Rex Allen

March 30, 2024, 10:00 pm

American film and television actor, singer and songwriter Rex Allen (1920-1999) was known as 'the Arizona Cowboy'. As a singing cowboy in Republic Westerns, he was one of the top-ten box office draws in the early 1950s. Later, he was the narrator of many Disney nature and Western productions.

Dutch card.

Dutch collector card, no. K 9. Photo: Republic Pictures.

The clean-cut, God-fearing American hero of the Wild West

Rex Elvie Allen was born in 1920 to Horace E. Allen and Luella Faye Clark on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, forty miles from Willcox in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona. As a boy, he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father until high school graduation, when he toured the Southwest as a rodeo rider.

He got his start in show business on the East Coast as a vaudeville singer, then found work in Chicago as a performer on the WLS-AM program, National Barn Dance. He left the show in 1949 and moved to Hollywood. In 1948 he signed with Mercury Records where he recorded many successful country music singles until 1952, when he switched to the Decca label where he continued to make records into the 1970s. He also recorded one album for Buena Vista (Disney, pictured) in the 1960s, although sources vary on the date of issue.

When singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were very much in vogue in American film, Republic Pictures in Hollywood gave him a screen test and put him under contract in 1949. Beginning with The Arizona Cowboy (R. G. Springsteen, 1950), Allen starred as himself in 19 Hollywood Westerns. One of the top-ten box office draws of the day, whose character was soon depicted in comic books. On-screen, Allen personified the clean-cut, God-fearing American hero of the wild West who wore a white Stetson hat, loved his faithful horse Koko, and had a loyal buddy who shared his adventures.

Allen's comic-relief sidekick in his first few pictures was Buddy Ebsen and then character actor Slim Pickens. Late in coming to the industry, Rex Allen's film career was relatively short as the popularity of Westerns faded by the mid-1950s. But he starred in several B-Westerns during the 1950s, often filming on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., known for its huge sandstone boulders. Allen has the distinction of making Phantom Stallion (Harry Keller, 1954), the last singing Western.

As other cowboy stars made the transition to television, Allen tried too, cast as Dr. Bill Baxter for a half-hour weekly series called Frontier Doctor, which filmed much of its outdoor action on the Republic Pictures backlot and at the Iverson Movie Ranch. In 1961 he was one of five rotating hosts for NBC-TV's Five Star Jubilee. Allen had a rich, pleasant voice, ideally suited for narration, and was able to find considerable work as a narrator in a variety of films, especially for Walt Disney Pictures wildlife films and television shows. The work earned him the nickname, 'The Voice of the West'. He narrated the original version of The Incredible Journey (Fletcher Markle, 1963). Allen also provided the narration for the Hanna-Barbera animated film Charlotte's Web (Charles Nichols, Iwao Takamoto, 1973).

Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merksemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.L., Merksem (Anvers). Photo: Republic Pictures.

Dutch postcard by DRC, no. F 156. Photo: Republic Pictures.

Don't Go Near The Indians

Rex Allen wrote and recorded many songs, some of which were featured in his films. One of Allen's most successful singles was 'Don't Go Near The Indians', which reached the Top 5 of Billboard magazine's Hot Country Singles chart in November 1962. It features The Merry Melody Singers.

The song is a tale of a young man who disobeys his father's advice stated in the title. When the father finds out that he has developed a relationship with a beautiful Indian maiden (named Nova Lee), he decides to reveal to his son what he had kept secret for so long: The man's biological son was killed by an Indian (as stated in the lyrics) during a clash between the white man and a tribe, and in retaliation, he kidnapped the boy as a young baby and raised him as his son. The other secret: His son cannot marry Nova Lee because she's the boy's biological sister.

In his later years, he performed frequently with actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez. He wrote and sang the theme song for the early 1980s sitcom Best of the West. Rex Allen died in 1999, two weeks before his 79th birthday, in Tucson, Arizona, after he sustained fatal injuries when his caregiver accidentally ran over him in the driveway. Cremated, his ashes were scattered at Railroad Park in Willcox where most of his memorabilia are on display.

Allen was married three times; all three marriages ended in divorce. First, in 1940, he married Doris Windsor, with whom he had one child, Rexine Allen. His second marriage was to Bonnie Linder (1946–1973), with whom he had 4 children. His third and final marriage was to Virginia Hudson in 1992. The couple divorced in 1999. His five children included Rex Allen Jr., who became a singer like his father.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Allen was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard. The Rex Allen Arizona Cowboy Museum and Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame in Willcox, Arizona features Allen's collection of memorabilia, including photos, movie posters, cowboy outfits, records and musical instruments. Across the street from the museum is a bronze statue of Allen.

Vintage postcard by Royal Chewing Gum, no. 694. Photo: H.P.S.

Rex Allen Museum. Image: Clive Aldenhoven @ Flickr.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

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Photo by T. v. Mindszenty

March 31, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Barbara Rush (1927-2024)

≪ Previous: Rex Allen

Tibor von Mindszenty (1899–?) started his career as Hollywood actor Paul Vincenti. The 'Hungarian Rudolph Valentino' later became a Ufa star photographer in Berlin.

Paul Vincenti a.k.a. Tibor von Mindszenty

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 5456/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Amster, Berlin. Paul Vincenti.

German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 1090/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Paramount-Film. Rudolph Valentino.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 323. Photo: Fayer. Sári Fedák.

Hungarian actress and singer Sári Fedák (1879-1955) was one of the most famous prima donnas of her time. The temperamental operetta and film star was mixed up in several scandals.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 262, 1941-1944. Photo: T. von Mindszenty.

Pretty Hungarian actress Lili Muráti (1914-1963) appeared in nearly 40 films between 1935 and 1995. She was a leading star of the Hungarian cinema in the 1930s. Her role in David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago (1965) became the subject of an urban legend.

The challenge of building a star

Tibor von Mindszenty was born in 1899 in Budapest, then Austria-Hungary. He was also known as Tibor Mindszenty and Tibor Mindszenthy and became known as Paul Vincenti in Hollywood.

He spent his childhood in Italy, Vienna and Budapest. At the age of 17, he was enlisted into the army and served in the First World War as an artillery lieutenant. His greatest passion was sports but to have a civilian position after he was discharged, he took a managerial post in his brother-in-law’s business.

During a boat trip on the Danube, he met celebrated actress Sári Fedák. When the renowned artiste caught sight of the handsome, sporty young man, she thought Mindszenty was the spitting image of Rudolph Valentino. Valentino, who personified the first screen ideal of the Latin heart-throb, died unexpectedly at the age of 31 in August 1926.

Fedák took on the challenge of building a star and clinching a lucrative deal by selling the Americans this Rudolph Valentino doppelgänger. She had screen tests made of Mindszenty at Corvin studio, and she took him to Angelo, the famous star photographer in Pest. A series of portraits published in Színházi Élet proved that Mindszenty could be the next Valentino. In November 1926, Mindszenty and Fedak set off for America.

Mindszenty was initially contracted to First National Film Studio in New York, then in 1929 he joined Fox for a short time. First National’s PR team started to build the image of the new star. One of the most important elements of the campaign was that the actor was heralded as the scion of an ‘ancient Hungarian hussar family’. It is no mere coincidence that his first minor role was in the Hungarian-themed film The Stolen Bride (1927) directed by Alexander Korda and starring Billie Dove. Later on, he appeared in The Love Mart (George Fitzmaurice, 1927) with Billie Dove and Gilbert Roland and he took the lead in the melodrama The Veiled Woman (Emmett J. Flynn, 1929). Mindszenty worked under the catchy stage name of Paul Vincenti from 1927.

Cornell Borchers and Willy Birgel in Das ewige Spiel (1951)

German postcard by FBZ, no. 225. Photo: Merkur-Film / T. v. Mindszenty. Cornell Borchers and Willy Birgel in Das ewige Spiel/The eternal game (Frantisek Cáp, 1951).

Germaine Damar in Tanzende Sterne (1952)

West-German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 658. Photo: T. v. Mindszenty / Herzog Film. Germaine Damar in Tanzende Sterne/Dancing Stars (Géza von Cziffra, 1952).

Luxembourg actress and dancer Germaine Damar (1929) started her career as an acrobat. She played in nearly 30 German films, including three films in which she was the partner of Peter Alexander.

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, A 585. Photo: Europa-Film / V. Mindszenty. Albert Lieven in Klettermaxe/Corry Bell (Kurt Hoffmann, 1952).

German character actor Albert Lieven (1906–1971) fled from Nazi Germany to Great Britain. During WW II, he appeared in several British films, often cast as the humourless military. Till the 1970s, he appeared in German and British films and on television.

Ingeborg Körner in Keine Angst vor großen Tieren (1953)

East-German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach I.V., no. G 708, 1956. Photo: Von Mindszenty. Ingeborg Körner in Keine Angst vor großen Tieren/Not Afraid of Big Animals (Ulrich Erfurth, 1953).

East-German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach I.V., no. G 707, 1956. Photo: Von Mindszenty. Ingeborg Körner in Keine Angst vor großen Tieren/Not Afraid of Big Animals (Ulrich Erfurth, 1953).

Ingeborg Körner (1929) is a Namibian-born German actress, best known for her parts in such West-German films as Die Rose von Stambul/The Rose of Stamboul (1953), Keine Angst vor großen Tieren/Not Afraid of Big Animals (1953) and Das ideale Brautpaar/The Perfect Couple (1954). from 1955 on she only appeared on German TV and stage.

The Hungarian connection in Berlin

When his contract expired, Tibor von Mindszenty returned to Europe. He settled in Berlin where he appeared in six films between 1929 and 1934. One of these was the Czech-German coproduced late silent film Kennst du das kleine Haus am Michigansee?/Do You Know That Little House on Lake Michigan? (Viktor Brumlík, Max W. Kimmich, 1929). The story is set in the United States but scenes around the picturesque Lake Michigan were actually shot in the High Tatras.

In the film, Vincenti is a bored playboy whose only passion is water sports until he meets a pretty girl. Critics of the time praised the romantic atmosphere given by nature and Vincenti was deemed to be convincing as the handsome, tough character who was considered by Siegfried Kracauer, critic of Frankfurter Zeitung, to be “both sporty and erotic”.

All his other films from the Berlin period have some Hungarian connection, either as regards the cast and crew or the subject matter. Géza von Bolváry directed Ein Tango für Dich (Géza von Bolváry, 1930) with Ernő Verebes and Tibor Halmay and Der Raub der Mona Lisa/The Theft of the Mona Lisa (Géza von Bolváry, 1931). Seitensprünge (1931), the second film directed by István Székely, was made on the basis of the screenplay by Károly Nóti and Lajos Bíró.

The screenwriters of the musical romance Mein Herz ruft nach Dir/My Heart Calls You (Carmine Gallone, 1934) were Ernst Marischka and Emeric Pressburger, and the editor was Eduard von Borsody. Mein Herz ruft nach Dir is about an opera company and it became famous because Márta Eggerth and Jan Kiepura– one of the most famous dream pairs on the screen – played together in it for the first time. Hilde von Stolz, who was born in Sighișoara (then part of Hungary), had a supporting role.

Vincenti also played in Die Csikósbaroness (Jacob Fleck, Luise Fleck, 1930), one of the typical Hungarian-themed German films of the early sound era. It tells the story of a love affair between a German baroness and a Hungarian hussar officer. The musical film was shot in Hunnia Film Studio, Budapest, in Debrecen and on the Hortobágy. Ernő (Ernst) Verebes and Gretl Theimer play the other two lead roles. The film received mixed reviews from audiences and critics.

Heinz Rühmann and Ingeborg Körner in Keine Angst vor großen Tieren (1953)

German postcard by K & B / Filmwelt Berlin Archiv für Film-Geschichte, no. 57. Photo: Deutsche London Film / T. von Mindszenty. Heinz Rühmann and Ingeborg Körner in Keine Angst vor großen Tieren/Not Afraid of Big Animals (Ulrich Erfurth, 1953).

Actor, director and producer Heinz Rühmann (1902-1994) played in more than 100 films over nearly 70 years and was one of Germany's most popular film stars. He was a favourite actor of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels but also of Anne Frank. She pasted his photo on the wall of her room in her family's hiding place during the war, where it can still be seen today.

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 838. Photo: T. von Mindszenty / Deutsche London Film. Werner Fuetterer in Keine Angst vor grossen Tieren/Don't Fear Big Animals (Ulrich Erfurth, 1953).

At the age of 18, German actor Werner Fuetterer (1907-1991) was discovered to play the young lover in a series of silent films. For more than four decades he went on to work as a supporting actor in nearly 100 films.

Gustav Knuth in Keine Angst für grossen Tieren (1953)

East-German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach i.V., no. G 7C6. Photo: Real / v. Mindszenty, 1956. Gustav Knuth in Keine Angst für grossen Tieren/Not Afraid of Big Animals (Ulrich Erfurth, 1953).

Gustav Knuth (1901-1987) was a German actor who played folksy, good-natured characters in numerous films and TV series. After the Second World War, he took Swiss citizenship. He was a successful stage actor and starred in more than 120 films between 1935 and 1982. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the most distinguished German TV actors.

Carl Raddatz in Geständnis unter vier Augen (1954)

German postcard by Kunst und Bild, no. A 1189. Photo: T. v. Mindszenty / Deutsche London (TLF). Carl Raddatz in Geständnis unter vier Augen/Confession Under Four Eyes (André Michel, 1954).

German actor Carl Raddatz (1912-2004) was much in demand by film producers in the 1940s and especially in the 1950s. He appeared in several Nazi propaganda films, but he also gave Joseph Stalin a German voice. Through the years he would become one of the leading character actors of the German theatre.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1647. Photo: T. v. Mindszenty / Central Europa Film / Europa Film. Bibi Johns in Ball im Savoy/Ball at the Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955).

Blond Swedish pop singer and actress Bibi Johns (1929) was very popular in Europe and the USA during the 1950s. She appeared in several European musical films. In Germany, where she lived from 1954 on, she would become a cult star of the Schlager music. Today she is also known as a painter.

A true expert in the European star system

Perhaps this reception contributed to the fact that in the second half of the 1930s, Tibor von Mindszenty decided to open a totally new chapter in his life. Having studied photography in America, he found that he preferred to work behind the camera in the German capital.

He opened a photography studio and became a star photographer specialising in the fashionable trends of the era. Maybe he never forgot how much he owed photographer Angelo in Budapest because he also took his new profession extremely seriously. He worked on studio portraits and commercial photos primarily for Ufa film stars and magazines, and, interestingly, he signed off his works once again as ‘Mindszenty’ and ‘T. v. Mindszenty’.

Soon he had trained himself as a true expert of the European star system and his photographs served as references for the studios. In 1943, at the request of Ufa, he returned to Hungary to make a photo series of local stars and he also received orders that if he came across suitable young talents, he should notify the Berlin centre.

In an interview made in 1943, he said that he belonged to the circle of friends of directors Géza von Bolváry and József von Baky in Berlin. After the war, he continued working as a still photographer in Germany.

During the 1950s he worked on such German films as the romantic comedy Fanfaren der Liebe/Fanfares of Love (Kurt Hoffmann, 1951) starring Dieter Borsche, the musical comedy Geld aus der Luft/Money from the Air (Geza von Cziffra, 1955) with Lonny Kellner, and the crime drama Banditen der Autobahn/Bandits of the Highway (Geza von Cziffra, 1955) with Eva Ingeborg Scholz and Hans Christian Blech. During the early 1960s, Tibor von Mindszenty worked as a production manager for German television. When and where he passed away is unknown.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden-Westf., no. 1961. Photo: Deutsche London / Von Mindszenty. Publicity still for Die gestolene Hose/The Stolen Trousers (Géza von Cziffra, 1956).

Siegfried Breuer Jr. (1930-2004) was an Austrian film actor. He often played jeune premiers in German films of the 1950s and early 1960s.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 22. Photo: Arca / NF / V. Mindszenty.

German actor Walter Giller (1927-2011) was the cute boy-next-door in German films of the 1950s. With Nadja Tiller, he became a Dream Couple in European cinema.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3302. Photo: v. Mindszenty / Real-Film / Rank Film. Publicity still for Drei Birken auf der Heide/Three birches on the heath (Ulrich Erfurth, 1956).

German actress Margit Saad (1929) was a mysterious, exotic beauty working largely in German film and television. During the 1960s, she also made occasional English-language appearances.

Eva Ingeborg Scholz in Ball im Savoy (1955)

West-German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 1652. Photo: T. v. Mindszenty / Central Europa Film / Europa Film. Eva Ingeborg Scholz in Ball im Savoy/Ball at the Savoy (Paul Martin, 1955).

Eva Ingeborg Scholz in Unternehmen Schlafsack (1955)

West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G,m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 1635. Photo: Real / Rank-Film / v Mindszenty. Eva Ingeborg Scholz in Unternehmen Schlafsack/Operation Sleeping Bag (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1955).

Since her East German debut in 1948, German film and television actress Eva Ingeborg Scholz (1928-2022) played in more than 110 film and television productions.

Sources: Barkóczi Janka (National Film Institute Hungary), Filmportal.de and IMDb.

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Barbara Rush (1927-2024)

April 1, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: William Duncan

≪ Previous: Photo by T. v. Mindszenty

American actress Barbara Rush (1927-2024) died last Sunday, 31 March 2024, at 97. The beautiful brunette actress was the epitome of poise, charm, style, and grace in Hollywood films of the 1950s. In 1954, she won the Golden Globe Award as Most Promising Female Newcomer for the Science-Fiction film It Came from Outer Space (1953). She played the female lead in such films as The Young Philadelphians (1959), The Young Lions (1958), and Hombre (1967). Later in her career, Rush guest-starred on TV in such series as Peyton Place, All My Children and 7th Heaven.

Yugoslavian postcard by Studio Sombor, sent by mail in 1961. Barbara Rush in It Came from Outer Space (Jack Arnold, 1953).

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto. Milano, no. N. 120.

Brittle wives, conniving 'other women' or socialite girlfriend types

Barbara Rush was born in Denver, Colorado in 1927. She was the daughter of Roy Rush, a lawyer for a Midwest mining company, and Marguerite Rush. Barbara grew up in Santa Barbara, California, and enrolled at the University of California where she graduated in 1948.

She then worked with the University Players and took acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse. Soon talent scouts spotted her and, following a play performance, Paramount quickly signed her up in 1950. She made her film debut with The Goldbergs (Walter Hart, 1950).

Just before this, she had met fellow actor Jeffrey Hunter, an incredibly handsome newcomer who later became a 'beefcake' Bobbysoxer idol at Fox. The two fell in love quickly and married in December of 1950. Soon, they were on their way to becoming one of Hollywood's most beautiful and photogenic young couples. Their son Christopher was born in 1952.

While at Paramount, she was decorative in such assembly-line fare as the classic George Pal Sci-Fi film When Worlds Collide (Rudolph Maté, 1951), Quebec (George Templeton, 1951) opposite John Drew Barrymore, and the Western Flaming Feather (Ray Enright, 1952) starring Sterling Hayden. In 1953 she played the female lead in another Sci-Fi classic, It Came from Outer Space (Jack Arnold, 1953) for which she won a Golden Globe for 'Most Promising Newcomer – Female'.

Rush starred as the wife of James Mason in the acclaimed drama Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray, 1956), in which a school teacher's use of an experimental drug results in his threatening harm to his family. She was the love interest of reluctant soldier Dean Martin in the epic World War II drama The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958) and of ambitious lawyer Paul Newman in The Young Philadelphians (Vincent Sherman, 1959). She also co-starred opposite Richard Burton, and Kirk Douglas. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "In most cases, she played brittle wives, conniving 'other women' or socialite girlfriend types. Despite the 'A' list movies, Barbara was piling up, the one single role that could put her over the top never showed its face."

Big autograph card.

A Woman of Independent Means

By the early 1960s, Barbara Rush's film career started to decline. She married publicist Warren Cowan in 1959 and bore a second child, Claudia Cowan, in 1964. That year, she played a villainess in the Rat Pack's gangster musical Robin and the 7 Hoods (Gordon Douglas, 1964). In the Western drama Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1967) starring Paul Newman, she played a rich, younger, condescending wife of a thief - and ends up taken hostage and tied to a stake.

TV became a viable source of income for Barbara, appearing in scores of guest parts on the more popular shows of the time while co-starring in standard mini-movie dramas. In 1965, she appeared in a two-part episode of The Fugitive titled 'Landscape with Running Figures' as Marie Gérard, wife of police detective Lt. Philip Gérard. She had fun playing a 'guest villainess' in the Batman (1966) series as temptress Nora Clavicle.

The stage also became a strong focus for Barbara. In 1970, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for 'Forty Carats'. In 1984, she made her Broadway debut in the one-woman showcase 'A Woman of Independent Means', which earned her the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award during its tour.

Other showcases included 'Private Lives', (1973) 'Same Time, Next Year', (1976-1978) 'The Night of the Iguana' (1978), 'Steel Magnolias' (1988-1989), and Vagina Monologues (1995-1997). Among her later film appearances were parts in the disco-themed Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980) with The Village People, and the romantic comedy Summer Lovers (Randal Kleiser, 1982), starring Daryl Hannah.

The still-beautiful Barbara Rush occasionally graced the big and small screen in the later decades, including in a recurring role on TV's 7th Heaven (1997-2007). She died at a care home in Westlake Village, California, in 2024, at the age of 97. Rush married and divorced three times. Her husbands were Jeffrey Hunter (1950-1955), Warren Cowan (1959-1969), and actor Jim Gruzalski (1970-1973). She was the mother of Christopher Hunter and Fox News correspondent Claudia Cowan and aunt of actress Carolyn Hennesy.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1078. Photo: Universal International.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1084. Photo: Universal International.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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William Duncan

April 2, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Angel Heart (1987)

≪ Previous: Barbara Rush (1927-2024)

Scottish-born film star William Duncan (1879–1961) was a major actor, writer, and director of films and serials, often Westerns. He became one of the highest-paid leading men in the early film industry. When under contract at Vitagraph, he earned more than $1 million per year. 'Hollywood's first Scottish movie star' worked with the major studios of the day including the Selig Polyscope Company and Vitagraph. His career spanned the change to sound film, and he acted from 1911 to 1940. Sadly, many of his films did not survive.

Vintage postcard.

Hungarian postcard by City. Photo: William Duncan and Edith Johnson in Big Bill Barry. While this title is lacking in IMDb, the Hungarian press advertised for this film in 1921.

French postcard in the Les Vedettes du Cinéma series by Editions Filma, no. 49. Photo: Vitagraph.

Wrestler and bodybuilder

William Duncan was born in the Lochee area of Dundee, Scotland in 1879. As a child, he immigrated to the United States with his family in 1890. They settled in Philadelphia. He attended public school, where he started to play American football. He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he played football and participated in track, but left after two years of study.

He was a wrestler and worked as a physical instructor at the McFadden Physical Culture Health Home. He also wrote for a magazine about physical culture, operated a gymnasium in Philadelphia and was a professional wrestler. Later he operated a bodybuilding academy. In 1906, Duncan debuted in Vaudeville as part of a strongman act. Next, he acted in stock theatre companies in Philadelphia, Memphis, and Rochester.

In 1909, Duncan started to appear in films at the Selig Polyscope Company. His debut was Love and Law (1909), a Selig short by Marshall Stedman. Between 1909 and 1913, Duncan acted in some thirty shorts at Selig, often Westerns. His many credits include Told in Colorado (Joseph A. Golden, 1911) and The Count of Monte Cristo (Colin Campbell, 1912), starring Hobart Bosworth as Edmond Dantes and Tom Santschi as Danglars. When this film was made Adolph Zukor had secured the rights to the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas Père and was about to release his 1913 version with James O'Neill who had made the role famous on stage. Zukor's attorneys ordered this film destroyed and all prints were withdrawn.

In 1914, he moved over to Vitagraph, where he continued acting in shorts. His Vitagraph contract was worth $1,000,000 a year. He was better paid thanMary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. From 1916, he also played for Vitagraph in features.

Probably his first feature film was God's Country and the Woman (Rollin S. Sturgeon, 1916). It was a James Oliver Curwood adaptation with Nell Shipman as the female lead. His later films include Man of Might (William Duncan, Clifford Smith, 1919), Playing It Wild (William Duncan, 1922), The Steel Trail (William Duncan, 1923) and The Fast Express (William Duncan, 1924), all with Edith Johnsonas his co-star.

Portuguese postcard by Figuras do Ecran. Photo: AB.

French postcard in the Les vedettes de l'Ecran series by Editions Filma, no. 113. Photo: Evans, L.A. / Vitagraph, 1919.

Earning more than $1 million per year

From 1911 to 1924, William Duncan also directed some 88 films at Selig and Vitagraph. He directed Tom Mix in the short silent Western The Telltale Knife (William Duncan, 1914) also starring Myrtle Stedman and Duncan himself. At Selig, he also wrote almost 50 scripts.

In 1915-1916, there was a gap in his film direction, but from 1917, he continued directing at Vitagraph as well, where his first assignment was The Fighting Trail (William Duncan, 1917), a Western film series with 15 chapters.

Duncan followed the film industry to California. By now, he was directing feature-length films. Wolves of the North (William Duncan, 1924), about the adventures of fur trappers in the Pacific Northwest, was the last of his film directions.

In 1925, after having acted in some 160 films, he withdrew from the screen. But in 1935 he returned as the character Buck Peters, owner of the Bar 20 Ranch, in the Hopalong Cassidy Western series, starringWilliam Boyd and distributed by Paramount. His last film part was in Texas Rangers Ride Again (James Hogan, 1940) starring Ellen Drew and John Howard.

Duncan married twice. In 1921, he married his second wife, silent film actress Edith Johnson, with whom he had often costarred in many of his Vitagraph productions. The couple were married until Duncan died in Hollywood, California, in 1961. He was 81. The couple had two sons and one daughter together. William Duncan was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California, USA.

British postcard by Cinema Chat. Photo: Vitagraph.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London.

Vintage Real Photograph postcard by PRC. Photo: Vitagraph.

Sources: John "J-Cat" Griffith (Find A Grave), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Angel Heart (1987)

April 3, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Géza Tordy (1938-2024)

≪ Previous: William Duncan

The Neo Noir Angel Heart ( 1987) is a standout film in British director Alan Parkers' filmography. It's a seedy, disturbing and provocative mystery starring Mickey Rourke in one of his best performances. Equally enjoyable are co-stars Robert De Niro, Charlotte Rampling and Lisa Bonet, fresh from The Cosby Show. Parker's script is based on the novel 'Falling Angel' by William Hjortsberg.

British postcard, no. FA 222. Photo: Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

British postcard, no. FA 223. Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

French postcard by Editions Damilla, Paris, no 94967. Photo: Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris, in the Collection Cinema Couleur, no MC 32, 1989. Photo: Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

Locating a mysterious crooner named Johnny Favourite

In Angel Heart (1987), Mickey Rourke plays Harry Angel, an unshaven, chain-smoking private detective in Brooklyn in 1955. Harry is hired by sinister Mr. Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to locate a mysterious crooner named Johnny Favourite.

The singer disappeared in the early 1940s and hasn't been seen since. The money is good and the job doesn't seem that risky, so Harry accepts.

His search leads Harry from the streets of New York to jazz clubs in Harlem and, finally, to the sweltering swamps of Louisiana. He meets a variety of characters, all of whom have little to say about Favourite. The singer entered the war, was shot and had his face reconstructed. After leaving the hospital, he vanished from the face of the earth.

Everybody finds a violent death after Harry talks to them. He is a lot more involved than he initially thought and his search moves inexorably towards a devastating conclusion.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the original cut of Angel Heart an X rating, because of a sex scene involving Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet in which Rourke's buttocks are seen thrusting in a sexual motion. The film's distributor Tri-Star Pictures refused to release it with an X rating, and Parker then removed ten seconds from the scene and the film was granted an R rating.

French postcard by Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. A-C 1259. Photo: Gaumont. Robert De Niro in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987). Caption: You know, in certain religions, the egg is the symbol of a soul... Would you like an egg?

Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart (1987)

French postcard by Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. A-C 1260. Photo: Gaumont. Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987). Caption: - What are you? Some kind of cop? - My name is Harry Angel, I am a Private detective.

Charlotte Rampling and Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (1987)

French postcard by Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. A-C 1261. Photo: Gaumont. Charlotte Rampling and Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987). Cation: Johnny is dead, Mr. Angel. And even if he's not, he is for me.

French postcard by Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. A-C 1262. Photo: Gaumont. Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987). Caption: Harry Angel is looking for the truth. Pray he never finds out.

An exuberant exercise in style

When released in 1987, Angel Heart received a mixed reaction from reviewers, who criticised Alan Parker's screenwriting but praised the production design, the score by Trevor Jones, and the cinematography by Michael Seresin, as well as the performances of Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet.

Derek Armstrong at AllMovie: "At the brief height of his career, Rourke radiates the mounting hysteria of a man caught in purgatory, surrounded and eventually engulfed by sadistic evil. By the time he pieces together the mystery, the audience has walked in his shoes enough to absorb his emotional outpouring."

Angel Heart underperformed at the North American box office, grossing $17.2 million during its theatrical run against a production budget of $18 million. In the following decades, the film got a strong cult following and is now regarded as influential and underappreciated.

Angel Heart is slowly paced but laced with moments of action and violence that breathe life into it. The smoke-filled rooms, the clothes and the music bring the viewer back to 1955. Alan Parker (Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning) made a beautifully shot, and masterfully edited film. His attention to detail and the moody atmosphere make it a visual masterpiece.

Critic Roger Ebert: "The movie's final revelations make a weird sense, once we figure them out. This is one of those movies where you leave the theatre and re-run the plot in your head, re-interpreting the early scenes in terms of the final shocking revelations. Angel Heart is a thriller and a horror movie, but most of all it's an exuberant exercise in style, in which Parker and his actors have fun taking it to the limit."

French postcard by Humour a la Carte, Paris, no. ST-186. Photo: TriStar Pictures. Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

British postcard by Moviedrome, no. M1. Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A-136. Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987).

Sources: Derek Armstrong (AllMovie), Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Géza Tordy (1938-2024)

April 4, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Guest post Jean Ritsema: unnamed models on fashion cards

≪ Previous: Angel Heart (1987)

On 30 March 2024, Hungarian actor and director Géza Tordy (1938-2024) passed away in Budapest. The distinguished artist was the winner of the Kossuth Prize winner and the Jászai Mari Prize. He was 85.

East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1688, 1962. Gezá Tordy in Füre lépni szabad/Free to enter (Károly Makk, 1960).

Suburban Legend

Géza Tordy was born in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary, in 1938. Although he was admitted to the Academy of Dramatic Arts, no class was started in 1956, so Tordy did not graduate. He began his career in 1956 in Kaposvár, where Antal Németh worked as a director at the theatre. In 1957 she was signed for two years in Szeged, where she played alongside actors such as Endre Kátay and Edit Domján.

During those two years, he acted in the productions of Ida Versényi, István Komor and István Horvai. He also started to act in films. One of his first films was the Hungarian drama Külvárosi legenda/Suburban Legend (Félix Máriássy, 1957) starringMari Törőcsik.

He had a supporting part in Sóbálvány/Pillar of Salt (Zoltán Várkonyi, 1958) starring Antal Páger, Anna Tõkés and Éva Ruttkai. Both films were shot at the Hunnia Studios in Budapest.

In 1959, he starred in two films that were presented at the Venice Film Festival 1959. The first was Akiket a pacsirta elkísér/For Whom the Larks Sing (László Ranódy, 1959) with Klári Tolnay, and the other was Álmatlan évek/Sleepless Years (Félix Máriássy, 1959) starring Éva Ruttkai. From 1959 he became a member of the Hungarian People's Army Theatre and the Vígszínház. Between 1963 and 1967, Géza Tordy was a member of the Madách Theatre company. In 1967 he returned to the Vígszínház.

In the cinema, he could be seen in small parts in international productions such as the West German-Italian historical war film Eine Handvoll Helden/A Handful of Heroes (Fritz Umgelter, 1967) starring Horst Frank. The next year, he appeared in the Hungarian-Bulgarian historical film Egri csillagok/Stars of Eger (Zoltán Várkonyi, 1968) starring Imre Sinkovits. He could also be seen in the Hungarian-Soviet epic Szerelmi álmok – Liszt/Dreams of Love – Liszt (1970), produced and directed by Márton Keleti. The film was based on the biography of the Hungarian composer and pianist Franz Liszt.

East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2691, 1966. Gezá Tordy in Ketten haltak meg/Two died (György Palásthy, 1966).

The Red Countess

In later years, Géza Tordy kept appearing in Hungarian films such as A vörös grófnő/The Red Countess (András Kovács, 1985), which was entered into the 14th Moscow International Film Festival.

In 2002, he played a major part as Ángel Sanz Briz, the ambassador of Spain in Hungary in the Italian drama Perlasca – Un eroe Italiano/Perlasca, an Italian Hero (Alberto Negrin, 2002). The film tells the story of Giorgio Perlasca (Luca Zingaretti), an Italian businessman working in Hungary for his government. After the surrender of Italy to the Allies, he took refuge in the Spanish embassy. Aware of the threat to Jews, he first began to help them find shelter in Spanish safe houses. After the Spanish ambassador moved to Switzerland, Perlasca posed as the Spanish consul, tricking Nazi officials and saving the lives of more than 5,000 Jews in Hungary in 1944 during the Holocaust.

From 1982 Tordy taught for several years at the University of Theatre and Film Arts. From 1985 to 1988, he was director and from 1988 to 1990 chief director of the Petőfi Theatre in Veszprém. From 1992 to 1995, he was artistic director of the Győr National Theatre. From 1995 to 2012, he was chief director of the Budapest Chamber Theatre.

Tordy was equally at home in romantic and modern heroic roles. In his performance, the inner tension of the characters, the direct emotional charge, and the sometimes wild passion of the emotions were well felt. In 1991 he was awarded the Kossuth Prize. In 2008 he was awarded the title of National Actor.

He made his final film appearance in the adventure film Hadik (János Szikora, 2023). During the Seven Years' War, Austrian Queen Maria Theresa sends her best general, András Hadik and his Hussars to raid Berlin and humiliate the Prussian King, Frederick the Great. Géza Tordy passed away in Budapest in 2024.

Teri Tordai and Gezá Tordy in Ketten haltak meg (1966)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2692, 1966. Photo: Teri Tordai and Géza Tordy in Ketten haltak meg/Two died (György Palásthy, 1966).

Sources: Wikipedia (Hungarian and English) and IMDb.

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Guest post Jean Ritsema: unnamed models on fashion cards

April 5, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Vera Tschechowa (1940-2024)

≪ Previous: Géza Tordy (1938-2024)

As the cataloger for the Image Archive on Mark Goffee’s Ross Verlag website, I regularly have cause to consult the European Film Star Postcards blog (EFSP) and the Flickr albums created by Paul van Yperen and Ivo Blom. Their postings and albums often have resolved hard-to-read elements on cards catalogued in the Ross Image Archive. Beyond their internet publications, however, both Paul and Ivo have been extraordinarily kind and helpful in sharing their extensive subject knowledge whenever I have presented a question to them. When Paul approached me to see if I would be interested in writing a guest posting for EFSP, I hesitated as I have limited knowledge of films and film stars.

Ally Kolberg. German postcard by Rotophot, no. 5929/2. Collection: Universität Osnabrück.

I came to the Ross Image Archive project, not through films, but through my collection of early 20th-century photographic fashion postcards, particularly those produced by companies such as the Ross-affiliated Rotophot. However, time and again when consulting the EFSP blog and Flickr albums, I saw a face that was familiar to me from my fashion card collection. I soon came to realize there was considerable overlap between stage and film performers and the unnamed models on fashion cards. Identifying the models on fashion cards became a fun challenge shared with several other collectors. In this guest posting, three identifications are highlighted. Others may be seen at the Ross Image Archive.

Ally Kolberg

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 253, 1919-1924. Photo: Ernst Schneider.

RPH, no. 4264/5.
Collection:
University of Osnabrück.

One of the most direct identifications is that of Ally Kolberg, the subject of an EFSP blog on 15 June 2015. The Ross Verlag 253 card included in that posting reproduced a photo of Kolberg by Ernst Schneider, clearly matching the photoshoot for Rotophot’s fashion series 5929.

In addition to performing in close to 20 silent films, Kolberg had an extensive modelling career, with her photo appearing on hundreds of fashion postcards and in numerous popular magazines such as Die Woche, Illustrirte Zeitung Leipzig and The Sketch.

RPH, no. 4707/4.
Collection:
University of Osnabrück.

One example is the Rotophot 4264 series, where a photo from the same shoot appears in a September 1913 issue of Illustrirte Zeitung Leipzig, titled, 'Herbstmoden' (Autumn Fashions).

Describing the hat, the article notes it "shows us a very beautiful way of using lace. Here . . . the lace surrounds the edge in slight curves and is folded out at the back to form a characteristic, wing-like loop." The article provides the name of the hat’s designer – Regina Friedlaender. It also gives the name of the photographer – Ernst Schneider.

A second example is the Rotophot 4707 series, featuring Kolberg in a swimming costume that is reproduced in a June 1914, Illustrirte Zeitung Leipzig fashion article titled 'Für Reise und Bad'. The costume is described as a "Swimsuit, sailor style, with a large flap and soft, wide sash made of black silk." The photo is credited to the studios of Ernst Schneider.

Geneviève Félix

French postcard by A Noyer, no. 3166. Collection: Werner Mohr.

French postcard by Editions La Fayette in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 107. Photo Comoedia.

PC Paris, no. 343.
Collection:
Universität Osnabrück.

A visual match from several name-captioned movie cards to uncaptioned fashion cards for the French actress and model, Geneviève Félix, also was made by Crystal Glantz.

An interesting supplement to this visual identification can be found in the EFSP 23 Nov 2015 posting which includes a postcard by Photo Comœdia, showing Félix in her dressing room. On the dressing table is a photo from the A. Noyer series 3166, posing Félix in a fashion shot.

Irisa, no. 3535.
Collection:
Universität Osnabrück.

As the EFSP posting notes, Félix had a brief but successful career in the silent cinema, primarily in the 1920s.

Concurrent with her film career, Félix was a popular fashion and postcard model, appearing on scores of postcards without a name caption by French publishers such as A. Noyer, PC Paris and Irisa, and in fashion magazines such as l’Officiel de la Couture, de la Mode, Les Modes, and Vogue.

Félix’s postcards are often brightly and beautifully tinted, depicting Félix with a lovely smile.

Alice Hechy

German postcard by Rotophot, no. 4047/5. Collection: Universität Osnabrück.

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Wolff, Berlin, no. P 53. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

A final performer on film postcards whose image also appears with some frequency on uncaptioned fashion postcards is Alice Hechy.

While her identification is not as direct as that of Ally Kolberg’s, a distinct visual similarity can be seen between performer cards such as Hermann Wolff’s P53 (EFSP, 23 May 2023) and Rotophot’s fashion cards such as those in series 4047.

Several of Hechy’s fashion card series show her posed with interesting musical instruments. For example, the large instrument pictured on RPH 4128 is a theorbo which Wikipedia defines as "a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox.

Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with rosettes. As with the lute, the player plucks or strums the strings with the right hand while ‘fretting’ (pressing down) the strings with the left hand."

Identification of the theorbo was provided by Prof. Dr. Dietrich Helms, Project Leader for the Archive Historical Picture Postcards – Universität Osnabrück. He adds: "The same instrument can be seen in full on another card of this series in the collection of Sabine Giesbrecht (our ID os_ub_0006871)."

German postcard by RPH, no. 4128/1. Collection: Universität Osnabrück.

Others

Many additional cards have been catalogued for Kolberg, Félix and Hechy on the Image Archive at the ROSS VERLAG MOVIE STAR POSTCARDS AND OTHER VINTAGE EUROPEAN POSTCARD PUBLISHERS website.

They can most easily be accessed by opening the Name branch of the selection tree at the left side of the Image Archive interface.

In addition to Kolberg, Félix and Hechy, scores of other film stars who have been the subject of a posting on the EFSP blog can be found in the Ross Image Archive, including several where the performer also was a model on postcards where the name captions do not appear. Among them are:

Blandine Ebinger. German postcard in the Rotophot Series, no. 54 2058.

Carola Toelle. German postcard by Paul Fink, Berlin, no. 261.

Elga Brink. German postcard by Rotophot, no. 6248/3.

Else Berna.German postcard by Rotophot, no. 1876/3.

Gladys Cooper. British postcard by Rotary, no. B.62-3.

Madge Lessing. British postcard by Rotophot, no. 2211/5.

Text and postcard selection: Jean Ritsema. Our special thanks to Prof. Dr. Dietrich Helms.

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Vera Tschechowa (1940-2024)

April 6, 2024, 10:00 pm

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≪ Previous: Guest post Jean Ritsema: unnamed models on fashion cards

German film and television actress Vera Tschechowa (1940-2024) passed away on 3 April in Berlin. Her grandfather was the Russian Oscar-nominated actor Michael Chekhov who was the nephew of author Anton Chekhov. Her grandmother was legendary film star Olga Tschechowa. The elegant, green-eyed actress appeared in over 50 films since 1957. She was 83.

German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-233. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa.

Vera Tschechowa and Peter Parak in Noch minderjährig (1957)

Austrian postcard by Kellner-Filmkarten, Wien., no 1151. Photo: Wessely / Union / Hajek. Vera Tschechowa and Peter Parak in Noch minderjährig/Unter 18/Under 18 (Georg Tressler, 1957).

German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-234. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Joe Niczky / Ufa.

West German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof, WP no. 34. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Ufa.

German postcard by ISV, no. H - 13.

Dating with Elvis

Vera Tschechowa - also written as Vera Cecova and Vera Tschechova - was bornVera Wilhelmowna Rust in Berlin, Germany in 1940. Her father was Dr. Wilhelm Rust, and her mother was actress and agent Ada Tschechowa. She later adopted her mother's maiden name.

Young Vera was brought up in Germany by her Russian-German grandmother Olga Tschechowa. Her early childhood was affected by the Second World War. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she spent much time with her grandfather, Michael Chekhov in California, and she also travelled in the United States. She studied at the Berlin University of Arts to become a scenic designer, then she attended acting lessons at the Munich Drama School.

Eventually, she followed in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother and became an actress. Her film debut was as one of the daughters of Heinz Erhardt in the comedy Witwer mit funf Tochtern/Widower with 5 Daughters (Erich Engels, 1956). It was followed by a co-starring role in the drama Noch minderjährig/Under 18 (Georg Tressler, 1957) opposite Paula Wessely.

Soon followed roles in the war drama Der Arzt von Stalingrad/The Doctor of Stalingrad (Géza von Radványi, 1958) featuring O.E. Hasse, the romance Meine 99 Bräute/My 99 Brides (Alfred Vohrer, 1958) with Claus Wilcke, and the Italian fantasy Ballerina e Buon Dio/Angel in a Taxi (Antonio Leonviola, 1958) with Gabriele Ferzetti. The next year she appeared in the comedy Und das am Montagmorgen/And That on Monday Morning (Luigi Comencini, 1959) starring O.W. Fischer, and the Freddy Quinn musical Freddy unter fremden Sternen/Freddy under foreign stars(Wolfgang Schleif, 1959).

In 1959, when Elvis Presley was stationed as a soldier in Europe he dated Vera a few times. She was widely known as Elvis Presley's companion, particularly in connection with his Oral Poliomyelitis Vaccine (OPV) public booster-advocacy which they both undertook during Presley's first year in Germany with the U.S. Army. In 1959 she also made her stage debut at the Berlin Theater. Later she worked on stage at Deutsche Schauspielhaus Hamburg, and also at Dusseldorfer Schauspielhaus and Theater Basel.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden/Westf., no. 917. Photo: Weidenbaum.

West German postcard by Kolibrti-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf, no. 2757.

German postcard by IRMA-Verlag, Stuttgart W., no. 1321. Photo: Wessely / Union / Hajek. Publicity still for Noch minderjährig/Under 18 (Georg Tressler, 1957) with Peter Parak.

West German Irma postcard by Bartoschek-Verlag, Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt, no. 1450. Photo: Wessely / Union / Hajek.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 4376. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Grimm / Ufa.

A formidable film career

In 1962 Vera Tschechowa received the Filmband in Gold, the German national film award, for her work in Das Brot der Fruhen Jahre/The Bread of Those Early Years (Herbert Vesely, 1962) with Christian Doermer. Since then she has been enjoying a formidable film career, including such diverse films as L'amour à vingt ans/Love at Twenty (François Truffaut a.o., 1962), the Edgar Wallace Krimi Die Gruft mit dem Rätselschloß/Curse of the Hidden Vault (Franz Josef Gottlieb, 1964), and the romance Liebe und so weiter/Love and So On (George Moorse, 1968), with Vadim Glowna, whom she had married in 1967.

On 6 June 1971, Vera appeared with 27 women under the banner 'We've had abortions!'('Wir haben abgetrieben!') on the cover page of the West German magazine Stern. In that issue, 374 women publicly stated that they had had pregnancies terminated, which at that time was illegal.

She made numerous appearances on television in several European countries. In 1977 she received the Goldene Camera Award for her role in the TV production Zeit der Empfindsamkeit/Age of Sensitivity (Wilma Kottusch, 1977). In 1980 she founded together with Glowna the film production company Atossa. The company produced Desperado City (Vadim Glowna, 1980), which won the 1981 Camera d'Or for Best Debut Film at the Cannes Film Festival. She was also directed by Glowna in Dies rigorose Leben/Nothing Left to Loose (Vadim Glowna, 1983) with Angela Molina, and in the documentary Tschechow in meinem Leben/Chekhov in My Life (Vadim Glowna, 1984) about the Chekhov dynasty. Petra Haffter cast her in her last role in front of the camera alongside Peter Sattmann in the television film Schuldig auf Verdacht/Guilty on Suspicion (Petra Haffter, 1996).

In the 1990s and 2000s, Vera Tschechowa became known as a writer/director/producer of film portraits. First, she worked for TV on portraits of the actors Klaus Maria Brandauer (1994), Anthony Quinn (1997), and Robert Redford. IMDb credits Der Filmemacher Ang Lee/Filmmaker Ang Lee (Vera Tschechowa, 2003) as her first film as a director. In 2006 she presented her film Salam Cinema: Die iranische Familie Makhmalbaf und ihre Filme/Salaam Cinema - Iran's Makhmalbaf Family and Their Films (Vera Tschechowa, 2006) at the Münchner Filmfest. Her last film was Michael Ballhaus - Eine Reise durch mein Leben/Michael Ballhaus - A Journey through My Life (Vera Tschechowa, 2008) about the famous German cinematographer.

After she divorced Vadim Glowna, Tschechowa married manager Peter Paschek, who produced her two latest documentaries. She had a son from a relationship with actor Hartmut Reck, film composer Nikolaus Glowna (1961). In 2022, Chekhova appeared as a contemporary witness in the docudrama Rex Gildo - Der letzte Tanz/Rex Gildo -The Last Dance by Rosa von Praunheim. Her autobiography 'Überwiegend heiter: Mein ziemlich bewegtes Leben' (Mostly Cheerful: My Rather Eventful Life) was published in 2022. Vera Tschechowa died in her hometown Berlin on 3 April 2024, at the age of 83.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne Eickel, no. 531. Photo: Bavaria / Astra.

West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. D 95.

West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no 339. Photo: Kolibri / Enzwieser.

West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no 2786.

West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2850.

West German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. 563. Photo: Karl Bayer.

German postcard. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Vintage autograph card.

Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

↧

Photo by Hanni Schwarz

April 7, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Audrey Totter

≪ Previous: Vera Tschechowa (1940-2024)

Hanni Schwarz was a German portrait, dance and nude photographer, who was active in Berlin from 1901 onwards. She was a well-known professional photographer in the German Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century. During the 1920s, Ross Verlag and Verlag Hermann Leisewr featured many of her studio's film star portraits on their postcards.

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5331. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz. Maria Fein.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 535/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Fred Köster.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 597, 1919-1924. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Johannes Riemann as Kapelmeister Kreisler. Kapellmeister Kreisker may refer to Tales of Hoffmann.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 851/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Margarete Schön.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1579/1, 1927-1828. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz. Anton Pointner.

A so-called beauty evening

Hanni Schwarz's life dates are unknown. Before turning to photography, Schwarz worked as a teacher at her father’s school in Basel.

In 1901, Hanni began to work as a portrait photographer in Berlin. Around 1904, she took over the photography studio of Johannes Hülsen in Berlin, together with fellow photographer Anna Walter.

In 1905, Schwarz wrote an article for Photographische Mitteilungen about photography as a profession for women. In her article 'Photographie als Frauenberuf', she honoured pioneer photographer Emilie Bieber, the founder of Atelier Bieber, who had passed away in 1884.

In April 1908, a so-called beauty evening took place in the Mozartsaal of the Neues Schauspielhaus. Nude photographs by Hanni Schwarz and Wilhelm von Gloeden were presented, and projected onto a screen. Around 1909, Schwarz ran her studio with Marie Luise Schmidt in the Dorotheenstraße in Berlin.

A portrait Hanni Schwarz had made of the artist Fidus appeared in a book edited by Adalbert Luntowski in 1910. In the same year, In 1910 she participated in the Brussels International 1910 with nude photographs. Colour photographs of her were shown at the 'Bugra" in 1914. Hanni Schwarz had made a name for herself in Berlin as a fine art photographer.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1897/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Carl Auen.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3114/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Henry Stuart.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3115/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Truus van Aalten.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3116/1, 1928-1929. Photo Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Angelo Ferrari.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3175/3, 1928 - 1929. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Ernö or Ernst Verebes.

Europe’s premiere film star postcard publisher in the 1920s

From 1919 onwards, the studio at the Dortheenstrasse was listed as the Atelier Hanni Schwarz. The studio specialised in portraiture and dance photography. Photographs by Atelier Hanni Schwarz were frequently published in several popular magazines, such as Die Schönheit (from 1903 on) and Sport im Bild.

Ross-Verlag in Berlin, Europe’s premiere film star postcard publisher in the 1920s and 1930s, printed numerous portraits taken by Atelier Hanni Schwarz of famous actors, such as the Russian film actor Vladimir Gajdarov (1917-1968), Hungarian film actor Imre Ráday (1905-1983) and Dutch actress Truus van Aalten (1910-1999), who were all working in the German film industry at the time.

In the 1920s, Atelier Hanni Schwarz was managed by 'Fräulein Igoleit', who also specialised in portrait and dance photography. She had joined the company on 18 October 1919. Frida Igoleit was born on 11 October 1884 in Königsberg and the last entry about her is that of her de-registration to America on 26 March 1932.

The cancellation of the company can be dated to 13 November 1936. In a 1919 questionnaire, Igogeit describes the studio as located in a 7-room flat, consisting of 2 large workrooms, 2 studio rooms, 1 laboratory, 1 darkroom and 1 reception room. The number of employees is given as 6-8 people, 10-12 suppliers and 800-900 customers.

The most recent photographs attributable to Atelier Hanni Schwarz date from 1930, after which the studio's photos no longer appeared in magazines or on postcards. In 2000, works by Hanni Schwarz were included in the exhibition 'Le siècle du corps. Photographies 1900-2000' at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3194/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Imre Ráday.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3234/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Harry Halm.

German postcard by Ross Verlag in the Foreign Series, no. 3446/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Willy Fritsch.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3830/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Vladimir Gajdarov.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3887/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Mona Maris.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4649/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Hanni Schwarz, Berlin. Franz or Francis Lederer.

Sources: Hanni Schwarz (Photografische Mitteilungen - German), Deutsche Fotothek (German), Sisters of the Lens and Wikipedia.

↧

Audrey Totter

April 8, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: More Förlag Nordisk Konst

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American actress Audrey Totter (1917-2013) often portrayed jilted lovers, bad girls, unfaithful wives, and women with a past. She played her first film role as a 'bad' girl in Main Street After Dark (1945). Her greatest roles were in such Film Noirs as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Lady in the Lake (1947) and Any Number Can Play (1949). Totter played her last screen role in 1987 in the TV series Murder, She Wrote.

Robert Taylor and Audrey Totter in High Wall (1947)

Italian postcard in the Divi e Divine series by La Casa Usher. Robert Taylor and Audrey Totter in High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). The card refers mistakenly to Robert Taylor's film The Power and the Prize (Henry Koster, 1956).

Audrey Totter and Robert Montgomery in The Lady in the Lake (1947)

Italian postcard, no. 121. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Audrey Totter and Robert Montgomery in The Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947).

Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter in Lady in the Lake (1946)

Italian postcard, no. 1222. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter in The Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947).

John Garfield's blonde floozie pick-up

Audrey Mary Totter was born in Joliet, in northeastern Illinois, in 1917. Her parents were John Totter, who was born in Slovenia with birth name Janez, and Ida Mae Totter. She had two brothers, Folger and George, and a sister, Collette. Totter graduated from Joliet High School, where she acted in school plays.

She was a Methodist who began her career performing in several productions for her local church, as well as being involved with the YWCA players. Totter continued her acting career in radio in the late 1930s in Chicago, only 40 miles northeast of Joliet. She played in soap operas, including 'Painted Dreams', 'Ma Perkins', and 'Bright Horizon'.

She moved on to film when MGM offered her a seven-year film contract. She made her film debut as a 'bad girl' in Main Street After Dark (Edward L. Cahn, 1945) and established herself as a popular female lead in the 1940s. The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) with John Garfield and Lana Turner, was the first Film Noir in which she appeared. Totter had a small role as John Garfield's blonde floozie pick-up.

Although she performed in various film genres, she became most widely known to movie audiences for her work in Film Noir. She co-starred in Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947) starring Montgomery as Detective Philip Marlowe. The film was not well received and is now better remembered for its interesting subjective camera technique. Audrey's first hit as a femme fatale co-star came on loan-out to Warner Bros. In The Unsuspected (Michael Curtiz, 1947) starring Claude Rains, she cemented her dubious reputation in "B" noir as a trampy, gold-digging niece married to alcoholic Hurd Hatfield.

She then starred in High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947), as a psychiatrist to patient Robert Taylor, The Saxon Charm (Claude Binyon, 1948) with Robert Montgomery (again) and Susan Hayward, and Alias Nick Beal (John Farrow, 1949) as a loosely-moraled 'Girl Friday' to Ray Milland. Totter played other successful roles in the boxing drama The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949) as the beleaguered wife of washed-up boxer Robert Ryan, and in Tension (John Berry, 1949) as the two-timing spouse of Richard Basehart. Looking back, Totter stated in 1999, "The bad girls were so much fun to play. I wouldn't have wanted to play the Coleen Gray good-girl parts."

Belgian collector card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 105 (Series C. 99 - 196). Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Audrey Totter in A Bullet for Joey (1955)

Italian postcard, no. 121. Photo: Dear Film. Audrey Totter in A Bullet for Joey (Lewis Allen, 1955).

One of filmdom's most intriguing ladies

By the early 1950s, the tough-talking 'dames' Audrey Totter was best known for portraying were no longer fashionable. She reportedly was dissatisfied with her MGM career and agreed to appear in Any Number Can Play (Mervyn LeRoy, 1949) only after Clark Gable intervened. MGM began streamlining its roster of contract players and worked towards creating more family-themed films.

Totter was released from her contract in 1951. She worked for Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox, but the quality of her films dropped. From the early 1950s, she increasingly acted in television series. In 1958, Totter played boarding house owner Beth Purcell in the Western series, Cimarron City, starring George Montgomery.

Later she appeared in episodes of such series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960), Perry Mason (1964), Rawhide and The Virginian. Totter had a continuing role from 1972 to 1976, playing Nurse Wilcox, the efficient head nurse, in the series Medical Center, with James Daly and Chad Everett. The last time she appeared in front of the camera was as a nun in the episode Old Habits Die Hard (1987) of the mystery series Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury.

Audrey Totter was married to Dr. Leo Fred, Assistant Dean of Medicine at UCLA, from 1953 to his death in 1995. They had one child, Mae Lane. In 2013, Totter died of congestive heart failure at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital, Woodland Hills, Califonia, eight days before her 96th birthday. After a memorial service, her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered in the Pacific.

Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "One is certainly hard-pressed to think of another true 'bad girl' representative so closely identifiable with film noir than hard-looking blonde actress Audrey Totter. While she remained a "B"-tier actress for most of her career, she was an "A" quality actress and one of filmdom's most intriguing ladies. She always managed to set herself apart even in the most standard of programming."

Vintage postcard, no. 351. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Vintage postcard, no. 951. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

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More Förlag Nordisk Konst

April 9, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: A Knight's Tale (2001)

≪ Previous: Audrey Totter

Förlag Nordisk Konst published some of the most interesting postcards of the Swedish silent cinema. We love them. Nordisk Konst was a Nordic company, at least it also had a Copenhagen branch besides its branch in Stockholm. Among the Scandinavian postcard publishers, Nordisk did a lot of the film promotion postcards On 9 March 2018, we did a post with 15 sepia Nordisk postcards of Swedish films of the 1910s and 1920s. On 3 January 2022, EFSP presented 15 Nordisk postcards of Hollywood stars including a card of the most legendary director of the American silent cinema. On 8 January 2022 followed a post with 15 Scandinavian stars of the silent era. Jean Ritsema made a list with the postcards by this legendary publisher at Ross Postcards. Ivo Blom searched on Scandinavian sites for more Nordisk Konst postcards. Here are 20 of his new finds.

Swedish postcard by Förlag, Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 659. Photo: Apeda (Alexander W. Dreyfoos) / Triangle-Film. Dorothy Dalton.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 847. Photo: Albert Witzel / Triangle-Film. Bessie Barriscale's name is misspelt on this card.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 851. Photo: Triangle-Film. Dorothy Gish.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 856. Photo: Triangle Film, ca. 1917. Margery Wilson.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 857. Photo: Triangle-Film. Alma Rubens.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 883. Photo: Triangle Film. Marguerite Marsh.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 902. Douglas Fairbanks and Jewel Carmen.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 923. Photo: Apeda / Skandinavisk Film-Central, Stockholm. Mary Pickford.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 924. Photo: Skandinavisk Film-Central, Stockholm. Mary Pickford in How Could You, Jean? (William Desmond Taylor, 1918).

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 938. Photo: Skandinavisk Film-Central, Stockholm. Geraldine Farrar.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 950. Photo: Skandinavisk-Film-Central, Stockholm. Mary Miles Minter.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 951. Photo: Skandinavisk-Film-Central, Stockholm. Mary Miles Minter.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 957. Photo: Fred Hartsook / Skandinavisk Film-Central, Stockholm. Sessue Hayakawa.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1071. Richard Barthelmess.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1072. Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1257. Lila Lee in Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, Dorothy Arzner, 1922).

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1188. Photo: Ferd. Flodin, Stockholm. Gösta Ekman. Written on the back: 1922.

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1268. Photo: Paramount. Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, 1922).

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1300. Corinne Griffith.

Rudolph Valentino in A Sainted Devil (1924)

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1324. Rudolph Valentino in A Sainted Devil (Joseph Henabery, 1924).

Check out our earlier posts on Förlag Nordisk Konst:

9 March 2018: Nordisk postcards of Swedish films of the 1910s and 1920s.

3 January 2022: 15 Nordisk postcards of Hollywood stars of the silent era.

8 January 2022: 15 Nordisk postcards of Scandinavian stars of the silent era.

And check out the Nordisk Förlag section at Ross Postcards.

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A Knight's Tale (2001)

April 10, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Pierre Étaix

≪ Previous: More Förlag Nordisk Konst

Heath Ledger played a man pretending to be a knight in A Knight's Tale (2001), written, co-produced and directed by Brian Helgeland. The swashbuckling comedy-drama is full of deliberate anachronisms: set in the 1370s, but with modern pop culture references and classic rock songs on the soundtrack.

French promotional postcard by Columbia Pictures, 2001. Heath Ledger in A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001). The French film title is Chevalier.

French promotional postcard by Columbia Pictures, 2001. Photo: publicity still for A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001).

The Canterbury Tales

Heath Ledger stars in A Knight's Tale (2001) as William Thatcher, a young squire with a gift for jousting. During a tournament, his master, the old knight Sir Ector, suddenly dies. With one more pass, he could have won the tournament.

Destitute, William wears Sir Ector's armour to impersonate him, taking the prize. After the tournament, William hits the road with his cohorts Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk).

On their journey, they stumble upon a homeless and naked Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany), a still unknown author who would eventually write 'The Canterbury Tales'. William, lacking an actual title, convinces Chaucer to forge genealogy documents that will pass him off as a knight.

Thatcher then fakes his way into tournaments as 'Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein' from Gelderland and sets out to prove himself a worthy knight. Eventually, he faces the dreaded Count Adhemar of Anjou (Rufus Sewell) and also woos the maiden Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon).

Inspired by 'The Canterbury Tales', as well as the early life of William Marshall (later First Earl of Pembroke), A Knight's Tale (2001) is an eccentric cocktail of rock music, today's lingo and a story set in the middle ages. Baz Luhrmann pulled a similar trick with both Romeo & Juliet (1996). Songs like Queen's 'Rock You' and David Bowie's 'Golden Years' fit nicely in A Knight's Tale. Note also both The London Eye and The Eiffel Tower in the film!

Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk and Paul Bettany in A Knight's Tale (2001)

French promotional postcard by Columbia Pictures, 2001. Photo: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk and Paul Bettany in A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001).

Heath Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon in A Knight's Tale (2001)

French promotional postcard by Columbia Pictures, 2001. Heath Ledger and Shannyn Sossamon in A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001).

We Will Rock You

More than 20 years after the premiere of A Knight's Tale (2001), director Brian Helgeland's approach still feels fresh, sassy and on point. The entire cast, which was relatively unknown at the time, made the film a masterpiece.

The young Heath Ledger is excellent as the peasant who wants to be a knight. Ledger is surrounded by a good supporting cast of Rufus Sewell, Mark Addy, Shannyn Sossamon and James Purefoy.

The show stealer is Paul Bettany, who went on to play Russell Crowe's friend in both A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Here he plays Geoffrey Chaucer, just at the dawn of his literary career.

Brian Helgeland says in the DVD Special Edition's commentary that he had intended to show what Chaucer might have been doing that inspired him to write 'The Canterbury Tales' during the six months in which Chaucer seems to have gone missing in 1372. At the end of the film, Chaucer champions William's fame and writes his 'Knight's Tale'.

Critic Roger Ebert loved the film: "It is possible, I suppose, to object when the audience at a 15th-century (sic) jousting match begins to sing Queen's 'We Will Rock You' and follows it with the wave. I laughed. I smiled, in fact, all through Brian Helgeland's A Knight's Tale (...) The movie has an innocence and charm that grow on you. It's a reminder of the days before films got so cynical and unrelentingly violent. A Knight's Tale is whimsical, silly and romantic."

American card. James Purefoy in A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001).

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Wikipedia and IMDb.

↧

Pierre Étaix

April 11, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Jeff Chandler

≪ Previous: A Knight's Tale (2001)

French clown, actor and filmmaker Pierre Étaix (1928-2016) was inspired by Max Linder and Buster Keaton and kept the tradition of slapstick alive. As an actor, assistant director and gag writer, Étaix worked with Jacques Tati, Robert Bresson, Nagisa Oshima, Otar Iosseliani and Jerry Lewis. In the 1960s he made a series of acclaimed short- and feature-length films, many of them co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière. He won an Academy Award for his short film Heureux Anniversaire/Happy Anniversary (1962). Due to a legal dispute with a distribution company, these films were unavailable for three decades.

Romanian collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Yoyo/Yo Yo (Pierre Étaix, 1965).

Pierre Etaix and France Arnel in Le Soupirant (1962)

French postcard by Darkstar for Carlotta to promote 'Integrale Pierre Étaix Version restaurée'. Photo: Pierre Étaix and France Arnel in Le Soupirant/The Suitor (Pierre Étaix, 1962).

French postcard by Darkstar for Carlotta to promote 'Integrale Pierre Étaix Version restaurée'. Photo: Pierre Etaix in Le grand amour/The Great Love (Pierre Étaix, 1969).

Clucking to a woman who is de-feathering a chicken

Pierre Etaix was born in 1928 in Roanne on the river Loire in central France.

He decided very young to become a clown. Knowing how many skills were needed to fulfil his ambition, he studied the violin and piano, dancing and gymnastics, while teaching himself to play the xylophone, accordion, saxophone, mandolin, trumpet and concertina, as well as learning to become a magician.

He was also trained as a designer and was introduced to the art of stained glass by Theodore Gerard Hanssen. After joining an amateur theatre group in Roanne, Etaix moved to Paris in 1953, working as an illustrator, cartoonist and cabaret performer.

In 1954, he met Jacques Tati and managed to get taken on by his hero’s company, Spectra Films, which had started the lengthy preproduction of Mon Oncle/My Uncle (Jacques Tati, 1958). During the almost four years it took to make the film, Etaix acted as a gag writer, assistant director, storyboardist, gofer and uncredited player. He is seen briefly wheeling a bicycle and, with an imitation of clucking, startling a woman who is de-feathering a chicken. He also created a wonderful poster for the film.

Later, Etaix performed comedy routines at the Parisian music hall Bobino, and at the cabaret Les Trois Baudets in Pigalle. He also appeared in Robert Bresson’s classic Pickpocket (1959), as one of the accomplices of the title character, and in the army comedy Tire-au-flanc/The Army Game (Claude de Givray, François Truffaut, 1961).

Affiche Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953)

Vintage postcard, no. 6078. Poster design: Pierre Étaix. Film poster for Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot/Mr. Hulot's Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953).

French postcard by Editions Ramsay, no. 170. Poster design: Pierre Étaix / Gaumont. Film poster for Mon Oncle/My Uncle (Jacques Tati, 1958).

Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers, no. 57383. Poster design: Pierre Étaix. Photo: Collection Cinématèque Suisse, Lausanne. Film poster for Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958).

A love for the Comedy Kings of Hollywood in the 1920s

In 1960, Pierre Etaix met the then-unknown writer Jean-Claude Carrière, and they became friends. They shared a love for the comedy kings of Hollywood in the 1920s. They first collaborated on ‘novelisations’ of Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Mon Oncle, written by Carrière and illustrated by Etaix.

Then they co-scripted and co-directed two shorts: Insomnie/Rupture (Pierre Etaix, 1961) and Heureux Anniversaire/Happy Anniversary (Pierre Etaix, 1962). The latter, which won the Oscar for Best Short Film, had Etaix as a happily married man meeting a series of obstacles – mainly to do with traffic - as he desperately tries to get home in time for a celebratory dinner with his wife. Etaix, while paying homage to silent film comedy, paradoxically used sound effects as an important element in his work.

His first feature, Le Soupirant/The Suitor (Pierre Etaix, 1963), was a huge success at home and abroad, and established Etaix as ‘the French Buster Keaton’. Some of the plot – a shy and studious young man has to get married in a hurry – echoes that of Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, 1925), and a scene where Etaix attempts to carry a drunk young woman up to her apartment is almost a carbon copy of a similar one in Keaton’s Spite Marriage (Edward Sedgwick, 1929).

His next film, Yoyo/Yo Yo (Pierre Etaix, 1965), was his masterpiece. He plays a spoilt millionaire who loses everything in the Wall Street crash, then finds his former sweetheart, a circus horse rider, and their son Yoyo, a budding clown. Ronald Bergan in his excellent obituary of Etaix in The Guardian: “This enchanting nostalgic comedy romance, paying tribute to the tone and technique of silent cinema, has no dialogue for the first 30 minutes except for creative sound effects such as the creaking of the vast chateau doors. As both the adult Yoyo and the millionaire, Etaix brought the same control and sense of style to his performance as to his direction.”

Etaix then directed two feature films Tant Qu’on a la Santé/As Long As You’re Healthy (Pierre Etaix, 1966) and Le Grand Amour/The Great Love (Pierre Etaix, 1969), which he co-authored with Jean-Claude Carrière. Tant qu’on a la Santé looked at the absurdity of modern life. In a series of comic set pieces, Etaix played a serious-minded young man harassed wherever he goes – in the city crowds and traffic, at the doctor’s surgery, on a camping site and even on a desert island. Le Grand Amour was Etaix’s first film in colour, about a middle-aged married man who falls for a much younger woman. The wife was played by Annie Fratellini, one of France's few female circus clowns, whom Etaix married in 1969.

Pierre Etaix in Tant qu'on a la santé (1966)

French postcard by Darkstar for Carlotta to promote 'Integrale Pierre Étaix Version restaurée'. Photo: Pierre Etaix in Tant qu'on a la santé/As Long as You've Got Your Health (Pierre Ëtaix, 1966).

Pierre Étaix and Annie Fratellini in Le grand amour (1969)

French postcard by Darkstar for Carlotta to promote 'Integrale Pierre Étaix Version restaurée'. Photo: Pierre Etaix and Annie Fratellini in Le grand amour/The Great Love (Pierre Étaix, 1969).

Pierre Etaix and Annie Fratellini in Le grand amour (1969)

Federico Fellini

Both Pierre Etaix and Annie Fratelliniwere featured in Federico Fellini’s semi-documentary I Clowns/The Clowns (1970) about the human fascination with clowns and circuses. In 1974, Fratellini and her husband founded France's first circus school. Etaix’s last feature was the documentary Pays de Cocagne/Land of Milk and Honey (Pierre Etaix, 1971). Ronald Bergan: "A penetrating, rather cruel and satirical look at the French on holiday and their reactions to topical questions put to them by a hidden inquisitor (Etaix). The film, which was edited down from six hours of material to 80 minutes, was both a commercial and a critical failure, and Etaix was seldom seen on the big or small screen after that. In fact, he ‘vanished’ for some years when he and Fratellini joined the touring Pinder Circus as clowns."

In 1972, Jerry Lewis cast the comedian in his unreleased film drama The Day the Clown Cried. Later, Etaix wrote a play, L’Age de Monsieur est Avancé (The Gentleman is Getting On), which was successfully staged in the autumn of 1985 at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées theatre in Paris. Etaix filmed it for television two years later in which he played the lead role opposite Nicole Calfan and Jean Carmet.

Among his later film appearances were roles as a detective in Nagisa Oshima’s Max Mon Amour (1986) and as a friend of Henry Miller (Fred Ward) in Henry and June (Philip Kaufman, 1990). He also appeared in Jardins en Automne/Gardens in Autumn (2006), Chantrapas (2010) and Winter Song (2015), all directed by the Tati and Etaix admirer Otar Iosseliani, the exiled Georgian in Paris. Etaix also played a role in Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre/The Harbour (2011).

Because of complex contractual problems, his old films could not be shown for three decades – either in cinemas, on television or on DVD. At last, in 2010, after more than 50,000 people – including Woody Allen, David Lynch, Charlotte Rampling and Jean-Luc Godard– had signed a petition, the films could be restored and rereleased. They were a revelation to a younger generation. In the same year, he toured France with a show inspired by the music hall, Miousik Papillon.

In January 2013, the French government promoted Etaix to the rank of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. In June 2013 he received the Grand Prize of the SACD (Society of Authors and Composers of Dramatic) for his entire career. Annie Fratellini died of cancer in 1997. Pierre Etaix is survived by their son, Marc, and by his second wife, Odile (nee Crépin), a former jazz singer. Le Monde reports that the cause of his death was an intestinal infection. James Travers at French Films: “The precise, gentle comedy of Pierre Etaix invites not just admiration, but also genuine affection. Sweet but never mawkish, acerbic but never cruel, his films are packed with as much humanity as humour, and will move you as much as they will make you laugh.”

French postcard by Jean-François Claustre / IMP. M.J., 1983. Photo: Jean-François Claustre.

Excerpt from Tant qu’on a la Santé/As Long As You’re Healthy (1966). Source: Janusfilms (YouTube).

American trailer for the 2012-2013 retrospective of the films of Pierre Étaix. Source: Janusfilms (YouTube).

Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), James Travers (French Films), Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (A.V. Club), Le Monde (French), Wikipedia (French and English), and IMDb.

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Jeff Chandler

April 12, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Ginette Maddie

≪ Previous: Pierre Étaix

Ruggedly handsome American actor and singer Jeff Chandler (1918-1961) was best known for his portrayal of legendary Native American Apache chief Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In the 1950s, he was one of Hollywood's most popular film stars and stood out for his imposing stature, his sex appeal, and his early greying hair.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 935. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Jeff Chandler in Broken Arrow (Delmer Daves, 1950).

Jeff Chandler in Bird of Paradise (1951)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Bird of Paradise (Delmer Daves, 1951).

West German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 770. Photo: Universal International.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 708. Photo: H.P.S.

Spanish postcard, no. 574. Photo: Universal. Jeff Chandler in Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956).

Apache chief Cochise

Jeff Chandler was born Ira Grossel to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1918. He was the only child of Anna (née Herman) and Phillip Grossel. He was raised by his mother after his parents separated when he was a child. After attending Erasmus High School, he took acting classes at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York.

He then worked for radio for a while before joining a theatre company on Long Island as an actor and stage manager. He founded his own company, the Shady Lane Playhouse, in Illinois in the summer of 1941. The company toured the Midwest with some success until the United States became involved in World War II. He was active as a soldier in the Aleutians for four years, finishing with the rank of lieutenant.

After the war, Chandler appeared on air in 'Rogue's Gallery 'with Dick Powell, who was impressed by the actor. Powell pressured Columbia to give Chandler his first film role, a one-line uncredited part as a gangster in Johnny O'Clock (Robert Rossen, 1947).

Chandler received more attention playing Eve Arden's love interest on the radio in 'Our Miss Brooks', which debuted in July 1948 and became a massive hit. Chandler's performance in 'Our Miss Brooks' brought him to the attention of Universal executives, who were looking for someone to play an Israeli leader in Sword in the Desert (George Sherman, 1949) starring Dana Andrews. Chandler impressed studio executives so much with his work that Universal signed him to a seven-year contract.

His first film under the arrangement was a supporting role in the Film Noir Abandoned (Joseph M. Newman, 1949). He was best known for his role as Apache chief Cochise in Broken Arrow (Delmer Daves, 1950) with James Stewart and Debra Paget. Broken Arrow became a considerable hit, earning Chandler an Oscar nomination and establishing him as a star. He was the first actor nominated for an Academy Award for portraying an American Indian. He reprised that successful character twice in The Battle at Apache Pass (George Sherman, 1952) and Taza, Son of Cochise (Douglas Sirk, 1954).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 121. Photo: Universal International. Jeff Chandler in Flame of Araby (Charles Lamont, 1951).

Jeff Chandler in Red Ball Express (1952)

Publicity photo, 1985. Photo: Universal. Jeff Chandler in Red Ball Express (Budd Boetticher, 1952).

American postcard by Universal International Studios. Sent by mail in 1952.

Maureen O'Hara and Jeff Chandler in War Arrow (1953)

Yugoslavian postcard by Sedma Sila. Photo: IOM, Beograd. Maureen O'Hara and Jeff Chandler in War Arrow (George Sherman, 1953).

Vintage postcard. Photo: Universal International.

A seven-and-a-half-hour emergency operation

During his short career, Jeff Chandler starred several times in Westerns. He not only played an Indian, but he also stood his ground as a cavalry major as shown in Two Flags West (Robert Wise, 1950) starring Joseph Cotten and War Arrow (George Sherman, 1953) with Maureen O'Hara. Chandler became one of Universal Pictures' more popular male stars of the 1950s.

In addition to his acting in film, he was known for his role in the radio program 'Our Miss Brooks', as Phillip Boynton, her fellow teacher and clueless object of affection, and for his musical recordings. Chandler recorded several successful albums for Liberty Records, wrote music, played violin, and owned Chandler Music, a publishing company.

His other film credits include the Film Noir Deported (Robert Siodmak, 1950) starring Märta Torén, Female on the Beach (Joseph Pevney, 1955) opposite Joan Crawford, and Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956) with George Nader. In 1957, he left Universal and signed a contract with United Artists. Having long desired to be an executive, he formed his own company, Earlmar Productions.

He was due to star in Operation Petticoat (Blake Edwards, 1959) but became ill and had to pull out. He later formed another production company, August, for which he made The Plunderers (Joseph Pevney, 1960) at Allied Artists. His last film role was that of Brigadier General Frank D. Merrill in Merrill's Marauders (Samuel Fuller, 1962), the last of several World War II films in which he was able to use his military experience. He injured his back while playing baseball with U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers who served as extras in the film.

After undergoing surgery for a spinal disc herniation in May 1961, a major artery was damaged and he haemorrhaged. In a seven-and-a-half-hour emergency operation over and above the original surgery, he was given 55 pints of blood. Another surgery followed where he received an additional 20 pints of blood. He died in the hospital in Culver City, California, in 1961. The cause was a blood infection complicated by pneumonia. He was 42 years old. His death was deemed malpractice and resulted in a large lawsuit and settlement for his children. Jeff Chandler was married from 1946 to 1959 to actress Marjorie Hoshelle with whom he had two daughters. In 1957, he had an affair with Esther Williams while they made a film together, and his wife filed for divorce at the end of the year. Chandler rests in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery near Los Angeles.

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1071. Photo: Paramount.

Vintage postcard.

West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3388. Photo: Universal International.

West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 23389. Photo: Universal Film.

West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto. Photo: Universal International.

Sources: William Bjornstad (Find A Grave), Tony Fontana (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

↧

Ginette Maddie

April 13, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Photo by Rudolf Dührkoop & Atelier Dührkoop

≪ Previous: Jeff Chandler

Ginette Maddie (1898-1980) was a French actress who acted in French and German silent films. Between 1922 and 1958, she appeared in 20 films with such notable directors as Alfred Machin and Julien Duvivier.

French postcard by Wyndham, Edit., Paris.

French postcard. Photo: Film Gaumont. Ginette Maddie in Vindicta (Louis Feuillade, 1923).

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 107. Photo: Wyndham.

The second woman

Ginette Maddie was born Marcelle Namur in 1898 in Paris, France. She was the daughter of a dressmaker. Officially adopted at the age of seven, she took the name Marcelle Yvonne Gourier.

She started her film career in 1922 opposite Claude Mérelle in Le diamant noir/The Black Diamond (André Hugon, 1922). Her breakthrough was the 5-part serial Vindicta (1923), directed by Louis Feuillade. Maddie was the leading lady in Sarati le terrible/Sarati the Terrible (René Hervil, Louis Mercanton, 1923), La gitanilla (André Hugon, 1924) and the comedy Les héritiers de l'oncle James/The Heirs of Uncle James (Alfred Machin, Henry Wulschleger, 1924).

Other films in which she starred were L'ornière/The Rut (Édouard Chimot, 1924), Le coeur des gueux/The Heart of the Beggars (Alfred Machin, Henry Wulschleger, 1925), and La lueur dans les ténèbres/The Glow in the Darkness (Maurice Charmeroy, 1928) with Edmond van Daele.

Ginette Maddie also often played the second woman in French and German films opposite e.g. Dolly Davis, Madeleine Erickson, Xenia Desni, and Dita Parlo. In the early sound era, Maddie acted in two more films. She appeared opposite singer Damia in Sola/Alone (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1931) and opposite Gina Manès in L'Ensorcellement de Séville (Benito Perojo, 1931).

Years later, two more, small performances followed in 1943 and 1958. Ginette Maddie passed away at the International Hospital of the University of Paris in 1980. She was 82. She is buried in the Pantin cemetery in Paris, in the same vault as the singer Damia.

Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 113.

Georges Biscot, Ginette Maddie, Michel Floresco and Fernand Hermann in Vindicta (1923)

French postcard by Ciné Cartes, Paris, no. 3. Photo: Film Gaumont. Georges Biscot as Césarin at right, Ginette Maddie as Blanche, Michel Floresco as Morales at left and Fernand Hermann as Bajart in Vindicta (Louis Feuillade, 1923). Caption: La cour du faux marquis (The court of the false marquis).

Ginette Maddie and Henry Deneyrieux in Vindicta (1923)

French postcard in the Ciné-cartes series, Paris, no. 3. Photo: Film Gaumont. Ginette Maddie as Blanche and Henry Deneyrieux as Louiset in Vindicta (Louis Feuillade, 1923).

Spanish collector card in the Célebres Artistas Cinematográficos series by Chocolate E. Juncosa, Barcelona, Series D, no 10.

French postcard by Wyndham, Edit., Paris.

Sources: Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

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Photo by Rudolf Dührkoop & Atelier Dührkoop

April 14, 2024, 4:51 pm

≫ Next: Lonny Kellner

≪ Previous: Ginette Maddie

Rudolf Dührkoop (1848-1918) was a Hamburg-based studio photographer, who from 1909 onward had a portrait studio in Berlin. When he died his talented daughter Minya Dührkoop (1873-1929) took over the studio. In the early 1930s, the company was called Gerstenberg-Dührkoop. Yet, in the postwar years, the name Dührkoop was used again for photos made for the new Ufa.

German postcard by Meissner & Buch, Leipzig. Photo: Rud. Dührkoop.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her films.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1552. Photo: Rudolph Dührkoop, Berlin.

Actress and singer Else Bernaappeared in 13 silent German films between 1917 and 1924.

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5233. Photo: R. Dührkoop.

Paul Heidemann (1884-1968) was a German stage and screen actor, film director and film producer. He was famous for his comical parts.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 306/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Rudolf Dührkoop.

Viggo Larsen(1880-1957) was a Danish actor, director, scriptwriter and producer. He was one of the pioneers in film history. With Wanda Treumann he directed and produced many German films of the 1910s.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 385/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Rudolph Dührkoop.

German actor Charles Willy Kayser (1881-1942) had a remarkable career in the silent cinema. However, today he is little known, while many of his films are considered lost now and there is little information about his work.

Rudolf Dührkoop

Hamburg-based photographer Rudolf Dührkoop (1848-1918) made portrait photos and also took artistic photographs in the style of Pictorialism. Rudolf Johannes Dührkoop was born in 1848, the son of carpenter Christian Friederich Dührkoop and Johanna Friederica Emile. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Dührkoop volunteered to join Infantry Regiment No. 76 and was sent to Paris as an ordinary soldier after the capitulation. In 1872, he returned home, went into business and married Maria Louise Caroline Matzen, with whom he had two daughters, Hanna Maria Theresia, born in 1872, and Julie Wilhelmine, born in 1874.

Dührkoop first worked as a railway employee and then as a merchant. It was during this time that he became interested in photography. Dührkoop acquired the necessary knowledge over the years and familiarised himself with the necessary photographic processes and optics. In 1882, he published his first photograph in Photographisches Wochenblatt, the magazine of the Photographischer Verein zu Berlin. At the end of 1882, Dührkoop applied to the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce for a photographer's licence, which was granted in January 1883.

In 1883, he opened a studio at Große Bäckerstraße 26 in Hamburg and effectively became a professional photographer without any training. Dührkoop began his professional career by making 'Cartes-de-Visite', a kind of business cards with small photographs. In addition, he mainly took portrait photos. He quickly gained success. Just six months after opening his studio, he moved to Hopfenmarkt. He was often asked to photograph prominent German personalities and joined the leading 'Deutschen Photographen-Verein' in 1886.

In 1888, Dührkoop moved into a studio in Ferdinandstraße and two years later, he opened an additional studio in Altona. Over the years, Dührkoop began to take reportage photographs. Outside his studio, he photographed, among other things, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the 76th Regiment on the Heiligengeistfeld in 1891 and a festive scene on the Hopfenmarkt in 1892 on the occasion of a 50-year celebration to commemorate the outbreak of the Hamburg fire. He showed artistic aspirations and in 1898 he held his first exhibition, with a series of pictorialist portraits of his daughter Minya. From then on, his fame rose all over Germany and later internationally. He opened another studio in Berlin, published in leading photographic magazines such as Die Kunst in der Photographie and also wrote articles on portrait photography.

In 1904, he participated in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, where he came into contact with well-known pictorialist art photographers such as Gertrude Käsebier. In 1905, he became the first German member of the prestigious English Royal Photographic Society and in 1906 of the pictorialist photography society Linked Ring. At the time, photographic societies organised exhibitions of photographic works by their members and invited photographers. At regular meetings, the members informed themselves about the latest developments. At such meetings, Dührkoop spoke, for example, about the experiences and successes of his trip to America in 1904. In addition to his artistic work, Rudolf Dührkoop always remained active as a portrait photographer and captured a large number of well-known German personalities on film during his career.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3465/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Dührkoop, Berlin.

At the age of 18, German actor Werner Fuetterer (1907-1991) was discovered to play the young lover in a series of silent films. For more than four decades he went on to work as a supporting actor in nearly 100 films.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4032/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Dührkoop, Berlin.

Ruth Weyher (1901-1983) was a German actress of the silent cinema.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4237/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Dührkoop, Berlin.

Hans Stüwe (1901-1976) was a German singer and opera director. From 1926 on he was also a big film star in Germany. Four times he was the film partner of Ufa diva Zarah Leander.

German collectors card by Salem Zigaretten in the series Bunte Filmbilder, no. 269 (in a series of 275). Photo: Dührkoop / Ross Verlag.

Dutch-German actress Ery Bos(1910-2005) had a short but productive film career in the early German sound film. In only three years, from 1932 to 1934, she took part in a dozen films.

German cigarette card by Ross Verlag in the 'Künstler im Film' series for Zigarettenfabrik Monopol, Dresden, Serie 1, image 115 (of 200). Photo: Dührkoop.

Sexy German dancer and film actress La Jana (1905-1940) was the most popular showgirl in Berlin in the 1930s. She appeared in 25 European films, often dancing in exotic costumes. In 1940, she suddenly died of pneumonia and pleurisy.

Much more than a simple assistant

In 1887, Rudolf Dührkoop made his then 14-year-old daughter Julie Wilhelmine, known as Minya, his studio assistant. Minya Dührkoop was trained as an independent employee and was to become much more than a simple assistant in the years to come. Father and daughter ran the business together. In 1894, Minya married the photographer Luis Diéz Vazquez from Málaga. Nothing is known about any professional collaboration between the couple. When the marriage ended in divorce in 1901, Minya Diéz kept her married name.

Minya and Rudolf Dührkoop were able to assert themselves through the high artistic quality of their photographic work. In addition, the continuous cultivation and expansion of their artistic network was crucial to their success. In 1901, Minya and Rudolf Dührkoop embarked on their first trip to England. This was followed by trips to America in 1904/1905 to visit exhibitions and organise their own exhibitions, as well as to cultivate contacts with other photographers.

In September 1906, Minya Diéz-Dührkoop became a partner of "Rudolf Dührkoop." Rudolf left his daughter the newly rented Hamburg studio at Jungfernstieg 34 in the Heine-Haus and she managed the studio from this point onwards. Rudolf Dührkoop left Hamburg to open and run a "Werkstatt für künstlerische Camera-Bildnisse" and "Neuzeitliche Kamerabildnisse" in Berlin at Unter den Linden 10 in December 1906.

Minya Diéz-Dührkoop collected contemporary art. For example, she owned a painting by the painter Alma del Banco. She moved in artistic circles in Hamburg and numerous writers and artists frequented her studio at Jungfernstieg 34. In 1910, she became a passive member of the Expressionist artists' association "Brücke" and cultivated contacts with writers such as Richard Dehmel and his wife Ida and visual artists such as Max Pechstein, Franz Radziwill and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Encounters overseas also shaped her work. A highlight in Minya Diéz-Dührkoop's artistic and social life was the trip to the USA in 1911, which took place at the invitation of the Photographers Association of America. George Eastman had his portrait taken by Diéz-Dührkoop and there was also a professional exchange with the Swiss photographer Helmar Lerski in the USA. Minya and Rudolf Dührkoop's international fame grew steadily through various trips including trips to England in 1901 and 1908 to meet famous photographers such as Emil Otto Hoppé and Alvin Langdon Coburn. At that time, they were the only professional photographers from Germany to be accepted into the elite circle of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, otherwise only amateurs were admitted, who at the time had the higher artistic prestige.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6845/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Gerstenberg-Dührkoop, Berlin.

For a brief period during the Weimar Republic, Hertha Thiele(1908 -1984) appeared in several controversial stage plays and films. She is best known for playing a 14-year-old schoolgirl in love with her female teacher in the ground-breaking Mädchen in Uniform/Girls in Uniform (1931). She received thousands of fan letters - mostly from women. Decades later, Thiele became a well-known film and television actress in East Germany.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7916/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Gerstenberg-Dührkoop, Berlin.

Ethereally blonde Camilla Horn (1903-1996) was a German dancer and film star. Her breakthrough role was Gretchen in the silent film classic Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926). She also starred in some Hollywood films of the late 1920s and a few British and Italian productions.

German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1276/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Dührkoop.

Actor, presenter and journalist Peter Bosse (1931-2018) was a popular child star of the German cinema in the 1930s. The boy with his cheeky face made 28 films.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3150/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Dührkoop, Berlin.

German actor and director Fritz Kampers (1891-1950) was a solidly built Bavarian character actor. In films from 1913, he was much in demand during the 1920s and 1930s. Kampers was often cast as robust or comic military types, or laconic, but good-hearted rustics in mountaineering or 'Heimat' films. He appeared in more than 260 films.

German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 3586/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Dührkoop.

Rolf Weih (1906–1969) was a German film actor, who played supporting parts in many comedies and musicals of the 1930s and 1940s. After the war, he appeared in numerous Heimat films in West Germany.

Stars depicted in their own homes

Rudolf Dührkoop celebrated his 60th birthday on 1 August 1908 and two months later the studio celebrated its 25th anniversary. Dührkoop was presented with a gold medal from Duke Carl Theodor in Bavaria and the Silver Crown Medal from the Saxon Photographers' Association. In 1918, Rudolf Dührkoop died in Hamburg, aged 69.

Minya Diez-Dührkoop continued the company after the death of her father. She made many sepia-tinted portrait photos of artists such as the painters Max Liebermann, Franz Radziwill, Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein and the Hamburg dancers Lavinia Schulz (1896-1924) and Walter Holdt (1899-1924). Dance poses of Schulz and Holdt in expressionist costumes they made themselves were photographed in the Dührkoop studio in variations from the front and from behind, with different backgrounds and different costumes. The domain of contemporary dance must have inspired Minya Diéz-Dührkoop photographically and must have been of particular concern to her, as there are further images in Der künstlerische Tanz unserer Zeit (1928).

She also continued to depict the actors of silent German cinema like film diva Henny Porten. The stars were often depicted in their own homes, without the scenery or props commonly used at the time. In one article, published in the journal Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, the Dührkoop studio was described as “radical” with a “determined striving towards the future”.

In 1926, Minya remarried. Her second husband was Fritz Karl Gustav Schulz. Minya Dührkoop died in 1929 in Hamburg. Fritz Karl Gustav Schulz continued to run the studio after his wife's sudden death. In the early 1930s, the company was called Gerstenberg-Dührkoop. The studio continued to make portraits of German film actors

From 1935, Antonio Machado, a long-time employee, was the owner of the "Dührkoop Werkstätten". In the postwar years, the name Dührkoop was used again for film star photos made for the new Ufa, but also for the Defa in East Germany. When the Dührkoop studio stopped to exist is unclear.

German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, no. 661, 1958. Photo: DEFA / Dührkoop. Publicity still for Lissy (Konrad Wolf, 1957).

German film actress Sonja Sutter (1931–2017) was one of the few actors who was allowed to appear in productions in both East and West Germany. She is remembered for DEFA films like Lissy (1957), her role as Fraulein Rottenmeier in the German TV series Heidi (1978) and for several roles in the TV series Derrick (1983-1998).

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3058. Photo: Dührkoop / Ufa.

German actor and writer Hardy Krüger (1928-2022) was a blond heartthrob in the 1950s. He acted in numerous European movies and also in classic American films.

West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3327. Photo: Dührkoop / Ufa.

Renate Mannhardt (1920-2013) was a German supporting actress of the 1950s. She was known for such films as Peter Lorre's Der Verlorene (1951), Die große Schuld/The great debt (1953) and Roberto Rossellini's Non credo più all'amore (La paura)/Fear (1954).
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West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3994. Photo: Dührkoop.

Heinz Drache (1923-2002) was the most in-vogue screen cop of post-war German cinema. He first established his reputation in the role of the charismatic Inspector Yates in Francis Durbridge's TV miniseries Das Halstuch (1962) and in the same vein he apprehended villains in a series of Edgar Wallace Krimis such as Der Zinker/The Squeaker (1963). He appeared in 42 films between 1953 and 2002.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4230. Photo: Dührkoop / Ufa.

German film actress Sabine Bethmann (1931) is best known for Fritz Langs’s Der Tiger von Eschnapur (1959) and the sequel Das Indische Grabmal (1959), together known as 'Fritz Lang's Indian Epic'.

Sources: Viktoria Krieger (Liebermann Villa), MKG Collection, Wikipedia (Dutch and German).

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Lonny Kellner

April 15, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Axel Eliassons Konstförlag

≪ Previous: Photo by Rudolf Dührkoop & Atelier Dührkoop

Lonny Kellner (1930-2003) was a German Schlager singer and actress. She was married to comedian and radio and television personality Peter Frankenfeld.

Austrian postcard by Austriapost, Wien, no. 396. Photo: Arion Film-Verleih. Lonny Kellner is written on the postcard as Loni (sic) Kellner.

Lonny Kellner in Das ideale Brautpaar (1954)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 678. Photo: Arthur Grimm / BBF-Nordfilm / Allianz. Lonny Kellner in Das ideale Brautpaar/The ideal bride and groom (Robert A. Stemmle, 1954).

Reaching the top ranks of the US charts

Lonny Kellner was born in 1930 in Remscheid, Germany. Lonny grew up in Remscheid, took acting lessons after her school education and began studying singing.

Her first roles followed at the Bonn Stadttheater and then at the Westfälisches Landestheater in classics such as 'Minna von Barnhelm' by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 'Scampolo' by Dario Niccodemi and 'Die versunkene Glocke' (The Sunken Bell) by Gerhart Hauptmann.

In 1948, through the recommendation of colleagues, she performed a few Schlager songs at the NWDR radio station in Cologne. She made her debut with the songs 'Wenn ich dich seh', dann fange ich zu träumen an' and 'Gib mir einen Kuss durchs Telefon'. Cabaret shows, radio plays and orchestral recordings for many radio stations soon followed.

She sang her first big hits 'Im Hafen von Adano' and 'La-Le-Lu' as a duet with René Carol. In 1952 Kellner made her first film appearance as a pop singer with the song 'Manhattan-Boogie' in the West German musical drama Königin der Arena/Queen of the Arena (Rolf Meyer, 1952) starring Maria Litto. This was followed by the films Tanzende Sterne/Dancing Stars (Géza von Cziffra, 1952) starring Germaine Damar, Die Blume von Hawaii/The Flower of Hawaii (Géza von Cziffra, 1953), Geld aus der Luft/Money from the Air (Géza von Cziffra, 1954) starring Josef Meinrad.

She co-starred in Keine Angst vor Schwiegermüttern/Don't Worry About Your Mother-in-Law (Erich Engels, 1954) with Grethe Weiser as her mother, Das ideale Brautpaar/The Perfect Couple (Robert A. Stemmle, 1954), and Auf Wiedersehen am Bodensee/I'll See You at Lake Constance (Hans Albin, 1956). She achieved great success with such film songs as 'So ein Tag, so wunderschön wie heute' and 'Du, du, lass mein kleines Herz in Ruh'. She even managed to reach the top ranks of the US charts.

Lonny Kellner and Claus Biederstaedt in Keine Angst vor Schwiegermüttern (1954)

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1127. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Fono / Deutsche London. Lonny Kellner and Claus Biederstaedt in Keine Angst vor Schwiegermüttern/No fear of mothers-in-law (Erich Engels, 1954).

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1300. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Fono / Deutsche London. Lonny Kellner and Claus Biederstaedt in Keine Angst vor Schwiegermüttern/No fear of mothers-in-law (Erich Engels, 1954).

Peter Frankenfeld

In 1956, Lonny Kellner turned down a career in the United States to marry entertainer Peter Frankenfeld, whom she had met on a joint tour. Max Schmeling and his wife Anny Ondra were witnesses at the wedding. The violinist Helmut Zacharias played 'Lullaby of Birdland'.

Frankenfeld adopted her son Thomas, born in 1951, from a previous relationship. After their marriage, Lonny Kellner-Frankenfeld and Peter Frankenfeld stood together more often in front of cameras and microphones and did shows and tours together.

The couple set up a recording studio in their house in Wedel, Holstein, where they produced sketches for radio and TV programmes such as the duets 'Bum-Budi-Bum' and 'Ich bin der Herr im Haus'. She completed an apprenticeship so that she could also work for Frankenfeld as a quasi-secretary.

After Frankenfeld's unexpected death in 1979, Kellner-Frankenfeld worked as an actress again. She appeared in 39 episodes of the family series Unsere Hagenbecks/Our Hagenbecks (1991-1994) and made guest appearances in the ZDF series Das Traumschiff/The Dream Ship (1983-1987). She also played leading roles in Ein unvergessliches Wochenende/An unforgettable weekend, an episode of the TV series Großstadtrevier/Big city district (2001) and in two episodes of Heimatgeschichten/Home stories (1998-2003).

Her last film role was in the romantic comedy Otto - Der Liebesfilm/Otto - The love film (Otto Waalkes, Bernd Eilert, 1992) starring Otto Waalkes. In memory of Frankenfeld, she endowed the Peter Frankenfeld Award for artistic versatility and humanitarian commitment in 2000. Lonny Kellner died of bone cancer in 2003 in Hamburg, Germany, at 72. Her first husband was Werner Labriga.

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 793. Photo: Arthur Grimm / BBF-Nordfilm / Allianz. Lonny Kellner in Das ideale Brautpaar/The ideal bride and groom (Robert A. Stemmle, 1954).

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

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Axel Eliassons Konstförlag

April 16, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Les Misérables (2012)

≪ Previous: Lonny Kellner

During the 1910s and 1920s, the heydays of the Swedish film industry, film star postcards formed an important marketing tool. Besides Förlag Nordisk Konst, several other publishers in Sweden produced and distributed cards with film portraits or scenes. A major postcard publisher was Axel Eliassons Konstförlag in Stockholm. We selected 20 sepia film postcards from our collections which were published by this company which advertised itself as 'the biggest postcard company in the North'.

Emma Meissner and Axel Ringvall in Die Kino-Königin

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 247. Photo: Hofatelier Ferd. Flodin, 1914. Emma Meissner and Axel Ringvall in the operetta 'Die Kino-Königin' (1913) by Jean Gilbert, performed as 'Filmdrottningen in Sweden.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 308. Photo: Hofatelier Jaeger, Stockholm, 1914. Lars Hanson.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 353. Photo: Hofatelier Jaeger, Stockholm, 1915. Anders de Wahl in the stage play 'Äventyret aka Äfventyret' by Valentin Le Barroyer, performed at the Dramaten theatre in Stockholm in 1915, under the direction of Karl Hedberg.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 413, mailed in 1916. Photo: Uno Falkengren, Göteborg. Gösta Ekman.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 482. 'Gustav III' was a play by August Strindberg and this card refers to one of Lars Hanson's stage play performances, not a film. Hanson played the title role in 1915 (dir. Einar Fröberg) and again in 1928 (dir. Rune Carlsten).

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 35. Photo: Hofatelier Jaeger, Stockholm, 1917. Tora Teje.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 94. Photo: Skandiafilm. Gösta Ekmanand Carlo Keil-Möller in the Swedish silent romantic film Mästerkatten i stövlar/Puss in boots (John W. Brunius, 1918).

Mary Johnson in Mästerkatten i stövlar (1918)

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 97. Photo: Skandia Film. Mary Johnson and Carlo Keil-Möller in the Swedish silent romantic film Mästerkatten i stövlar/Puss in boots (John W. Brunius, 1918).

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 105. Photo: Skandiafilm, 1918. Karin Molander in Surrogatet (Einar Bruun, 1919).

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 113. Photo: Hofatelier Jaeger. Tora Teje in the play 'Rödakorssystern' (Red Cross Sister) by Gustaf Collijn. The play premiered on 14 March 1919 at the Svenska Teatern. The director was Gunnar Klintberg and her co-star was Gösta Ekman.

'Swedish-made' postcards

Axel Eliassons Konstförlag (AE) was founded in Stockholm in 1890. In the first half of the 20th century. AE with its premises on the famous street Drottninggatan, was Sweden's leading producer of postcards. Founder Axel Eliasson was born on 16 February 1868 in Stockholm. He was the son of the clothing merchant Meyer Eliasson and Ida Davidsson. In 1890 he founded the company Axel Eliasson (AE) in Stockholm. He got the idea for his postcard production in Berlin, where he studied at the Rakow Economic School. Initially, Eliasson himself was behind the camera, so he was able to market his products as 'Swedish-made'.

Eliasson's first postcards were sold in the middle of 1891. These showed Stockholm and Gothenburg and were advertised in the newspaper Aftonbladet. However, these first postcards, where the image only took up 1/3 of the front page, were not very successful. Only after Eliasson changed the layout and enlarged the size of the pictures in 1896, their popularity increased. Apart from topographical postcards, Eliasson decided to produce greetings postcards for his own company but also for other companies in Scandinavia. In an interesting article in the magazine Postcard Album, Arne Sandström writes that Eliasson never printed his postcards himself. He ordered most of them from different printers in Germany (including Rotophot) and some also from printers in Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.A. In 1933, the company probably started to print its own cards.

In 1894 painter and illustrator Jenny Nyström was contracted to draw greeting postcards. Axel Eliasson Konstförlag had exclusive rights to postcards with her motifs of the 'jultomte' (goblins) on numerous Christmas cards, thus linking the Swedish version of Santa Claus to the gnomes of Scandinavian folklore. Her illustrated Christmas cards became one of Eliassons's main products. From 1895 the AE postcards were also published in colour lithography and in 1897 Anna Palm joined the company. She illustrated the 'official' postcards of the 1897 Stockholm Exhibition which were widely distributed. Till 1898, the AE cards were not numbered.

Axel Eliassons Konstförlag had the reproduction rights to the photographs of royalty and famous people by Atelier Jaeger, a photo studio founded in 1858 by Johannes Jaeger. Valentin Wolfenstein bought the studio in 1890, and Albin Roosval and Herman Sylwander acquired the company in 1905 and kept the name. The AE logo was introduced around 1920 and was designed by David Blomberg, who had previously designed the NK logo. In 1922, the name Konstförlag was added to the company name. Eventually, postcard motifs from all over Sweden, Denmark and Norway were published, some of which were hand-coloured. At the end of the 1930s, small booklets with ten motifs from the same city on loose photographs were available in 10x6 cm format.

Axel Eliasson died on 23 January 1932 in Stockholm. He was married to Ester Sterner (1880-1951), who after his death remarried in 1938 to Axel Widstrand, a naval doctor. After Axel Eliasson's death, his son Georg Eliasson became the managing director. The publishing house was transformed into a limited company. Axel Eliassons Konstförlag expanded until the 1920s, but its success stalled in the 1930s. In 1940 the company went bankrupt and closed. However, the liquidation was not finalised until 1941. By then the company had already been bought by Alrik Hedlund Förlag in Gothenburg, which created Nya Aktiebolaget Axel Eliassons Konstförlag. In 1943 the name was changed to Axel Eliassons Konstförlag Aktiebolag and in 1969 to Axel Eliasson Aktiebolag. When Sven-Göran Östh, previously CEO of Gerhard's Konstförlag, became CEO of the company in 1989, he decided to move the company to Sågmyra. The company still exists under the name of Axel Eliasson AB in Sågmyra. It is no longer active in the postcard business and mainly produces art publishing items such as Christmas cards and gifts.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 135. Photo: Skandia Film. Karin Molander and Ellen Dall in Synnöve Solbakken (John W. Brunius, 1919), adapted from Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's Norwegian homonymous novel (1857).

Ernst Rolf, Mary Gräber, and Erik Lindholm in Åh i morron kväll (1919)

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 154. Photo: Skandia Film. Ernst Rolf, Mary Gräber, and Erik Lindholm in the Swedish silent comedy Åh i morron kväll/Oh Tomorrow Night!, (John W. Brunius, 1919).

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 255. Photo: Gösta Hard. Richard Lund.

Pauline Brunius, Tore Svennberg, Renée Björling, Paul Seelig in En vildfagel (1921)

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 288. Photo: Skandia-Film. Pauline Brunius, Tore Svennberg, Renée Björling and Paul Seelig in the Swedish silent drama En vildfågel/Give Me My Son (John W. Brunius, 1921). Adapted from the play 'Skeppsbrott' (Shipwreck) by Samuel A. Duse. The title translates literally as 'The Wild Bird'. On 3 October 1921, En vildfågel premiered simultaneously in five cinemas in five Swedish cities.

Jenny Hasselqvist and Ivan Hedqvist in Vem dömer (1922)

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 303. Photo: Skandia Film, Stockholm. Jenny Hasselqvist and Ivan Hedqvist in the Swedish silent film Vem dömer/Love's Crucible (Victor Sjöström, Skandia Film 1922). The film is a Renaissance drama where a young woman named Ursula (Jenny Hasselquist), who is in love with Bertram, the son (Gösta Ekman) of the mayor (Tore Svenberg), is accused of having poisoned her older husband, the sculptor Master Anton (Ivan Hedqvist). She has to prove her virginity through a fire test. The film's title reads: Who judges?

Jenny Hasselqvist, Ivan Hedqvist, Tore Svennberg and Gösta Ekman in Vem dömer (1922)

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstforlag, Stockholm, no. 305. Photo: Skandia Film, Stockholm. Jenny Hasselqvist, Ivan Hedqvist, Tore Svennberg and Gösta Ekman in the Swedish silent film Vem döme/ Love's Crucible, (Victor Sjöström, 1922). The film is a Renaissance drama where a young woman named Ursula (Hasselqvist), who is in love with Bertram, the son (Ekman) of the mayor (Svenberg), is accused of having poisoned her older husband, the sculptor Master Anton (Hedqvist). She has to prove her virginity through a fire test. The film's title reads: Who judges? NB Nils Asther had a small part in this film. He is the man just left of Hasselquist.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 310. Photo: Gösta Hard, Stockholm, 1927. On this postcard, Mary Johnson is indicated with the name of her second husband.

Victor Sjöström and Jenny Hasselquist in Eld ombord (1923)

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

Mona Martenson in Gösta Berlings Saga (1924)

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 379, 1924. Photo: Svenska-Film. Mona Mårtenson as Ebba Dohna in Gösta Berlings saga/The Atonement of Gosta Berling (Mauritz Stiller, 1924), based on the novel by Selma Lagerlöf.

Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm, no. 381. Lars Hanson is the title character in Gösta Berlings saga/The Saga of Gösta Berling (Mauritz Stiller 1924). The film was an adaptation of the famous novel by Selma Lagerlöf. The cinematography was by Julius Jaenzon and the art direction was by Vilhelm Bryde with Edgar Ulmer collaborating on the set design.

Small Swedish postcard by Axel Eliassons Konstförlag A.B., Stockholm. Illustration: Curt Nyström. Sent by mail in 1960. Curt Nyström was the son of Jenny Nyström who followed in her footsteps and became a popular postcard and poster artist, staying very close to his mother's artistic style.

Sources: Arne Sandström (The Postcard Album #39), Wikipedia (Swedish) and Jean Ritsema (Ross Postcards).

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Les Misérables (2012)

April 17, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Clint Eastwood

≪ Previous: Axel Eliassons Konstförlag

Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012) is a well-executed, powerful film musical. The screenplay by William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer, is based on the stage musical of the same name by Schönberg, Boublil, and Jean-Marc Natel, which in turn is based on the epic novel 'Les Misérables' (1862) by Victor Hugo. The film was nominated for eight Oscars, winning three.

Taiwanese postcard by CoolCard, 2013. Photo: Ignition, Los Angeles / Working Title / Universal. Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012). Caption: Freedom is Mine. From the Academy Award-winning director of 'The King's Speech'. The Musical Phenomenon.

Taiwanese postcard by CoolCard, 2013. Photo: Ignition, Los Angeles / Working Title / Universal. Russell Crowe as Javert in Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012). Caption: I am the Law. From the Academy Award-winning director of 'The King's Speech'. The Musical Phenomenon.

A decision that changes their lives forever

In 1815, French prisoner 24601, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) was released from the Bagne of Toulon after a nineteen-year sentence for stealing bread to feed his sister's child. His paroled status prevents him from finding work or accommodation, but he is sheltered by the kindly Bishop of Digne.

Valjean attempts to steal his silverware and is captured, but the bishop, in radical grace, claims he gave him the silver and tells him to use it to begin an honest life. Moved, Valjean breaks his parole and assumes a new identity, intending to redeem others.

For decades he is hunted by the ruthless and persistent Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). Then the fugitive promises dying prostitute Fantine (Anne Hathaway) to take care of her little daughter, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). The decision changes their lives forever.

Set in post-revolutionary France, the story resolves to the background of the June Rebellion of 1832. In his huge epic novel of 1500 pages, Victor Hugo's 'Les Misérables' featured many characters and covered many decades and several grand themes. It's impossible to cram this all into a 2.5-hour film. 'Les Mis' has been filmed several times and the latest BBC series from 2018 was a 6-hour in-depth version. But this 2012 adaptation is the first film version of the immensely popular Cameron Mackintosh musical which ran for 27 years and had a total audience of over 60 million.

'Les Mis' is not the most accessible of musicals. It is lengthy and the quite heavy story feels like an opera. Following the release of the stage musical, a film adaptation was mired in development hell for over ten years. The rights were passed on to several major studios, and various directors including Alan Parker and Bruce Beresford were considered. In 2011, Mackintosh finally sold the film rights to Eric Fellner, who financed the film with Tim Bevan and Debra Hayward through their production company Working Title Films. As the director, they wanted the Brit Tom Hooper, who had just made the acclaimed historical drama The King's Speech (2010).

Taiwanese postcard by CoolCard, 2013. Photo: Ignition, Los Angeles / Working Title / Universal. Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012). Caption: I dreamed a dream. From the Academy Award winning director of 'The King's Speech'. The musical phenomenon.

Taiwanese postcard by CoolCard, 2013. Photo: Ignition, Los Angeles / Working Title / Universal. Isabelle Allen as young Cosette in Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012). Caption: Fight Dream Hope Love. From the Academy Award-winning director of 'The King's Speech'.

A surrealistic, nightmarish Paris

For his Les Misérables (2012), Tom Hooper chose an incomplete rendering of the musical. He went for depth and context so one can truly appreciate the tragedy and the themes. His film is a bold and commendable attempt at converting the musical to a film format.

Even more daring was Hooper's insistence to make a film in which all the dialogue was sung live and the actors could sing as if they were acting. In several lines, Hugh Jackman almost speaks rather than truly sings, because he is trying to do the songs in a more realistic acting fashion. This works best in Anne Hathaway's song 'I Dreamed a Dream'. Her raw, emotional rendition works perfectly for her devastatingly human portrayal of Fantine. Hathaway won an Oscar for it.

The casting is mostly good. Jackman is an excellent Valjean, vulnerable and strong. He believes. He emotes. He is as big as the story itself. Jackson deservedly received an Oscar nomination for his performance. Russell Crowe is also fine as Javert, the obsessive and punitive policeman who mercilessly hounds Jean Valjean. Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter give bravura performances as the hilarious Thénardier innkeepers. In an almost three-hour show, Hooper, writer Claude-Michel Schonberg and cinematographer Danny Cohen keep the action moving. Hooper skillfully created a surrealistic, nightmarish Paris for Fantine. The extremely heightened realism is on the verge of being surrealistic. The close-ups create a kind of intimacy which provides opportunities for the actors to do their work.

The result is personal and intense. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian: "It conquers its audience with weapons all its own: not passion so much as passionate sincerity, not power so much as overwhelming force. Every line, every note, every scene is belted out with diaphragm-quivering conviction and unbroken, unremitting intensity. The physical strength of this movie is impressive: an awe-inspiring and colossal effort, just like Valjean's as he lifts the flagpole at the beginning of the film. You can almost see the movie's muscles flexing and the veins standing out like whipcords on its forehead. At the end of 158 minutes, you have experienced something."

The film grossed over $442 million worldwide against a production budget of $61 million during its original theatrical run. In anticipation of the stage musical's forthcoming 40th anniversary in 2025, the film is digitally remixed and remastered in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Cameron Mackintosh, Tom Hooper, music producer Lee McCutcheon, music director Stephen Metcalfe and sound mixer Andy Nelson all supervised the Dolby Atmos remix for this 2024 version.

Amanda Seyfried in Les Misérables (2012)

Taiwanese postcard by CoolCard, 2013. Photo: Ignition, Los Angeles / Working Title / Universal. Amanda Seyfried as Cosette in Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012). Caption: Heart full of love. From the Academy Award-winning director of 'The King's Speech'. The musical phenomenon.

Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne in Les Misérables (2012)

Taiwanese postcard by CoolCard, 2013. Photo: Ignition, Los Angeles / Working Title / Universal. Amanda Seyfried as Cosette and Eddie Redmayne as Marius in Les Misérables (Tom Hooper, 2012). Caption: Heart Full of Love. The Musical Phenomenon.

Sources: Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian), Wikipedia and IMDb.

↧

Clint Eastwood

April 18, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Debbie Reynolds

≪ Previous: Les Misérables (2012)

American film actor and director Clint Eastwood (1930) rose to fame as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Westerns Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (1965), and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Later in the US, he played hard-edge police inspector Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films, which elevated him to superstar status, and he directed and produced such award-winning masterpieces as Unforgiven (1992), Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004).

American postcard by the American Postcard Co. Inc., no. TV22, 1984. Photo: Viacom International Inc. Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates in Rawhide (1959–1966).

British postcard by Boomerang Media in The Greatest series. Photo: Pierluigi Praturion / Rex Features. Clint Eastwood in Kelly's Heroes (Brian G. Hutton, 1970).

British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. P 8286. Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971).

French postcard, no. Réf. 950. Clint Eastwood in Sudden Impact (Clint Eastwood, 1983).

Chinese postcard. Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008).

Towering height and slender frame

Clinton ‘Clint’ Eastwood, Jr. was born in San Francisco, California in 1930. His parents were Clinton Eastwood, Sr., a steelworker and migrant worker, and Margaret Ruth (Runner) Eastwood, a factory worker. Clint has a younger sister, Jeanne. Because of his father's difficulty in finding steady work during the depression, Eastwood moved with his family from one Northern California town to another, attending some eight elementary schools in the process.

Later he had odd jobs as a fire-fighter and lumberjack in Oregon, as well as a steelworker in Seattle. In 1951, Eastwood was drafted into the US Army, where he was a swimming instructor during the Korean War. He briefly attended Los Angeles City College but dropped out to pursue acting. Eastwood married Maggie Johnson in 1953, six months after they met on a blind date. However, their matrimony would not prove altogether smooth, with Eastwood believing that he had married too early.

In 1954, the good-looking Eastwood with his towering height and slender frame got a contract at Universal. At first, he was criticised for his stiff manner, his squint, and for hissing his lines through his teeth. His first acting role was an uncredited bit part as a laboratory assistant in the Sci-Fi Horror film Revenge of the Creature (Jack Arnold, 1955). Over the next three years, he played more bit parts in such films as Lady Godiva of Coventry (Arthur Lubin, 1955), Tarantula (Jack Arnold, 1955), and the war drama Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956) with George Nader and Lex Barker.

His first bigger roles were in the B-Western Ambush at Cimarron Pass (Jodie Copelan, 1958), and the war film Lafayette Escadrille (William A. Wellman, 1958), starring Tab Hunter and Etchika Choureau. In 1959, he became a TV star as Rowdy Yates in the Western series Rawhide (1959–1966). Although Rawhide never won an Emmy, it was a ratings success for several years.

During a trial separation from Maggie Johnson, an affair with dancer Roxanne Tunis produced Eastwood’s first child, Kimber Tunis (1964). An intensely private person, Clint Eastwood was rarely featured in the tabloid press. However, he had more affairs, e.g. with actresses Catherine Deneuve, Inger Stevens and Jean Seberg. After a reconciliation, he had two children with Johnson: Kyle Eastwood (1968) and Alison Eastwood (1972), though he was not present at either birth. Johnson filed for legal separation in 1978, but the pair officially divorced in 1984.

British postcard by D. Constance Ltd, London, no. 106. Photo: Reisfeld / Ufa. Publicity still for the TV series Rawhide (1959–1966).

Vintage postcard by C-Star, no. SP236. Clint Eastwood in the TV series Rawhide (1959-1966).

Vintage postcard. Clint Eastwood in the TV series Rawhide (1959-1966).

Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Vintage postcard. Clint Eastwood in Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964).

Clint Eastwood in Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

British postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC2041. Photo: Vaselli. Clint Eastwood in Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964).

The Man With No Name Trilogy

In late 1963, Clint Eastwood's Rawhide co-star Eric Fleming rejected an offer to star in an Italian-made Western. Eastwood, who in turn saw the film as an opportunity to escape from his Rawhide image, signed the contract. The Western was called Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (1964), to be directed in a remote region of Spain by the then relatively unknown Sergio Leone. A Fistful of Dollars, also with Gian Maria Volonté and Marianne Koch, was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961).

Eastwood played a cynical gunfighter who comes to a small border town, torn apart by two feuding families. Hiring himself out as a mercenary, the lone drifter plays one side against the other until nothing remains of either side. Eastwood started to develop a minimalist acting style and created the character's distinctive visual style. Although a non-smoker, Leone insisted Eastwood smoke cigars as an essential ingredient of the ‘mask’ he was attempting to create for the loner character.

Per un pugno di dollari/A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) was the first instalment of the Dollars trilogy. Later, United Artists, who distributed it in the US, coined another term for it: the Man With No Name trilogy. ‘The second part was Per qualche dollaro in più/For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965), a richer, more mythologised film that focused on two ruthless bounty hunters (Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef) who form a tenuous partnership to hunt down a wanted bandit (Gian Maria Volontè). Both films were a huge success in Italy. They both contain all of Leone's eventual trademarks: taciturn characters, precise framing, extreme close-ups, and the haunting music of Ennio Morricone.

Eastwood also appeared in a segment of Dino De Laurentiis’ five-part anthology production Le Streghe/The Witches (Vittorio De Sica a.o., 1967). But his performance opposite De Laurentiis' wife Silvana Mangano did not please the critics. Eastwood then played in the third and best Dollars film, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966). Again he played the mysterious Man with No Name, wearing the same trademark poncho (reportedly without ever having washed it). Lee Van Cleef returned as a ruthless fortune seeker, with Eli Wallach portrayed the cunning Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez. Yuri German at AllMovie: "Immensely entertaining and beautifully shot in Techniscope by Tonino Delli Colli, the movie is a virtually definitive 'spaghetti western,' rivaled only by Leone's own Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)."

The Dollars trilogy was not released in the United States until 1967, when A Fistful of Dollars opened in January, followed by For a Few Dollars More in May, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in December. Eastwood redubbed his own dialogue for the American releases. All the films were commercially successful, particularly The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which turned Eastwood into a major film star. All three films received bad reviews, and marked the beginning of a battle for Eastwood to win American film critics' respect. According to IMDb, Sergio Leone asked Eastwood, Wallach and Van Cleef to appear again in C'era una volta il West/Once Upon A Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968), but they all declined when they heard that their characters were going to be killed off in the first five minutes.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Clint Eastwood in Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)

Vintage postcard, no. 2175. Image: Italian lobby card (locandina) by Izaro Films. Clint Eastwood in Per qualche dollaro in più/For A Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965).

Clint Eastwood on the set of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Italian postcard by Cineteca di Bologna, 2007. Photo: Angelo Novi. Clint Eastwood on the set of Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966).

Clint Eastwood in Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)

French postcard by Ébullitions, no. 44. Clint Eastwood in Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly/The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966).

Romanian postcard by Colectia Cinefilului Acin.

Coogan's Bluff

Stardom brought more roles for Clint Eastwood. He signed to star in the American revisionist western Hang 'Em High (Ted Post, 1968), playing a man who takes up a Marshal's badge and seeks revenge as a lawman after being lynched by vigilantes and left for dead.

Using money earned from the Dollars trilogy, accountant and Eastwood advisor Irving Leonard helped establish Eastwood's own production company, Malpaso Productions, named after Malpaso Creek on Eastwood's property in Monterey County, California. Leonard arranged for Hang 'Em High to be a joint production with United Artists. Hang 'Em High was widely praised by critics, and when it opened in July 1968, it had an unprecedented opening weekend in United Artists' history.

His following film was Coogan's Bluff (Don Siegel, 1968), about an Arizona deputy sheriff tracking a wanted psychopathic criminal (Don Stroud) through the streets of New York City. Don Siegel was a Universal contract director who later became Eastwood's close friend, forming a partnership that would last more than ten years and produce five films. Coogan’s Bluff was controversial for its portrayal of violence, Eastwood's role creating the prototype for the macho cop of the Dirty Harry film series. Coogan's Bluff also became the first collaboration with Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin, who would later compose the jazzy score to several Eastwood films in the 1970s and 1980s, including the Dirty Harry films.

Eastwood played the right-hand man of squad's commander Richard Burton in the war epic Where Eagles Dare (Brian G. Hutton, 1968), about a World War II squad parachuting into a Gestapo stronghold in the alpine mountains. Eastwood then branched out to star in the only musical of his career, Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969).

Then, Eastwood starred in the Western Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Sigel, 1970), with Shirley MacLaine, and as one of a group of Americans who steal a fortune in gold from the Nazis, in the World War II film Kelly's Heroes (Brian G. Hutton, 1970)). Kelly's Heroes was the last film in which Eastwood appeared, that was not produced by his own Malpaso Productions.

Spanish postcard by Royal Books, Barcelona, 1993. Clint Eastwood in Hang 'Em High (Ted Post, 1968). The Spanish title is Cometierron dos erreros.

Clint Eastwood in Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 136-069. Photo: The Ludlow Collection. Clint Eastwood in Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Siegel, 1970).

American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 136-180. Photo: The Ludlow Collection. Clint Eastwood in Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Siegel, 1970).

American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 136-119. Photo: The Ludlow Collection. Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971).

Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 136-012. Photo: The Ludlow Collection. Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976).

Dirty Harry

Clint Eastwood’s next film, The Beguiled (Don Siegel, 1970), was a tale of a wounded Union soldier, held captive by the sexually repressed matron of a southern girl's school. Upon release the film received major recognition in France but in the US it was a box office flop. Eastwood's career reached a turning point with Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), The film centres around a hard-edged San Francisco police inspector named Harry Callahan who is determined to stop a psychotic killer by any means. Dirty Harry achieved huge success after its release in December 1971. It was Siegel's highest-grossing film to date and the start of a series of films featuring the character Harry Callahan.

He next starred in the loner Western Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972). In 1973, Eastwood directed his first Western, High Plains Drifter, in which he starred alongside Verna Bloom. The revisionist film received a mixed reception, but was a major box office success. Eastwood next turned his attention towards Breezy (Clint Eastwood, 1973), a film about love blossoming between a middle-aged man and a teenage girl. During casting for the film Eastwood met actress Sondra Locke, who would become an important figure in his life.

He reprised his role as Detective Harry Callahan in Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973). This sequel to Dirty Harry was about a group of rogue young officers (including David Soul and Robert Urich) in the San Francisco Police Force who systematically exterminate the city's worst criminals. Eastwood teamed up with Jeff Bridges in the buddy action caper Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (Michael Cimino, 1974). Eastwood's acting was noted by critics, but was overshadowed by Bridges who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

His next film The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood, 1975), based on Trevanian's spy novel, was a commercial and critical failure. His next film The Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976) was widely acclaimed, with many critics and viewers seeing Eastwood's role as an iconic one that related to America's ancestral past and the destiny of the nation after the American Civil War. The third Dirty Harry film, The Enforcer (James Fargo, 1976) had Harry partnered with a new female officer (Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay terrorist organisation. The film, culminating in a shootout on Alcatraz island, was a major commercial success grossing $100 million worldwide.

In 1977, he directed and starred in The Gauntlet opposite Sondra Locke. Eastwood portrays a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix, to testify against the mafia. In 1978 Eastwood starred with Locke and an orang-utan called Clyde in Every Which Way but Loose. Panned by critics, the film proved a surprising success and became the second-highest grossing film of 1978. Eastwood then starred in the thriller Escape from Alcatraz (1979), the last of his films to be directed by Don Siegel. The film was a major success, and marked the beginning of a critically acclaimed period for Eastwood. Eastwood's relationship with Sondra Locke had begun in 1975 during production of The Outlaw Josey Wales. They lived together for almost fourteen years, during which Locke remained married (in name only) to her gay husband, Gordon Anderson. Eastwood befriended Locke's husband and purchased a house in Crescent Heights for Anderson and his male lover.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Clint Eastwood and John Saxon in Joe Kidd (1972)

French postcard by Travelling Editions, Paris, no. CP 9. Clint Eastwood and John Saxon in Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972).

Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972).

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 285.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

In 1980, Clint Eastwood’s nonstop success was broken by Bronco Billy, which he directed and played the lead role in. The film was liked by critics, but a rare commercial disappointment in Eastwood's career. Later that year, he starred in Any Which Way You Can (Buddy Van Horn, 1980), which ranked among the top five highest-grossing films of the year. In 1982, Eastwood directed and starred in Honkytonk Man, as a struggling Western singer who, accompanied by his young nephew (played by real-life son Kyle) goes to Nashville, Tennessee. In the same year Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed Firefox (1982) alongside Freddie Jones.

Then, Eastwood directed and starred in the fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), the darkest and most violent of the series. 'Go ahead, make my day', uttered by Eastwood in the film, became one of cinema's immortal lines. Sudden Impact was the last film which he starred in with Locke. The film was the most commercially successful of the Dirty Harry films, earning $70 million and it received very positive reviews. In the provocative thriller Tightrope (Richard Tuggle, 1984), Eastwood starred opposite Geneviève Bujold. His real-life daughter Alison, then eleven, also appeared in the film. It was another critical and commercial hit. Eastwood next starred in the period comedy City Heat (Richard Benjamin, 1984) alongside Burt Reynolds.

Eastwood revisited the Western genre when he directed and starred in Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985), based on the classic Western Shane (George Stevens, 1953). It became one of Eastwood's most successful films to date, and was hailed as one of the best films of 1985 and the best Western to appear for a considerable period. He co-starred with Marsha Mason in the military drama Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986), about the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. Then followed the fifth and final film in the Dirty Harry series The Dead Pool (Buddy Van Horn, 1988), with Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, and a young Jim Carrey. It is generally viewed as the weakest film of the series.

Eastwood began working on smaller, more personal projects and experienced a lull in his career between 1988 and 1992. Always interested in jazz, he directed Bird (Clint Eastwood, 1988), a biopic starring Forest Whitaker as jazz musician Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Eastman himself is a prolific jazz pianist who occasionally shows up to play piano at his Carmel, CA restaurant, The Hog's Breath Inn. He received two Golden Globes for Bird, but the film was a commercial failure. Jim Carrey would again appear with Eastwood in the poorly received comedy Pink Cadillac (Buddy Van Horn, 1989) alongside Bernadette Peters.

In 1989, while his partner Sondra Locke was away directing the film Impulse (1990), Eastwood had the locks changed on their Bel-Air home and ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage. During the last three years of his cohabitation with Locke, Eastwood fathered two children in secrecy with flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves, Scott Reeves (1986), and Kathryn Reeves (1988). Eastwood finally presented both children to the public in 2002.

French postcard by Editions cinema, no. 212. Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973).

Vintage photo. Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force (Ted Post, 1973).

Clint Eastwood in Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 43078. Clint Eastwood in Every Which Way But Loose (James Fargo, 1978).

West German postcard by G. Barth, Frankfurt, no. GB 44.

Unforgiven

In 1990, Clint Eastwood began living with actress Frances Fisher, whom he had met on the set of Pink Cadillac in 1988. They had a daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood (1993). Eastwood and Fisher ended their relationship in early 1995. Eastwood directed and starred in White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an adaptation of Peter Viertel's roman à clef, about John Huston and the making of the classic film The African Queen (1951).

Later in 1990, he directed and co-starred with Charlie Sheen in The Rookie, a buddy cop action film. Eastwood revisited the Western genre in the self-directed film Unforgiven (1992), in which he played an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. Unforgiven was a major commercial and critical success; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood.

Eastwood played Frank Horrigan in the Secret Service thriller In the Line of Fire (Wolfgang Petersen, 1993) co-starring John Malkovich. The film was among the top 10 box office performers that year, earning a reported $200 million. Later that year, Eastwood directed and co-starred with Kevin Costner in A Perfect World (1993).

At the 1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, and in 1995, he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awards. Opposite Meryl Streep he starred in the romantic picture The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood, 1995), another commercial and critical success. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture and won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film. In early 1995, Eastwood began dating Dina Ruiz, a television news anchor 35 years his junior, whom he had first met when she interviewed him in 1993. They married in 1996. The couple has one daughter, Morgan Eastwood (1996).

In 1997, Eastwood directed and starred in the political thriller Absolute Power, alongside Gene Hackman. Later that year, Eastwood directed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. He directed and starred in True Crime (1999), as a journalist and recovering alcoholic, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (Isaiah Washington). The next year, he directed and starred in Space Cowboys (2000) alongside Tommy Lee Jones as veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.

Dutch collector card. Clint Eastwood in Tightrope (Richard Tuggle, Clint Eastwood, 1984).

French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron in the Signes du zodiaque series, no. 10 - Gemeaux (Gemini). Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985).

Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

British postcard, no. FA 221. Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986).

French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. 5. Photo: Collection de l'ecole de Cinema Camiris. Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986).

Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang and Ahney Her in Gran Torino (2008)

French promotion card for Les soirées des enfants de cinéma, 2014. Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang and Ahney Her in Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood, 2008).

Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller Blood Work (2002). He directed and scored the crime drama Mystic River (2003), dealing with themes of murder, vigilantism, and sexual abuse. The film starred Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and Tim Robbins and won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins – with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. The following year Eastwood found further critical and commercial success when he directed, produced, scored, and starred in the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, (2004). He played a cantankerous trainer who forms a bond with female boxer (Hilary Swank). The film won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman).

At age 74, Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners. In 2006, he directed two films about World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima. The first, Flags of Our Fathers, focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and featured the film debut of Eastwood's son Scott. This was followed by Letters from Iwo Jima, which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members. Eastwood next directed Changeling (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s. Angelina Jolie stars as a woman reunited with her missing son only to realise he is an impostor.

Eastwood ended a four-year self-imposed acting hiatus by appearing in Gran Torino (2008), which he also directed, produced, and partly scored with his son Kyle and Jamie Cullum. Gran Torino eventually grossed over $268 million in theatres worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far. Eastwood's 30th directorial outing came with Invictus, a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. In 2010, Eastwood directed the drama Hereafter, with Matt Damon as a psychic, and in 2011, J. Edgar, a biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. Eastwood starred in the baseball drama Trouble with the Curve (Robert Lorenz, 2012), as a veteran baseball scout who travels with his daughter for a final scouting trip. Director Lorenz worked with Eastwood as an assistant director on several films.

Eastwood next directed Jersey Boys (2014), a musical biography based on the Tony Award-winning musical, and American Sniper (2014), a film adaptation of Chris Kyle's eponymous memoir. American Sniper grossed more than $350 million domestically and over $547 million globally, making it one of Eastwood's biggest films commercially. His next film, Sully (2016), starred Tom Hanks as Chesley Sullenberger, who successfully landed the US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in an emergency landing, keeping all passengers on board alive. It became another commercial success for Eastwood, grossing over $238 million worldwide. He directed the biographical thriller The 15:17 to Paris (2018), which saw previously non-professional actors Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alek Skarlatos playing themselves as they stop the 2015 Thalys train attack. The film received a generally negative reception from critics, who were largely critical of the acting by the three leads. Eastwood next starred in and directed The Mule (2018). He played Earl Stone, an elderly drug smuggler based on Leo Sharp, Eastwood's first acting role since Trouble with the Curve in 2012. Eastwood's most recent films were Richard Jewell (2019) and the Neo-Western drama Cry Macho (2020). Juror No. 2, from a screenplay by Jonathan Abrams, is expected to be Eastwood's final film as director and producer. It will star Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and Kiefer Sutherland.

Clint Eastwood is also politically active and served as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California from 1986 to 1988. Shawn Dwyer at TCM: “Although a registered Republican since the early-1950s, Eastwood's politics, like the man himself, were that of a true iconoclast. Over the years he had voted for candidates from both parties and publicly denounced the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. And while he had initially wished President Barack Obama well during the start of his first term in office, Eastwood, became a vocal booster for Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election, dissatisfied with what he viewed as Obama's inability to govern.” But the cinema is Clint Eastwood’s major career. He has contributed to over 50 films as actor, director, producer, and composer. According to the box office-revenue tracking website, Box Office Mojo, films featuring Eastwood have grossed a total of more than US $1.68 billion domestically, with an average of $37 million per film.

German postcard. Photo: Constantin / Paul March.

British postcard by Santoro Graphics Ltd, London, no. BW 878. Photo: The Hulton Deutsch Collection.

American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. P. 289. Photo: Terry O'Neill. Caption: Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood, 1972.

American postcard by Fotofolio, N.Y., N.Y., no. Z323. Photo: Annie Leibovitz. Caption: Clint Eastwood, Burbank, California, 1980.

Sources: Shawn Dwyer (TCM - page now defunct), Yuri German (AllMovie), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Debbie Reynolds

April 19, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Warner Baxter

≪ Previous: Clint Eastwood

American actress and singer Debbie Reynolds (1932-2016) is best-remembered opposite Gene Kelly in the classic musical Singin' in the Rain (1952). Her career spanned almost 70 years. She starred in more than forty films and was Oscar-nominated for The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). Reynolds was also a film historian and a noted collector of film memorabilia, and she was Carrie Fisher's mother.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/21.

West German postcard by ISV, no. B 27. Publicity still for Bundle of Joy (Norman Taurog, 1956).

French postcard by M.D., Paris, no. 114.

Most Promising Newcomer

Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, in 1932. She was the second child of Maxine N. (Harmon) and Raymond Francis Reynolds, a carpenter who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1939, her family moved to Burbank, California. Debbie played the French horn in high school and was a member of the Burbank Youth Symphony.

She planned to go teaching physical education, but the day after she won the 1948 Miss Burbank contest at age 16 impersonating Betty Hutton, Warner Bros. offered her a screen test. Although she wanted to be in show business, the Reynolds family church, the Nazarene, forbade acting. However, Reynolds' father saw her talent and gave his support, seeing it as a means of paying her college costs. In 1950, she graduated from Burbank High School.

Warner Bros gave her a new first name and her first roles in films. When Warner Bros. stopped producing musicals in 1950, she moved to MGM. Her breakout role was Helen Kane in the musical Three Little Words (Richard Thorpe, 1950), about the successful Tin Pan Alley songwriting team of Bert Kalmar (Fred Astaire) and Harry Ruby (Red Skelton). Reynolds was nominated for the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. Her song 'Aba Daba Honeymoon', featured in the film Two Weeks with Love (Roy Rowland, 1950) and sung as a duet with co-star Carleton Carpenter, was the first soundtrack recording to become a top-of-the-chart gold record. It reached number three on the Billboard charts. Her performance in the film greatly impressed the studio, which then gave her a co-starring role in what became her highest-profile film.

At age 19, Debbie Reynolds played her first co-starring role as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952). The musical offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Reynolds portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to 'talkies'. Reynolds wasn't a dancer until she was selected to be Gene Kelly's partner in this musical. Not yet twenty, she was a quick study. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin' in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM's catalogue of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs - 'You Were Meant for Me', 'You Are My Lucky Star', 'The Broadway Melody', and of course the title song - the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made."

By the mid-1950s, Debbie Reynolds was a major star and it seemed like she had been around forever. Most of her early film work was in MGM musicals, as perky, wholesome young women, such as I Love Melvin (Don Weis, 1953) with Donald O'Connor, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (Don Weis, 1953) with Bobby Van and Bob Fosse, and Give a Girl a Break (Stanley Donen, 1953) starring Reynolds and the dance team of Marge and Gower Champion. She continued to use her dancing skills with stage work.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 714. Photo: H.P.S.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 50. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

British postcard in the Greetings Series, no. A. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

To be with Carrie

Debbie Reynolds' other notable successes include the comedy Susan Slept Here (Frank Tashlin, 1954) starring Dick Powell, Bundle of Joy (Norman Taurog, 1956) for which she received a Golden Globe nomination, The Catered Affair (Richard Brooks, 1956) as the daughter of Bette Davis and Tammy and the Bachelor (Joseph Pevney, 1957) with Leslie Nielsen. Her recording of the Jay Livingston / Ray Evans title song from Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), became a number-one hit for Reynolds in August 1957. In 1959, she starred in the comedy The Mating Game (George Marshall, 1959) with Tony Randall and released her first pop music album, titled 'Debbie'.

She was one of 14 top-billed names in the Western epic How the West Was Won (John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1963). The family saga covered several decades of Westward expansion in the 19th century, including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of railroads. She was 31 when she gave an Academy Award-nominated performance as Margaret 'Molly' Brown, who survived the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Charles Walters, 1964). In 1969, Reynolds starred in a self-titled television program, The Debbie Reynolds Show, earning her a Golden Globe nomination. She also appeared in the Horror film What's the Matter with Helen? (Curtis Harrington, 1971) with Shelley Winters. She also produced the film. Reynolds played the title role in the Hanna-Barbera animated musical Charlotte's Web (Charles A. Nichols, Iwao Takamoto, 1973), in which she originated the song 'Mother Earth and Father Time'.

Reynolds continued to perform successfully on stage, television and film. She made her Broadway debut in 1973 in the revival of 'Irene'. Although the reviews for the show itself were mixed, hers were all raves and she wound up with a Tony Award nomination the following year for Best Actress in a Musical. The production ultimately ran for some 20 months. In 1976, she appeared in a one-woman, short-run (10 days - 14 performances) review named 'Debbie!' at the Minskoff Theatre. Her only other Broadway appearance came when she succeeded Lauren Bacall in 'Woman of the Year' in 1983. Reynolds received a Golden Globe nomination for Mother (Albert Brooks, 1996) as the mother of Albert Brooks. In the following years, she appeared in the comedies In & Out (Frank Oz, 1997) with Kevin Kline and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1998), starring Johnny Depp.

Her three marriages ended in divorce. In 1959, she survived losing her first husband, musician and actor Eddie Fisher (1955-1959) to her best friend Elizabeth Taylor following the tragic death of Taylor's husband, Michael Todd. News crews were camped out around the clock on Reynolds' front lawn. To ingratiate herself to reporters (and engender public sympathy for her role as the 'wronged wife') Reynolds would regularly grant interviews in front of the house. She often did them with diaper pins on her blouse and her two toddler-aged children, the future producer Todd Fisher and actress Carrie Fisher, in her arms. Her second husband, shoe magnate Harry Karl (1960-1973), gambled away his fortune as well as hers. With her children and Karl's children, she had to keep working and turn to the stage. She had her own casino in Las Vegas with a home for her collection of Hollywood memorabilia until its closure in 1997. Nearly all the money she made was spent toward her goal of creating a Hollywood museum. Her collection numbered more than 3000 costumes and 46,000 square feet worth of props and equipment.

Her third husband was Richard Hamlett (1984-1996). She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6654 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California in 1997. On television, she played, among others, Bobby Adler, Grace's mother in the sitcom Will & Grace. Reynolds was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series" for her role. She reconciled with old nemesis Elizabeth Taylor to work on the made-for-TV movie These Old Broads (2001), written by Debbie's daughter, Carrie Fisher, with Taylor, Shirley MacLaine and Joan Collins. When they began working on These Old Broads together, Taylor told Debbie, "I owe you a lot". Debbie said, "I just got a lump in my throat when she said that". Her final film was the biopic Behind the Candelabra (Steven Soderbergh, 2013) starring Michael Douglas as Liberace. She was awarded the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2014 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2016. A day after the death of her daughter Carrie Fisher (1956-2016), the 84-year-old Reynolds was rushed to a hospital with a suspected stroke and passed away. Her son, Todd Fisher, said the stress of his sister's death had been too much for her and in her last words, she had said she wanted to be with her daughter. Carrie was cremated and then buried with her mother at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. Actress and producer Billie Lourd is Debbie Reynold's granddaughter.

Dutch postcard by DRC, no. F 203. Photo: M.G.M.

Vintage postcard. Photo: M.G.M. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 4664. Sent by mail in 1961. Photo: MGM / Ufa. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CAL., no. CL Personality 42, SC18555. Photo: Mike Roberts.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

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Warner Baxter

April 20, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Photo by Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg

≪ Previous: Debbie Reynolds

Warner Baxter (1889-1951) was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter is known for his role as the Cisco Kid in the film In Old Arizona (1928), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He played the Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s. Baxter frequently played womanising, charismatic Latin bandit types in Westerns, but had many other roles throughout his career.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 165.

British postcard in the Picturgoer Series, London, no. 165a.

British Valentine's postcard, no. 5904 G. Photo: Fox Films. Caption: Warner Baxter - A Fox Film Star, he received his education in Ohio State University. he made his debut as a screen actor with the Paramount Company in 1921. Talkies gave him the opportunity and he achieved fame with the Fox Films, starring in Daddy Long Legs, and other famous plays. He is 42 years of age and was born at Columbus, Ohio. Married Winifred Bryson.

British postcard in the Famous Film Stars series by Valentine's, no. 7123 M. Caption: Warner Baxter - This popular film star began life as a salesman before he found his life-work on the stage and on the films. He has starred in several popular pictures such as 42nd Street and Paddy the Next Best Thing. He was born in Columbus, Ohio on 20th March 1892, and is 5 feet, 11 inches in height.

British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC3. Photo: Fox. Warner Baxter and Janet Gaynor in One More Spring (Henry King, 1935).

A matinee idol

Warner Leroy Baxter was born in 1889, in Columbus, Ohio. Edwin F. Baxter, a cigar stand operator, and Jennie (Jane) B. Barrett were his parents. His father died before Warner was five, and he and his mother went to live with her brother. Baxter claimed to have an early pre-disposition toward show business: "I discovered a boy a block away who would eat worms and swallow flies for a penny. For one-third of the profits, I exhibited him in a tent."

Mother and son later moved to New York City, where he became active in dramatics, participating in school productions and attending plays. In 1898, the two moved to San Francisco, where he graduated from Polytechnic High School. Both survived the severe earthquake of 1906 but lost all their belongings. They lived in a tent for two weeks "in mortal terror of the fire" and returned to Columbus in 1908.

After selling farm implements for a living, Baxter worked for four months as the partner of Dorothy Shoemaker in an act on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. In 1910, he joined a theatre group and played vaudeville. This led him to New York City, where he enjoyed his first successes on Broadway. Baxter became a member of The Lambs, a professional theatrical club in NYC, in 1918.

Baxter began his film career as an extra in 1914. His first starring role was in the silent drama Sheltered Daughters (Edward Dillon, 1921) opposite Justine Johnston. In the same year, he acted in First Love (Maurice Campbell, 1921), The Love Charm (Thomas N. Heffron, 1921) with Wanda Hawley, and Cheated Hearts (Hobart Henley, 1921) opposite Herbert Rawlinson.

He soon became a matinee idol. Baxter starred in 48 features during the 1920s. His most notable silent film roles were in the comedy The Awful Truth (Paul Powell, 1925) with Agnes Ayres, and The Great Gatsby (Herbert Brenon, 1926), the first film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary classic. He played the title role of Jay Gatsby opposite Lois Wilson as Daisy. Baxter played an island love interest opposite dancer Gilda Gray in Aloma of the South Seas (Maurice Tourneur, 1926) and an alcoholic doctor in West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928) with Lon Chaney.

Spanish collectors card by La Novela Femenina Cinematogràfica, no. 120.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 575. Photo: Fanamet Film.

Italian postcard by B & G., B, no. 150. Photo: Metro Pictures. Caption: Linguacciuta!... (Big-mouth/ Sharp tongue). Viola Dana and Warner Baxter in the comedy In Search of a Thrill (Oscar Apfel, 1923). With thanks to Steve Massa for the identification.

French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 1058. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5758. Photo: Fox-Film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6138/1, 1931. Photo: Fox. On the back: Dutch-written title: Zijn mooiste weerwraak (His best revenge). It refers to Such men are dangerous (Kenneth Hawks, 1930).

The Cisco Kid

Warner Baxter's most notable starring role was as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona (Irving Cummings, 1929), the first all-talking Western. For his role, he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor. He played the Cisco Kid again in the ensemble short film The Stolen Jools (William C. McGann, 1931). Baxter also starred in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), Grand Canary (Irving Cummings, 1934) and Broadway Bill (Frank Capra, 1934).

Many consider his best role, that of the doctor who treated Abraham Lincoln's assassin, in John Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936). Other notable sound films were Slave Ship (Tay Garnett, 1937) with Wallace Beery and Kidnapped (Otto Preminger, 1938) with Freddie Bartholomew.

When not acting, Baxter was an inventor who co-created a searchlight for revolvers in 1935. This allowed a shooter to more clearly see a target at night. He also developed a radio device that allowed emergency crews to change traffic signals from two blocks away, providing them a safe passage through intersections.

By 1936, Baxter was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, but by 1943, he had slipped to B movie roles. He was then known as Dr. Robert Ordway in the Crime Doctor series of 10 films which began with Crime Doctor (Michael Gordon, 1943). However, Baxter was now more comfortable, with his career and life with his wife, actress Winifred Bryson: "It's wonderful. I make two of them (the Crime Doctor films) a year. Columbia has juggled it so I can make two in a row. That takes about eight weeks of my time. The rest of the year I relax. I travel. I enjoy life."

Warner Baxter suffered from arthritis for several years. In 1951, he underwent a lobotomy as a last resort to ease the chronic pain and later that year, he died of pneumonia at age 62. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion-picture industry.

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Warner Bros. Bebe Daniels and Warren Baxter in the musical 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933).

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Warner Baxter in Penthouse/Crooks in Clover (W.S. Van Dyke, 1933).

Fredric March, June Lang, Warner Baxter, Lionel Barrymore, and Gregory Ratoff in The Road to Glory (1936)

Dutch postcard for Metropole Palace, Den Haag (The Hague). Photos: 20th Century Fox. Fredric March, June Lang, Warner Baxter, Lionel Barrymore, and Gregory Ratoff in The Road to Glory (Howard Hawks, 1936). Caption: We, 5 stars, are represented in the overwhelming Fox 20th Century millions-film work The Way to Glory. European premiere in the new glorious Metropole Palace, Laan van Meerdervoort, telephone 39.22.44.

British Art Photo postcard, no. 6.

Dutch postcard by JosPe, Arnhem, no. 436. Photo: Fox Film.

French postcard, no. 729.

Czechoslovakian postcard by Josef Doležal, Červený Kostelec. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Caption: Warner Baxter, famous character actor.

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

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Photo by Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg

April 21, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Karen Morley

≪ Previous: Warner Baxter

Freiherr (Baron) Wolff von Gudenberg (1890-1961 or 1964) was a photographer who was noted and fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s in Berlin. Wolff von Gudenberg is the name of an old Hessian noble family that was raised to the rank of baron in 1873. He photographed actors like Marlene Dietrich and Fritzi Massary, dancers like Marianne Winkelstern and La Jana, and international celebrities such as Josephine Baker and Anna May Wong. His photos appeared in magazines such as Die Dame, newspapers like Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (BIZ), and on countless postcards by Ross Verlag and other publishers. To commemorate this forgotten photographer, we selected 20 postcards with his portraits. Marlene Pilaete added three special cigarette cards of Marlene Dietrich to the post.

Dutch postcard by JSA, no. 230. Photo: Frhr. W. von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) was the first German actress who succeeded in Hollywood. Throughout her long career, she constantly reinvented herself. In 1920s Berlin, she started as a cabaret singer, chorus girl, and film actress. In the 1930s, she became a Hollywood star, then a World War II frontline entertainer, and finally, she was an international stage show performer from the 1950s till the 1970s. Now we remember her as one of the icons of the 20th century.

Dutch postcard by JSA, no. 232. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg.

The Austrian actor Willi Forst (1903-1980) was a darling of the German-speaking public. He was also one of the most significant directors, producers, writers and stars of the Wiener Filme, the light Viennese musical comedies of the 1930s.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3977/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Frhr. v. Gudenberg, Berlin.

German actress Käthe Dorsch (1890-1957) was a famous stage actress in Vienna and Berlin. She also made several silent and sound films.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4869/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Gudenberg, Berlin.

Hungarian film actress (Gräfin) Agnes Esterhazy(1891-1956) worked mainly in the silent cinema of Austria and Germany. The countess appeared in more than 30 films between 1920 and 1943.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5167/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Gudenberg, Berlin.

Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was the first Chinese American movie star and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe, where she starred in such classics as Piccadilly (1929).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5230/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin. Elisabeth Bergner in Der Geiger von Florenz (Paul Czinner, 1926).

The profoundly sensitive acting of Austrian-British actress Elisabeth Bergner (1897-1986) influenced the German cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. She specialised in the bisexual type that she portrayed in Der Geiger von Florenz and other film and stage roles. Nazism forced her to go into exile, but she worked successfully in the West End and on Broadway.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5304/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin.

French actor and singer Albert Préjean (1894-1979) was a former WWI flying ace. He is best known for playing heroes in the silent films of René Clair, and for playing George Simenon's detective Maigret.

Max Hansen, Alfred Jerger and Siegfried Arno in Die drei Musketiere (1929)

German postcard by Verlag Piek, Postdam, no. 855. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg. Max Hansen, Alfred Jerger and Siegfried Arno in the play 'Die drei Musketiere' (The Three Musketeers, 1929) at the Grosse Schauspielhaus.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5555/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Freiherr von Gudenberg, Berlin.

Danish cabaret artist, actor, comedian, and singer Max Hansen (1897-1961) was known as 'The Little Caruso'. During the 1920s, he was one of the most popular stars in Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5844/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin.

German singer/actress Charlotte Ander (1902-1969) was a star in the silent era before making the transition to sound. The Nazis broke her successful career because she was not of 'pure blood'.

Trude Marlen in Spiel mit dem Feuer (1934)

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6760/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg. Trude Marlen in Spiel mit dem Feuer/Playing with Fire (Ralph Arthur Roberts, 1934).

Trude Marlen (1912-2005), was a curly-locked Austrian leading lady of the 1930s. From 1933 until the 1940s, she made mostly light entertainment films as a Ufa star, in which Willi Forst was often her partner. The Ufa traded her as the German answer to Jean Harlow, but for the most part, she was the Viennese equivalent of the 'girl next door', engaging and uncomplicated.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6799/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Freiherr v. Gudenberg.

Hungarian-born singer and actress Márta Eggerth or Martha Eggerth (1912-2013) maintained a global career for over 70 years. She was the popular and talented star of 30 German and Austrian films of the 1930s.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7049/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg Phot.

Hungarian-born Gitta Alpár (1903-1991) was a Jewish actress, opera and operetta singer, and dancer, whose successful career in Germany was broken by the Nazis.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7762/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg.

Smart German actor Gustav Fröhlich (1902-1987) played Freder Fredersen in the classic Metropolis (1927) and became a popular star in light comedies. After the war, he tried to escape from the standard role of a charming gentleman with the part of a doomed painter in Die Sünderin (1951), but the effort went down into a scandal.

German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8294/12, 1933-1934. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg / Ufa.

Jovial, pleasantly plump Hans Albers (1891-1960) was a superstar of German cinema between 1930 and 1945. He was also one of the most popular German singers of the twentieth century. His song Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (On the Reeperbahn at half past midnight) is the unofficial anthem of Hamburg’s neighbourhood of St. Pauli, famous for its brothels, music and nightclubs.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8419/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg.

The Austrian-German actor Wolf Albach-Retty (1906-1967) is nowadays best known as the father of Romy Schneider, but during the 1930s he was a popular leading man of German cinema.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8469/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg.

Willy Fritsch (1901-1973) was the immensely popular ‘Sunny Boy’ of the Ufa operettas of the 1930s and 1940s.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8611/2, 1933-1934. Photo: Freiherr von Gudenberg / Ufa.

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8638/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg / Ufa.

Blonde Austrian actress and singer Gretl Theimer (1911-1972) arrived in the German cinema with the sound film and had an impressive career in the 1930s.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8806/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Hungarian actress Käthe von Nagy (1904-1973) started as the ‘Backfish’ of German films of the late 1920s. In the early 1930s, she became a fashionable and charming star of German and French cinema.

Borg Cigarette card in the Film-u. Bühnen-Lieblinge series, Serie B, Bild 86. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Borg Cigarette card in the Film-u. Bühnen-Lieblinge series, Serie B, Bild 112. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Borg Cigarette card in the Film-u. Bühnen-Lieblinge series, Serie B, Bild 89. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Sources: Un regard oblique, ArtNet and RKD (Dutch).

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Karen Morley

April 22, 2024, 10:00 pm

≫ Next: Claire Lotto

≪ Previous: Photo by Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg

Karen Morley (1909-2003) was an American film actress who appeared in such MGM films as Scarface (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1932). Her career was broken in 1947 by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 849. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

British postcard by Foto-Roff in the Black & Whites Gallery, London, no. 1198. Photo: Kobal Collection. Karen Morley and boyfriend Robert Young, 1932.

Franchot Tone and Karen Morley in Gabriel over the White House (1933)

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: M.G.M. Franchot Tone and Karen Morley in Gabriel over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933).

British Art Photo postcard, no. 127. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Rehearsal replacements for Greta Garbo

Karen Morley was born Mildred Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1909. As a child, she was adopted by a well-to-do family who moved to California during the 1920s. She attended Hollywood High School and studied for a career in medicine at UCLA, but a class in theatre changed her career ambitions. Karen dropped out of college to join the Los Angeles Civic Repertory Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse.

At the Pasadena Playhouse, she was discovered by director Clarence Brown when he was looking for rehearsal replacements for Greta Garbo. He cast her alongside Garbo and Robert Montgomery in the drama Inspiration (Clarence Brown, 1931).

Howard Hughes chose her for the role of blond moll Poppy in Scarface (Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson, 1932) starring Paul Muni. She received a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931. That year, she married director Charles Vidor and had a son with him, Michael Karoly.

Her other films included The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) with Boris Karloff, the mystery Arsene Lupin (Jack Conway, 1933) starring John Barrymore, the political fantasy Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933), and the all-star comedy drama Dinner at Eight (George Cukor, 1933).

In 1934, Morley left MGM after arguments about her roles and private life, including her intention to start a family. King Vidor entrusted her with the leading role in his New Deal propaganda film Our Daily Bread (1934). She continued to work as a freelance performer and appeared in Michael Curtiz's Black Fury (1935) with Paul Muni and The Littlest Rebel (David Butler, 1935) with Shirley Temple. She only appeared in a few films from this time onwards, as it was difficult to make a film career at that time without the backing of a major film studio.

Karen Morley and Charles Starrett in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)

Dutch postcard, no. 472. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Karen Morley and Charles Starrett in The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932).

Dutch postcard, no. 510. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Nils Asther and Karen Morley in Washington Masquerade (Charles Brabin, 1932). The card holds the stamp of the Dutch National Board of Censors. The Dutch title of the film was Hoog Spel (High Stakes).

British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: M.G.M. Walter Huston, Karen Morley and Franchot Tone in Gabriel over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933).

Barbara Pepper, Tom Keene and Karen Morley in Our Daily Bread (1934)

Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: United Artists. Barbara Pepper, Tom Keene and Karen Morley in Our Daily Bread (King Vidor, 1934).

Blacklisted by Hollywood

Karen Morley played Charlotte Lucas, Mr. Collins' wife, in Pride and Prejudice (Robert Z. Leonard, 1940). The film was critically well-received, but it did not advance her career. Morley turned her attention to the stage and acted in three plays on Broadway in 1941 and 1942. In 1943, she divorced Charles Vidor to marry actor Lloyd Gough. The couple remained married to him until he died in 1984.

In 1947, she was called to the HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities) because she was suspected to be a member of the Communist Party of the United States. She refused to answer questions and, as a result, ended up blacklisted by Hollywood. Her final films were the Film Noir M (1951) directed by Joseph Losey, who was also blacklisted, and the Western Born to the Saddle (William Beaudine, 1953).

Later, she made brief appearances in the TV series Kung Fu (1973), Kojak (1973) and Police Woman (1975). Morley did not manage to get any more film roles, but she remained active in politics. In 1954, she ran for lieutenant governor of New York for the American Labor Party but was unsuccessful.

In 1993, she appeared in The Great Depression, a documentary TV series. In the series, she talked about how helpless she felt as a privileged Hollywood actress in the face of all the poverty and suffering that surrounded her. She also spoke of her experience making Our Daily Bread and working for King Vidor, whom she described as a conservative who thought that people should willingly help each other without government interference.

In December 1999, at the age of 90, she appeared in Vanity Fair in an article about blacklist survivors, and she was honoured at the San Francisco Film Festival. In 2003, Morley seemed to make a comeback when she was offered a role in the black comedy Duplex (Danny DeVito, 2003) starring Drew Barrymore. However, Karen Morley died of pneumonia at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, at 93.

British postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.

British postcard in the Film-Kurier Series, London, no. 10, Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, no. 56.

Dutch postcard, no. 247. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga Phot., Bruxelles, no. 76. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German, French and English) and IMDb.

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Claire Lotto

April 23, 2024, 10:00 pm

≪ Previous: Karen Morley

Claire Lotto (1893-1952) was a German dancer and silent film actress. Between 1916 and 1933, she appeared in 41 films. Lotto married German film actor Carl de Vogt, with whom she had a son, Karl Franz de Vogt.

German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 1449. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

German postcard by NPG, no. 978. Photo: Anny Eberth, Berlin.

Hungarian films with Béla Lugosi

Claire Lotto was born Klara Elsbeth Alma Harnisch in 1893 in Kasekow, Pomerania, Germany (now Casekow, Brandenburg, Germany). She was also known as Cläre Lotto and Kläry Lotto.

As a dancer at the Hofburg in Vienna, she performed also in Budapest, Moscow and Berlin. In the 1910s, she made her film debut in Hungary.

She appeared in several film dramas directed by the young Michael Curtiz, including Az utolsó hajna/The Last Dawn (Mihaly Kertesz, 1917), Lulu (Mihaly Kertesz, 1917) opposite Béla Lugosi and 99-es számú bérkocsi/Rental Car Number 99 (Mihaly Kertesz, 1918) with Victor Varconi.

From 1920, she acted in German silent cinema. She often co-starred with Carl de Vogt, whom she married in 1922. Together they played in Karl May adaptations like Die Todeskarawane/Caravan of Death (Josef Stein, 1920) and Auf den Trümmern des Paradieses/On the Brink of Paradise (Josef Stein, 1920), starring De Vogt as Kara Ben Nemsi.

These films were followed by many dramas, adventure films and comedies till 1925.

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 659/2. Photo: Residenz-Atelier, Wien (Vienna).

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 93/1. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin / Leo.

The Sister of Henny Porten

Claire Lotto played the sister of Henny Porten in In Prater (Peter Paul Felner, 1924). While Porten marries a count, Claire marries a train driver. Yet, both women are pursued by a lustful immoral baron (Angelo Ferrari), which creates tensions between the sisters and between husbands and wives. Things become worse when the baron is found dead...

In 1925 Lotto had female leads in e.g. the military farce Zapfenstreich/Taps (Conrad Wiene, 1925) and Am besten gefällt mir die Lore/I like Lore best (Josef Stein, 1925).

By the late 1920s, Lotto's parts became smaller, though she still had the lead in a minor production, Gestrandete Menschen/Stranded People (Kurt Nehrke, 1927), with Erich Kaiser-Titz.

After two German early sound films, Claire Lotto quit the film sets for good.

She died in Berlin, Germany in 1952, aged 58, from undisclosed causes. With Carl de Vogt, she had a son, Karl Franz de Vogt (1917).

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 703. Photo: Engel & Walter.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 694/3. Photo: Atlantic Film / Westi Film. Henny Porten and Claire Lotto in Pratertraum/Prater. Die Erlebnisse zweier Nähmädchen (Peter Paul Felner, 1924).

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 3843. Photo: Westi.

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

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