in various hit films of the 1960s formed the basis of her international reputation. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. For Images, she won the Best Actress award at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.

Susannah York
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor. Photo: publicity still for Freud: The Secret Passion (John Huston, 1962).

Free-spirited and unreserved


Susannah York was born Susannah Yolande Fletcher in Chelsea, London, in 1939. She was the younger daughter of Simon William Peel Vickers Fletcher, a merchant banker and steel magnate, and his first wife, the former Joan Nita Mary Bowring. They married in 1935 and divorced prior to 1943. York had an elder sister, as well as a half-brother, Eugene.

In early 1943, her mother married a Scottish businessman, Adam M. Hamilton, and moved, with her daughter, to a remote village in Scotland. At the age of 11, York entered Marr College in Troon, Ayrshire. Later she became a boarder at Wispers School in the Sussex village of Stedham. At 13 she was expelled from Wispers after admitting to a nude midnight swim in the school pool, and she transferred to East Haddon Hall in Northamptonshire.

Enthusiastic about her experiences of acting at school (she had played an Ugly Sister in Cinderella at the age of nine), York first decided to apply to the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art; but after her mother had separated from her stepfather and moved to London, she instead auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). There she won the Ronson award for most promising student before graduating in 1958.

The fair-haired York with her dreamy blue eyes performed classical repertory and pantomime in her early professional career. In 1959, she married Michael Wells, with whom she had two children, daughter Sasha (born May 1972) and son Orlando (born June 1973). They divorced in 1976.

She made an impression on television in a production of The Crucible (Henry Kaplan, 1959) as Abigail Williams opposite Sean Connery as John Proctor. Her film career began with the drama Tunes of Glory (Ronald Neame, 1960), co-starring with Alec Guinness and John Mills. She also appeared in the Norman Wisdom comedy There Was a Crooked Man (Stuart Burge, 1960).

The following year, she played the leading role in the coming-of age drama The Greengage Summer (Lewis Gilbert, 1961), which co-starred Kenneth More and Danielle Darrieux. Next, she performed in the American film Freud: The Secret Passion (John Huston, 1962) with Montgomery Clift as Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The pseudobiographical drama compresses the years it took Freud to develop his psychoanalytic theories into what seems like a few months. Nearly every neurotic symptom imaginable manifests itself in one patient, Cecily Koertner (York), who is sexually repressed, hysterical, and fixated on her father.

Then, York played brazenly seductive Sophie Western in the bawdy and robust 18th century tale Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, 1963) opposite Albert Finney as the bed-hopping title rogue. Henry Fielding's classic novel was adapted for the screen by playwright John Osborne. It became one of the most critically acclaimed and popular comedies of its time, winning the Oscar for Best Film and three other Oscars and three BAFTA awards. Tom Jones was the third most popular at the British box office in 1963, and the 4th most popular in the United States. The film made York an international star. Roger Philip Mellor in the Encyclopedia of British Film: "With peaches-and-cream complexion, she was a cameraman's dream."

Opposite Warren Beatty, York played a a trendy Hampstead boutique owner in the crime film Kaleidoscope (Jack Smight, 1966). She also appeared in the biographical drama and Academy Award winner A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) with Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More, and in the groundbreaking lesbian drama The Killing of Sister George (Robert Aldrich, 1968). Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: “Free-spirited and unreserved, she had no trouble at all courting controversy in some of the film roles she went on to play.”

Susannah York
British postcard by the Philip Townsend Archive, no PT111. Photo: Philip Townsend, 1966.

A schizophrenic housewife, engulfed by terrorising apparitions


Susannah York was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969). The screenplay by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson is based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Horace McCoy. It focuses on a disparate group of characters desperate to win a Depression-era dance marathon and the opportunistic emcee (Gig Young) who urges them on to victory. The film also stars Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, and Bruce Dern. Young won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, while Fonda and York were nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. York lost to Goldie Hawn for her role in Cactus Flower (Gene Saks, 1969).

The Second World War film Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969)endeavoured to be an accurate account of the Battle of Britain, when in the summer and autumn of 1940 the British RAF inflicted a strategic defeat on the Luftwaffe and so ensured the cancellation of Operation Sea Lion – Adolf Hitler's plan to invade Britain. The film drew many respected British actors to accept roles as key figures of the battle, including Sir Laurence Olivier as Hugh Dowding and Trevor Howard as Keith Park.

The next year, she co-starred with George C. Scott as Edward Rochester in the TV-adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (Delbert Mann, 1970), and was Emmy-nominated for her beautifully nuanced role. She then played in Country Dance (J. Lee Thompson, 1970), one of her favourite films. It is a tragicomedy set in a fading Scottish aristocratic family, in which the drunken Sir Charles Henry Arbuthnot Pinkerton Ferguson (Peter O'Toole) has an incestuous relationship with his equally eccentric sister Hilary Dow (York).

In 1972, she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in the British-American psychological horror film Images (Robert Altman, 1972). She played a schizophrenic housewife, engulfed by terrorising apparitions. She kills off each, unknowing if these demons are merely figments of her hallucinatory imagination or part of reality. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best English-Language Foreign Film, but was not a commercial success.

York focused on her personal life, raising her two children for a time. She wrote two children's fantasy novels, In Search of Unicorns (1973, revised 1984) which was excerpted in the film Images, and Lark's Castle (1976, revised 1986).

On screen, she played Lara, the mother of Superman (Christopher Reeve) in the blockbuster Superman (Richard Donner, 1978) and its sequels, Superman II (Richard Lester, 1980) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (Sidney J. Furie, 1987). She divided her time between these commercial films and art-house films like The Maids (Christopher Miles, 1974), The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978) and Melancholia (Andi Engel, 1989). However, York failed to recapture the glow of her earlier screen career.

The actress decided to move to the theatre and appeared in 1978 at the New End Theatre in London in The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs with Lucinda Childs, directed by French director Simone Benmussa. This was the first of 10 projects she completed with the producer Richard Jackson. The following year, she appeared in Paris, speaking French in a play by Henry James: Appearances, with Samy Frey. The play was again directed by Benmussa.

Susannah York made extensive appearances in British television series, including Prince Regent (Ian Curteis, 1979), as Maria Fitzherbert, the clandestine wife of the future George IV, and We'll Meet Again (Tony Wharmby a.o., 1982).

Susannah York in Battle of Britain (1969)
British postcard by Dixon-Lotus Production, no. L6/8705, 1969. Photo: Spitfire Productions Ltd. Publicity still for Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969). Caption: Appearing in uniform for the first time in the film The Battle of Britain is lovely Susannah York. She portrays Section Officer Maggie Harvey, one of the W.A.A.F. heroines of the sixteen weeks summer battle of 1940.

Evoking both cheers and jeers


In the 1980s, Susannah York played on stage with Susan Hampshire in Simone Benmussa’s For No Good Reason, an adaptation of George Moore's short story. In 1984, York starred on-screen as Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (Clive Donner, 1984), based on the novel by Charles Dickens. George C. Scott starred as Ebenezer Scrooge, and both of her children co-starred as Cratchit offspring. In 1985 she appeared on stage in Fatal Attraction by Bernard Slade at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

In 1991, she was appointed an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters) by French culture minister Jack Lang. In 1992, she was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.

On television, York had a recurring role as hospital manager Helen Grant in BBC’s medical drama series Holby City (2003). She reprised this role in two episodes of Holby City's sister series Casualty in 2004.

In 2007, she appeared in the UK tour of The Wings of the Dove, and continued performing her internationally well received solo show, The Loves of Shakespeare's Women. Also in 2007, she guest starred in the Doctor Who audio play Valhalla. She was a patron of the Children's Film Unit and appeared in several of their films. P

Politically, she was left-wing and publicly supported Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli dissident who revealed Israel's nuclear weapons programme. While performing The Loves of Shakespeare's Women at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv in June 2007, York dedicated the performance to Vanunu, evoking both cheers and jeers from the audience.

In 2007, she also became the grandmother of Rafferty, child of her son Orlando. In 2008, she played the part of Nelly in a stage adaptation by April De Angelis of Wuthering Heights. In 2009, she starred alongside Jos Vantyler in the Tennessee Williams season at the New End Theatre, London for which she received critical acclaim.

Susannah York was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, but she refused chemotherapy in order to honour a contractual obligation to appear as Jean in Ronald Harwood's Quartet, at the Oxford Playhouse in August 2010. It was her last stage appearance. Her final film was The Calling (Jan Dunn, 2009) with Brenda Blethyn and Emily Beecham.

In 2011, Susannah York died at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London from multiple myeloma, six days after her 72nd birthday.


Trailer Tom Jones (1963). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).


Trailer Battle of Britain (1969). Source: 05HK09 (YouTube).


Spanish trailer Images (1972). Source: versatilhv (YouTube).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Roger Philip Mellor (Encyclopedia of British Film), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Nina Hagen

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German singer, songwriter, and actress Nina Hagen (1955) is known for her theatrical vocals and is often referred to as the ‘Godmother of Punk due to her prominence during the punk and new wave movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During her 40-years-career she appeared in several European films.

Nina Hagen
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 147/75. Photo: DEFA.

Nina Hagen
American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, no. CL/Personality # 132.

You Forgot the Colour Film


Catharina ’Nina’ Hagen was born in 1955) in the former East Berlin, German Democratic Republic. She was the daughter of scriptwriter Hans Hagen and actress and singer Eva-Maria Hagen (née Buchholz). Her paternal grandfather died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (her father was Jewish). Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and growing up, she saw her father infrequently.

At age four, she began to study ballet, and was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine. When Hagen was 11, her mother married Wolf Biermann, an anti-establishment singer-songwriter. Biermann's political views later influenced young Hagen.

Hagen left school at age sixteen and went to Poland, where she began her career. She later returned to Germany and joined the cover band, Fritzens Dampferband (Fritzen's Steamboat Band). She added songs by Janis Joplin and Tina Turner to the ‘allowable’ set lists during shows.

From 1972 to 1973, Hagen enrolled in the crash-course performance program at The Central Studio for Light Music in East Berlin. Upon graduating, she formed the band Automobil and released in 1974 the single Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film), a subtle dig mocking the sterile, grey, Communist state. Nina became one of the country's best-known young stars.

Hagen also appeared in several East-German films and TV films sometimes alongside her mother Eva-Maria Hagen, including Heiraten/Weiblich/Marrying/Female (Christa Kulosa, 1975), Heute ist Freitag/Today is Friday (Klaus Gendries, 1975), Liebesfallen/Love Traps (Werner W. Wallroth, 1976) and Unser stiller Mann/Our Quite Man (Bernhard Stephan, 1976).

Her career in the GDR was cut short after her stepfather Wolf Biermann's East German citizenship was withdrawn from him in 1976. Hagen and her mother followed him westwards to Hamburg. The circumstances surrounding the family's emigration were exceptional: Biermann was granted permission to perform a televised concert in Cologne, but denied permission to re-cross the border to his adopted home country.

Nina Hagen
Vintage postcard.

Nina Hagen
Vintage postcard.

Nina Hagen with Sacha
Dutch postcard by Art Unlimited, Amsterdam, no. C 1930. Photo: Bettie Ringma, 1980. Caption: Nina Hagen with Sacha, New York.

Nina Hagen Band


Nina Hagen was offered a record deal from CBS Records. Her label advised her to acclimatise herself to Western culture through travel, and she arrived in London during the height of the punk rock movement. Hagen was quickly taken up by a circle that included The Slits and The Sex Pistols.

Back in Germany by mid-1977, Hagen formed the Nina Hagen Band in West Berlin's Kreuzberg district. In 1978 they released their self-titled debut album, Nina Hagen Band, which included the single TV-Glotzer (a cover of White Punks on Dope by The Tubes, though with entirely different German lyrics), and Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo, about West Berlin's then-notorious Berlin Zoologischer Garten station. The album also included a version of Rangehn (Go for It), a song she had previously recorded in East Germany, but with different music.

The album received critical acclaim for its hard rock sound and for Hagen's theatrical vocals, far different from the straightforward singing of her East German recordings. It was a commercial success selling over 250,000 copies. Relations between Hagen and the other band members deteriorated over the course of the subsequent European tour. The band released one more album Unbehagen (Unease) before their break-up in 1979. It included the single African Reggae and Wir Leben Immer... Noch, a German language cover of Lene Lovich's Lucky Number.

Meanwhile, Hagen's public persona was steadily creating media uproar. She starred in two films. In Germany she made the experimental film Bildnis Einer Trinkerin/Portrait of a Female Drunkard (Ulrike Ottinger, 1979) with Tabea Blumenschein, Magdalena Montezuma and Eddie Constantine. She also acted with Dutch rocker Herman Brood and singer Lene Lovich in the Dutch film Cha Cha (Herbert Curiel, 1979). Brood and Hagen would have a long romantic relationship that would end when Hagen could no longer tolerate Brood's drug abuse. She would refer to Brood as her ‘soulmate’ long after Brood committed suicide in 2001.

In late 1980, Hagen discovered she was pregnant, broke up with the father-to-be the Dutch guitarist Ferdi Karmelk, who died in 1988, and she moved to Los Angeles. Her daughter, Cosma Shiva Hagen, was born in Santa Monica in 1981. In 1982, Hagen signed a new contract with CBS and released her debut solo album NunSexMonkRock, a dissonant mix of punk, funk, reggae, and opera. Her first English-language album became also her first record to chart in the United States.

She then went on a world tour with the No Problem Orchestra. Her next album the Giorgio Moroder-produced Fearless (1983), generated two major club hits in America, Zarah (a cover of the Zarah Leander song Ich weiss, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen) and the disco/punk/opera song, New York New York, which reached no. 9 in the USA dance charts.

She followed this with one more album, Nina Hagen in Ekstasy (1985), which featured a 1979 recording of her hardcore punk take on Paul Anka's My Way. The album fared less well and her contract with CBS expired in 1986 and was not renewed. Hagen's public appearances became stranger and frequently included discussions of God, UFOs, her social and political beliefs, animal rights and vivisection, and claims of alien sightings. In 1987 she released the Punk Wedding EP independently, a celebration of her marriage to a 18-year-old punk South African nicknamed 'Iroquois'.

Nina Hagen
German promotion card by Mercury / Nina Hagen-Fanclub, Erlangen. Image: Pierre et Gilles.

Nina Hagen
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron in the Chanteurs series, no. 8. Photo: B. Alary.

Return of the Mother


In 1989, Nina Hagen was offered a record deal from Mercury Records. She released three albums on the label: Nina Hagen (1989), Street (1991), and Revolution Ballroom (1993). However, none of the albums achieved notable commercial success. In 1989 she had a relationship with Frank Chevallier from France, with whom she has a son, Otis Chevallier-Hagen (b. 1990). In 1992 Hagen became the host of a TV show on RTLplus. She also collaborated with Adamski on the single Get Your Body (1992).

In the 1990s, Hagen lived in Paris with her daughter Cosma Shiva and son Otis. In 1996, she married David Lynn, who is fifteen years younger, but divorced him in the beginning of 2000. In 1999, Hagen became the host of Sci-Fright, a weekly science fiction show on the British Sci-Fi Channel. That year, she also played the role of Celia Peachum in The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, alongside Max Raabe.

She also appeared as a witch in the German-Russian fairy-tale film Vasilisa (Elena Shatalova, 2000). At IMDb, Howard Roarschawks writes: “I saw this eye-popping film at the 2001 Sarasota Film Festival. I entered the theater without expectations, having chosen the film randomly. From shot one, my jaw dropped slack and my eyes waxed wide. Vasilisa is a gorgeously filmed, brilliantly scripted, boldly acted, confidently directed, lushly designed masterpiece of unseen cinema.”

Hagen made her musical comeback with the release of her album Return of the Mother (2000). In 2001 she collaborated with Rosenstolz and Marc Almond on the single Total eclipse/Die schwarze Witwe that reached no. 22 in Germany. Later albums include Big Band Explosion (2003), in which she sang numerous swing covers with her then husband, Danish singer and performer Lucas Alexander. This was followed by Heiß, a greatest hits album. The following album, Journey to the Snow Queen, is more of an audio book — Hagen reads the Snow Queen fairy tale with Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker in the background.

Besides her musical career, Hagen is also a voice-over actress. She dubbed the voice of Sally in Der Albtraum vor Weihnachten, the German release of Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas (1993), and she has also done voice work on the German animation film Hot Dogs: Wau - wir sind reich!/Millionaire Dogs (Michael Schoemann, 1999).

Hagen appeared as the Queen opposite Otto Waalkes and her daughter Cosma Shiva Hagen as Snowwhite in the comedy 7 Zwerge – Männer allein im Wald/7 Dwarves – Men Alone in the Wood (Sven Unterwaldt Jr., 2004) which follows the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the second most popular film in German cinemas in 2004, reaching an audience of almost 7 million. She returned in the sequel 7 Zwerge – Der Wald ist nicht genug/Seven Dwarves - The Forest Is Not Enough (Sven Unterwaldt, 2006).

Nina Hagen wrote three autobiographies: Ich bin ein Berliner (1988), Nina Hagen: That's Why the Lady Is a Punk (2003), and Bekenntnisse (2010). She is also noted for her human and animal rights activism. After a four-year lapse Nina Hagen released the album Personal Jesus in 2010. William Ruhlmann at AllMusic: “Personal Jesus, which featured 13 faith-based tracks that dutifully blend rock, blues, soul, and gospel into a sound that’s distinctly hers.” It was followed by Volksbeat (2011).

Her latest films are Desire Will Set You Free (Yony Leyser, 2015) with Amber Benson and Rosa von Praunheim and Gutterdämmerung (Bjorn Tagemose, 2016) with Henry Rollins, Grace Jones and Iggy Pop.


Nina Hagen performs Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen. Source: PakoChile (YouTube).


Nina Hagen performs Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo live. Source: Fritz 12345 (YouTube).


Trailer Cha Cha (1979). Source: Thomas Crommentuyn (YouTube).


Nina Hagen performs Zarah. Source: B DPb (YouTube).

Sources: William Ruhlmann (AllMusic), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Victor Boucher

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Victor Boucher (1877–1942) was a French stage and screen actor, who was popular as a comedian of the early French sound cinema.

Victor Boucher
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 510. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

Victor Boucher for Lotion Garnier
French postcard by Les Amis de la "Lotion Garnier". Photo: Sabeurin. Caption: M. Victor Boucher, du Palais-Royal.

Victor Boucher
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 807. Photo: Jacques Haïk.

Talent as a Comedian


Victor Louis Armand Boucher was born in 1877 in Rouen, France, in a house in the Rue Saint-Étienne-des-Tonneliers. His parents ran a café-restaurant in Bihorel.

As a child, Victor Boucher is fascinated by the theatre shows in his hometown. At the age of 10, he was admitted to the Cercle de jeunesse, where he started to act. After working as a bookkeeper in Rouen and doing his military service, he moved to Paris.

On the recommendation of the composer Edouard Mahé, he ended up obtaining an engagement at the Théâtre des Capucines. In 1902, Victor Boucher married Mariotta Claire at Neufchâtel-en-Bray.

He knows his first success at the Théâtre des Mathurins in the play Kangourou, where actor-director Sacha Guitryspotted him. In 1905, he was lucky to replace an ill actor in the play Nono at the Théâtre des Mathurins and soon he became known for his talent as a comedian.

From 1905 till 1907, he performed at the Theatre de Vaudeville, from 1907 till 1908 at the Theatre de la Renaissance, and so on.

In 1913 Victor Boucher also started to act in the cinema. He made his film debut in La Petite Chocolatière/The Chocolate Girl (1913) by André Liabel, followed by L'Idée de Françoise/The idea of ​​Françoise (Emile Chautard, 1914) with Renée Sylvaire.

However, in the 1920s, he was foremost a stage actor, first at the Théâtre du Gymnase, later at the Théâtre de la Michodière.

Victor Boucher
French postcard. Nos artistes dans leur loge, No. 143. Photo Comoedia.

Victor Boucher
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 22. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

Victor Boucher
French postcard for Campari. Photo: Studio G.L. Manuel Frères. Caption: "Un homme averti qui boit du Campari en vaut trois!!!" (A man forewarned who drinks Campari equals three).

Prolific Film Actor


In 1927, Victor  Boucher became the manager of Théâtre de la Michodière, which became his fixed theatre between the late 1920s and 1940. Boucher also became chair of the Association des artistes dramatiques.

When sound film arrived in France, Boucher became a prolific film actor as well. He played in such early sound films as La douceur d'aimer/The Sweetness of Loving (René Hervil, 1930) and Gagne ta vie/Earn your life (André Berthomieu, 1931) with Dolly Davis. He then starred in the comedy Les vignes du seigneur/Our Lord's Vineyard (René Hervil, 1932) with Simone Cerdan and Victor Garland.

Most of the light comedies Boucher made between 1930 and 1941 are now forgotten. None made it into he canon of French film history. In the comedy Le sexe faible/The Weaker Sex (Robert Siodmak, 1933), Boucher is a stylish butler who is involved in the intrigues of his patrons. It was based on a 1929 stage farce of the same name by Édouard Bourdet, and his co-stars were Mireille Balin and Pierre Brasseur.

Boucher also acted oppositie Mona Goya in La Banque Némo/Nemo's Bank (Marguerite Viel, 1934).He played a man, who rises from the gutter to become a leading banker. His involvement in dishonest financial dealings threaten the collapse of his empire, but he is rescued by the various politicians who have interests in the firm. The plot has strong similarities to the Stavisky Affair which took place the year the film was released.

In the late 1930s, Victor Boucher was often paired with Elvire Popesco, such as in L'habit vert/The Green Jacket (Roger Richebé, 1937), a farce set against the backdrop of the Académie française, a philanthropic organisation created in 1940 by Baron Taylor. His last film was the comedy Ce n'est pas moi/It's not Me (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1941) with Jean Tissier and Ginette Leclerc.

In 1942, Victor Boucher died in Ville-d'Avray, France, from a heart attack. He was 64. Christian Grenier at l'Encinematheque: "Victor Boucher was a lovable man, a generous man, highly esteemed in the trade."

Victor Boucher, Roger Monteaux, René Alexandre
Victor Boucher, Roger Monteaux and René Alexandre. French postcard. Photos: Intran Studio.

Victor Boucher
French postcard by P.C., Paris, no. 130.

Victor Boucher
French postcard by Éditions Chantal (EC), Paris, no. 78. Photo: Piaz.

Sources: Christian Grenier (l'Encinemathèque - French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

Monika Gabriel

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German actress Monika Gabriel (1943-2007) was known for her many DEFA films and her appearances in TV series in East-Germany. From 1971, she worked in West-Germany, mainly for television.

Monika Gabriel
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3320, 1968. Photo: Schwarz.

Monika Gabriel
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3324, 1969. Photo: Schwarz.

The Emperor’s New Clothes


Monika Gabriel was born in Eichenbriick, near Posen (now Poznań) in Germany (now Poland) in 1943. From 1949 on, she grew up in Falkensee, a city near the Baltic Sea, where she began to take ballet lessons at the age of eleven.

From 1957 to 1961 she trained as a professional dancer at the Academy for Artistic Dance and the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin. From 1962 on, she also played small parts in stage productions at the Berlin Metropol Theater, where she was later transferred to major roles in musical productions like Cole Porter’s Küß mich, Kätchen! (Kiss Me Kate).

However, she was known by the East-German public for her roles in many film and television productions. In 1962, she made her film debut at the DEFA as a page in the fairy tale film Das Kleid/The Robe (Konrad Petzold, 1962) based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. Sadly the film was banned by the GDR government as its planned release coincided with the building of the Berlin Wall. Officials saw the film as too critical of the state.

In the next years, she played in the popular Stacheltier stunt film short s Stacheltier: Engel, Sünden und Verkehr/Porcupine: Angels, Sins and Traffic (Horst Seemann, 1963) and Stacheltier: Liebe braucht keine PS/Porcupine: Love Doesn’t Require HP (Horst Seemann, 1964).

Gabriel’s first major role was in Gerhard Klein and Wolfgang Kohlhaase’s Berlin um die Ecke/Berlin Around the Corner (1965), the fourth film in their Berlin Film series. At the East German Cinema Blog, Jim Morton writes: “Unfortunately, this was the same year that the 11th Plenum occurred. By the time the film was finished in 1966, the 11th Plenum had started their ‘Kahlschlag’ (literally ‘clear cutting’), and the film was promptly rejected and shelved. The officials called it ‘dishonest,’ which is an odd thing to say considering it’s one of the most honest films to ever come out of East Germany. They also called it ‘anti-socialist’—an even more absurd claim since the motivation of the main character is his desire to see equity achieved. (…) Like most of the films banned during the 11th Plenum, Berlin Around the Corner didn’t get an official release until after the wall came down, although it did receive a limited screening in 1987. It officially premiered in 1990 to positive reviews. “

Next Monika Gabriel appeared in Ein Lord am Alexanderplatz/A Lord at Alexanderplatz (1967), Wir lassen uns scheiden/We’re Getting Divorced (Ingrid Reschke, 1967) about the impact of divorce on children, and Jungfer, Sie gefällt mir/Maiden, You Please Me (Günter Reisch,1969), with a script by Jurek Becker based on Heinrich von Kleist’s Der zerbrochene Krug. Monika Gabriel fell in love with her co-star in the film, the West German actor Wolfgang Kieling, who had recently moved to the GDR. In the following year they married.

Monika Gabriel
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3047, 1968. Photo: Balinski.

Exit Permit


In 1971, when Wolfgang Kieling returned to the Federal Republic of Germany, Monika Gabriel also received an exit permit. Her final GDR film was Anflug Alpha 1/Approach Alpha I (János Veiczi, 1971) with Alfred Müller and Polish-born actor Stefan Lisewski.

From then on, Monika Gabriel mainly played in television productions such as episodes of Krimi series like Dem Täter auf der Spur/The Perpetrator on the Trail (Jürgen Roland, 1972), Tatort/Crime Scene (1975) and Derrick (1977).

She also appeared in the TV film Die Rakete/The Rocket (Dieter Wedel, 1975) and she had guest spots in such series as St. Pauli-Landungsbrücken/St. Pauli-Jetties (1979), Auf Achse/On Axis (1981), Der König und sein Narr/The King and His Fool (Frank Beyer, 1981) with Wolfgang Kieling and Götz George, Kreisbrandmeister Felix Martin/ Fire Chief Felix Martin (Harald Philipp, 1982) also with Kieling, and Eine Klasse für sich/A Class of its Own (Frank Strecker, 1984).

In 1985, she played her last TV role in an episode of the TV series Berliner Weiße mit Schuß/Berliner Weisse with a Shot (Wilfried Dotzel, 1985) with Günther Pfitzmann and Brigitte Mira.

Monika Gabriel also worked as a synchronisation director, dialogue author and voice actor. She lent her voice to numerous prominent international colleagues, among others Jill Clayburgh, Charlotte Rampling, Stella Stevens and Liv Ullmann. In addition, her voice was heard on many radio plays. She was the German voice of Teela in the Masters of the Universe Radio play (1984-1987).

Monika Gabriel was married four times: with the actors Stefan Lisewski, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Wolfgang Kieling (until 1975) and in a fourth marriage with the TV director Wilfried Dotzel. In 1992, she married Dotzel, but he died a year later. She never remarried again.

At the age of 63, Monika Gabriel succumbed to cancer in 2007 in Berlin-Spandau. She was buried in Falkensee.

Monika Gabriel
Big East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no.246/698. Photo: Linke.


Scene from Berlin um die Ecke (1965). Source: occ4m (YouTube).

Sources: Jim Morton (East German Cinema Blog), DEFA Film Library, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)

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The father of French Rock and Roll is dead. Flamboyant singer and actor Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017) passed away yesterday, 6 December. He was a European teen idol in the 1960s with record-breaking crowds and mass hysteria, but he never became popular in the English-speaking market. In later years he concentrated on being an actor and appeared in more than 35 films. Johnny Hallyday was 74.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 4208 04-025 U.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 170. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard, no. 171. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 189. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 215. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 266. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1063. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
West-German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/225. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
West-German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/226. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by E.D.U.G., Paris, no. 431. Photo: LYNX / Philips.

Johnny Hallyda (1943-2017)
French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 750. Photo: Herman Leonard / Philips.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 773. Photo: Aubert / Philips.

Johnny Hallyday in D'où viens-tu... Johnny? (1963)
French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 550 Vis. 1. Photo: publicity still for D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).

Johnny Hallyday in D'où viens-tu... Johnny? (1963)
French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 550 Vis. 4. Photo: publicity still for D'où viens-tu... Johnny?/Where Are You From, Johnny? (Noël Howard, 1963).

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 210, 1964.

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017)
French photo.

Read also our biography of Johnny Hallyday with more postcards.

De Reszke Cigarettes

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We continue our Saturday posts on British film postcard series with De Reszke postcards. De Reske was a, now forgotten, British cigarette brand. It was named after Jean de Reszke (1850-1925), a famous Polish opera star of the late 19th century, and advertised as 'the Aristocrat of Cigarettes'. Ads suggested the cigarettes were 'mild and harmless' so that they would not damage De Reszke's voice. The brand was originally produced by J. Millhoff, a Russian living in London. In 1927, Millhoff sold out to Godrey Phillips, an international company which was a fellow competitor.  In the early 1930s, Godfrey Phillips Associated brands published this series of hand-coloured film star postcards. The postcards appeared in larger packings of De Reszke Cigarettes and other brands of Godfrey Phillips. Smaller pictures of film stars appeared in the other packings.

Diana Wynyard
Diana Wynyard. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 3.

Jessie Matthews
Jessie Matthews. British collectors card by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 9. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Heather Angel
Heather Angel. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 12. Photo: possibly a publicity still for The Hound of the Baskervilles (Gareth Gundrey, 1931).

Gordon Harker
Gordon Harker. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 14. Photo: Gaumont.

Evelyn Laye
Evelyn Laye. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 21. Photo: Gaumont-British.

George Arliss
George Arliss. British postcard with Polish imprint by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 22. Photo: publicity still for The House of Rothschild (Alfred L. Werker, 1934).

Jack Hulbert
Jack Hulbert. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 30. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Madeleine Carroll
Madeleine Carroll. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 32. Photo: Gaumont-British. Publicity still for The Dictator/Loves of a Dictator (Victor Saville, 1935).

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

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

Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 44. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Scarlet Pimpernel (Harold Young, 1934).

Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor. British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 45.

Sources: Godfrey Dykes.

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

Ulli Lommel (1944-2017)

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German actor and director Ulli Lommel (1944-2017) died of cardiac arrest on 2 December. He was one of the most consistently creative filmmakers to come from the New German Cinema movement. Lommel was best known for his frequent collaborations with Andy Warhol and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The creative partnership with Fassbinder lasted 10 years and produced over 20 films.

Ulli Lommel (1944-2017)
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/303. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC-Zugsmith Co-produktion. Publicity still for Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964) with Leticia Román.

Fassbinder


Ulrich Manfred Lommel was born in 1944 in Zielenzig, Brandenburg, Germany (now Sulecin, Lubuskie, Poland). Ulli was the son of German comedian and radio personality Ludwig Manfred Lommel, and actress Karla Von Cleef. He was born a few weeks before the arrival of the Red Army, and Lommel's family fled the city, wrapping baby Ulli in a roll of carpet.

Ulli began his career in show business as a child. In 1948, at the age of four, he was put on stage by his father, who was often referred to as the 'Charles Chaplin of Germany' . While living in Bad Nauheim as a teenager, Lommel performed with Elvis Presley. Lommel decided that he wanted to pursue an acting career, but his father did not approve. So 16-years-old Ulli ran away from home.

During his career, he acted in over 28 plays, among them William Shakespeare's Hamlet - in which he played the lead. In 1962, he made his film debut opposite Maria Schell and Paul Hubschmid in Ich bin auch nur eine Frau/I, Too, Am Only a Woman (Alfred Weidenmann, 1962).

He also appeared in Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964) with Leticia Románand Miriam Hopkins, and Maigret und sein grösster Fall/Enter Inspector Maigret (Alfred Weidenmann, 1966) featuring Heinz Rühmann. In total he played in 22 TV films and 18 films.

In 1968, he joined Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the Anti-Theater, an inspired theater collective that launched the careers of several prominent German actors including Kurt Raab, Hanna Schygulla and Margit Carstensen. As Fassbinder moved from theatre to films in the 1970s, rapidly becoming one of the leading voices of the German New Wave, Lommel became one of his closest collaborators.

He spent 10 years working with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who was legendary for his prodigious output, directing 41 films in 13 years. Lommel not only acted in 16 Fassbinder productions but also served as producer, assistant director and production designer, on such films as Fassbinder's directorial debut Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (1969) in which he also starred opposite Hanna Schygulla, Fontane Effi Briest (1974), the surrealist Western Whity (1975), Satansbraten (1976), and Chinesisches Roulette (1976).

Lommel also appeared in films by other directors such as Deine Zärtlichkeiten/Your caresses (Peter Schamoni, Herbert Vesely, 1969) with Doris Kunstmann, Anglia (Werner Schroeter, 1970), Harlis (Robert van Ackeren, 1972), and Schatten der Engel/Shadow of Angels (Daniel Schmid, 1976).

Renate Hütte, Britt Lindberg
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/358. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood. Publicity still for Fanny Hill (1964) with Renate Hütte and Britt Lindberg.

Letícia Román
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/302. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC-Zugsmith Co-produktion. Publicity still for Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964) with Leticia Román.

Warhol


In 1971 Ulli Lommel directed his first film, Haytabo (1971), starring Eddie Constantine. His second feature film as a director, Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe/Tenderness of the Wolves (1973) with Kurt Raab as a gay serial killer, became a cult hit. It was based on the story of murderer Fritz Haarmann, who was also the inspiration for Fritz Lang's M (1931).

It brought Lommel in 1977 to New York, where he began working with Andy Warhol at The Factory. The Warhol / Lommel years spawned several features, including Cocaine Cowboys (1979) and Blank Generation (1980) with Carole Bouquet, both of which were directed by Lommel and feature Warhol in an acting role.

In 1980 Lommel moved to Hollywood and made independently The Boogey Man (1980), starring John Carradine, which became an overnight sensation and grossed over $35 million worldwide.

Many of Lommel's post-Boogeyman films, such as Olivia (1983), BrainWaves (1982) starring Tony Curtis, The Devonsville Terror (1983) starring Donald Pleasence, also starred his wife at the time, Suzanna Love.

Since Rainer Werner Fassbinder's death in 1982, Lommel has also been travelling the world and participating in numerous retrospectives dedicated to his Fassbinder years, among them the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y., Harvard, the Louvre, London and Beijing.

In 2004 Lommel started his own repertory group in Venice, California, where he and his collaborators have made 16 genre films. In 2008 Lommel teamed up with David Carradine, who starred in Lommel's drama Absolute Evil (2009).

In 2013 Lommel went for nine months to Brazil, where he wrote a book and also made two films. The first was the bio-epic documentary Mondo Americana (2015) and the second a film about Campo Bahia, the official camp for the German National Soccer Team. His autobiography, Tenderness of the Wolves, was released in 2015.

Ulli Lommel married and divorced three actresses, Katrin Schaake, Suzanna Love, and Cookie Lommel.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (1969)
German postcard by Hias Schasko Postkarten, München. Photo: Filmverlag der Autoren. Publicity still for Liebe ist kälter als der Tod/Love Is Colder Than Death (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1969) with Fassbinder himself.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, shooting Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (1971)
German postcard by Verlag Hias Schaschko, München (Munich), no. 209. Photo: Rainer Werner Fassbinder during the shooting of his film Händler der vier Jahreszeiten/The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971), then still called Der Obsthändler/The Grocer.


Trailer Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (1973). Source: Alles kino (YouTube).


Trailer The Boogey Man (1980). Source: Silky Stalin (YouTube).

Sources: CJ McCracken (IMDb), Les Gens du Cinéma, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Fesseln (1918)

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German actress, writer and producer Hedda Vernon was the star of the Eiko Film production Fesseln/Chains (Hubert Moest, 1918). During the 1910s, she was such a popular film star in Germany that she got her own Hedda-Vernon serial.

Hedda Vernon in Fesseln
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 559/1. Photo: Eiko-Film. Hedda Vernon and Hermann Vallentin in Fesseln (Hubert Moest, 1918).

Hedda Vernon in Fesseln
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 559/2. Photo: Eiko-Film. Hedda Vernon in Fesseln (Hubert Moest, 1918).

A forgotten film


Little is known about this film. Fesseln/Chains (Hubert Moest, 1918) was offered to the German National Board of Censors in August 1918.

Fesseln is one of the seven silent films in which German film star Hedda Vernon (1886–1925) played the lead role in 1918. Between 1912 and 1925 she starred in more than 80 films. How and where she died is unknown.

Next to Hedda Vernon were in the cast: Emil Albes, Ewald Brückner, Lucie Friedrich, Hermann Vallentin and Erich Wilde.

The film was scripted by Richard Wilde. Director was Hubert Moest, who was Hedda Vernon's husband from 1913 till 1920. Moest was also her regular film director at Eiko in the years 1914-1918 and afterwards at other companies, including his own company Moest-Film from 1919 on.

Rotophot produced this series of sepia postcards with scenes from the film in their Film Sterne (Film Stars) series. Number 559/5 is still missing.
Hedda Vernon in Fesseln
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 559/3. Photo: Eiko-Film. Hedda Vernon and Hermann Vallentin in Fesseln (Hubert Moest, 1918).

Hedda Vernon in Fesseln
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 559/4. Photo: Eiko-Film. Hedda Vernon in Fesseln (Hubert Moest, 1918).

Hedda Vernon in Fesseln
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 559/6. Photo: Eiko-Film. Hedda Vernon in Fesseln (Hubert Moest, 1918).

Sources: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Alla Larionova

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Beautiful Russian stage and film actress Alla Larionova (1931-2000) was one of the most popular stars of the Soviet cinema of the 1950s. She was known for such films as the Fairy-tale Sadko (1952), Anna na shee (1954) and Trizhdy voskresshiy (1960).

Alla Larionova
Russian postcard, no. A 09462, 1965. Photo: G. Ter-Ovanesova.

A Forbidden Beautiful World


Alla Dmitrievna Larionova was born in Moscow, USSR (now Russia) in 1931. Her father was an employee of a food store, and her mother worked as a keeper in a kindergarten. Her parents named her after the film star Alla Tarasova, and thus programmed their little daughter for the future.

After her father went to the front, Alla and her mother evacuated to Menzelinsk, where her mother worked in a hospital. Here, 9-year-old Alla Larionova appeared for the first time on stage. She read poetry to the wounded in the hospital.

When she was barely 15 years old, the young and charming Alla was discovered for the cinema. An unfamiliar woman approached her on the street, and asked if the girl wanted to act in films. Of course, Larionova wanted and appeared in a small part in the biographical drama Michurin (Aleksandr Dovzhenko, 1949), featuring Grigori Belov.

After graduation, Alla went to study as an actress at the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts (GITIS) in Moscow. In 1948, she continued her studies at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), where she met her future husband Nikolai Rybnikov. At the GITIS, she failed miserably at her exams. Before her examiners, she saw the famous director Vasily Mikhailovich Goncharov and got a black-out.

However, during her study years, she got a star-making role, which determined her entire career in the cinema. She played Lyubava in Sadko (Aleksandr Ptushko, 1952) with Sergei Stolyarov. The Fairy-tale film was so successful that the following year the film was invited to Venice Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion.

This success meant an international breakthrough for the Soviet cinema. In Venice, the beautiful Larionova was followed by crowds of journalists and admirers ran. Well-known producers and directors, including Charles Chaplin, offered her roles that she flatly refused. As the Russian website 24smi writes: “official representatives, officials who accompanied a group of artists abroad, were strictly forbidden to go to contacts with ‘bourgeois’ directors.” Larionova returned home from Italy in tears. She had been allowed to touch a beautiful world, to see it, but was forbidden to live in it.

Back home, she was offered the leading role in Anna na shee/The Anna Cross (Isidor Annensky, 1954), based on a short story by Anton Chekhov. The film turned Larionova into a big star of the Soviet cinema. Hundreds of people, often in bad weather, stood in queues in front of cinemas to see the film. After the actress starred as the beautiful Olivia in Dvenadtsataya noch/Twelfth Night (A. Abramov, Yan Frid, 1955), fans followed her to the studio and her apartment, looked in windows and waited for her exit. Even the minister of culture came to see the actress.

Alla Larionova
Russian postcard, no. AB13758, 1958. Photo: V. Kačna.

Alla Larionova
Russian multiview postcard, no. 1446, 1963. Included are scene photos from Sadko (1952), Vikhri vrazhdebnye/Hostile Whirlwinds (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1953), Anna na shee (1954), and Dvenadtsataya noch/Twelfth Night (A. Abramov, Yan Frid, 1955).

Hindered by the officials


Curiously, Alla Larionova was not offered any more leading roles and her career seemed to be hindered by officials. For example for the film Ilya Muromets/The Sword and the Dragon (Aleksandr Ptushko, 1956), Larionova was not allowed to travel to Yalta, where the shooting of the film took place.

Her few leading roles in the following years included Sudba barabanshchika/The Drummer's Fate (Viktor Eisymont, 1956), the romance Mlechnyy Put/Milky Way (Isaak Shmaruk, 1959) and Trizhdy voskresshiy/Thrice Resurrected (Leonid Gayday, 1960).

During the 1960s and 1970s, Alla Larionova never got leading roles. When the beautiful actress starred in a film it was in ‘ugly’ roles, such as in Dikiy myod/Wild Honey (Vladimir Chebotaryov, 1967), where her face was smeared with mud.

Larionova proved that she could play character roles very well. She played Natalia Dmitrievna Paskudin in the Anton Chekhov adaptation Tri sestry/The Three Sisters (Samson Samsonov, 1964), Donesova in Ko mne, Mukhtar!/Come Here, Mukhtar! (Semyon Tumanov, 1965), Elena Ivanovna in Fokusnik/The Magician (Pyotr Todorovskiy, 1967) and Ekaterina II in the family comedy Yest ideya!/There is an idea! (Vladimir Bychkov, 1977).

But the kind of roles that had made her famous, she was not offered anymore. When she turned 60, Alla Larionova was given the title People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1990, but no significant roles followed anymore. Russian Wikipedia suggests the reason was a scar in her face caused by an accident. Actor George Yumatov, in a state of intoxication, had decided to take Alla Larionova home and caused the accident at which she hit her head and cut her lip. After that, she ceased to appear in films, since the scar was too noticeable.

Larionova lived very quietly and modestly. She travelled around the country with the theatre group named after Eugene Vakhtangov. She was married to Nikolai Rybnikov from 1957 till his death in 1990. Shortly after their marriage was registered, she gave birth to her daughter Alena from actor Ivan Pereverzev. In 1961, their second daughter Arina was born. Alla Larionova died from a heart attack in 2000 in Moscow, Russia. She was buried next to her husband at the Troekurovsky cemetery. In 2004, their daughter Arina, addicted to alcohol, died.

Alla Larionova
Small Russian collectors card.

Alla Larionova
Russian postcard, no. A-06650. Photo: G. Vajlja.

Sources: 24 smi (Russian), Wikipedia (Russian) and IMDb.

Hermann Brix

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Hermann Brix (1912-1982) was an Austrian actor and theatre and radio play author. Between 1939 and 1944 he starred in many Terra films. He should not be confused with the American actor Herman Brix (a.k.a. Bruce Bennett).

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2995/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3230/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Terra Film.

Unknown Mother


Hermann Brix was born in Innsbruck, Austria (then Austria-Hungary) in 1912. He studied German and medicine first, took acting lessons after that, and in 1936 he debuted on stage in Prague. Later he got an engagement at the Münchner Kammerspiele in Munich.

Brix became well-known as a film actor in German cinema during the war years, mostly at Terra-Filmkunst. He probably started his film career in the Terra-production Opernball/Opera Ball (Géza von Bolváry, 1939) with Paul Hörbiger.

This first film appearance was soon followed by Maria Ilona (Géza von Bolváry, 1939) in which he played Emperor Franz Joseph opposite Paula Wessely. After the premiere of tis film in Vienna, he signed a contract with Terra Film in Berlin.

For Terra, Brix appeared in such films as Die guten Sieben/The Lucky Seven (Wolfgang Liebeneier, 1940) starring Johannes Riemann, and Alarm auf Station III/Alarm on station III (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1939) starring Gustav Fröhlich.

Slowly, his parts became bigger as in Falschmünzer/Forger (Hermann Pfeiffer, 1940), Der Herr im Haus/The Landlord (Heinz Helbig, 1940) starring Hans Moser, Sein Sohn/His Son (Peter Paul Breuer, 1941), and Dreimal Hochzeit/Three times wedding (Géza von Bolváry, 1941) with Marte Harell and Willy Fritsch.

Brix had his first lead in Die Kelnerin Anna/The Waitress Anna (Peter Paul Breuer, 1941) as a young music student in Salzburg, who doesn’t know that the local waitress (Franziska Kinz) who takes so much care of him is his mother.

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no A 3331/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Terra.

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3591/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Titanic


Hermann Brix played a band leader in the disaster drama Titanic (Herbert Selpin, 1943), and a police commissioner in the spy story Die goldene Spinne/The Golden Spider (Erich Engels, 1943).

He appeared as Eva Maria Meineke’s lover in the comedy Moselfahrt mit Monika/A Trip on the Mosel with Monika (Roger von Norman, 1944). The film was completed in 1944, but submitted to Filmprüfstelle in October 1944, and it was eventually released in 1952.

His last wartime performance was in the romantic comedy Der Meisterdetektiv/The master detective (Hubert Marischka, 1944) with Georg Alexander.

After the war Brix worked only twice as a film actor. In 1947 he appeared in the French-Austrian comedy Les amours de Blanche Neige/The Loves of Snowwhite (Edi Wieser, 1947). Three years later he played the lead in the comedy Die Erbschaft aus Amerika/Luck from Ohio (Heinz Paul, 1950).

Rudi Polt at IMDb suggests that Brix  was more interested in stage theatre and radio. He returned to his birth town Innsbrück where he wrote stage and radio plays.

From 1966 on he taught drama at the Universität Innsbruck and was manager of the Studiobühne. Among his pupils were Dietmar Schönherr, Axel Corti, and Volkmar Parschalk. He also directed several plays at the Tiroler Landestheater.

Hermann Brix died in Innsbruck in 1982. He was 70.

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2693/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick/Terra. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3331/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick/Terra. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Hermann Brix
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2564/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann/Terra. Collection: Didier Hanson.

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

Suzanna Leigh (1945-2017)

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On 11 December 2017, blonde British actress Suzanna Leigh (1945-2017) passed away. She was known for her film and television roles in the 1960s and 1970s, including Hammer horror films and a Hawaii musical with Elvis Presley.

Suzanna Leigh (1945-2017)
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscar Color S.A., Hospitalet (Barcelona), no. 592.

Costumed as Madame Du Barry


Suzanna Leigh was born Sandra Eileen Anne Smith in 1945 in Belgrave (some sources say Berkshire), England. Her father was an auto engine manufacturer and professional gambler. Her mother’s a millionaire property developer. Her father died when she was six.

Leigh grew up in Berkshire (some sources say Belgravia, London), and later went to convent schools outside London. She began working in films while still a child, appearing as an extra in British productions. These included the romantic comedy The Silken Affair (Roy Kellino, 1956) starring David Niven and Geneviève Page, and the fantasy-musical Tom Thumb (George Pal, 1958). 7

She changed her name to Suzanna Leigh after entering film, after actress Vivien Leigh. A few years later, she was the star of the 13-episode French TV series, Trois étoiles en Touraine (Maurice Régamey, 1966), which every week featured Leigh, her racing car and a different male lead.

Planning to attend London's Opera Ball, costumed as Madame Du Barry, Leigh had a sedan chair made, along with costumes for five footmen who carried it (and her) through the streets of the city. American producer Hal B. Wallis saw newspaper photos of Leigh's elaborate stunt and imported the 20-year-old blonde to Hollywood.

Leigh's American film roles included a stewardess in the American bedroom farce Boeing Boeing (John Rich, 1965) starring Jerry Lewis and Tony Curtis, and the love interest of Elvis Presley in Paradise, Hawaiian Style (Michael D. Moore, 1966). In 1966 her US career hit a snag when the Hollywood and English acting guilds got into a tangle, and she returned to England.

Elvis Presley, Suzanna Leigh
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Paradise, Hawaiian Style (Michael D. Moore, 1966) with Elvis Presley and Suzanna Leigh. Collection: Veronique3.

Richard Johnson (1927-2015)
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Deadlier than the male (Ralph Thomas, 1967) with Richard Johnson and Suzanna Leigh.

The Kate Winslet of her Day


Back in England, Suzanna Leigh became the frail heroine in a couple of Hammer films such as The Lost Continent (Michael Carreras, 1968) with Eric Porter and Hildegard Knef, and Lust for a Vampire (Jimmy Sangster, 1971).

She also starred in the cult horror films The Deadly Bees (Freddie Francis, 1966) and The Fiend (Robert Hartford-Davis, 1972) with Ann Todd. In 1974 she starred as Amber in the musical comedy Son of Dracula (Freddie Francis, 1974) starring Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr.

Hester Lacey called Leigh in The Independent"the Kate Winslet of her day: a beautiful, feted young British actress who made it big in Hollywood. She lived a champagne lifestyle, mixed with the beautiful people and drove a Rolls Royce. She was presented to the Queen at a Royal Command Performance."

She met Tim Hue-Williams, to be the father of her daughter, Natalia, at Ascot in 1972. This led to a 10-year relationship which ended when Hue-Williams deserted her for a rich heiress, his best friend's fiancee, when Leigh was four months pregnant.

Her heydays were over and after a long and painful divorce, she retired to a small rented flat in a London suburb, with her daughter Natalia and her sheltie dog Sukie. She worked as an interior designer, gave etiquette lessons and sold the Encyclopedia Britannica at Heathrow Airport.

In 2000, she published the autobiography, Paradise, Suzanna Style. In 2015, she was a featured player in the American film, Grace of the Father (De Miller, 2015).

In September 2016, Suzanna Leigh was diagnosed with ‘stage-four’ liver cancer and she died on 11 December 2017.


Trailer Boeing Boeing (1965). Source: Classic Airliners & Vintage Pop Culture (YouTube).


Trailer Lust for a Vampire (1971). Source: kaijindaigo (YouTube).

Sources: Hester Lacey (The Independent), Tom Weaver (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Ciceruacchio (1915)

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During the First World War, several countries started to make propaganda films. In Italy, Tiber Film produced the historical propaganda film Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915).

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: Among the turmoil of political passions and among the whispers of a heart overwhelmed by the idea of the Fatherland, he then passed his life.

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: The opulent Papal Court. Ciceruacchio (Gastone Monaldi) with Pius IX.

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: A sweet dream that became even sweeter reality.

Intended to raise anti-Austrians sentiment


Ciceruacchio/Martire del piombo austriaco (Martyr of Austrian bullets, 1915) was an Italian historical film by Emilio Ghione, dealing with victims of the Austrian occupation of Italy. The film was intended to raise anti-Austrians sentiment during the First World War when the Northwest part of Italy - the present province of Friuli - was still under Austrian occupation.

Ciceruacchio passed censorship on 22 June 1915, while a week earlier, on 18 June 1915, the film had its first night in Rome. Reputed stage actor Gastone Monaldi, famous for his dialect acting, played the lead of Ciceruacchio, and his partner Fernanda Battiferri played Annetta. Alberto Collo played their son. Ida Carloni Talli played as usual the mother, Brunetti’s mother in this case.

Angelo Brunetti, named Ciceruacchio, a Roman trader in cheese and wine, was much beloved by the Roman people, e.g. for his behaviour during the 1837 cholera plague. In a public performance in 1846 he thanked the pope Pius IX for releasing political prisoners, while in 1847 he pressed Pius IX to continue his policy of reform.

During the 1848 revolution he joined the Roman Republican forces and helped the Romans in the siege by the French. But when they were defeated in 1849, he fled with his sons Lorenzo and Luigi and hoped with Garibaldi and allies to liberate Venice from the Austrians. Instead they were betrayed by locals at Cesenatico and then arrested and executed by the Austrians on 10 August 1849.

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: People of Rome! Do you want to bend to slavery by the stranger? No! Do you want to swear with me to die for freedom? Yes! Yes!

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: The whole city is on fire; only the old and proud Trastevere still resists.

Little fat man


Emilio Ghione was a regular actor for Cines, Celio and Caesar in Rome, before he started to direct films in 1914. For a long time he was most remembered for his Za-la-Mort crime films at Tiber Film, in which he had the lead too. At Tiber he also made various - commissioned - historical propaganda films during the First World War, such as Oberdan (1915) starring Alberto Collo, and Ciceruacchio (1915).

Ciceruacchio (1915) was scripted by Emilio Calve. The plot mostly follows history. The papal police suspects Brunetti, aka Ciceruacchio (meaning little fat man), but when Pius IX hears about Brunetti's bravery during a flood, he gives him a special audience. Brunetti henceforth considers the pope Rome's saviour, while his republican friends think otherwise.

When the pope flees to Gaeta during the revolution, leaving the city to foreign oppressors, Cicueracchio becomes Rome's new leader, but he has to flee after the last stronghold, Trastevere, is conquered. He is betrayed and arrested in Rovigo, and executed with his son Luigi (Alberto Collo). In the film, Ghione suggests Brunetti was killed with only his eldest son, while in reality both sons and also several allies of Brunetti were killed with them.

Later, the story of Ciceruacchio would be filmed again in In nome del popolo sovrano (1990) by Luigi Magni, in which Nino Manfredi performed Brunetti. Ciceruacchio was also recreated in Camicie rosse (1952) by Goffredo Alesandrini and Francesco Rosi and returned in the recent mini-series Anita Garibaldi (2012).

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: The arrest of Angelo Brunetti named Ciceruacchio and his son. Gastone Monaldi as Cicueracchio and Alberto Collo as his son Luigi.

Ciceruacchio
Italian postcard for Ciceruacchio (Emilio Ghione, 1915). Photo: Tiber Film. Caption: The most coward spirit of the Austrians, our eternal enemies, like always and still does confirm its cowardice.

Source: Denis Lotti (Emilio Ghione. L’ ultimo apache - Italian), Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Rotary Photo

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The British Rotary Photographic Co. Ltd was active in London between 1897 and 1916. It was a huge publisher of real photographic postcards. Real photographic cards were actual photographs produced from negatives directly onto photographic paper that was postcard sized. Rotary published several elegant postcards of actresses and actors. It's series included the S-series and the Rotary Photographic Series. For this post, we chose 12 delicate portraits of female stars of the British stage and the early British cinema.

Gaby Deslys
Gaby Deslys. British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 11843 Q. Photo: Talbot, Paris. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Isobel Elsom
Isobel Elsom. British postcard by Rotary Photo, London, no. S.37-1. Photo: Lallie Charles.

Fay Compton
Fay Compton. British postcard by Rotary Photo London, no. S.38-5. Photo: Rita Martin.

Gladys Cooper
Gladys Cooper. British postcard by Rotary Photo, London, no. S.97.3.

Madge Lessing
Madge Lessing. British postcard by Rotary, no. 167 h.

Eva, Decima, Bertha and Jessie Moore
Eva Moore and her sisters Decima, Bertha and Jessie Moore. British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series, no. 1699 B. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Phyllis Dare, The Belle of Mayfair
Phyllis Dare. British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4168 I. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the stage play The Belle of Mayfair (1906).

Mabel Love
Mabel Love. British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4337. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Constance Collier in Nero (1906)
Constance Collier. British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4039 D. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the stage play Nero (1906) with Constance Collier as Poppaea.

Ada Reeve
Ada Reeve. British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4167 A. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Zena Dare
Zena Dare. British postcard by Rotary Photo E.C., no. 4500 D. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. The postcard was sent by mail in 1907.

Lilian Hall-Davis
Lilian Hall-Davis. British postcard by Rotary Postcards E.C.

Sources: Grace's Guide, Postcard Collecting, and Ross Postcards.

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

Ursula Andress

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Stunning Swiss sex symbol, starlet and jet-setter Ursula Andress (1936) will always be remembered as the first and quintessential Bond girl. In Dr. No (1962) she made film history when she spectacularly rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini. Though she won a Golden Globe, Ursula's looks generally outweighed her acting talent and she never took her film career very seriously.

Ursula Andress
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/411.

Ursula Andress
Spanish postcard by Raker, no. 1157, 1965.

Ursula Andress
Italian postcard, no. 100/110.

Ursula Andress
Italian postcard, no. 100/111.

Ursula Andress
Spanish postcard, no. 240, 1964.

Impressive Physical Attributes


Ursula Andress was born in 1936, in Ostermundigen in the Swiss canton Bern, as one of seven children in a German Protestant family. Her father Rolf Andress was a German diplomat who disappeared during World War II, and her Swiss mother, Anna Andress, was a florist. The third of six children. She has a brother, Arthur and four sisters, Erica, Kàtey, Charlotte and Ruth. She and her siblings were raised by their grandparents. Her younger sister, Kàtey Andress, later unsuccessfully attempted to start a modelling career.

Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and Andress had a desire from an early age to explore the world outside Switzerland. At 17, she ran away with an Italian actor, then returned home after her mother intervened.

She studied painting, sculpture and dance in Paris. Andress started her career as an art model in Rome, which led to her first roles in the Italian film industry. (Some sources claim that she was on a holiday to Rome at the time). She played small roles in the Italian farces Un americano a Roma/An American in Rome (Steno, 1954), La catena dell'odio/The Chain of Hate (Renato Baldini, 1955) and Le avventure di Giacomo Casanova/Adventures of Giacomo Casanova (Steno, 1955), which focused on her impressive physical attributes.

Eventually, due in part to the patronage of paramour Marlon Brando, she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures and went to Hollywood heralded as the 'New Marlene Dietrich'. Actually the only things she had in common with Dietrich were her (partly) German heritage and her magnificent legs.

In Hollywood she had a troubled relationship with James Dean. One tabloid reported at the time that Dean was learning German so they could "argue in another language". On the day of his death (30 September 1955), Dean asked her to go with him to San Francisco in his Porsche 550 Spyder, but he had to leave Los Angeles without her.

Andress had met actor and pretty-boy John Derek and had fallen in love with him. They married in 1957, and Ursula dropped out of film-making for several years thereafter.

Ursula Andress
Serbian postcard by Cik Razolednica. Photo: publicity still for Dr. No (1962).

Ursula Andress
German postcard by ISV, Sort. 12/6.

Ursula Andress
German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for 4 For Texas (Robert Aldrich, 1963).

Ursula Andress, Elvis Presley and Elsa Cardenas in Fun in Acapulco (1963)
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 251. Photo: RCA. Publicity still for Fun in Acapulco (Richard Thorpe, 1963) with Elvis Presley and Elsa Cardenas.

Ursula Andress and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1965)
Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Up to His Ears (Philippe de Broca, 1965) with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Ursula Andress and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1965)
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 481. Photo: publicity still for Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine/Up to His Ears (Philippe de Broca, 1965) with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Honey Rider


The year 1962 saw Ursula Andress back on the set, co-starring as Honey Ryder with Sean Connery in the first film version of Ian Fleming's James Bond spy novels, Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962).

On a trip to Greece, John Derek had taken photographs of his wife, and one had been published in a magazine. The photograph was seen by Harry Saltzman, co-producer of the first Bond film, which was scheduled to start shooting within a few weeks even though the female lead had not yet been cast. One glance at the picture was enough. Ursula was offered the part.

Her Swiss/German accent was so strong that her voice had to be dubbed, but Ursula Andress' smouldering-yet-aloof screen presence immediately established her as one of the most desired women in the world. Her performance helped to start the James Bond franchise and set the Bond Girl standard beside which all future Bond actresses would be judged.

In 1964 Andress won even a Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year for her role. The success of Dr. No established Ursula Andress as a spectacular ornament to put on-screen alongside the most bankable talent of the 1960s, and she was cast in Hollywood vehicles for such icons as the 'king of rock 'n' roll', Elvis Presley, in Fun in Acapulco (Richard Thorpe, 1963), and Frank Sinatra in 4 for Texas (Robert Aldrich, 1963).

In Europe she starred with Jean-Paul Belmondo in the Jules Verne adventure Les tribulations d'un chinois en Chine/Up to His Ears (Philippe de Broca, 1965) and with Marcello Mastroianni in the SF thriller La decima vittima/The 10th Victim (Elio Petri, 1965), in which she wears a famously ballistic bra.

She also featured as ‘Ayesha - She who must be obeyed’ in Hammer's fantasy film She (Robert Day, 1965) with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In 1965, she also posed nude for Playboy - the photos were taken by husband John Derek. In The Blue Max (John Guillermin, 1966), she was aptly cast as the sultry, sexually insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general, played by James Mason.

Andress also appeared in the Bond satire Casino Royale (John Huston a.o., 1967) as Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) to carry out a mission. And she was one of several European starlets to co-star in What's New Pussycat (Clive Donner, Richard Talmadge, 1965) - a film that perhaps sums up mid-196’s pop culture best - written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.

Ursula Andress
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/412.

Ursula Andress
German postcard by ISV, no. H 134.

Ursula Andress
Belgian postcard by Edt. Decker, Brussels, no. A 113.

Ursula Andress
Vintage postcard.

Ursula Andress
Spanish postcard by Postales Recuadro Blanco Vikingo, Barcelona, no. 441.

Horror in the Jungle


Ursula Andress's charms seemed not to diminish by age. At 40, she could still easily play a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in the slight Italian sex comedy L'infermiera/The Sensuous Nurse (Nello Rossati, 1975), and three years later she even appeared naked on a stake being rubbed with blood in the ‘horror in the jungle’ exploitation film La montagna del dio cannibale/Slave of the Cannibal God (Sergio Martino, 1978).

Having been divorced by Derek in 1966 so he could pursue younger lookalike Linda Evans, Andress played the field for years, reportedly involved at various times with Jean-Paul Belmondo, Ryan O'Neal, Warren Beatty and Fabio Testi.

In 1979 she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Clash of the Titans (Desmond Davis, 1981) in which she was cast, predictably, as Aphrodite. In 1980, Andress and Hamlin had a son, Dimitri Hamlin. After her son's birth, Andress scaled back her career.

Andress now focused mostly on European television and films, while she was raising Dimitri in Rome. Among her later films were Krasnye kolokola/Mexico in Flames (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1982) with Franco Nero, Liberté, égalité, choucroute/Liberty, Equality, Sauerkrauten (Jean Yanne, 1985) as Queen Marie Antoinette, and the art film Cremaster 5 (Matthew Barney, 1997).

On television she appeared in the mini-series Peter the Great (Marvin J. Chomsky, Lawrence Schiller, 1986) and in the series Falcon Crest (1988). Most recently she worked on a film in her home country Switzerland. In the satire Die Vogelpredigt/The Bird Preachers (Clemens Klopfenstein, 2005) she appeared as the Virgin Mary.

Her relationship with Harry Hamlin ended in 1982, and since 1983 she has lived with Lorenzo Rispoli. Ostensibly retired from acting, Andress makes the rounds of charity events and pops up on talk shows around Europe every once in a while. She divides her time between family in Switzerland, friends in Spain and Virginia, and her properties in Rome and L.A.

In 2001 the white bikini from Dr. No sold for £35,000 at an auction, in a 2003 Survey by the British Channel 4 her rise from the sea was voted #1 in ‘the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments, and in 2008 the readers of the British newspaper Daily Mail voted her ‘Best Bond Girl of All Time’. Ursula Andress’ performance as Honey Rider has clearly made her an icon of the 20th Century.

Ursula Andress
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 467.

Ursula Andress
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano in the Artisti di Sempre series, no. 358.

Ursula Andress
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 43078.

Ursula Andress, Gina Lollobrigida
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 53189. With Gina Lollobrigida.


Original trailer of Dr. No (1962). Source: ChocolateFrogPrince (YouTube).


Clip from She (1965). Ursula demonstrates why She Must Be Obeyed. Source: DrCForbin (YouTube).


Ursula Andress in L'infermiera (1975). Source: Limesrgreat (YouTube).

Sources: Larry-115 (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Lilian Constantini

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Lilian Constantini (1902-1982) was a French dancer and actress, before marrying industrialist Charles Schneider. During the silent film ear, she often worked with director Jacques Robert.

Lilian Constantini
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 417. Photo: Sartony.

Mata Hari


Lilian Constantini was born Lilian Louise Hélène Chapiro-Volpert in Paris in 1902. She was the granddaughter of French Socialist politician Jules Guesde, and daughter of Boris Chapiro-Volpert, and Louise Bazile-Guesde.

Her mother separated from Chapiro-Volpert in 1917 and remarried in 1924 with the - 18 years younger - Parisian film director and former actor Gustave Jacques Robert Kneubühler, better known as Jacques Robert. Constantini, only 7 years younger than Robert, was witness at the marriage.

From 1921 she acted in a whole range films by Jacques Robert; actually, she acted in all of his films apart from Le comte Kostia/Count Kostia (Jacques Robert, 1925).

Constantini debuted in Robert’s Gaumont production La vivante épingle/The living pin (Jacques Robert, 1922), starring Jean Toulout. In Robert’s next Gaumont film La bouquetière des innocents/The Innocent Flower Girl (Jacques Robert, 1922), Constantini already played a substantial part as Marie Concini, opposite the main actress Claude Merelle, who played the double role of Margot the flower girl and Leonor Galligalt.

The third film of Robert and Constantini was the Honoré de Balzac adaptation Le cousin Pons/Cousin Pons (Jacques Robert, 1924), in which Constantini acted as Héloïse Brisetout opposite Maurice de Féraudy as Pons. In their next film, Naples au baiser du feu/Naples at the kiss of fire (Jacques Robert, Serge Nadejdine, 1925) Constantini had a major part opposite Gaston Modot and Gina Manès.

After Gauthier Debere’s short La leçon bien apprise (1926), Constantini had the lead opposite  in La chèvre aux pieds d’or/The Goat with the Golden Feet (Jacques Robert, 1926), adapted from the novel by Charles-Henry Hirsch and loosely based on the life story of Mata Hari.

Toutcha (Constantini), a Russian girl, loses her anarchist lover to the Russian police – he is murdered. Forced by hunger she bends to police chief baron Friedrich (Pierre Alcover) and becomes a Russian spy while dancing ‘Ballet Russe’-style in Paris as ‘The Goat with the Golden Feet’. One day, by their mutual friend Ursac (Max Maxudian), she meets a French lawyer, Marc Brégyl (Romuald Joubé) and they fall in love. Happy to escape the clutches of the baron, she joins Marc to his country house, but out of boredom she invites her theatre friends, whose wild parties drive the lawyer to madness, so he breaks with her. Time after, he receives a letter from her. The First World War has started, Toutcha is arrested as a spy and she asks him to defend her. With all his powers he does so, but in vain. Toutcha will be executed.

Lilian Constantini (Mon Ciné, 1926)
French magazine cover. Lilian Constantini in La chèvre aux pieds d'or (Jacques Robert, 1926). Cover of Mon Ciné, V, 219, 29 April 1926.

Romuald Joubé
Romuald Joubé. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 361.

Heir of the biggest French steel and armaments factory


Lilian Constantini's subsequent film with Jacques Robert was again a spy themed story, En plongée/Diving, made in 1926 but released in 1928, with Constantini in the lead and with Daniel Mendaille and again Pierre Alcover as her co-stars. It was Robert’s last film. He would die in 1928, at the age of only 38. The film, based on the story Fragments d’épaves by Bernard Frank was filmed in Brittany. Other sources say it pretended to be Brittany but was shot in Monaco.

In 1928 Constantini acted opposite Georges Vallée in Germaine Dulac’s film Celles qui s'en font. During a period of “discophillia” in France, Dulac made this musical film, intended to be shown with records. Celles qui s’en font was split into two parts, with each part presenting a short story to match one of two tracks. Both stories feature dancer Lillian Constantini playing a female protagonist shunned by society (a theme dear to Dulac) and fallen on hard times.

In 1929, Constantini had the female lead in Chacun porte sa croix/Everyone carries his cross (Jean Choux, 1929) about a man who forbids his wife and child to go to church until misery happens. She again played the lead in a spy story by Choux, Espionnage ou la guerre sans armes/Spying or Unarmed War (Jean Choux, 1929), a romanticised depiction of the life of female spy Louise de Bettignies. Then followed another lead in Sa maman/His mom (Gaston Mouru de Lacotte, 1929).

In 1930 she had the female lead in her first sound film, L'étrange fiancée/The strange fiancée (George Pallu, 1930), with Henry Baudin as a Caligari-like mad scientist. In post-production they had given Lilian such a strange voice, that people started laughing in the cinema and Constantini protested after the first night.

After an interval of several years, Constantini had a regular lead in three adaptations of mystery dramas by Marcel Allain: Lui... ou... elle/Him ... or ... she (Roger Capellani, 1934), Vilaine histoire/An ugly story (Christian-Jaque, 1935) and Crime d’amour/Crime of love (Roger Capellani, 1935), always with Robert Ancelin and Lucien Arnaud in the male leads as the amateur detective and the professional policeman. Constantini’s last film was Jean de Limur’s comedy Le coup de trois/The three (1936), starring René Lefèvre.

In 1943 Lilian Constantini/Volpert married industrialist Charles Schneider (1898-1960), cousin of filmmaker Germaine Dulac and heir of the biggest French steel and armaments factory Schneider-Creusot. After serving in the First World War he was fired from the family business in 1924, because of a conflict with his father Eugène Schneider II. He then worked at the Gaumont Film company, but in 1942 after the death of his father he took over the family business with his brother Jean.

Schneider and Constantini had one son, who died early, but two daughters lived on: Dominique (1942) and Catherine (1944). Dominique became writer and named herself Schneidre. She published e.g. on her mother the book Fortune de mère (2001). Catherine Schneider was in 1975-1977 the third wife of filmmaker Roger Vadim, with whom she has a son, Vania Plémiannikov.

Lilian Constantini/Volpert/Schneider died in 1982 in Saint-Tropez, France. She was 79.

René Lefevre
René Lefèvre. French postcard by Éditions Chantal (EC), Paris, no. 102.


Celles qui s'en font (Germaine Dulac, 1930). Source: Georgette 14 (YouTube).

Sources: Unifrance, Rochelle Sara Miller, Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

Régina Badet

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During the Belle Epoque, French dancer and actress Régina Badet (1876-1949) was a star of the Opéra-Comique in Paris. She also had a career in the French silent cinema.

Régina Badet
French postcard in the Les Vedettes de l'Écran series by Editions Filma, no. 94.

The New Paris Pet


Anne Régina Badet was born in 1876 in Bordeaux in the Gironde region of France.

She made an early stage debut at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux where she was a principal dancer in 1890. In 1900 she started a brilliant Parisian career as an actress and dancer. In 1904, Madame Badet became a major star of the Opéra-Comique.

The Los Angeles Herald (1906) described Badet as the 'new Paris pet' and that her dances in the Opera Aphrodite had caused a furor among theatregoers.

A critic wrote that he went to see the performance because the opera was a 'masterpiece' and because he wanted to see star soprano Mary Garden's interpretation of her role. Instead, he reported that he was most drawn to the performance by Régina Badet.

She was particularly noted in 1910 for her role as Conchita Perez in the stage production of La Femme et le Pantin (The Woman and the Puppet) by Pierre Louÿs and Pierre Frondaie.

Régina Badet
French postcard, no. 267. Photo: N.D. Caption: Régina Badet. Opéra-Comique.

Régina Badet
French postcard by A.S., no. 229. Painting for the Salon de 1910 by Farre-Henry, 'Mlle Regina Badet de l'Opéra Comique, rôle de Théano. Scène d'orgie d' Aphrodite.'

An appealingly subtle actress, as well as a looker


Between 1908 and 1922, Régina Badet played in a dozen films. Her film debut was in the early silent film Le Secret de Myrto/Myrto's Secret (1908) for Pathé Frères.

The following year, she appeared for Pathé in Carmen (André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy, 1909) with Max Dearly, and in the Film D'Art production Le Retour d'Ulysse/The Return of Ulysses (André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy, 1909) with Paul Mounet as the legendary Greek hero.

In the next decade she appeared in several films by Louis Mercanton, including Le spectre du passé/The specter of the past (René Hervil, Louis Mercanton, 1913) with Gabriel de Gravone, Vendetta (René Hervil, Louis Mercanton, 1914) with Jean Angelo, and Le lotus d'or/The Golden Lotus (Louis Mercanton, 1916).

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre at IMDb about Le Lotus d'or: "This silent movie felt like an opera with no music. I didn't much fancy the moralistic ending; it implies that a sensual woman is inherently so immoral that she must die. As portrayed by Regina Badet - an appealingly subtle actress, as well as a looker - Leah isn't really evil."

Her final film was Maître Évora/Mr. Evora (Gaston Roudès, 1922) with Maurice Schutz. She abandoned the stage and the screen permanently in the early 1920s.

Régina Badet died in her hometown Bordeaux in 1949.

Régina Badet
French postcard by S.I.P. Photo: Boyer. Publicity for Vins Désiles. Caption: Oh! Vins Désiles! You give us the force, the sparkle ... the success.

Régina Badet
French postcard by Editions Lafayette in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 244. Photo: Comoedia.

Sources: Lynn Garafola (Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance), The Cabinet Card Gallery,Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

Regimantas Adomaitis

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Regimantas Adomaitis (1937) is a Lithuanian film and stage actor. He is known in Russia, Germany, and other countries besides Lithuania.

Regimantas Adomaitis
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Poterjannyj krov. We could not identify the film.

Regimantas Adomaitis in Cërtova nevesta (1973)

Regimantas Adomaitis in Faktas (1981)
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Velnio nuotaka/Cërtova nevesta/Devil's Bride (Arunas Zebriunas, 1973).Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Faktas/Facts (Almantas Grikevicius, 1981).

A Lithuanian Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera


Regimantas Adomaitis was born in Šiauliai, Lithuania in 1937. He graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Vilnius University. Later he studied acting at the acting department of the Vilnius Conservatory.

He made a debut in the theatre, and had engagements in Vilnius, Kaunas and Kapsukas. His film debut was Vienos dienos kronika/The Chronicle of one Day (Vytautas Zalakevicius, 1963) with Donatas Banionis.

In 1966 he had his breakthrough with Niekas nenorėjo mirti/Nobody Wanted to Die (Vytautas Žalakevičius,1966). This action drama is set in a small Lithuanian farming community after the Second World War. The village is divided as the communists battle those in favour of national independence. When the leader of the community is killed, the man's four sons, including Adomaitis, set out to avenge his death. Adomaitis, director Vytautas Žalakevičius. and cinematographer Jonas Gricius were awarded the USSR State Prize for the film in 1967.

That year, he also acted in the a-typical Soviet war film Vostochny koridor/Eastern Corridor (Valentin Vinogradov, 1966) with Lyudmila Abramova. In the historical drama Sergey Lazo (Aleksandr Gordon, 1968), he played the title role of the Communist leader Lazo.

Adomaitis appeared as Edmund in the Soviet Shakespeare adaptation Korol Lir/King Lear (Grigori Kozintsev, Iosif Shapiro, 1971), starring Juri Jarvet. The Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich composed the score. Jugu Abraham at IMDb: “Kozintsev is one of least sung masters of Russian cinema. His cinema is very close to that of Tarkovsky and Sergei Paradjanov. Kozintsev's Lear is not a Lear that mourns his past and his daughters--his Lear is close to the soil, the plants, and all elements of nature. That's what makes Kozintsev's Shakespearean works outstanding.”

In 1973, Adomaitis appeared in the Soviet drama Eto sladkoe slovo - svoboda!/That Sweet Word: Liberty! (Vytautas Žalakevičius, 1973). The film was shot in Chile shortly before 1973 Chilean coup d'état. The basis for the plot is a real story: the escape from San-Carlos prison in Venezuela of three political prisoners. The film was entered into the 8th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Golden Prize.

Velnio nuotaka/Cërtova nevesta/Devil's Bride (Arūnas Žebriūnas, 1974) is the first Lithuanian musical about the victory of love over the trickery of the Devil based on the book Baltaragio malūnas (Whitehorn Mill) by Kazys Boruta. Due to its popularity it is sometimes called a Lithuanian Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera.

Regimantas Adomaitis in Sergey Lazo (1968)
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Sergey Lazo (Aleksandr Gordon, 1968).

Regimantas Adomaitis in Korol Lir (1971)
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Korol Lir/King Lear (Grigori Kozintsev, Iosif Shapiro, 1971).

Regimantas Adomaitis and Lyudmila Saveleva in Yuliya Vrevskaya (1978)
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Yuliya Vrevskaya (Nikola Korabov, 1978) with Lyudmila Saveleva.

Power House


In East-Germany, Regimantas Adomaitis starred in Wolz - Leben und Verklärung eines deutschen Anarchisten/Wolz - Life and Illusion of a German Anarchist (Günter Reisch, 1974) with Heidemarie Wenzel. Tom Dooley at IMDb: “Part comedy at one point, part political statement and a definite swipe at National Socialism, it is very ambitious and it pulls it all off. It has a great musical score too and the music adds to the moods tenfold. The acting is superb and Regimantas Adomaitis as Wolz is a power house.”

For the DEFA, he also starred in Mann gegen Mann/Man Against Man (Kurt Maetzig, 1976). In the historical drama Yuliya Vrevskaya/Between the Tsar’s Court and the Battlefield (Nikola Korabov, 1978), Adomaitas played opposite Lyudmila Saveleva and Stefan Danailov.

Other films were the Maxim Gorky adaptation Vrag/Enemies (Rodion Nahapetov, 1978) with Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, the Soviet-Italian drama La vita è bella/Life Is Beautiful (Grigoriy Chukhray, 1979) with Giancarlo Giannini and Ornella Muti, and Poloska neskoshennych dikikh tsvetov/A strip of unclosed wild flowers (Yuri Ilyenko, 1980).

He returned to East-Germany for the drama Die Verlobte/The Fiancee (Günter Reisch, Günther Rücker, 1980) with Jutta Wachowiak as a woman sentenced in 1934 to ten years in prison for antifascist activities. The love between her and her fiancée enables her to survive it.

He co-starred again with Donatas Banionis in the Soviet Lithuanian-language war film Gruppa krovi nol/Faktas/Facts (Almantas Grikevicius, 1981). At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, actress Yelena Solovey won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film.

Other films include Iz zhizni otdykhayushchikh/Life on Holidays (Nikolay Gubenko, 1981), Skrydis per Atlanta/The Flight Across the Atlantic Ocean (Raimondas Vabalas, 1984), Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein/It’s Hard to be a God (Peter Fleischmann, 1989), the war drama Angely smerti/Angels of Death (Yuriy Ozerov, 1993), with Fedor Bondarchuk and Powers Boothe, and the French-Russian drama Tu es.../You are… (Vladimir Makeranets, 1995).

On TV, he appeared in the Soviet musical miniseries Trest, kotoryy lopnul/The Trust That Went Bust (Aleksandr Pavlovsky 1983) based on short stories by O. Henry. In 1985, Regimantas Adomaitis was a member of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. Adomaitis has received many awards of recognition.

In 1988 he with other 34 prominent people, he created Sąjūdis Reform Movement, which eventually led to the declaration of independence of Lithuania on 11 March 1990. Regimantas Adomaitis now lives in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, where he works as an actor at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre and regularly appears in TV series. His most recent film is the Norwegian drama Iskyss/The Ice Kiss (Knut Erik Jensen, 2008) with Ellen Dorrit Petersen. Adomaitis was married to singer Eugenia Baerite, who died in 2011. They have three children.

Regimantas Adomaitis and Elena Solovey in Vragi (1978)
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Vragi/Enemies (Rodion Nahapetov, 1979) with Elena Solovey.

Regimantas Adomaitis and Zhanna Bolotova in Iz zhizni otdykhayushchikh (1981)
Soviet collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Iz zhizni otdykhayushchikh/Life on Holidays (Nikolay Gubenko, 1981) with Zhanna Bolotova.

Sources: Jugu Abraham (IMDb), Tom Dooley (IMDb), Roman A. Ivanov (IMDb), Mubi, AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Heinrich George

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Huge, bear-like Heinrich George (1893–1946) was a famous German stage and film actor of the Weimar republic. He starred in such classics as Metropolis (1926) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1931). Under the Nazi regime, the former Communist was initially not permitted to work but later appeared in notorious propaganda films as Jud Süss (1940). After the war he died of starvation in a Soviet concentration camp.

Heinrich George and Brigitte Helm in Metropolis (1926)
German collectors card by Ross Verlag in the series Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film, picture, picture no. 143, group 43. Photo: Ufa. Caption: "Heinrich George plays the scene".

Heinrich George in Stjenka Rasin (1936)
Small German collectors card in the Bunte Filmbilder series by G. Zuban, München, no. 190. Photo: Badal / Terra. Publicity still for Stjenka Rasin/Stenka Rasin (Alexandre Volkoff, 1936).

Heinrich George
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3417/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Paul Moser, Berlin.

Spooking Bertolt Brecht


Heinrich George was born Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz in Stettin, Pomerania, Germany (now Szczecin, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland) in 1893. He was the son of former naval officer August Schulz.

Before graduation, he left his school in Berlin and went to Szczecin for acting lessons. In the summer of 1912, only 19, he made his stage debut in the city of Kolberg as head waiter in the operetta Die keusche Susanne (The chaste Susanne) by Jean Gilbert.

After more stage engagements in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz) and Neustrelitz, he took part as a volunteer in the First World War and in the winter of 1915 he was severely wounded. After his recovery, he worked in Dresden at the Albert-Theater (1917-1918), in Frankfurt am Main at the Schauspielhaus (1918-1921) and in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater (1921) under Max Reinhardt.

During the 1920s, he became one of the most renowned actors of the Weimar Republic with classic performances as Wallenstein, Falstaff, and Faust. He worked under such famous left-wing directors as Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht. George reportedly spooked the young Brecht in his first directing job, a production of Arnolt Bronnen's Parracide (1922), when he refused to continue working with the director.

George was a member of the VDSt Greifswald and was active in the Communist Party of Germany. In 1923 he founded das Schauspielertheater with the actors Elisabeth Bergner and Alexander Granach to be able to work as independent artists. Between 1925 and 1929 he mainly played at the Volksbühne in plays directed by Erwin Piscator. In addition, he appeared at the Heidelberg Theater Festival on a regular basis (1926-1938). In 1927, he started directing stage plays himself.

Heinrich George
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6021/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Publicity still for Menschen hinter Gittern/Men Behind Bars (Pál Fejös, 1931), German-language version of The Big House (George W. Hill, 1930), with Heinrich George in Wallace Beery's role, filmed by MGM parallel to the English-speaking version, at a time when good subtitles weren't yet in use.

Heinrich George
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3251/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Ruth Wilhelmi.

Heinrich George in Andreas Schlüter (1942)
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no 3647/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Lindner / Terra. Publicity still for Andreas Schlüter (Herbert Maisch, 1942).

She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed


In 1921 Heinrich George was directed by Ludwig Berger in his first silent film, Der Roman der Christine von Herre/The Novel of Christine von Herre (1921). His other early film appearances were mainly supporting parts in such films as Kean (Rudolph Biebrach, 1921) with Alexander Moissi, Lucrezia Borgia/Lucretia Borgia (Richard Oswald, 1922) featuring Liane Haid, and the Lulu adaptation Erdgeist/Earth Spirit (Leopold Jessner, 1923) starring Asta Nielsen.

In 1925 he appeared in the British fantasy film She (Leander De Cordova, G.B. Samuelson, 1925) starring Betty Blythe as She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed of the frequently filmed H. Rider Haggard story. George had an important part in Fritz Lang‘s classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) as Groth, the guardian of the Heart Machine. It was followed by several major parts in films by such directors as Richard Eichberg and Richard Oswald.

In Manolescu - Der König der Hochstapler/Manolescu (Viktor Tourjansky, 1929) he starred opposite the legendary Russian film star Ivan Mozzhukhin. Filmportal.de: “George became predominantly known as a film actor who portrayed characters that try to hide their sensibility behind a brutal attitude. His ‘massive appearance’ as well as his ‘elementary power’ were mentioned in nearly every contemporary review.”

He starred as the author Emile Zola in Dreyfus/The Dreyfus Case (Richard Oswald, 1930) opposite Fritz Kortner. In Berlin Alexanderplatz (Phil Jutzi, 1931), Heinrich George played his most famous role. In this first adaptation of the novel by Alfred Döblin he mesmerized as Franz Biberkopf both the public and the critics. It made him one of the most important film actors of Germany.

On account of his great success in Germany, he was engaged by Hollywood in 1931 where he starred in two German-language movies produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including Menschen hinter Gittern/Men Behind Bars (Pál Fejös, 1931), a German-language version of The Big House (George W. Hill, 1931), with George in Wallace Beery’s role.

Heinrich George
German postcard by Margarinewerk Eidelstedt Gebr. Fauser G.m.b.H., Holstein, Serie 1, no. Bild 4. Photo: Marcus.

Heinrich George
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 6305. Photo: Verleih W. Luschinsky.

Heinrich George
German postcard by Das Programm von Heute, Berlin. Photo: Baumann/Terra. Publicity still for Jud Süss (1940).

An Arrangement


Heinrich George married German actress Berta Drews in 1932. They would have two sons: Jan George (1932) and the well-known actor Götz George (1938), but the marital bliss was soon interrupted by Hitler’s takeover of the power in Germany in January 1933.

During the 1920s, Heinrich George had been active in the Communist Party of Germany, and the Nazis did not permit him to continue work. The desperate actor made an arrangement with the fascist regime and played a communist who converts to National Socialism in the propaganda film Hitlerjunge Quex/Hitler Youth Quex (Hans Steinhoff, 1933) based upon the life and death of Hitler Youth Herbert Norkus, killed while distributing flyers in a Communist neighborhood.

Hereafter the Nazis gave George an active role in their propaganda on film and radio. He became one of the leading representatives of Nazi cinema and proved himself to be a very versatile actor: in historic biopics such as Das unsterbliche Herz/The Immortal Hear and Andreas Schlüter he portrayed powerfully charismatic leaders who insist on unconditional obedience. In the anti-Semitic Jud Süß/Jew Süss (Veit Harlan, 1940) he starred as a pleasure-seeking Duke who hands over his country to a Jewish financial advisor, and in Kolberg/Burning Hearts (Veit Harlan, 1945) he played a mayor who calls on his citizens to defend the city against the Napoleonic troops.

He also appeared in non-propaganda films, such as the Henrik Ibsen adaptation Stützen der Gesellschaft/Pillars of Society (Detlev Sierck a.k.a. Douglas Sirk, 1935), the Zarah Leander vehicle Heimat/Homeland (Carl Froelich, 1938), and the popular hit Der Postmeister/The Stationmaster (Gustav Ucicky, 1940) based on the story by Alexander Pushkin.

In 1937 propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels named him ‘Staatsschauspieler’ (Actor of the State) and a year later he became artistic director of the Schiller Theater in Berlin. There he engaged several artists, who were ‘unerwünscht‘ (undesirable) by the regime. Among them were the art historian Wilhelm Fraenger who was fired in 1933 in Heidelberg for being a communist, the Catholic actor Robert Müller dismissed according to Nazi racial laws as a Jew, the communist graphic designer Karl Rössing and his pupil Günther Strupp. In December 1942, he took over his own department at the film production company Tobis.

After World War II, Heinrich George and his wife were arrested by the Soviet secret police. In June 1945, they were imprisoned in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, and later interned in the former Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen, just north of Berlin. In 1946, Heinrich George died there at the age of 52. The death cause of the once so massive and powerful actor was starvation and exhaustion, even though official reports stated that he died ‘after an appendix operation’. The camp administration had urged the general practitioner, Dr. Schumann to do so.

In 1994, after the collapse of Communism and the removal of Soviet occupation troops from Germany, thousands of bones were found in the camp area. Heinrich George could be identified by comparing his DNA with that of his sons. The legendary actor got a final grave in a cemetery in Berlin and was officially rehabilitated in 1998.

Once George had described his famous acting technique as ‘controlled trance’. Filmportal.de: “His best screen moments occured in movies in which he could act in long unbroken scenes uninterrupted by reaction shots. Examples include his plea in Affäre Dreyfus (The Dreyfus Case) and the dance sequence in Der Postmeister”.

Heinrich George
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3956/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Star-Foto-Atelier.


Trailer Der Postmeister (1940). Source: Spuller (YouTube).

Sources: Film-Zeit.de (German), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Erotikon (1920)

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One of the highlights of the Scandinavian silent cinema is the Swedish film Erotikon/Bounds That Chafe (1920) directed by Mauritz Stiller for Svensk Filmindustri. Erotikon surely pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable on the screen in 1920. The stars of this comedy-drama of sexual intrigue are Karin Molander, Anders de Wahl, Lars Hanson and Tora Teje.

Karin Molander in Erotikon
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1097/1. Photo: publicity still for Erotikon/Bounds That Chafe (Mauritz Stiller, 1920) with Karin Molander.

Anders de Wahl and Karen Molander in Erotikon
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1097/2. Anders de Wahl and Karin Molander in Erotikon/Bounds That Chafe (Mauritz Stiller, 1920).

Obsessed with the sexual life of bugs


Erotikon is a Swedish romantic comedy film directed in 1920 by Mauritz Stiller, starring Tora TejeKarin Molander, Anders de Wahl and Lars Hanson. The screenplay by Stiller, Gustaf Molander and Arthur Nordén was based on the 1917 play A kék róka by the Hungarian author Ferenc Herczeg.

It was one of the most expensive film of the Swedish silent era. Miguel Pendás at Silent Film: "A 1919 merger that resulted in Svensk Filmindustri meant that the company now distributed and exhibited films as well as produced them. The critical and financial success of Victor Sjöström’s Terje Vigen (1917) led to a change in policy. Studio head Charles Magnusson decided to make fewer films, each with stronger production values and bigger budgets. He also wanted films with more international appeal. Stiller was presented with an unprecedentedly large budget for Erotikon. He used it wisely."

Erotikon revolves around the romantic entanglements of five stock characters from drawing room comedy. First there is the clueless husband, entomology professor Leo Charpentier (Anders de Wahl), who is obsessed with the sexual life of bugs. His niece Marthe (Karin Molander), the flirtatious ingenue, is secretly in love with her uncle.

The professor's restless wife Irene (Tora Teje ) is courted by two suitors. Irene loves baron Felix (Vilhelm Bryde), a womanising aviator (the pretentious flyboy). Her husband's best friend, the handsome sculptor Preben Wells (Lars Hanson), loves Irene, and actually she likes this Bohemian artist too. Carpentier doesn't oppose his wife's flirts as he likes somebody else too...

IMDb: "Stiller obviously delights in teasing his audience with each scandalous plot twist and every salacious leer, and the result is a deliciously subversive comedy that was very much ahead of its time."

Alide Liddel at IMDb: "Erotikon has been called a precursor to Lubitsch, with its part-satiric, part-romantic look at the upper-classes, the games they play, the roles they assume. Like Lubitsch, Stiller uses the techniques of farce, where the geometry of plot and the manipulation of space leads to complications, misunderstandings, provocations, accidents. The use of the Charpentier hallway, for instance, with its angular spaces; and the emphasis on fetishised detail (Irene's gloves and feet; the 'striptease' in front of the sculptor when she removes her coat) are all to be found in Lubitsch."

Erotikon premiered in Sweden on 8 November 1920. It became a commercial success and was sold to 45 markets abroad.

Anders de Wahl and Karin Molander in Erotikon
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1097/3. Anders de Wahl and Karin Molander in Erotikon/Bounds That Chafe (Mauritz Stiller, 1920).

Tora Teje and Lars Hanson in Erotikon
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1097/6. Tora Teje and Lars Hanson in Erotikon/Bounds That Chafe (Mauritz Stiller, 1920).

Sources: Miguel Pendás (San Francisco Silent Film Festival), Alide Liddel (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Valentine's Postcards

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Valentine’s Co.  (1825-1963) was one of the largest postcard publishers in the early 1900s. It's thought that more than a million photographs were taken for the company. 

Ada Reeve
Ada Reeve. British postcard in the Valentine Series. Photo: Lallie Charles (née Charlotte Elizabeth Martin). Possibly this was a publicity still for the stage musical San Toy. Reeve joined the cast of this hit musical in 1901, playing Dudley and later taking over the title role from Marie Tempest.

Phyllis Dare
Phyllis Dare. British postcard in the Valentine's Series. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield.

Peggy Hyland
Peggy Hyland. British postcard in Valentine's Real Photograph series, no. 8251. Photo: William Fox.

Sari Maritza
Sari Maritza. British postcard by Valentine's in the Film Stars and Their Pets series, no. 5843 J. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Heather Angel
Heather Angel. British postcard by Valentine's Postcards in the Film Stars and Their Pets series, no. 5843 L.

Heather Angel
Heather Angel. British postcard by Valentine's Postcards in the Film Stars and Their Pets series, no. 7113 L, ca. 1934.

Film Stars and Their Pets


The Valentine Company, a lithographic printing firm, was founded in 1825 in Dundee, Scotland by engraver John Valentine. His son James became a partner five years later. James was an early pioneer of photography and by the 1860s his work was being reproduced by the Valentine Company as prints and stereo-views.

After James’ death in 1879 his two sons, George Dobson and William Dobson took over the Company, but in 1884 George moved to New Zealand where he became a landscape photographer. In 1880 Valentine began producing Christmas cards and by 1896 they began printing postcards.

Up until 1882 they had only published views of Scotland, but they began expanding into other tourist markets especially after their postcard business took off. Other offices opened in Jamaica, Medeira, Norway, Tangier, Canada, and New York. They produced a great range of postcards that were mostly printed in Scotland in tinted halftone lithography or issued as real photo cards.

From 1900, an increasing number of images were bought in from local and national photographers and agencies including George Washington Wilson, Donald George of Gwynedd, society photographers such as Karsh of Ottawa, Dorothy Wilding and Baron who sold publishing rights to Valentines.

Valentine's created several film star postcard series, including the Film Stars and Their Pets series and the Famous Film Stars series. Among Valentine's noted series are also Disney and Bonzo. In addition they produced a vast array of other products that held photographic images. All interests outside of Great Britain were sold in 1923.

By 1929 they had given up their photo portraiture work to concentrate solely on postcard production. But they did not anticipate the public’s growing demand for color cards and by the 1950s their business was suffering. In return they put most of their efforts into greeting cards. They were purchased by John Waddington & Co. in 1963, which passed on to Hallmark Cards in 1980. Dundee operations closed in 1994.

Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert. British postcard by Valentine's, no. 5904 C. Photo: Paramount.

Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo. British postcard by Valentine's Postcard in the Real Photograph series, no. 5904 F. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Queen Christina (1933).

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934)
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. British postcard by Valentine's, no. 5904 N. Photo: London Films. Publicity still for The Rise of Catherine the Great (Paul Czinner, 1934).

Gracie Fields
Gracie Fields. British postcard by Valentine's Postcard, no. 7121.

Claude Hulbert
Claude Hulbert. British postcard by Valentine's in the Famous Radio Stars series, no. 7122 M.

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

Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman. British postcard by Valentine's in the Famous Film Stars Series, no. 7123 I.

Sources: About Postcards, Metro Postcard Com, Collections, Archives hub and Ross Postcards.

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

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