Matt Dillon

May 20, 2019, 10:00 pm

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American actor Matt Dillon (1964) has had a successful film career has spanned over three decades. From his breakthrough performance in Francis Coppola's The Outsiders (1983) to his hilarious turn as an obsessed private investigator in There's Something About Mary (1998), he has proved himself to be one of the most diverse actors of his generation. Dillon showcased his wide range of dramatic and comedic talents with an arresting performance as a racist cop in the critically acclaimed Crash (2004). It earned him nominations for an Oscar and other awards.


British postcard by Santoro Graphics Ltd., London, no. C236.


Swiss postcard by News Productions, Baulmes, no. 55736. Photo: Bruce Weber / Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland. Caption: Matt Dillon, New York City, 1982.


Vintage postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A-76. Publicity still for Rumble Fish (Francis Coppola, 1983).

Dark, pretty-boy eyes and glacier-cut cheekbones

Matthew Raymond Dillon was born in 1964 in New Rochelle, New York. He was named after the protagonist in the TV series Gunsmoke. His parents are Mary Ellen, a homemaker, and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a toy bear manufacturer. Matt is the second child of six and is the brother of actors Kevin Dillon and Paul Dillon. He is also a nephew of the late comic-strip artist Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and Rip Kirby.

Matt began acting in elementary school, and, at the age of 14, he was discovered by Warner Bros. talent scouts while cutting class at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont. His film debut was in Over the Edge (Jonathan Kaplan, 1979), a gritty teen drama about a group of bored teenagers in a suburb, who rebel against authority after the death of one of their own. His performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two other films released the following year.

With his dark, pretty-boy eyes and glacier-cut cheekbones, Dillon became a teen idol when he played the love interest of Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings (Ron Maxwell, 1980). He then played troubled teens in three of author S.E. Hinton's books made into films consecutively: Tex (Tim Hunter, 1982), The Outsiders (Francis Coppola, 1983) and Rumble Fish (Francis Coppola, 1983).

By the mid-1980s, Dillon sought to move beyond the teen mold and began taking more adult roles. He made his Broadway debut with the play 'The Boys of Winter' in 1985, and co-narrated the TV documentary Dear America: Letters From Home (Bill Couturié, 1987), which won two Emmy awards. In 1990, he won an IFP Spirit Award for his somber, unheroic portrayal of a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy (1989).

From there he went on to star in such acclaimed films as Singles (Cameron Crowe, 1992) playing the egocentric slacker head of a terrifically bad grunge band; To Die For (Gus Van Sant, 1995) as the well-meaning but tragically dim husband of psychotic weather girl Nicole Kidman, and Beautiful Girls (Ted Demme, 1996), in which Dillon was perfectly cast as a small-town snow plower unable to make good on the promise of his high-school glory days.

A huge hit was the comedy There's Something About Mary (Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, 1998) with Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller. Dillon had a three-year relationship with Diaz. They broke up in 1998.


German collectors card by Bravo.


Australian postcard by TV Hits. Photo: N. Moran / Sygma / Austral International. Photo: Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe and Tom Cruise in The Outsiders (Francis Coppola, 1983).


French postcard by Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. 3515. Photo: D.R. Publicity still for Rumble Fish (Francis Coppola, 1983).

Getting better with every film

Aside from being an accomplished actor, Matt Dillon wrote, and made his feature film directorial debut with City of Ghosts (2002). In this thriller, he also starred as a con man on the run from law enforcement, opposite Gérard Depardieu, Stellan Skarsgård, and James Caan. Prior to City of Ghosts, Dillon made his television directorial debut with an episode of HBO's gritty prison drama Oz (1997).

One of his best roles was in the film Crash (Paul Haggis, 2004), in which the narrative shifts between several different groups of seemingly unconnected people in Los Angeles whose relationships to each other are only revealed in the end. It would earn Dillon his first Oscar nomination.

Dillon starred in Factotum (Bent Hamer, 2005) for which he received glowing reviews for portraying Charles Bukowski's alter ego when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He then appeared opposite Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson in the comedy, You, Me and Dupree (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2006).

During his long career, Dillon appeared in several music videos. He made a cameo appearance as a detective in Madonna's 'Bad Girl' music video which also stars Christopher Walken. Dillon appeared in 1987 in the music video for 'Fairytale of New York' by the Irish folk-punk band The Pogues playing a cop who escorts lead singer Shane MacGowan into the 'drunk tank'.

His more recent film credits include the comedy Girl Most Likely (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, 2012) opposite Annette Bening and Kristen Wiig, the drama Sunlight, Jr. (Laurie Collyer, 2013) opposite Naomi Watts, and the heist comedy The Art Of The Steal (Jonathan Sobol, 2013) opposite Kurt Russell. Dillon also starred in M. Night Shyamalan's TV series Wayward Pines (2015).

Last year he surprised with his role as a serial killer in Lars von Trier's controversial film The House That Jack Built (2018), co-starring Bruno Ganz and Uma Thurman. The film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, marking von Trier's return to the festival after more than six years. And as the New York Times' Film Critic A.O. Scott once wrote about Dillon, "He seems to be getting better with every film."


Italian postcard by Ediber-Angelus, Milano, no.4. Photo: Warner Bros. Matt Dillon in Singles (Cameron Crowe, 1992).


Swiss postcard by News Productions, Baulmes, no. 55738. Photo: Bruce Weber. Poster design for Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland.


Swiss postcard by News Productions, Baulmes, no. 55775. Photo: Bruce Weber. Poster design for Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland. Design: Werner Jeker.

Sources: Rebecca Flint Marx (AllMovie), Polaris (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Nur ein Schmetterling (1918)

May 21, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Hella Moja starred in the German silent film Nur ein Schmetterling/Only a Butterfly (Iwa Raffay, 1918). Her own film company, Hella-Moja-Film, produced the film. Rotophot published a series of five sepia postcards of the film in their Film Sterne series, of which we cound find only four. We'll keep looking!


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 543/1. Photo: Hella-Moja-Film. Hella Moja in Nur ein Schmetterling/Only a Butterfly (Iwa Raffay, 1918).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 543/3. Photo: Hella-Moja-Film. Hella Moja in Nur ein Schmetterling/Only a Butterfly (Iwa Raffay, 1918).

Countess or Damsel

Little is known about Nur ein Schmetterling/Only a Butterfly (Iwa Raffay, 1918). IMDb mentions that Iva (other sources write Iwa) Raffay was both director and scriptwriter, and that the cast also included Alfred Abel, Karl Falkenberg, Josef Ewald and Ernst Hofmann. We did not recognise them on the postcards.

Hella Moja was only 22 at the time. Since 1915, she had worked for pioneer studios like Messter, Union and Terra-Film, and had excelled in short silent melodramas like Die weiße Rose/The White Rose (Franz Hofer, 1915) opposite Erna Morena, Der Schwur der Renate Rabenau/The Vow of Renate Rabenau (Otto Rippert, 1916), Der Fremde/The Stranger (Otto Rippert, 1917) with Werner Krauss and Das verwunschene Schloss/The Enchanted Castle (Otto Rippert, 1918) again with Krauss.

In her films Hella Moja often played a countess or a damsel. With success. There was a Hella Moja serial, and in 1918 she could found her own film company, the Hella Moja Filmgesellschaft, in Berlin. Nur ein Schmetterling was the third production of her film company. 13 more films would follow until 1923. From then on her acting style was seen as old-fashioned and she started to focus on script-writing.

IMDb also mentions that Nur ein Schmetterling premiered in June 1918. So, the First World War or the Great War, was still going on. Germany was falling apart at home. Anti-war marches became frequent and morale in the army fell. In November the war finally ended.



German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 543/4. Photo: Hella-Moja-Film. Hella Moja in Nur ein Schmetterling/Only a Butterfly (Iwa Raffay, 1918).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 543/5. Photo: Hella-Moja-Film. Hella Moja in Nur ein Schmetterling/Only a Butterfly (Iwa Raffay, 1918).

Sources: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Isabelle Corey

May 22, 2019, 10:00 pm

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French film actress Isabelle Corey (1939-2011) appeared in French and Italian films in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her best film was her first, the Film Noir Bob le flambeur/Bob the Gambler (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956).


French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 618. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard Editions P.I., offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 748. Photo: Sam Lévin.


German postcard by ISV, no G 3.

Young Femme Fatale

Isabelle Corey was born in Metz, France in 1939. Corey started modelling in Paris in her teens for magazines such as Jardin des Modes, Elle and Madame Figaro.

She was discovered by director Jean-Pierre Melville, walking in the Latin Quarter of Paris where she lived with her parents.

Her film debut was his Film Noir Bob le flambeur/Bob the Gambler (1956, Jean-Pierre Melville) starring Roger Duchesne as an old gangster and Corey played his young femme fatale, Anne. When Anne is down on her luck Bob takes her under his wing, hoping to steer her away from a life of prostitution. But Anne begins a love affair with Paulo (Daniel Cauchy), one of Bob’s young associates.

Alice Liddel at IMDb writes: “Isabelle Corey is unprecedented among all film heroines, her amoral, seemingly indifferent sexuality far more suggestive and powerful than her contemporary, Bardot's”.

That same year Corey appeared opposite Brigitte Bardot in the hit Et Dieu... créa la femme/And God created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), which made a superstar of BB.

The late James Travers wrote at the former website Films de France: “Vadim was so impressed with his work that he remade the film in the late 1980s, but, lacking the presence of Bardot, the result was scarcely a patch on the original. The original Et Dieu... créa la femme succeeded, despite the shallowness of its subject matter, because it happened at just the right time. Its impact on French cinema can only be guessed at, but it was probably very considerable indeed”.


German postcard by UFA, no. FK 3372. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Betzler / Bavaria-Schorcht Film.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. I 270. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Souvenir d'Italie/It Happened in Rome (1957).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Mionden/Westf., no. 2363. Photo: Schorcht / Betzler. Publicity still for La ragazza della salina/Sand, Love and Salt (Frantisek Cáp, 1957).

It Happened in Rome

The following years Isabelle Corey played in several French-Italian coproductions, filmed in Italy. Among them were the romantic comedies Vacanze a Ischia/Holiday Island (Mario Camerini, 1957) with Vittorio de Sica, Souvenir d'Italie/It Happened in Rome (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1957), and Adorabili e bugiarde/Adorable and a Liar (Nunzio Malasomma, 1958).

More interesting were the comedies Giovani mariti/Young Husbands (Mauro Bolognini, 1958) based on a screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Amore a prima vista/Love at First Sight (Franco Rossi, 1958) with Walter Chiari.

Three years later, she reunited with director Mauro Bolognini for La Giornata balorda/A Crazy day (Mauro Bolognini, 1961) which featured Jean Sorel and Lea Massari. Again the script was written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, before he became a director himself. It is a black-and-white film about the lower class of Rome, based on a novel by Alberto Moravia.

Corey then worked with the future horror master Mario Bava at the Peplum spectacle L'Ultimo dei Vikinghi/Last of the Vikings (Giacomo Gentilomo, Mario Bava, 1961) starring Cameron Michell in the good-guy role and Edmund Purdom as the mincing, giggling villain.

That year she also worked with maestro Roberto Rossellini on the costume drama Vanina Vanini/The Betrayer (Roberto Rossellini, 1961) starring Sandra Milo and Laurent Terzieff. This is her last film according to IMDb.

AllMovie also lists the Italian/Spanish Peplum Il Gladiatore Invincibile/Invincible Gladiators (Alberto de Martino, Robert Mauri, 1963) with Richard Harrison.

After only 16 films Isabelle Corey’s film career was over. She died of cancer in Crozon, France in 2011.


Small Romanian collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Adorabili e bugiarde/Adorable and a Liar (Nunzio Malasomma, 1958) with Ingeborg Schöner, Isabelle Corey and Eloisa Cianni.


Yugoslavian postcard by Studio Sombor, no. 216.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 17. Sent by mail in 1958.


Trailer for Bob le flambeur/Bob the Gambler (1956). Source: CynicalC1 (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (Films de France - now offline), AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Fritz Wagner

May 23, 2019, 10:00 pm

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German actor Fritz Wagner (1915-1982) was a handsome star in the European cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. From 1938 to 1976, he appeared in more than sixty films and TV productions, both in Eastern Germany and in West-Germany.


German postcard by Film Bild Zentrale (FBZ). Photo: Julius / Camera.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. C 187. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis. Publicity still for Der Erbförster/The hereditary ranger (Alois Johannes Lippl, 1945).


German postcard by Kitt Fotokarten, München. Photo: Kurt Julius / Camera Film / Herzog. Publicity still for In jenen Tagen/Seven Journeys (Helmut Käutner, 1947).

One of the faces of the West-German Trümmerfilme

Friedrich Karl Wagner was born in 1915 in Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. His father, Karl Friedrich Wagner, worked in a cinema.

Fritz attended drama classes from Elly Förster. Then followed first parts in the theatres in Stuttgart, München and Berlin, at the Volksbühne and Hebbel-Theater. In 1938, Fritz started his film career with bit roles, including one in the Nazi propaganda film Stukas (Karl Ritter, 1941).

Wagner played supporting roles in the drama Mit den Augen einer Frau/With the Eyes of a Woman (Karl Georg Külb, 1942) starring the sisters Ada and Olga Tschechowa, and the comedy Sophienlund (Heinz Rühmann, 1943) starring Harry Liedtke.

After the war, he played a leading role in the drama Freies Land/A Free Country (Milo Harbich, 1946) the second film of the newly founded DEFA studio in the Soviet occupation zone which later became East Germany. The propaganda film portrayed the effects of land reforms brought in by the Soviet authorities.

It would be the only DEFA film until the mid-1950s that dealt with the hardships of East-Germany's rural life, and was heavily influenced by the Italian Neorealism of that time. Most people in the film weren't professional actors but farmers. The film proved to be very unsuccessful on its release.

Between 1946 and 1949, Wagner was also one of the faces of the West-German Trümmerfilme, produced in Hamburg in the British Zone in the wake of Germany's defeat during World War II. He appeared in one of the episodes of In jenen Tagen/Seven Journeys (Helmut Käutner, 1947), about the story of a car and its seven owners during the years of the Third Reich.

The film's objective was to highlight the private resistance of various figures to the Nazis even while they publicly accepted the repression of Nazi society. In jenen Tagen was well received by the German public and gives an early display of the talent of Helmut Käutner, who both directed and wrote the film.

Wagner also had a supporting part in the romantic comedy Film ohne Titel/Film Without Title (Rudolf Jugert, 1948), starring Hans Söhnker and Hildegard Knef. It is an interesting reflection about the rights to be entertained after WWII: which stories can be told, when all stories seem to have been finished? It shows the attempts of a film crew to shoot a film.

Herbert Schwaab at IMDb: "The film is entertaining and modern as well. Unfortunately questions of film form were not to be touched again until the seventies." For the DEFA, he also played a leading role in the war drama Die Brücke/The Bridge (Arthur Pohl, 1949), and in Der Kahn der fröhlichen Leute (Hans Heinrich, 1950) which sold more than 4,100,000 tickets.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3749/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.


German postcard by Starfoto Hasemann. Photo: DEFA. Publicity still for Freies Land/A Free Country (Milo Harbich, 1946).


German postcard by Degro Phot., Berlin, no. C 187. Photo: Herzog Filmverleih / Camera Film / Kurt Julius. Fritz Wagner and Käte Pontow in Film ohne Titel/Film Without Title (Rudolf Jugert, 1948).


German postcard by Film Bild Zentrale (FBZ). Photo: Niess.

Big City Secret

During the 1950s, Fritz Wagner was one of the well known faces of the German and Austrian cinema. He starred opposite Ingrid Lutz in the crime film Großstadtgeheimnis/Big City Secret (Leo de Laforgue, 1952).

He often had supporting parts such as in the satire Der Hauptmann und sein Held/The Captain and His Hero (Max Nosseck, 1955) or in Eine Frau genügt nicht?/One Woman Is Not Enough? (Ulrich Erfurth, 1955), with Hilde Krahland Hans Söhnker.

At the end of the 1950s, his roles became smaller. His later films include the crime drama Banktresor 713/Bank Vault 713 (Werner Klingler, 1957) with Martin Held and Hardy Krüger, and the crime film Der Greifer/The Copper (Eugen York, 1958) with Hans Albers.

His final feature film was the Theo Lingen comedy Bei Pichler stimmt die Kasse nicht/Pichler's Books Are Not in Order (Hans Quest, 1961).

During the 1960s he worked for television, and he was last seen on screen in the mini-series Alle Jahre wieder: Die Familie Semmeling/Every year again: the Semmeling family (1976). From 1945 on, Wagner worked often for the radio, and appeared in many radio plays till 1970. He also gave acting classes.

Wagner was probably homosexual. Gottfried Lorenz describes in his book 'Töv, di schiet ik an: Beiträge zur Hamburger Schwulengeschichte' how he was named in a 'theatre scandal' around actor Karl Stoll in 1941 and 1942. I guess his sexuality probably hurt his film career during the 1950s.

Fritz Wagner died of cancer in 1982 in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany. He was 66.


German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3841/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 1293. Photo: Algefa / Constantin / Wesel. Publicity still for Die Schöne Müllerin/The beautiful Miller (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1954) with Waltraut Haas.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 389. Photo: Ideal / Rank.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. T 820. Photo: Wega / Gloria-Film / Bayer. Publicity still for Das alte Försterhaus/The old forester's house (Harald Philipp, 1956).

Sources: Gottfried Lorenz (Töv, di schiet ik an: Beiträge zur Hamburger Schwulengeschichte), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Women Film Pioneers, Part 2: Europe

May 24, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Today starts the 10th Women and the Silent Screen Conference, hosted by Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. On 8 March, International Women's Day, EFSP had a post with 20 American women who both worked in front of and behind the camera during the silent film era, and whose profile can be found at Women Pioneers Film Project. Part 2 of our post focusses on 20 European women film pioneers. WFPP does not have entries on all the women in this post. Some ladies are still on their wish-list, and of one, Elena Sangro, we think she deserves to be on the list. EFSP's co-editor Ivo Blom selected 20 female film pioneers from as many nationalities as we could find postcards of.


Sarah Bernhardt. French postcard. Sarah Bernhardtin Edmond Rostand's play L'Aiglon. The title role for Rostand's play was created by Bernhardt herself in the play's premiere on 15 March 1900 at the Théàtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris.

Victoria Duckett at Women Pioneer Film Project: "She was among the first celebrities to engage with the motion picture, playing Hamlet in a one-minute film that formed part of Paul Decauville’s program for the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre at the Paris Exposition of 1900. The first feature film that she released – Camille (1911) – was promoted the following year by the French American Film Company in Moving Picture World as “Making New Records for Selling States Rights”. A subsequent advertisement in the same trade press claimed that the film was “The Fastest Seller Ever Offered State Right Buyers”. As many film historians know, Bernhardt’s Queen Elizabeth (1912) was the Famous Players Company’s first release in the U.S. It similarly enjoyed success, helping to open the market for legitimate motion picture exhibition in the U.S. Queen Elizabeth thereby provided audiences with their first experience of the longer-playing narrative feature film."



Francesca Bertini. American postcard, monogram K Ltd. Francesca Bertini in Odette (Giuseppe De Liguoro, 1916).

Monica Dall’Asta at Women Pioneer Film Project : "Bertini’s different autobiographical interventions are consistent in reclaiming a creative as well as managerial role in the production of all her major star vehicles. Especially in the long interview recorded by Mingozzi, she credits herself not just for obtaining the rights to adapt 'Assunta Spina' from Di Giacomo, but, more importantly, she argues for directorial recognition for that film. This claim was later confirmed in a 1981 interview with her co-star, and the official director of the film, Gustavo Serena."



Carmen Cartellieri. Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 989. Photo: Residenz Atelier, Wien.

Robert von Dassanowsky at Women Pioneer Film Project: "Carmen Cartellieriwas born Franziska Ottilia Cartellieri in Prossnitz, Austria-Hungary, which is today Prostejov, Czech Republic, but spent her childhood in Innsbruck, Austria. In 1907, at age sixteen, she married the aristocratic artist-turned-director, Emanuel Ziffer Edler von Teschenbruck. Her husband and Cornelius Hintner, a cameraman from South Tyrol who had worked for Pathé in Paris and then as a director in Hungary, helped make her one of the most fashionable stars in German-language film of the 1920s. Using the stage name of Carmen Teschen, she appeared in several Hungarian silent films between 1918 and 1919 and made her Austrian film debut in Hintner’s Die Liebe vom Zigeunerstamme/The Gypsy Girl (1919), which she reportedly cowrote. Political changes in postwar Hungary made her relocate to Vienna where she returned to her exotic surname, suggesting to the press that she was born in Italy, and founded the Cartellieri-Film company in 1920 with her husband and Hintner."



Aud Egede Nissen. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 476/1, 1919-1924. Photo: A. Eberth, Berlin.

Gunnar Iversen at Women Pioneer Film Project: "During the 1910s and 1920s, Aud Egede-Nissen and her sisters Gerd and Ada made a name for themselves in the Nordic and German film industries as actors, producers, and directors. Like many female pioneers in the film industry, their work has been neglected. The contribution of the Egede-Nissen sisters, especially Aud, to silent film in the 1910s is remarkable given the odds they had to overcome as female producers in a male-dominated industry and the lack of tradition and experience in their home country, Norway."



Fabienne Fabrèges. Spanish postcard by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell.

Elena Nepoti at Women Pioneer Film Project: "Her film career, between 1910 and the mid-1920s, can be divided into three periods. Between 1910 and 1916, the actress worked in France for the Société des Établissements Gaumont. During World War I, she relocated to Italy, where she was immediately recognized as a leading actress by the Italian film industry, and, between 1916 and 1923, acted in two dozen films. In many of these films she is credited as the screenwriter, and for one of them, also as the director. Finally in the twenties she left the stage and screen in Italy and most likely moved to England, where it seems she carried out some further stage work, and then her career seems to have come to an end."



Diana Karenne. Italian postcard by Ed. Soc. Anon. It. Bettini, Roma.

Cristina Jandelli, Linda Del Gamba at Women Film Pioneer Project: "Diana Karenne was one of the most interesting personalities in the Italian and European film scenes of the early 1900s. Star, actress, intellectual, artist, director, screenwriter, and producer, she is representative of an effectual coexistence between two different ways of considering a woman’s role in both the film industry and in a society that was undergoing deep changes as to gender boundaries. Through her artistic career, she supported demands concerning female identity, widely felt between 1800 and 1900: in this very period, Europe was facing a process of modernization and large transformations at every social level. Karenne never took sides towards women’s emancipation movements, yet she opposed conservative morals and social conventions of that time through her personal, aesthetic, and professional choices, and helped to update the idea of cinema thanks to her bold artistic proposals and acting style."



Musidora. French cigarette card by Cigarettes Le Nil, no. 38. Photo: H. Manuel.

Annette Förster at Women Film Pioneer Project: "If we merely looked at contemporary advertisements and reviews, it would appear that Musidora had directed only two films in the silent era: Vicenta (1919), and La terre des taureaux/The Land of the Bulls (1924). These credits can be further substantiated by personal statements about the making of these films published by Musidora herself in contemporary periodicals. There, she additionally claimed credit for writing both scripts as well as for editing La terre des taureaux. However, on the two other films that were produced under the banner of her company, Société des Films Musidora, she credited as director her codirector Jacques Lasseyne. Even the richly illustrated publicity booklets of Pour Don Carlos/For Don Carlos (1921) and Soleil et ombre/Sun and Shadow (1922) listed Musidora only in the cast, and her article in the magazine Ève bore the telling title 'Comment j’ai tourné Don Carlos' or 'How I Acted in Don Carlos'. After the 1940s, however, Musidora began to claim the codirector and adaptation credits of these productions for herself, and these credits have now been accepted as definitive. Additionally, she added the credit for codirection, with Roger Lion, for La flamme cachée/The hidden flame (1918), which she mentioned in a 1950 article on her professional collaboration with her artistic mentor and longtime friend, Colette."



Asta Nielsen. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 614/5. Photo: Union. Publicity still for Rausch/Intoxication (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).

Julie Allen at Women Film Pioneer Project: "Frequently lauded as 'die Duse des Kinos' [the Duse of the cinema], as Poul Elsner noted in Weltrundschau in 1911, the Danish actress Asta Nielsen was the first major star of German silent film. She acted in more than seventy films, all but four of them made with German production companies, during the twenty-two years of her film career. The phenomenal success of her debut film, Afgrunden/The Abyss (1910) enabled her to become the first global film star under the new monopoly distribution system. From 1910 to 1914, she collaborated closely with director Urban Gad, who was also her first husband, under the auspices of Deutsche Bioscop and Projektions-AG “Union” (PAGU), and later established two film companies of her own. Although she struggled to come to terms with the director-centric turn of the film industry in Germany in the 1920s that restricted the artistic autonomy she had enjoyed in the 1910s, she made several of her most artistically impressive films, including several Weimar street films, during this period. In 1932, she acted in her only sound film, Unmögliche Liebe/Impossible Love, which was also her final film, aside from two documentaries about her made decades later."



Rosa Porten. German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 97/1. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin / Treumann- Larsson Film, Berlin.

Annette Förster at Women Film Pioneer Project: "Rosa Porten’s work as a screenwriter, an actress, and a film director has been practically neglected in film history, but what she accomplished in the German silent cinema is truly noteworthy. In a two-decade career, from 1906 until 1928, she created a cinematic oeuvre that was substantial, original, versatile, and entertaining. The exact number of films to which Rosa Porten contributed is uncertain, but historical substantiation points to around forty titles. Between 1916 and 1919 alone, she wrote and co-directed at least twenty-four catching comedies and gripping social dramas and in most of them she played the protagonist. Even more notable in retrospect is that Porten’s stories often privileged the perspective of a female character who, with non-conformist pragmatism or jokey recalcitrance, seizes her chance to defy bourgeois conventions and role patterns."



Anny Ondrakova/Ondra. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4250/1, 1929-1930.

Anny Ondra (1903-1987) was born as Anna Sophie Ondráková in Tarnów, Austria-Hungary, now Poland.. During the 1920s and 1930s she was a popular actress in Czech, Austrian and German comedies, and she was Alfred Hitchcock’s first ‘Blonde’. She was discovered at the age of 16 bij actor-director Karel (or Carl) Lamac. They starred together in the film Palimpsest (Joe Jencik, 1919). Lamac would also become her first husband. From 1919 on Anny Ondra often worked together with Lamac as her director and/or her co-star dor their own production company. With their film Gilly po prve v Praze/Gilly zum ersten Mal in Prag/Gilly for the First Time in Prague (Carl Lamac, 1920) she became a big comedy star in the silent Czechoslovakian and Austrian cinema.


Rita Sacchetto. German Postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 7185. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German actress and dancer Rita Sacchetto (1879-1959) was in the 1910s a star of the Danish Nordisk Film Company. Nordisk had hired Sacchetto to star in films for the astonishing salary of 7,000 kroner per picture, but she made many quite successful films including Fra Fryste til Knejpevaert/The Gambler's Wife (Holger-Madsen, 1913) and Den Skønne Evelyn/Evelyn the Beautiful (A.W. Sandberg, 1916) with a script by Carl Theodor Dreyer. According to Karl Toepfer in his study 'Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935'"Sacchetto exuded a dusky, melancholy beauty that seemed even more refined and aristocratic, a 'breeze of perfume,' when displayed in opulent historical costumes. Although she excluded modern paintings of women from her graceful productions, she was probably the first to use silent film as a model for composing dances."



Fern Andra. German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 512/6. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra in Eine Motte flog zum Licht (Fern Andra, 1915).

'Modern' American Fern Andra (1893-1974) became one of the most popular film stars of the German cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. In her films she mastered tightroping, riding a horse without a saddle, driving cars and motorcycles, bobsleighing, and even boxing. She started her own company, even directing her own films. Right during the First World War, Fern made one film after another, always about women who are victims of cruel events but who are also determined to settle matters. These films included Eine Motte floh zum Licht/A Moth Flew To The Light (Fern Andra, 1915), and Drohende Wolken am Firmament/Threatening Clouds in the Sky (Fern Andra, 1918). Moonlight romance, theatres burning down, and luxurious parties in aristocratic milieux. Unfortunately most of these films were never exported because of the war, and most are lost now.



Erna Morena. German postcard by Photochemie, no. K . 1741. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Although her name is now largely forgotten, Erna Morena (1885-1962) appeared in about 120 films during five decades. She had an enormous career in the German silent cinema of the 1910s and 1920s as both an actress, producer and screenwriter, and until the mid-1930s she was regularly performing in German sound films. In 1918 she founded in Berlin, Erna Morena Film GmbH, supported by some friends as partners. She produced films like Colomba (1918) with Werner Krauss, and Die 999. Nacht/The 999th Night (1919/1920) with Hans Albers. Because of the economic crisis after the German November revolution of 1918-1919, she had to stop producing after two years.



Hella Moja. German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 547/1. Hella Moja in the German silent film Heide-Gretel (Otto Rippert, 1918), produced by the Decla-Filmgellschaft (Eric Pommer).

During the First World War and the following years Hella Moja (1890-1951) was one of the most popular stars of the German silent cinema. There was even a Hella Moja serial and in 1918 she founded her own film company. The Hella Moja Filmgesellschaft would produce 16 films. Her first production was Wundersam ist das Märchen der Liebe/Wondrous is the Fairy Tale of Love (Leo Connard, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann, for which the critics especially praised her acting. Another successful production was Die Augen von Jade/The Eyes of Jade (Iwa Raffay, 1918). In Figaros Hochzeit/The Marriage of Figaro (Max Mack, 1920) based on the play by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, she was again impressive as Cherubino - Figaros page opposite Alexander Moissi as Figaro.



Wanda Traumann. German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 85/3. Photo: Karl Schenker / Messter Film, Berlin.

Wanda Traumann (1889–1926) belonged to the most popular stars of the German cinema before the first World War. In 1912, together with actor-director Viggo Larsen and her husband, Karl Treumann, she founded her own production company Treumann-Larsen Film GmbH in Berlin. Officially, Wanda Treumann’s husband was indicated as owner of the firm. As she said herself in Lichtbild-Theater, no. 41, 1912: "Then we – my master and partner in film, Mr. Oberregisseur Viggo Larsen and me – became fully independent. And so we are now: for the production of our new 'Treumann-Larsen-series', we develop the negatives ourselves which we shoot in our own film studio with our own cast and crew."



Olga Tschechowa. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1590/3, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

Dignified German-Russian actress Olga Tschechowa (1897-1980) was one of the most popular stars of the silent film era. She played in more than 40 silent films, including the classic comedy Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie/An Italian Straw Hat (René Clair, 1927), Moulin Rouge (Ewald André Dupont, 1928), and Diane (Erich Waschneck, 1929), which was produced by her own company Tschechowa Film. She remained a mysterious person throughout her life, and was reportedly a Russian agent in Nazi Germany.



Former Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatian) postcard. Photo: Croatia Film. Jugoslavija Film, Zagreb, No. 11. Milica Mihicic, Zorka Grund and Bogumila Vilhar in the film Dvije sirote/ Dvije sirotice/The Two Orphans (Alfred Grinhut [listed as Alfred Grünhut], 1919), starring Zorka Grund. The film is based on the famous French play 'Les deux orphelines' by Adolphe d'Ennery and Eugène Cormon (1874).

Zorka Kremzar, born Zorka Grund (1900 -?), was a Croatian film actress. She was the daughter of Arnošt Grund, a director of Czech origin, and sister of Milada Grund, who performed under the pseudonym of Milada Tana. Zorka Grund later became a filmmaker.



Peggy Hyland. British postcard in the Lilywhite Photographic series, no. CM 406a. Photo: William Fox.

Peggy Hyland (1884–1973) was an English film actress and director, who starred in more than 45 British and American silent films. She remained active in films until 1925. Peggy Hyland's film credits number more than forty-five, in both British and American productions. Hyland wrote, produced, directed and starred in With Father's Help (Peggy Hyland, 1922) and she directed and starred in The Haunted Pearls (Peggy Hyland, 1924).



Elena Sangro. Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 714. Elena Sangro as Proserpina, wife of Pluto, king of the underworld, in the Italian silent film Maciste all'inferno/Maciste in Hell (Guido Brignone, 1925).

Elena Sangro (1896-1969) was one of the main actresses of the Italian cinema of the 1920s. In spite of the general film crisis then, she made one film after another. She was also one of the first female directors and she had a famous affair with the novelist, poet and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio. Her last film appearance was a cameo in Federico Fellini's masterpiece 8½ (1963). Her last job was president of Associazione dei Pionieri del Cinema, an initiative begun in the early 1960s in order to saveguard this important part of film history.



Elettra Raggio. Italian postcard. Elettra Raggio in the Italian silent film SeduzioneSeduction (1915). This title does not exist in the reference works, only the title Le due seduzioni/The Two Seductions (1916) which Raggio directed and in which she had the female lead as well, opposite Giovanni Donadio and Felice Minotti.

Elettra Raggio, pseudonym of Ginevra Francesca Rusconi (1887–1973), was an Italian film actress, director, scriptwriter and producer of the silent era. Raggio came from the theatre where she was 'first actress' in the company of Ermete Novelli. Of Genovese origin, she settled in Milan where she was hired in 1915 by the film production company Milano Films. There she acted in Verso l'arcobaleno/Towards the Rainbow (Eugenio Perego, 1916) - about a Belgian family menaced by the German invasion, the sensational film La cattiva stella/The Bad Star (Eugenio Perego, 1916) about a millionnaire (Ugo Gracci) who trades identity with a drowned man. In the same year, Raggio directed her first film at Milano: Le due seduzioni/The Two Seductions (1916), which she also scripted and produced. Also in 1916, Raggio founded her own film company within the aegis of Milano Film, which operated as distributor for Raggio Film. She produced two films. First came the poetic phantasy Primavera/Spring (Achille Mauzan, 1916), and then the romantic comedy Galeotto fu il mare.../The Sea was such a Lovemaker (Achille Mauzan, 1916. Mauzan also designed the posters for both films.

Photo by Gainsborough

May 25, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Gainsborough Pictures was a British film studio based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in north London. Gainsborough Studios was active between 1924 and 1951. The company was initially based at Islington Studios. Other films were made at Lime Grove and Pinewood Studios. The studio is best remembered for the Gainsborough melodramas it produced in the 1940s with such stars as Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Stewart Granger.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 151. Photo: Gainsborough.

Gifted English actor James Mason (1909-1984) played in 150 British and American (TV) films and was three times nominated for an Oscar. His distinctive voice enabled him to play a menacing villain as greatly as his good looks assisted him as a matinee idol with a dark side.


British postcard by Real Photograph, no. 250. Sent by mail in 1948. Photo: publicity still for Madonna of the Seven Moons (Arthur Crabtree, 1945).

English film, stage and television actress Phyllis Calvert (1915-2002) was one of the leading stars of the Gainsborough drawing-room comedies and costume melodramas, which helped to put the British film industry on the map immediately after World War II. At the time she was voted in polls as Britain's second most popular actress, behind Margaret Lockwood. Her 70-year film career had started already in the silent era and ended in 1997.


British Postcard, no. F.S. 31. Stewart Granger in Saraband for Dead Lovers (Basil Dearden, 1948).

English actor Stewart Granger (1913–1993) became Britain's top box office star in the 1940s which attracted Hollywood's attention. Tall, dark, dignified and handsome, Granger made over 60 films but is mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was quoted: “I've never done a film I'm proud of”.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, nr. W 145. Photo: Gainsborough.

Fresh-faced Patricia Roc (1915-2003) was between 1943 and 1953 one of Britain's top 10 box office stars. The elegant, well spoken actress seemed the epitome of the English rose. She had international success in such Gainsborough costume dramas as Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) and The Wicked Lady (1945), and in When the Bough Breaks (1947), in which she played an unmarried mother.


British collectors card. Photo: Gainsborough.

Jean Kent (1921-2013) was a strawberry-blonde British actress who played spiteful hussies or femmes fatales in British films of the 1940s and 1950s.

B films and melodramas

Gainsborough was founded in 1924 by producer Michael Balcon and director Graham Cutts. In 1927, Gainsborough became associated to Gaumont-British, which was set up by the Ostrer brothers. Balcon became director of production for both studios. Gaumont-British, the mother company based at Shepherd's Bush produced the 'quality' pictures, while Gainsborough mainly produced B films and melodramas at its Islington Studios.

Both studios used continental film practices, especially those from Germany. Alfred Hitchcock was encouraged by Balcon, who had links with Ufa, to study there and make multilingual co-production films with Ufa, before the war. Gainsborough also specialised in the production of multilingual films in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

After the rise of Adolph Hitler, both Balcon's companies offered employment to artists who left Nazi-Germany, including Conrad Veidt, Elisabeth Bergner, art director Alfred Junge, cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum and screenwriter/director Berthold Viertel,.

The studio's opening logo was of a lady (Glennis Lorimer) in a Georgian era period costume sitting in an ornate frame, turning and smiling, based on the famous portrait of Sarah Siddons by Thomas Gainsborough. The short piece of music was written by Louis Levy and called 'the Gainsborough Minuet'.

After the departure of Balcon to MGM-British in 1936, the Rank Organisation gained an interest in Gainsborough. Maurice Ostrer became more involved in production, and producer Ted Black was more influential in the running of the studio. Black had an unerring sense of British popular taste, and production was skewed to the home market with such films as Oh, Mr Porter! (Marcel Varnel, 1937) starring Will Hay, and Owd Bob (Robert Stevenson, 1938). Another hit for the studio was The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) with Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 782. Photo: Gainsborough.

British actor Jack Hulbert (1892-1978) was a popular comedian of the 1930s with a trademark chiselled chin. In his musicals he often appeared with his wife Cicely Courtneidge.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, no. P 42. Photo: Gainsborough Pictures. Jack Hulbert and Cicely Courtneidge in Jack's the Boy (Walter Forde, 1932).

British actress Cicely Courtneidge (1893-1980) was an elegantly knockabout comedienne. For 62 years, she formed a husband and wife team with comedianJack Hulbert on stage, radio, TV and in the cinema. During the 1930s she also starred in eleven British films and one disastrous American production.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 785. Photo: Gainsborough. Dorothy Hyson in Soldiers of the King (Maurice Elvey, 1933)

American actress Dorothy Hyson (1914–1996) led a successful stage and film career in London. Noted for her great beauty and striking looks, the songwriters Rogers and Hart dedicated their song, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, to her. She was a byword for theatrical West End glamour, but also worked as a cryptographer for the secret service during the war.


British postcard in the Film Partners series, London, no. P 72. Photo: Gainsborough.

Ladylike British actress Edna Best (1900-1974) entered films in 1921. She is best remembered as the mother in the original version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and as the second wife of film star Herbert Marshall. She worked both on stage and in the cinema, in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

Herbert Marshall (1890-1966), was a popular English cinema and theatre actor. He overcame the loss of a leg in World War I to enjoy a long career in Hollywood, first as a romantic lead opposite stars like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, later as a fine character actor.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 473b. Photo: Gainsborough. George Arliss in Doctor Syn (Roy William Neill, 1937).

George Arliss (1868-1946) was the first British actor to win an Academy Award. He was also an author, a playwright, and a Hollywood film maker with an unusual amount of creative control.

Gypsies, wanton women and lustful aristocrats

By 1937, Gaumont-British were in financial crisis, and closed their Lime Grove studios, moving all production to the Islington Poole Street studio. However, the tall factory chimney on the site was considered dangerous in the event of bombing during World War II, and thus Gainsborough Studios were evacuated to Lime Grove for the duration of hostilities.

With the outbreak of war, Gainsborough was poised to dominate the popular market. Rank had a hands-off policy on the company, and the Ostrers gave Ted Black his head in the orchestration of film topics. From 1942, a crucial figure in the Gainsborough production team was R.J. Minney, a successful novelist and former Hollywood scriptwriter. Minney and Black inaugurated a series of visually extravagant and morally ambivalent costume melodramas at Gainsborough which dominated the domestic market from 1942 to 1946.

These costume melodramas were based on recent popular books by female novelists, foregrounding gypsies, wanton women and lustful aristocrats. They were made into films which mined a rich seam in British popular culture: films such as The Man in Grey (Leslie Arliss, 1943) starring James Mason, Fanny by Gaslight (1944), Madonna of the Seven Moons (Arthur Crabtree, 1944) with Phyllis Calvert, The Wicked Lady (Leslie Arliss, 1945) featuring Margaret Lockwood, and Caravan (Arthur Crabtree, 1946), starring Stewart Granger and Jean Kent.

Black and Minney encouraged the careers of a new breed of British stars, including Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Stewart Granger, Phyllis Calvert, Jean Kent, Anne Crawford, Dennis Price, and Patricia Roc. Critics and male viewers excoriated the Gainsborough costume melodramas, but the female side of the British audience took them to their hearts.

The studio also specialised in comedies and modern-dress melodramas. Popular melodramas such as Love Story (Leslie Arliss, 1944), and They Were Sisters (Arthur Crabtree, 1945) dealt with desire, anger and sartorial envy. The comedies including Time Flies (Walter Forde, 1944) starring Tommy Handley, Bees in Paradise (Val Guest, 1944) with Arthur Askey were less popular at the box office.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 182. Photo: Gainsborough. Anna Lee and Les Allen in Heat Wave (Maurice Elvey, 1935).

Blue-eyed blonde Anna Lee (1913-2004) was a British-born American actress. She started her career in British films and earned the title 'Queen of the Quota Quickies'. In 1939, she moved to Hollywood with her husband, director Robert Stevenson. There she often worked with John Ford, and later became a TV star in the soap General Hospital.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 131. Photo: Gainsborough. Phyllis Calvert in The Man in Grey (Leslie Arliss, 1943).


British postcard in the Our Postcard Series, 1948. Photo: Margaret Lockwood in Jassy (Bernard Knowles, 1947).

Beautiful stage and film actress Margaret Lockwood (1916-1990) was the female lead of the early Hitchcock classic The Lady Vanishes (1938). In the 1940s she became Britain's leading box-office star specialising in beautiful but diabolical adventuresses.


British postcard, no. F.S. 30. Mai Zetterling in Quartet (Ralph Smart, a.o., 1948), a Sydney Box production for Gainsborough Pictures.

Lovely Swedish actress and film director Mai Zetterling (1925-1994) graced many European films in the 1940s and 1950s with her slim figure, green eyes, blonde hair and bewitchingly elfin features.


British postcard by Real Photograph, no. F.S. 29. Photo: Gainsborough Pictures. Dennis Price in The Bad Lord Byron (David MacDonald, 1949).

British actor Dennis Price (1915-1973) made nearly 130 films and television plays. He started as a suave leading man, and became a character star of great versatility.

The only female producer in British cinema

Sue Harper in the Encyclopedia of British Film: "After 1946, Rank's henchmen began to intervene more directly in production, and one by one the disillusioned Gainsborough specialists left. The Ostrers resigned, Black went to MGM, Minney left film production and Rank wished to appoint a successor who would continue their popular melodrama trajectory.

He chose Sydney Box, mistakenly thinking that his The Seventh Veil (Compton Bennett, 1945) provided the right pedigree. But Box was essentially interested in verisimilitude of method and appearance. Films such as Here Come the Huggetts (Ken Annakin, 1948), and A Boy, a Girl and a Bike (Ralph Smart, 1949) were predicated on social realism. Box's output was uneven, and he was hampered by inexperience, bad planning and expensive location work. Gainsborough's dominance at the box-office declined drastically, and Rank cut his losses by closing the studio in 1950."

However, Box ushered in some important innovations in film practice. He appointed his sister Betty Box as producer at the Islington arm of Gainsborough, and gave her sufficient autonomy to develop a substantial career. As the only female producer in British cinema at the time, she oversaw such films as the neo-realist Holiday Camp (Ken Annakin, 1947), which introduced the Huggett family and started a successful series, starring Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, and Petula Clark, and the mermaid comedy Miranda (Ken Annakin, 1948) featuring Glynis Johns.

Sue Harper: "Sydney Box also furthered the career of his wife Muriel Box while at Gainsborough, promoting her to head of the Scenario Department. Muriel wrote a number of ground-breaking scripts, in which her feminism was much in evidence. Such films as The Brothers (David McDonald, 1947) and Good-Time Girl (David McDonald, 1948) have scripts which nuance female desire and its punishment in an unusually explicit way."

Unhappy with the performance of the studio, Rank closed it down in early 1949. Production was concentrated at Pinewood Studios. Although at first films continued to be made there under the Gainsborough banner, this quickly stopped and no further Gainsborough films were released after 1951.

The original Lime Grove site was taken over by the BBC in 1949 and remained in use until it was closed in 1991. The buildings were demolished in the early 1990s, and have been since replaced with housing presently called Gaumont Terrace and Gainsborough Court. The former Islington Studios, in Poole Street, remained largely derelict after their closure in 1949 apart from occasional art performances. The studios were demolished in 2002 and replaced by three blocks of upmarket apartments in 2004.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1217. Photo: Gainsborough.

Sir Michael Redgrave (1908-1985) was an English stage and film actor, who started starring in a Hitchcock classic and went on to star in many British and some Hollywood productions. He was the father of Vanessa, Lynn and Corin Redgrave.


British postcard. Photo: Gainsborough.

English film, television, and stage actor Michael Rennie (1909-1971) was best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the Science Fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).


British postcard. Photo: Gainsborough. Jean Kent.


British postcard. Photo: Gainsborough. Phyllis Calvert.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. P 182. Photo: Gainsborough. Anna Lee and Les Allen in Heat Wave (Maurice Elvey, 1935).

Sources: Sue Harper (BFI Screenonline), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Diane Lane

May 26, 2019, 10:00 pm

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American actress Diane Lane (1965) started her film career opposite Laurence Olivier at age 13. She appeared in Francis Coppola's cult classics Rumble Fish (1983) and The Outsiders (1983) and the gangster epic The Cotton Club (1984). She had her breakthrough with The Perfect Storm (2000) and Unfaithful (2002) opposite Richard Gere and since then appeared in several blockbusters including Man of Steel (2013).


French postcard by Edition Erving, Paris, no. 719.

The new young acting sensation

Diane Lane was born in 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene 'Burt' Lane and nightclub singer/centrefold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia.

Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the age of six. Her work in such acclaimed theatre productions as 'The Cherry Orchard' and 'Medea' led to her being called to Hollywood.

She was 13 when she was cast by director George Roy Hill in his wonderful film A Little Romance (1979), opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. The film only did so-so commercially, but Olivier praised his young co-star, calling her "the new Grace Kelly".

After her well-received debut, Diane found herself on magazine covers all over the world, including Time, which declared her the "new young acting sensation". However, things quietened down a bit when she found herself in such critical and financial flops as Touched by Love (Gus Trikonis, 1980), Cattle Annie and Little Britches (Lamont Johnson, 1981), Movie Madness (Bob Giraldi, Henry Jaglom, 1982), and, most unmemorably, Six Pack (Daniel Petrie, 1982), starring Kenny Rogers. All failed to set her career on fire.

She also made several TV movies during this period, but it was in 1983 that she finally began to fulfil the promise of stardom that had earlier been predicted for her. Francis (Ford) Coppola took note of Diane's appeal and cast her in two youth-oriented films based on S.E. Hinton novels: Rumble Fish (1983) and The Outsiders (1983), which have become cult classics.

The industry was now taking notice of Diane Lane, and she soon secured lead roles in three big-budget studio epics. She turned down the first, Splash (Ron Howard, 1984) which was a surprise hit for Daryl Hannah. Unfortunately, the other two were critical and box-office bombs: Walter Hill's glossy rock 'n' roll fable Streets of Fire (1984) was not the huge summer success that many had thought it would be, and the troubled Coppola epic The Cotton Club (Francis Coppola, 1984) co-starring Richard Gere was also a high-profile flop.

Unhappy with the direction her career was taking, she 'retired' from the film business at age 19, saying that she had forgotten what she had started acting for. She stayed away from the screen for the next three years. Ironically, the two films that were the main causes of her 'retirement' have since grown in popularity, and Streets of Fire especially seems to have found the kind of audience it couldn't get when it was first released.


French postcard by Edition Erving, Paris, no. 755.

New, sexy on-screen image

After her interval, Diane Lane started to rebuild her career slowly. First came the obscure, sexy thriller Lady Beware (Karen Arthur, 1987), followed by the critically acclaimed but little seen The Big Town (Ben Bolt, 1987) with Matt Dillon and Tommy Lee Jones. In the former, Lane plays a very mysterious and sexy stripper and her memorable strip sequence is a highlight of the film.

Despite her new, sexy on-screen image, it wasn't until the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (Simon Wincer, 1989) with Robert Duvall, that Diane made another big impression on a sizable audience. Her performance in the smash hit Western epic as a vulnerable 'whore with a heart' won her an Emmy nomination.

Film producers were interested in her again. Another well-received TV production, Descending Angel (Jeremy Kagan, 1990) with George C. Scott, was followed by smaller roles in major films like Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and Mike Binder's Indian Summer (1993), and larger parts in small independent films like Knight Moves (Carl Schenkel, 1992), which co-starred her then-husband, Christophe Lambert.

Lane was now re-established in Hollywood and started to appear in higher-profile co-starring roles in some big-budget, major films like Walter Hill's Wild Bill (1995), the Sylvester Stallone actioner Judge Dredd (Danny Cannon, 1995), the Robin Williams comedy Jack (Francis Coppola, 1996) and Murder at 1600 (Dwight H. Little, 1997) co-starring Wesley Snipes.

However, these films still did not quite make Diane a 'big-name star' and, by 1997, she was back in smaller, personal projects. Her next role as a frustrated 1960s housewife in the independent hit A Walk on the Moon (Tony Goldwyn, 1999) deservedly won her rave notices and gave her career the big lift it needed. The cute but tear-jerking comedy My Dog Skip (Jay Russell, 2000) also proved to be a small-scale success.


French postcard by Edition Erving, Paris, no. 718.

Finally a household name

Diane Lane finally became a household name with the £330-million worldwide grossing blockbuster hit The Perfect Storm (Wolfgang Petersen, 2000) with George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.

She was now more in demand than ever. She played Leelee Sobieski's sinister junkie guardian in the slick thriller The Glass House (Daniel Sackheim, 2001), and co-starred with Keanu Reeves in the #1 smash hit Hard Ball (Brian Robbins, 2001).

A highlight was her lead role in the critical and commercial hit Unfaithful (Adrian Lyne, 2002), in which she superbly portrayed Richard Gere's adulterous wife. Her performance won many awards and nominations including Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

Her follow-up films included Must Love Dogs (Gary David Goldberg, 2005), Hollywoodland (Allen Coulter, 2006), Secretariat (Randall Wallace, 2010), and the blockbuster Man of Steel (Zack Snyder, 2013), starring Henry Cavill.

She won further Best Actress Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Under the Tuscan Sun (Audrey Wells, 2003), and Cinema Verite (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, 2011).

Recent pictures include Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder, 2016), Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2017), and Tully (Jason Reitman, 2018) with Charlize Theron.

Daryl Moulton at IMDb: "She is very well regarded within the industry, adored by film fans, and has a credibility and quality that is all too rare today. Her immense talent at playing human and real characters, her 'drop dead gorgeous' beauty and down-to-earth grittiness guarantees that she will stay on top, and she guarantee has already shown the kind of resilience that will keep her working for a long, long time."

Diane Lane was married to Christophe Lambert from 1988 to 1994. They have one child, a daughter, Eleanor Lambert. Her second marriage to Josh Brolin in 2004 ended in a divorce in 2013.


Picture of Italian calendar 'Forto grammi di set'. Photo: Gianni Caramanico. Publicity still for Love Dream (Charles Finch, 1988) with Christophe Lambert.

Sources: Daryl Moulton (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Bertram Wallis

May 27, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Tall and handsome Bertram Wallis (1874-1952) was a renowned English actor and singer. He was a glamorous matinee idol in popular plays and musical comedies of the early 20th century. Between the two wars he also appeared in several British films.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 11642-0. Photo: Foulsham & Barnfield, Ltd., London.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 2387 C. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield, Ltd., London. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona @ Flickr.

Rare Talent

Bertram Wallis was a huge man who stood more than 2 metres tall. He was born in 1874 in London. His parents were Frederick Augustus Wallis and Sarah Mary (née Williams).

Bertram won the Westmorland Scholarship to study voice at the Royal Academy of Music. There he won the Parepa-Rosa gold medal and the Evill Prize.

His first professional engagements were in George Alexander's production of William Shakespeare’s 'As You Like It' (1896) and in Shakespeare’s 'Much Ado About Nothing' (1898).

In the early years of the 20th century, Wallis had his first successes on the musical stage, such as in 'A Country Girl'. He had the rare talent of being able to sing beautifully and also act superbly.

He then travelled to New York to play in several Broadway productions, including 'A Madcap Princess' (1904), 'Princess Beggar' (1907), and 'Miss Hook of Holland' (1907-1908).


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 2387 E. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the play 'The King of Caledonia' (1908).


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 2387 B. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield. Publicity still for the play 'The King of Caledonia' (1908). Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona @ Flickr.

Glamorous Matinee Idol

Bertram Wallis returned to London and established his career in the operetta 'King of Cadonia'(1908) at the Prince of Wales theatre in the West End. From this point on, he reigned as one of the Edwardian age’s most glamorous matinee idols and one of its biggest male postcard-sellers.

He starred in a number of successful London musicals, often with Isabel Jay or José Collins, including 'Dear Little Denmark'(1909), 'The Balkan Princess' (1910), 'The Count of Luxembourg'(1911), and 'The Happy Day'(1916).

A hit was the revue 'Zig Zag!' (1917). Wallis' later musicals included 'A Southern Maid' (1920), 'Madame Pompadour' (1923), 'Blue Eyes' (1928), and 'So This is Love' (1929). In 1911, Wallis temporarily left the musical stage to appear in a non-musical melodrama, Beau Brocade at the Globe Theatre, for which he won good notices.

Between 1917 and 1945 Bertram Wallis also appeared in eight films. He first appeared in two silent films The Cost of a Kiss (Adrian Brunel, 1917) and Victory and Peace (Herbert Brenon, 1918).

After the introduction of sound film, he acted in The Wandering Jew (Maurice Elvey, 1933) starring Conrad Veidt. During the 1930s, he also played in the short film A Dream of Love (James A. FitzPatrick, 1938), Chips (Edward Godal, 1938), and A People Eternal (Maurice Elvey, Henry Lynn, 1939) again starring Conrad Veidt.

His final two films were The Shipbuilders (John Baxter, 1944) with Clive Brook, and Twilight Hour (Paul L. Stein, 1945).

After the Second World War, Bertram Wallis retired. He died in 1952 at home in Kent. He was 78.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 11642-D. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield, Ltd., London. Publicity still for the play 'Beau Brocade' (1911) with Bertram Wallis as Beau Brocade and Grace Lane as Lady Patience Gascoyne.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 11784 C. Photo: Foulsham & Banfield, Ltd. Bertram Wallis and Lily Elsie in 'The Count of Luxembourg'.

Sources: David Slattery-Christy (Anything But Merry!: The Life and Times of Lily Elsie), Wikipedia; Richard Traubner (Operetta: A Theatrical History) and IMDb.

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Der Todessprung (1919)

May 28, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Fern Andra (1893-1974) was one of the most popular film stars of the German cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. In her films, she mastered tightrope walking, riding a horse without a saddle, driving cars and motorcycles, bob sleighing, and even boxing. In her own production Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (1919), Andra makes a spectacular death leap with her circus horse.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 576. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 577. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra, probably Olga Engl and Wilhelm Diegelmann in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1919).

A Free-spirited Circus Princess

The circus melodrama Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1919) is based on a novel by Jean Kolzer. Fern Andra plays a circus rider who is an artist with heart and soul. One day she meets Count von Wallenberg (Josef Peterhans) and both fall in love with each other. When he has risen to become a major, Egon asks for her hand. She accepts his proposal and they marry.

The joyful, free-spirited circus rider, embarrassed by no open word, soon becomes the object of snobbery among her husband's friends and a thorn in the side of the lordly mother-in-law, the old countess (Olga Engl). The old woman begins to intrigue against her.

Soon her intrigues succeed. When Count von Wallenberg gets into a duel to defend his honour, he is imprisoned for six months. His mother and his old girl friend take this opportunity to set his wife packing. The young woman returns to the circus and resumes her old job. Back home, Egon is deeply saddened that his wife has left him. His mother, who once gave the cause to break the two, then decides to bring Egon and his circus princess together again.

Fern Andra co-directed and produced Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (1919). In January 1919, the film premiered at the Marmorhaus, one of the most prestigious movie palaces in Berlin.

Bob Lipton at IMDb: "It's an old story told in old-fashioned cinematic technique and, except for the circus scenes - Germans were very fond of movies involving circus people - this is a vehicle for Miss Andra to suffer in. She had been born in Illinois in 1893. Her entrance into show business was as a circus aerialist. While touring in Europe, she became a student of Max Reinhardt and soon went into the movies. With the outbreak of the First World War, she was suspected as a spy. She allayed these fears by marrying her first husband, a German baron who was killed during the War; this gave her a fine cover to spy for the Allies."


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 578. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 579. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra and Josef Peterhans in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 580. Photo: Fern-Andra-Atelier. Fern Andra in Der Todessprung/Um Krone und Peitsche/Crown and Whip (Georg Bluen, Fern Andra, 1919).

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

Michelle Pfeiffer

May 29, 2019, 10:00 pm

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American actress and producer Michelle Pfeiffer (1958) was one of the most popular and talented Hollywood actresses of the 1980s and 1990s. Her rare beauty inspired countless platitudes and an almost-permanent place on People's Fifty Most Beautiful list. But Pfeiffer has since become particularly known for portraying nuanced and unglamorous, emotionally distant women as well as strong female characters with intense sex appeal.


Spanish postcard in the Collección 'Estrellas cinematográficas', by CACITEL, no. 44, 1990. Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2 (Patricia Birch, 1982).


Vintage postcard, no. pc0468. Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983).


Spanish postcard in the 'Yo amo al cine' Series by Novograf / Lauren Films. Photo: Orion Pictures International / Lauren Films. Publicity still for Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme, 1988).

A sultry lounge singer

Michelle Marie Pfeiffer was born in 1958 in Santa Ana, California, to Donna Jean (Taverna) and Richard Pfeiffer, a heating and air-conditioning contractor. She graduated from Fountain Valley High School in 1976, and attended one year at the Golden West College, where she studied to become a court reporter. But at age 19, while working as a supermarket checker at Vons, a large Southern California grocery chain, she had an epiphany of sorts while a woman was complaining about the cantaloupe. She entered a beauty contest, seeking a ticket out of retail.

In 1978, Pfeiffer won the Miss Orange County beauty pageant, and participated in the Miss California contest the same year, finishing in sixth place. She auditioned for commercials and modeling assignments while she attended acting school. She made her acting debut in a one-line role on the TV series Fantasy Island (1978), and played several other minor roles in television series and films.

Her first leading role was in the musical film Grease 2 (Patricia Birch, 1982) opposite Maxwell Caulfield. It was the sequel to the popular hit film Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) and takes place two years after the original film at Rydell High School, set in the 1961–1962 school year. Although the film was poorly received, it increased public interest in Pfeiffer.

On her early screen roles, she asserted in a 1995 interview in The New York Times: "I needed to learn how to act ... in the meantime, I was playing bimbos and cashing in on my looks." Frustrated with being typecast as the token pretty girl, Pfeiffer actively pursued more serious material. She received strong reviews for her breakout performance as cocaine-addicted trophy wife Elvira Hancock in the crime film Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983) opposite Al Pacino. The violent film became a commercial hit and gained a large cult following over the years.

Following Scarface, she played Diana in John Landis' comedy Into the Night (1985), with Jeff Goldblum, Isabeau d'Anjou in Richard Donner's fantasy adventure Ladyhawke (1985), with Rutger Hauer and Matthew Broderick. Her performance as one of the three women bedevilled by Jack Nicholson - the other two being Cher and Susan Sarandon - in the dark fantasy The Witches of Eastwick (George Miller, 1987) proved to be one of her first box office successes.

Pfeiffer then was cast against type as a murdered mobster's widow in the Mafia comedy Married to the Mob (Jonathan Demme, 1988). For the role of big-haired and gum-smacking Angela de Marco, she donned a curly brunette wig and a Brooklyn accent. She received her first Golden Globe Award nomination as Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, beginning a six-year streak of consecutive Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes.

In Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears, 1988) based on Christopher Hampton's play Les liaisons dangereuses,  she played the virtuous victim of seduction, Madame Marie de Tourvel, opposite with Glenn Close and John Malkovich. Her role garnered her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Then followed her sultry performance as a hard-edged former call girl turned lounge singer, Susie Diamond in The Fabulous Baker Boys (Steve Kloves, 1989) with Jeff and Beau Bridges. She underwent intensive voice training for the role for four months, and performed all of her character's vocals. Classic is her scene in which the lounge singer drapes herself over a piano cooing a heart-stopping rendition of 'Making Whoopee'. Susie would be the most critically acclaimed role of her career and she got another Academy Award nomination, now for Best Actress.


American postcard by Fotofolio, N.Y. Photo: Greg Gorman. Caption: Michelle Pfeiffer, Los Angeles, 1988.


Belgian postcard in de 'De 50 mooiste vrouwen van de eeuw' (The 50 most beautiful women of the century) series by P magazine, no. 17. Photo: Visages.

The definitive portrayal of Catwoman

In 1981, Michelle Pfeiffer had married actor/director Peter Horton, known as Gary in the television series Thirtysomething. They were later divorced, and she then had a three year relationship with actor Fisher Stevens. When that did not work out, Pfeiffer decided she did not want to wait any longer before having her own family, and in March 1993, she adopted a baby girl, Claudia Rose. Later the same year, she married lawyer-turned-writer/producer David E. Kelley, creator of such series as Ally McBeal and Boston Legal. In 1994, their son John Henry was born.

The 1990s proved to be a good decade for Pfeiffer. She starred opposite Al Pacino as the mousy, severely damaged waitress Frankie in the romantic comedy Frankie and Johnny (Garry Marshall, 1991). She achieved widespread recognition as Catwoman / Selina Kyle in Tim Burton's superhero film Batman Returns (1992). For the role, she trained in martial arts and kickboxing. Her stitched-together, black patent leather costume, based on a sketch of Burton's, remains the character's most iconic look, and Pfeiffer's growling, fierce performance is widely regarded as one of the most definitive portrayals of the comic book character.

She earned a third Academy Award nomination for her role as a frustrated housewife in the virtually unseen Love Field (Jonathan Kaplan, 1992), before starring in the critically acclaimed The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993) with Daniel Day Lewis. She portrayed a Countess in upper-class New York City in the 1870s. It was followed by the romantic horror film Wolf (Mike Nichols, 1994) with Jack Nicholson, the supernatural horror film What Lies Beneath (Robert Zemeckis, 2000) with Harrison Ford, and White Oleander (Peter Kosminsky, 2002). From 1990 till 1999 she also produced a series of films under her production company Via Rosa Productions.

After a five-year hiatus from film acting in order to spend more quality time with her children and family, Pfeiffer appeared in Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2007), the film adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name. She starred with John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Zac Efron and Queen Latifah, in the role of Velma Von Tussle, the racist manager of a television station.

Then followed Colette's Chéri (Stephen Frears, 2009), as ageing retired courtesan Léa de Lonval, with Rupert Friend in the title role, and Kathy Bates as his mother. Pfeiffer reunited with Tim Burton in Dark Shadows (Tim Burton, 2012), based on the Gothic television soap opera of the same name. In the film, co-starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green, and Helena Bonham Carter, she played Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the stern and strict, but loyal and devoted family matriarch.

Recently, Michelle Pfeiffer received her first Emmy Award nomination for portraying Ruth Madoff in the HBO television film The Wizard of Lies (Barry Levinson, 2017). Robert De Niro played her husband, disgraced financier Bernard Madoff. She garnered further critical acclaim for her role in Where Is Kyra? (Andrew Dosunmu, 2017) with Kiefer Sutherland. Pfeiffer also appeared in the ensemble films Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017) and Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed, 2018). Later this year, she can be seen in the superhero film Avengers: Endgame (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2019).


Belgian postcard by Multichoice. Photo: Isopress / Outline (Deborah Feingold).


Romanian postcard by Publiturism / Inter Contempress.

Sources: Tim Egan (The New York Times), Rebecca Flint Marx (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Charlton Heston

May 30, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Tall, well built and ruggedly handsome American actor Charlton Heston (1923-2008) appeared in 100 Hollywood films over the course of 60 years. With features chiseled in stone, he became famous for playing a long list of historical figures in Biblical epics. For Ben-Hur (1959), he won the Academy Award for Best Actor,


Israelian postcard by Editions de Luxe.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., presented by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 252. Photo: Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959).


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 125. Photo: publicity still for Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959).


Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, Milano, no. N. 173. Photo: publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).


Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier and Richard Johnson in Khartoum (Basil Dearden, Eliot Elisofon, 1965).

A tall, tweedy, rough-hewn sort of chap

Charlton Heston was born John Charles Carter in 1924, in Wilmette, Illinois, U.S., to Lila née Baines and Russell Whitford Carter, who operated a sawmill. He had English and Scottish ancestry, with recent Canadian forebears. When Heston was 10 years old, his parents divorced after having three children. Shortly thereafter, his mother remarried Chester Heston.

Charlton and his younger sister Lilla and brother Alan attended New Trier High School in Wilmette. During high school, he enrolled in New Trier's drama program, playing the lead role in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. It was directed by future film activist David Bradley.

From the Winnetka Community Theatre in which he was active, he earned a drama scholarship to Northwestern University; among his acting teachers was Alvina Krause. In 1944, Heston married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke, who was six months his senior. That same year he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a radio operator and aerial gunner aboard a B-25 Mitchell stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force. He reached the rank of Staff Sergeant.

After the war, the Hestons lived in Hell's Kitchen, New York City. Heston made ends meet by posing as a model in New York at The Art Students League, across from Carnegie Hall. Seeking a way to make it in theatre, the couple decided to manage a playhouse in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1947, making $100 a week.

In 1948, they returned to New York, where Heston was offered a supporting role in a Broadway revival of William Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra', starring Katharine Cornell. In television, Heston played a number of roles in CBS's Studio One, one of the most popular anthology dramas of the 1950s. These included a part as Marc Antony in a televised production of Julius Caesar (1950). He was unable to use his real name, John Carter as an actor because it bore too close a resemblance to the name of the hero in Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel 'Princess of Mars'. His professional name of Charlton Heston came from a combination of Charlton was his maternal grandmother Marian's maiden name, and his stepfather's last name.

Film producer Hal B. Wallis of Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) spotted Heston in a 1950 television production of Wuthering Heights and offered him a contract. When his wife reminded Heston they had decided to pursue theatre and television, he replied, "Well, maybe just for one film to see what it's like." In 1950, he made his feature film debut in the Film Noir Dark City (William Dieterle, 1950) opposite Lizabeth Scott and Viveca Lindfors.

Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, applauded the work of the newcomer: "A new star named Charlton Heston — a tall, tweedy, rough-hewn sort of chap who looks like a triple-threat halfback on a midwestern college football team—is given an unfortunate send-off on the low and lurid level of crime in Hal Wallis' thriller, Dark City, which came to the Paramount yesterday. Apparently Mr. Heston, who has worked for the stage and video, has something more than appearance to recommend him to dramatic roles. He has a quiet but assertive magnetism, a youthful dignity and a plainly potential sense of timing that is the good actor's sine qua non. But in this 'clutching hand' chiller, he is called upon to play nothing more complex or demanding than a crooked gambler marked for doom."

Heston's breakthrough came when Cecil B. DeMille cast him as as circus manager 'Brad Braden' in the spectacular epic The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952), also starring James Stewart and Cornel Wilde. The film was named by the Motion Picture Academy as the Best Picture of 1952. It was also the most popular film of that year.

The now very popular actor remained perpetually busy during the next years, both on TV and in the cinema. King Vidor used Heston in a melodrama with Jennifer Jones, Ruby Gentry (1952). He pleased audiences again in the steamy thriller Marabunta (Byron Haskin, 1954) with Eleanor Parker, and as a treasure hunter in Secret of the Incas (Jerry Hopper, 1954). Shot on location at Machu Picchu in Peru, the film is often credited as the inspiration for Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981).

Heston became an icon for portraying Moses in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956). According to DeMille, Heston bore an uncanny resemblance to the statue of Moses carved by Michelangelo. The Hollywood Reporter described him as "splendid, handsome and princely (and human) in the scenes dealing with him as a young man, and majestic and terrible as his role demands it". For his role, Heston received his first Golden Globe Award nomination.

Furthermore, he is known for his dynamic Mexican narcotics officer Miguel 'Mike' Vargas in Orson Welles' widely acclaimed Film Noir Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958), and for his rare supporting role alongside Gregory Peck in the Western The Big Country (William Wyler, 1958).

Then followed his best known role as the wronged Jewish prince who seeks his freedom and revenge in Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. It was one of the unprecedented 11 Oscars the film earned. This Biblical epic became the standard by which other large scale productions would be judged. It's superb cast also included Stephen Boyd as the villainous Massala, and English actor Jack Hawkins as the Roman officer Quintus Arrius.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Charlton Heston, Nina Foch, and Martha Scott in The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956), released in Dutch as De Tien Geboden.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 5183. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956) with Charlton Heston as Moses. Moses' robe was hand-woven by Dorothea Hulse, one of the world's finest weavers. She also created costumes for The Robe, as well as textiles and costume fabrics for Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, and others.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden-Westf., no. 451. Photo: M.G.M. Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959).


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 648.


German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 3632. Photo: Rank-Film. Publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).

Embodying responsibility, individualism and masculinity

During the 1960s, Charlton Heston remained the preferred choice of directors to lead the cast in major historical productions. These starring roles gave the actor a grave, authoritative persona and embodied responsibility, individualism and masculinity. Heston rejected scripts that did not emphasise those virtues.

He starred as Spanish legend Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar in El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961), opposite Sophia Loren. The film, shot in Spain, was a big success. Heston was a US soldier battling hostile Chinese boxers during 55 Days at Peking (Nicholas Ray, 1963) with Ava Gardner, played the ill-fated John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told (George Stevens, 1965), painter Michelangelo battling Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison) in The Agony and the Ecstasy (Carol Reed, 1965), and an English general in Khartoum (Basil Dearden, 1966) opposite Laurence Olivier.

Heston liked the Western genre. In 1968, Heston filmed the unusual western Will Penny (Tom Gries, 1968) about an ageing and lonely cowboy befriending a lost woman (Joan Hackett) and her son. The picture was based upon an episode of the 1960 Sam Peckinpah television series The Westerner called Line Camp, also written and directed by Tom Gries. The film was not a box office hit, but received excellent reviews. Heston referred to the film as his favourite piece of work on screen.

Interestingly, Heston was on the verge of acquiring an entirely new league of fans due to his appearance in four very topical Science Fiction films (all based on popular novels) painting bleak future's for mankind. In 1968, Heston starred as time traveling astronaut George Taylor, in the terrific Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968) with it's now legendary conclusion as Heston realises the true horror of his destination. He returned to reprise the role, albeit primarily as a cameo, alongside fellow astronaut James Franciscus in the slightly inferior sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Ted Post, 1970).

Next up, Heston again found himself facing the apocalypse in The Omega Man (Boris Sagal, 1971) as the survivor of a germ plague that has wiped out humanity leaving only bands of psychotic lunatics roaming the cities who seek to kill the uninfected Heston. And fourthly, taking its inspiration from the Harry Harrison novel 'Make Room!, Make Room!', Heston starred alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors in Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer, 1973).

During the remainder of the 1970s, Heston appeared in two very popular Disaster films contributing lead roles in the far fetched Airport 1975 (Jack Smight, 1974), plus in the star laden Earthquake (Mark Robson, 1974), filmed in Sensurround (low bass speakers were installed in selected theatres to simulate the earthquake rumblings on screen to film audiences).

Heston played the evil Cardinal Richelieu in the lively The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973) and the sequel The Four Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1974), starring Michael York and Oliver Reed. He was a mythical US naval officer in the recreation of Battle of Midway (1976), also filmed in Sensurround, an LA cop trying to stop a sniper in Two-Minute Warning (Larry Peerce, 1976) and another US naval officer in the submarine thriller Gray Lady Down (David Greene, 1978).

Heston appeared in numerous episodes of the high rating TV series Dynasty (1981) and The Colbys (1985), before moving onto a mixed bag of projects including TV adaptations of A Man for All Seasons (Charlton Heston, 1988) with Vanessa Redgrave and John Gielgud, and Treasure Island (Fraser Clarke Heston, 1990) with Christian Bale, and hosting two episodes of the comedy show, Saturday Night Live (1975). In the cinema he appeared in cameos as the Good Actor bringing love struck Mike Myers to tears in Wayne's World 2 (Stephen Surjik, 1993), and as the eye patch wearing boss of intelligence agent Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (James Cameron, 1994).

Heston was a supporter of Democratic politicians and civil rights in the 1960s, and volunteered his time and effort to the Civil Rights movement. He even marched alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on a number of occasions, including the 1963 March on Washington. Eventually he rejected liberalism, and founded a conservative political action committee.

Heston campaigned for Republican presidential candidates Ronald Reagan in 1984, George Bush in 1988, George W. Bush in 2000, and Republican candidate for governor of Virginia George Allen in 1993. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1966 to 1971. Heston's most famous role in politics came as the five-term president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 to 2003. Though often portrayed as an ultra-conservative, Heston wrote in his 1995 autobiography 'In the Arena' that he was opposed to the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, was against the Vietnam War and thought President Richard Nixon was bad for America.

In 2001, Heston made a cameo appearance as Gen. Thade's father, an elderly, dying chimpanzee in Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes (2001). His last film appearance was as the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the Holocaust themed drama My Father, Rua Alguem 5555 (Egidio Eronico, 2003) with Thomas Kretschmann as his son.

In 2002, Charlton Heston was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. A frail-looking Heston was presented with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, at the White House by George W. Bush in July, 2003. He died in 2008. Heston and his wife Lydia had two children, director Fraser C. Heston and Holly Heston Rochell.


French postcard by Editions P.I., offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 593. Photo: Paramount, 1953.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 145. Photo: Paramount.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 506. Photo: Columbia.


German postcard by ISV, no. E 29. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Ben-Hur (1959).


Dutch postcard, no. 143. Photo: publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Photo by American Kinema

May 31, 2019, 10:00 pm

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The French company Pathé started to distribute its films in the United States, from 1900 on. In 1904, it launched an American subsidiary, Pathé Company, based in Buffalo, New York. In 1910 Pathé opened in Bound Brook its own film studio, which focused on making Westerns, dramas, and comedies catered to American tastes, under the name of American Kinema. Beginning in 1914, the Pathé Frères' film production studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey produced the successful serial The Perils of Pauline, starring Pearl White. In 1915 the studio re-incorporated to Pathé Exchange, which was once again re-incorporated to American Pathé in 1923. Among American Pathé's independent productions are the very influential documentary feature Nanook of the North (1922), and a large number of film serials.


American postcard by Fetterly & Loree, Druggists, Bound Brook, N.J., no. D 314. Printed in Germany by Rotochrome, Leipzig, Berlin, Dresden.


Big French photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: American Kinema. Charles Arling in Short-Lived Happyness (1911). The French title is Le Bonheur Ephémère.


British postcard. Photo: Pathé Frères.

Pearl White (1889-1938) was dubbed 'Queen of the Serials", and noted for doing her own stunts, in silent film serials such as The Perils of Pauline (Louis J. Gasnier, Donald MacKenzie, 1914) and The Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1914-1915). Until the end of the First World War, White remained globally a popular action heroine.


Spanish postcard by PA Cines. Photo: publicity still for Paris misteriosa, the Spanish title for Les Mystères de New York (1915). This was a European re-edition of the three Pearl White serials The Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1914-1915), The New Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1915) and The Romance of Elaine (George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1915), all starring Pearl White and with Riley Hatch as her father. The serials were produced by Wharton for Pathé Exchange.


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères.

American writer, actor, and director Crane Wilbur (1886–1973) is, best remembered for playing Harry Marvin in the popular Pathé serial The Perils of Pauline (Louis J. Gasnier, Donald MacKenzie, 1914).

French films flooding the USA

As early as 1900, the French company Pathé Frères, at the time among the largest and most successful film studios in the world, distributed its films in America. In 1904 Pathé opened a sales agency in New York, and soon the French films flooded the United States.

During the nickelodeon peak of 1907, Pathé opened a factory in Bound Brook, New Jersey, to make positive distribution prints from negatives sent from France. Business catapulted.

However, established and new competitors such as Edison resisted Pathé and created an anti-French, anti-foreign mood, declaring the fare was too grotesque and course. Pathé reacted with the uplifting of the films by the Film d’art phenomenon and the SCAGL company, so films with stage actors and based on famous novels and plays. In 1909, Pathé was asked to join the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC). As a result, Pathé utilised MPPC's General Film Company distribution company to distribute its films.

In 1910 Pathé opened in Bound Brook its own film studio, which focused on making Westerns, dramas, and comedies catered to American tastes. Under the name of American Kinema, however, these films were also spread worldwide.

Louis Gasnier, a jack-of-all-trades who had launched comedian Max Linder at Pathé's French studio, and had set up Pathé’s Italian production branch Film d’Arte Italiana in Rome, went to New York with Charles Pathé himself in 1910 and became the managing director of the Bound Brook studio. He also directed its first film, The Girl from Arizona (Louis J. Gasnier, Joseph A. Golden, Theodore Wharton, 1910) with Octavia Handworth.

Around 1910-1912, many films at American Kinema were produced and directed by Theodore Wharton, and by Native American James Young Deer, who acted in many of his films as well, together with his wife Red Wing. Several distribution prints of the early Westerns by American Kinema have been found in the Dutch Desmet Collection, such as The Mystery of Lonely Gulch (Theodore Wharton, 1911), Abernathy Kids' Rescue (1911), The Cheyenne's Bride (1911), and Two Brothers (1912).


Collectors card. Photo: Pathé.

Sheldon Lewis (1868-1958) started his film career at a later age, in 1914, in the serial The Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1914-1915), alongside Pearl White. In 1921 he appeared alongside Dorothy and Lillian Gish in Orphans of the Storm (D.W. Griffith, 1921).


French postcard by Le Matin. Photo: Pathé Frères. Publicity for The Iron Claw (Edward José, 1916).

The Career of Creighton Hale (1882–1965) spanned from the early 1900s to the end of the 1950s. Hale was spotted on Broadway by a Pathé representative. From 1914, he worked at Pathé, having his breakthrough with the serial The Exploits of Elaine (Louis J. Gasnier, George B. Seitz, Leopold Wharton, Theodore Wharton, 1914-1915), followed by the subsequent Pathé serials The New Exploits of Elaine, The Romance of Elaine, and The Iron Claw.


British postcard. Photo: Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd.

Mollie King (1898-1981) had a relatively short career in American silent cinema. After a successful in the vaudeville circuit, she was offered a film contract by distributor World Film in 1916, After a small part in A Circus Romance (1916), she already had a major part in A Woman's Power (1916). After several dramatic films, she appeared in two serials in 1917, produced by Astra Film and distributed by Pathé Exchange: the 15-episodes The Mystery of the Double Cross (Louis Gasnier, William Parke, 1917), one of the few silent serials to survive with all episodes intact, and the 15-episodes The Seven Pearls (Louis J. Gasnier, Donald MacKenzie, 1917), also with Creighton Hale. After Human Clay (1918) King returned to the stage.


British postcard. Photo: Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd.

Grace Darmond (1893-1963) was a Canadian-American actress of the silent screen, who was active at Selig in the early 1910s, and in the later 1910s at Vitagraph. In 1916-1917 she had the lead in the action film serial The Shielding Shadow (Louis Gasnier, Donald MacKenzie, 1916), produced by Astra Films, and distributed by Pathé Exchange.


British postcard. Photo: Pathé.

Irene Castle (1893-1969) and her husband Vernon were a well-known American dance couple in the early 20th century. Irene started film acting in 1917, first in the propaganda film serial Patria (Leonard & Theodore Wharton, Jacques Jaccard, 1917), where she acted opposite Milton Sills. After that, she acted in various films by Astra Films, distributed by Pathé Exchange, such as Convict 993 (William Parke, 1918), The Hillcrest Mystery (George Fitzmaurice, 1919), and The First Law (Lawrence McGill, 1919).

American Kinema

In 1912 Pathé opened a second studio at Jersey City, much closer to New York, and also closer to the Fort Lee production centre of early cinema. It was one of the most modern studios of its time, with its arc lights and mercury-vapour tubes, instead of natural light coming in through glass roofs and sides.

Regular actors with Pathé in those years were Paul Panzer, Octavia Handworth, and Crane Wilbur, while future stars Pearl White, Henry B. Walthall, and Jack Pickford had their first film parts here.

By 1910, Pathé also leased an outdoor studio in Edendale, Los Angeles, for the production of Westerns. Louis Gasnier would become known for his production of popular serials, first of all, the 20 episodes serial The Perils of Pauline (1914) with Pearl White, Crane Wilbur, and Paul Panzer.

The printing plant at Bound Brook would continue many years after production there had ceased when American Kinema through Eclectic Film had changed into the distribution company Pathé Exchange. In 1914 Pathé stopped production in the US and henceforth focused on distribution by the company Pathé Exchange, founded in 1915.

Pathé Exchange would be the distributor for many serial films of the late 1910s, made by independent companies such as Astra Films, with serial 'queens' such as Pearl White, Ruth Roland, Grace Darmond, and Mollie King. Pathé Exchange was spun off from its French parent company in 1921, with a controlling stake held by Merrill Lynch. Charles Pathé stayed on as a director of the American firm.

Among Pathé's independent productions is the very influential documentary feature Nanook of the North (1922) by Robert J. Flaherty, with elements of docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. Flaherty captured the struggles of the Inuk man named Nanook and his family in the Canadian Arctic.

In 1923 the company was renamed American Pathé, which in 1927 was bought by Joseph Kennedy and would merge in 1928 with Keith-Albee-Orpheum theatres, along with Cecil B. DeMille's independent Producers Distributing Corporation, into what would become RKO Radio Pictures in 1930.


British postcard in the Cinema Chat series. Photo: Evans / Pathé.

American actress Fannie Ward (1872–1952) is best known for the sexually- and racially-charged film The Cheat (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915). In the late 1910s, she did a series of films for Astra Films, released by Pathé Exchange.


British postcard. Photo: Evans / Pathé.

American actress Ruth Roland (1892–1937) was was the leading actress of Kalem between 1911 and 1914. From 1914 to 1917, she acted at Balboa Films, in popular serials such as The Red Circle, distributed by Pathé Exchange, and with Frank Mayo as her leading man. A clever businesswoman, she established her own production company, Ruth Roland Serials, and signed a distribution deal with Pathé to make seven new multi-episode serials that proved very successful, e.g. the crime serial The Adventures of Ruth (George Marshall, 1919) and the Western serial Ruth of the Rockies (George Marshall, 1920). In 1979 a concrete box with Roland's private nitrate film collection was found in her backyard and donated to the UCLA Film Archive, including the complete 12-part serial Who Pays? (1915) with Roland herself in the lead opposite Henry King (who co-directed as well).


British postcard. Photo: Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd.

Frank Mayo (1889–1963) was an American actor, who appeared in 310 films between 1911 and 1949.


British postcard. Photo: Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd.

Milton Sills (1882-1930) was an American university professor, who gave up his position to act on stage. Sills made his film debut in The Pit (Maurice Tourneur, 1914) and worked for various companies in the 1910s. He acted with Irene Castle in the 15 episodes Pathé serial Patria (1917), directed by Leopold & Theodor Wharton (episodes 1-10) and Jacques Jaccard (11-15). It was an anti-Japanese propaganda, and funded by W.R. Hearst in the lead-up to the US's entry into World War I.


British postcard. Photo: Pathé Frères Cinema Ltd.

From 1911, Bryant Washburn (1889–1963) was one of the leading actors of the Essanay company. He quickly became a comedy star after appearing in films such as Skinner's Baby and Skinner's Dress Suit in 1917. In 1917-1918 Washburn played in a handful of films released by Pathé Exchange, such as Twenty-One (1918) and Ghost of the Rancho (1918), and produced by small companies such as the Anderson-Brunton Company.


British postcard by Lilywhite Ltd., no. 20. Photo: Pathé.

Frank Keenan (1858–1929) was among the first stage actors to star in American cinema. From 1909 to 1926, he appeared in some 70 films, and also directed 4 films himself. Keenan peaked around 1918-1919 as the star in several films released by Pathé Exchange, e.g. the crime drama The Bells (Ernest C. Warde, 1918) with Lois Wilson, and the Western The Midnight Stage (Ernest C. Warde, 1919).

Sources: Richard Abel (Encyclopedia of Early Cinema); Richard Lewis Ward (When the Cock Crows: A History of the Pathé Exchange), Wikipedia and IMDb.

George Walsh

June 1, 2019, 10:00 pm

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George Walsh (1889-1981) was an American film actor, who despite a successful career in silent cinema is best remembered for the loss of the part of a lifetime: the title role in Ben-Hur (1925).


British postcard in the Cinema Stars series by Lilywhite Ltd., no. CM 411 C. Photo: Fox.


British postcard in the Cinema Stars series by Lilywhite Ltd., no. G.M. 26. Photo: Fox.

A fierce rival to Douglas Fairbanks as a daredevil

George Frederick Walsh was born in New York in 1889 to Catholic parents of Irish descent. He was the middle child of three siblings and his older brother was the later film director, Raoul Walsh. In 1911, he graduated from the High School of Commerce, where he excelled in sports such as baseball and swimming. Later, he also attended the Fordham and Georgetown University.

He followed his brother Raoul to Hollywood, where he made his first films in 1915, including a bit part in D.W. Griffith's controversial epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). Various bit parts followed, until a small role in The Fencing Master (Raoul Walsh, 1915) proved he was capable. Griffith gave him a bigger part as the bridegroom at the wedding of Kana in Intolerance (D.W. Griffith, 1916).

In the following years, the dark-haired, handsome Walsh established himself as a popular leading actor, both in comedies and in adventure films. In 1919 he also directed The Seventh Person with himself in the lead role, but it remained his only film direction.

At the Fox Film Studios between ca. 1916 and 1920, Walsh starred in a large series of fast-paced comedies highlighted by athletic stunt work, by which he became a fierce rival to Douglas Fairbanks as a daredevil, who combined stunts with comic relief. Walsh's good looks made him a heartthrob in the Francis X. Bushman-Wallace Reid tradition. Most of Walsh's successful films at Fox were later destroyed by a fire at Fox in 1937 and thus have disappeared today. Many of these were directed by Walsh' brother Raoul.

In 1920 Walsh had a conflict with Fox about his salary. He turned down a renewal of his Fox contract in 1921 which would have raised his salary from $1500 to $2000 a week in 1921. He felt he deserved more as his pictures always showed a profit while the films of Pearl White, who was making $4000 per week, were financial losers for the studio. He left the studio.


French postcard in the Les Vedettes du Cinéma series by Editions Filma, bo. 30. Photo: Fox-Film.


French postcard in the Les Vedettes de Cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 7. Photo: Universal Film Manufactoring Co. George Walsh in With Stanley in Africa (William James Craft, Edward A. Kull, 1922).


British postcard. Photo: Fox.

Unceremoniously replaced

After two years of ups and downs, George Walsh got a contract at Goldwyn Pictures. This single-picture deal Vanity Fair (Hugo Ballin, 1923) led to a long contract and a quick shift from supporting characters to leads. He got his confirmation as Goldwyn star, when Walsh was directed by Ernst Lubitsch as the partner of Mary Pickford in Rosita (Ernst Lubitsch, 1923). As the charming Don Diego, he defends Pickford's rebellious Rosita but soon ends up in prison himself, destined to be hanged. The perfidious King (Holbrook Blinn) arranges a mock marriage before Diego will be hanged, but in the end, the Queen (Irene Rich) saves the situation and Diego's life.

Even more spectacular was Walsh selection by scriptwriter June Mathis for the title role in the super production Ben-Hur, produced by Goldwyn. Walsh had already shot the film halfway with director Charles Brabin in Italy - despite a wide range of problems - when Spring 1924 Goldwyn merged with Metro (the future MGM). The new management unceremoniously replaced Brabin by Fred Niblo and Walsh by rising star Ramon Novarro.

Walsh was not told and discovered it while still in Europe when co-star Francis X. Bushman read it to him from a newspaper headline. George was soon on his way back to the United States. The newly formed MGM did little to combat rumours he had not been up to standard. Until the end of his life, the losing of the role of Ben-Hur was a sensitive subject of discussion for Walsh.

After that, Walsh continued acting but at the independent company Chadwick Pictures and the even more low budget company Excellent Pictures. It was not until 1932 when he started to do his first talking picture: Me and My Pal (Raoul Walsh, 1932) alongside Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett. Walsh played a sleazy mobster who eyes a naive girl, but her sister (Bennett) and her friend, a cop (Tracy), save her from his clutches. Walsh continued to play supporting parts and bit parts until 1936. After about 80 films, Walsh retired in 1936. His retirement was triggered by the fact he was approaching fifty and was no longer in good shape.

George Walsh love thoroughbred horses and managed the numerous horses of his brother, who were bred and raced on racecourses. This had also been his occupation between silents and talkies. Walsh was married to the actress Seena Owen (1894-1966) from 1916 to 1924, the marriage was divorced. In 1981, seven months after the death of his brother Raoul, George Walsh died of pneumonia in Pomona, California, at the age of 92 years. He was buried at the San Gabriel Cemetery, Los Angeles.


British postcard in the "Pictures" Portrait Gallery by Pictures Ltd., London, no. 113.


British postcard in the Cinema Stars series by Lilywhite Ltd., no. G.M. 28. Photo: Fox.


British postcard in the Famous Cinema Stars series by Beagles' Postcards, no. 139.c. Photo: Fox Film.

Sources: Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Gail Russell

June 2, 2019, 10:00 pm

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American actress Gail Russell (1924-1961) was an incredible doe-eyed beauty who presented a screen image of great innocence and vulnerability. She is best known for the supernatural horror film The Uninvited (1944). During a promising career at Paramount, she became a victim of alcoholism. It ruined her career, appearance and marriage to Guy Madison. In 1961, she died from liver damage, only 36.


Belgian postcard by N.V. Victoria, Brussels, no. 639 / 21. Photo: Paramount.


Belgian postcard by Nieuwe Merkemsche Chocolaterie S.P.R.L., Merksem. Photo: Republic Pictures. John Wayne and Gail Russell in Wake of The Red Witch (1948).

Haunting, melancholy beauty

Gail Russell was born born Elizabeth L. Russell in 1924 to George and Gladys (Barnet) Russell in Chicago, Illinois. The family moved to the Los Angeles, California, area when she was a teenager. Her father was initially a musician but later worked for Lockheed Corporation.

Russell attended high school in Santa Monica, California, where she was spotted by a Paramount talent scout and signed to a contract immediately upon graduation. Although Russell was possessed with a paralysing kind of self-consciousness and had no acting experience, Paramount had great expectations for her and employed an acting coach to work with her.

At the age of 19 she made her film debut with a small part in the comedy Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (Hugh Bennett, 1943). She also had a small part in the musical Lady in the Dark (Mitchell Leisen, 1943) with Ginger Rogers.

Russell's haunting, melancholy beauty was ideally suited for the ingenue role in the lavish supernatural horror film The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944) with Ray Milland. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The Uninvited remains one of the spookiest 'old dark house' films ever made, even after years of inundation by computer-generated special effects."

Lewis Allen then directed Russell in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (Lewis Allen, 1944), in which she co-starred with Diana Lynn. It was another success. Russell co-starred opposite Alan Ladd in Salty O'Rourke (Raoul Walsh, 1945), a horse racing drama. She made a third film with Allen, The Unseen (Lewis Allen, 1945), an unofficial follow up to The Uninvited. Gail played Elizabeth Howard, a governess of the house in question. The film turned a profit but was not the hit that Paramount executives hoped for.

Then she and Diana Lynn were in Our Hearts Were Growing Up (William D. Russell, 1946), a sequel to Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. The plot centred around two young college girls getting involved with bootleggers. Unfortunately, it was not anywhere the calibre of the first film and it failed at the box-office. She was reunited with Ladd in Calcutta (John Farrow, 1947), shot in 1945 but not released until two years later. Although the film was popular, critics felt that Russell was miscast.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 233.

A victim of alcoholism

Gail Russell left Paramount and appeared in the romantic comedy The Bachelor's Daughters (Andrew L. Stone, 1948) for United Artists. John Wayne hired her to be his co-star in a film he was producing, Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1948). It was a hit with the public and Gail shone in the role of Penelope Worth, a feisty Quaker girl who tries to tame gunfighter Wayne.

She did Moonrise (Frank Borzage, 1948) for Republic. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "Moonrise, the most expensive movie ever made by Republic up to that time, but one that was worth every penny. Arguably Borzage's finest directorial effort and the most hauntingly beautiful movie ever issued by the studio, Moonrise is filled with delights at just about every level that it is possible to enjoy in a movie."

Russell returned to Paramount for Night Has a Thousand Eyes (John Farrow, 1948) with Edward G. Robinson, then reteamed with John Wayne for Wake of the Red Witch (Edward Ludwig, 1948). She appeared again with Wayne in a Western for Pine-Thomas Productions, El Paso (Lewis R. Foster, 1949).

Russell then did Song of India (Albert S. Rogell, 1949) with Sabu for Columbia, and The Great Dan Patch (Joseph M. Newman, 1949) with Dennis O'Keefe for United Artists. She made some more Pine-Thomas films: Captain China (Lewis R. Foster, 1950) with John Payne, and the Film Noir The Lawless (Joseph Losey, 1951) with Macdonald Carey.

Russell married film star Guy Madison in 1949, but by 1950 it was well known that she had become a victim of alcoholism, and Paramount did not renew her contract. She had started drinking on the set of The Uninvited to ease her paralysing stage fright and lack of confidence.

She made Air Cadet (Joseph Pevney, 1951) for Universal, but alcohol made a shambles of her career, appearance and personal life. In January 1954, in a court in Santa Monica, California, Russell pleaded guilty to a charge of drunkenness, receiving a $150 fine. The fine was in lieu of a jail sentence, with the provision that she not use intoxicants or attend night spots for two years. In the same court session, she received a continuance on a charge of driving while drunk.


German postcard by F.J. Rüdel. Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 217. Photo: Paramount. Gail Russell in Captain China (Lewis R. Foster, 1950).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf. Photo: Republic Pictures / Gloria Filmverleih.

Attempting to get control of her life

Gail Russell disappeared from the screen for the next five years while she attempted to get control of her life. In 1954, she divorced Guy Madison. She returned to work in a co-starring role with Randolph Scott in the Western Seven Men from Now (Budd Boetticher, 1956), produced by her friend John Wayne, and had a substantial role in the Film Noir The Tattered Dress (Jack Arnold, 1957) with Jeanne Crain and Jeff Chandler.

In July 1957, she was photographed by a Los Angeles Times photographer after she drove her convertible into the front of Jan's Coffee Shop at 8424 Beverly Boulevard. After failing a sobriety test, Russell was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. She appeared in the B-film No Place to Land (Albert C. Gannaway, 1958) for Republic. By now the demons of alcohol had her in its grasp.

She was again absent from the screen until The Silent Call (John A. Bushelman, 1961), a respectable family film about a big dog by the name of Pete with definite separation anxiety. It was to be her last film.

On 26 August 1961, Russell was found dead in her small apartment in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. She was only 36. She died from liver damage attributed to "acute and chronic alcoholism" with stomach contents aspiration as an additional cause. She was also found to have been suffering from malnutrition at the time of her death. She was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood.


French postcard, no. 301. Photo: Paramount.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Jim Beaver (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Ermete Novelli

June 3, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Ermete Novelli (1851-1919) was a legendary monstre sacré of the Italian theatre. When the famous actor and playwright appeared in films of the Film d'Arte Italiana, the press condemned his theatrical performances on screen. But with later films he got even.


Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 513.
Virgilio Alterocca(1853-1910) founded the first company for illustrated and photographic cards in Italy. He already started a typographic company in 1877 working for newspapers and producing posters, but around 1896, thanks to modernising techniques in phototypography from Germany and Switzerland, he was able to make photographic cards a booming business.


Italian postcard. Sent by mail in 1902. Photo: Sciotto. Ermete Novelli as/in Burbero Benefico.

Monstre Sacré

Ermete Novelli was born in 1851 in Lucca, Tuscany. His father was a prompter and he came from a noble and ancient family from Bertinoro.

Already at an early age, in 1866, he started to act on stage and soon he became one of the 'monstres sacrés' of the Italian stage of the 1870s and 1880s.

In 1885 he founded his own company and had triumphs in Paris in 1898 and 1902. He also performed in New York in 1907 as Antony Novelli.

Inspired by the Comédie Française, he founded in 1900 his own 'teatro stabile', Casa Goldoni, at the Teatro Valle in Rome. In the 1910s he lead the company Fert, to which such actors as Lyda Borelli were attached. Together they did a.o. Sem Benelli's play Le nozze dei centauri (1915) at the Teatro Manzoni in Milan and elsewhere.

On his own or in collaboration, Novelli also wrote several comedies and monologues. Rimini has a Teatro Ermete Novelli and Italy knows since 2002 the Premio Ermete Novelli for the best stage actor.


Italian soprano Lina Cavalieri. Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 1750.


Italian postcard by Fototipia G. Modiano & C., Milano.

Film d'Arte Italiana

Just a few years after the film d'art phenomenon had spread in France, Ermete Novelli started to act in film too, from Shakespearian costume dramas as Re Lear/King Lear (Gerolamo Lo Savio, 1910) and Il Mercante di Venezia/The Merchant of Venice (Gerolamo Lo Savio, 1910) to La Morte Civile/The civil death (Gerolamo Lo Savio, 1910), based on the Italian play by Paolo Giacometti.

These short, silent films were directed by Gerolamo Lo Savio for the Film d'Arte Italiana, a subsidiary of Pathé Frères. All the films were shot in Rimini, where Novelli had his villa, and partly in Venice (The Merchant of Venice).

There were high expectations about seeing Novelli on screen, but the film press condemned the films because of Novelli's theatrical performance. He neglected the new medium and did not take film seriously at all.

A few years later, another star of the Italian stage, Eleonora Duse, better understood that cinema was a different medium.

In the films by Lo Savio, a new young actress performed opposite Novelli: Francesca Bertini. Though she had had some stage training, she was a real film actress and soon she would become one of the divas of the Italian cinema. A greater contrast to Novelli was unimaginable.


Italian postcard. Photo: Ambrosio-Film.


Italian postcard by Tensi.

Elettra Raggio

A few years later, Ermete Novelli tried his luck in the cinema again. He returned to the screen, now for the production company Ambrosio.

The films were based on French pochades which Novelli had successfully performed on stage: Michele Perrin/Michael Perrine (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1913) and La gerla di Papa Martin/Honour Thy Father (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 1914), both opposite Gigetta Morano, the regular Ambrosio comedienne.

This time, the press was much more favourable. In 1915, Novelli acted in - unsuccessful and hardly noticed - films by his son, writer-director Enrico Novelli: the comedy Fiorenza mia!/My Florence! and the drama Il più grande amore/The Greatest Love.

They were followed by the war propaganda film Per la Patria!/For the Motherland! (Ugo Falena, 1915).

Towards the end of the war Novelli played in two remarkable films, Automartirio/Selfmartyrdom (Ivo Illuminati, 1917) and La morte che assolve/The death that performs (Alberto Carlo Lolli, 1918), both starring the Milanese star Elettra Raggio, who was also the producer of these two films.

While of the latter film a copy has been found and restored - and thus we can admire both Novelli and Raggio as the father and daughter of the story - of the former only the beautiful posters exist.

In 1919, Ermete Novelli died in Naples, Italy (according to Wikipedia) or Paris, France (according to IMDb). Wikipedia adds that he was "survived by at least one child, his son, Enrico 'Yambo' Novelli." He was 67.


Italian postcard by Ed. Vettori, Bologna, no. 46. Photo: Trevisani, Bologna.


Re Lear/King Lear (Gerolamo Lo Savio, 1910). Source: Change Before Going Productions (YouTube).


Il Mercante di Venezia/The Merchant of Venice (Gerolamo Lo Savio, 1910). Source: Carla Marinho (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia, Del Teatro (Italian), and IMDb.

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Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (1918)

June 4, 2019, 10:00 pm

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German actress, writer and producer Hedda Vernon (1866-?) appeared in more than 60 films of the early silent period. She made the drama Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg/Where there is a will, there is a way (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918) for the Eiko Film studio in Berlin. Rotophot made a series of six sepia cards for the film in the Film Sterne series.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 560/1. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon in Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918).


German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 560/2. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon in Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918) with right back Ernst Hofmann.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 560/3. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon in Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918).

The girl from a shady inn

In Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg/Where there is a will, there is a way (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918), Hedda Vernon plays Gerda, a girl from a shady inn.

Gerda is surrounded by evil people, but she experiences goodness, betters her life and manages to marry well.

The film was scripted by Richard Wilde, and based on a story by Richard Skowronnek. Wilde codirected the film with Hubert Moest, Vernon's then-husband, who directed her in dozens of films in the later 1910s.

In addition to Vernon, the other main actors were Ernst Hofmann (Heinz), Olga Engl, Marie von Bülow, Kurt Walden, and Ernst Gross. Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg premiered in November 1918 at the Berlin Tauentzien Palast.

Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg was censored in Germany as not permitted to juveniles. As the postcards show the film's plot contained theft by children and adults alike, this may have been the cause.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 560/4. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon in Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918). The seated woman is Olga Engl, the man could be Kurt Walden or Ernst Gross.


German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 560/5. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon in Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne series, no. 560/6. Photo: Eiko Film. Hedda Vernon in Wo ein Wille, ist ein Weg (Hubert Moest, Richard Wilde, 1918). The woman on the right is Olga Engl.

Sources: The German Early Cinema Database, Filmportal.de and IMDb.

Gilbert Gil

June 5, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Gilbert Gil (1913-1988), originally Gilbert Moreau, was a French stage and screen actor, who mostly had supporting acts in French cinema between the mid-1930s and the early 1960s. He had a stage career in the same years. In the 1930s Gil represented the young nervous obstinate, the rebel, but he also had a natural charm.


French postcard by S.E.R.P., Paris, no. 107. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 45. Presented by Biscuits Chocolat Victoria, Bruxelles. Photo: Studio Carlet Ainé.

The handsome young delinquent

Gilbert Jean Alphonse Moreau was born in Goussainville in l913. Soon after Gilbert's birth, his father Jean Moreau left his wife, after which she married his younger brother Jacques. Gilbert grew up within a bourgeois family that owned a large estate, thanks to his grandfather's foundry.

Gil became a handsome young lad, but with the insolence that often comes with it. He often quarrelled with his stepfather and grandfather, and finally moved to Paris. He inscribed at the Conservatoire and set his first steps on stage from 1930, e.g. incarnating a rebellious Arthur Rimbaud in the play 'Verlaine' by Rostand.

In 1935 Gil debuted in cinema as a nameless student in Anatole Litvak's period piece Mayerling (1936), starring Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux. Other small parts followed as a young thief, gangster, seducer etc., highlighting his good looks.

A bigger part Gil had as Pierrot, the young friend, acolyte, and protege of Pépé (Jean Gabin), the title character of Pépé le Moko (Jules Duvivier, 1937) on a gang leader in Algiers, hunted by the police. When Pierrot is betrayed to the police by informer Régis (Fernand Charpin) and returns to the Casbah, mortally wounded, Pépé takes revenge on Régis.

When Gil first played opposite Pierre Blanchar in the Oscar Wilde adaptation Une femme sans importance/A Woman of No Importance (Jean Choux, 1937), the two so looked alike, that it was rumoured that Blanchar was Gil's father. Raymond Bernard exploited this in his film Le Coupable/Culprit (Raymond Bernard, 1937), in which Gil is a young delinquent involved in murder. The prosecutor (Pierre Blanchar) proves to be his father. Two more films with the 'father' and 'son' would follow: Nuit de décembre/Night in December (Kurt Bernhardt, 1940) and Secrets (directed by Pierre Blanchar himself, 1942).

After several minor parts, Gil had a more substantial role in Gribouille/Heart of Paris (Marc Allégret, 1937). Here he is the son of a shopkeeper (Raimu) who has taken under his wings a Russian young woman (Michèle Morgan), who thanks to his testimony has been acquitted from murder. Father and son both rival for her affections, despite the fact there is still a mother around.

In 1938 Gil joined the French cast and crew of Le voleur des femmes/The Woman Thief (Abel Gance, 1938) travelling to the Pisorno studios in Italy, where the film was shot in both a French and an Italian version. In La Glu (Jean Choux, 1937-1938), Gil was a sailor who falls in love with Marie Bell.

In De Mayerling à Sarajevo/Sarajevo (Max Ophüls, 1940), released just a few days before the Blitzkrieg of the Second World War, Gil played Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian anarchist who killed Austrian crown prince Franz Ferdinand (John Lodge) and his wife Sophie (Edwige Feuillère) - the trigger for the outbreak of the First World War.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 160. Photo: Star.


French postcard by Ed. Chantal, Paris, no. 93. Photo: ACE.

Hortensia Bleu

During the war years, Gilbert Gil played e.g. the rebellious son of Jean-Louis Barrault's Hector Berlioz in La symphonie fantastique/The Fantastic Symphony (Christian-Jaque, 1941). In L'Assassin a peur la nuit/The assassin is afraid at night (Jean Delannoy, 1942), shot at and set in the South of France, Gil played the young worker friend of a thief on the run (Jean Chévrier), who tries to become honest and falls in love with his friend's sister (Louise Carlettti). Yet, the thief's past haunts him and a former mistress (Mireille Balin) pushes him to kill an antiquarian.

In Pierre et Jean/Pierre and Jean (André Cayatte, 1943), based on a novel by Guy de Maupassant, two brothers (Bernard Lancret and Gil) go through a crisis when they realise they are only half-brothers. Afterward, Gil joined the French actors in the resistance under the pseudonym 'Hortensia Bleu'.

Once the war was over, André Cayatte called him back to play a naive plaything of a femme fatale (Ginette Leclerc) in Le dernier sou/The Last Penny (André Cayatte, 1944). After the hardship of the war, comedy was welcomed, so Gil acted in e.g. Leçon de conduit/Lessons in Conduct (Gilles Grangier, 1945) at the end of which a bitch played by Odette Joyeux just doesn't manage to behave well.

In On demande un ménage/We ask for a household (Maurice Cam, 1945) he played the brother of Robert Dhéry, who is disguised as a woman for a practical joke (announcing more of these pranks in subsequent years).

In 1947, Gilbert Gil went behind the camera to direct the crime film Brigade criminelle/Criminal Brigade (Gilbert Gil, 1947). While appearing in front of the camera too, he also introduced Ellen Bersen, his future wife, who would have a short career as an actress. The film, though, was not a huge success and would remain Gil's unique film direction.

Yet, the crime genre fitted him, so he also acted in La dame d'onze heures/The eleven o'clock lady (Jean Devaivre, 1947) with Paul Meurisse, and in Le mannequin assassiné/The Murdered Model (Pierre de Hérain, 1947) with Blanchette Brunoy.


French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 34. Photo: Star.


French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 89. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

A forgotten driving instructor

During the 1950s, Gilbert Gil was as attracted to the city as he was to the scene. He attended many women, which did not prevent him from also being very close to the tandem Jean Cocteau / Jean Marais.

A young father himself, he appeared in Né de père inconnu/Born of Unknown Father (Maurice Cloche, 1950), a melodrama that had to remind him of something. At the same time, he hosted 'Le bar de l'escale', a series of nightly radio programs broadcast on Radio-Tunisie (1953).

Sacha Guitry, who liked him a lot, asked him to play Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Si Versailles m'était conté/Royal Affairs in Versailles (1953), Louis Bonaparte in Napoléon (1954) and Molière in Si Paris nous était conté/If Paris Were Told to Us (1955).

However, the new artistic wave, The Nouvelle Vague, and its competition of a new generation of actors made life harder for Gil. In the early 1960s, he played his last film parts, while he had a last performance in the TV series of Thierry la Fronde (1965).

Gilbert Gil married for the first time with Ellen Bernsen, with whom he had a son who would make a career as a diplomat. After his divorce of Bernsen, Gil remarried with Jeanne Poirson, and finally married for the third time, with Livine Le Tinnier, a notary clerk.

By the mid-1960s, Gilbert Gil, the rebel, was gradually forgotten, and he finally became a driving instructor. A big smoker, Gilbert Gil died of chronic emphysema in 1988, in the retirement home of Maison-Lafitte. His ashes are deposited in the cemetery of La Garenne Colombe.


French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 127. Photo: Teddy Piaz.


French postcard by Edit. Chantal, Rueil (S.-O.), no. 56. Photo: Roger Richebé.


French postcard, no. 56. Photo: Studio Carlet Ainé.

Sources: Donatienne (Encinematheque - French), Wikipedia (French) and IMDb

Gary Cooper

June 6, 2019, 10:00 pm

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American screen legend Gary Cooper (1901-1961) is well remembered for his stoic, understated acting style in more than one hundred Westerns, comedies and dramas. He received five Oscar nominations and won twice for his roles as Alvin York in Sergeant York (1941) and as Will Kane in High Noon (1952).


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 220. Photo: M.G.M.


British postcard in the 'Film Kurier' Series, London, no. 9. Photo: Paramount Pictures.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 868b. Photo: Samuel Goldwyn.


British Real Photograph postcard, no. B. 8. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


British postcard, London, no. FS 190. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for Beau Geste (William A. Wellman, 1939).

A dynamic new personality

Frank James Cooper was born in Helena, Montana in 1901. His parents were English immigrants, Alice Cooper-Brazier and Charles Henry Cooper, a prominent lawyer, rancher, and eventually a state supreme court judge.

Frank left school in 1918 and returned to the family ranch to help raise their five hundred head of cattle and work full-time as a cowboy. In 1919, his father arranged for his son to complete his high school education at Gallatin County High School in Bozeman, Montana. His English teacher, Ida W. Davis, played an important role in encouraging him to focus on academics, join the school's debating team, and become involved in dramatics. He was in a car accident as a teenager that caused him to walk with a limp the rest of his life.

In the fall of 1924, Cooper's parents moved to Los Angeles to administer the estates of two relatives. Cooper joined them and there he met some cowboys from Montana who were working as film extras and stuntmen in low-budget Western films. Cooper decided to try his hand working as a film extra for five dollars a day, and as a stuntman for twice that amount.

In early 1925, Cooper began his film career working as an extra and stuntman on Poverty Row in such silent Westerns as Riders of the Purple Sage (Lynn Reynolds, 1925) with Tom Mix, and The Trail Rider (W.S. Van Dyke, 1925) with Buck Jones. Cooper paid for a screen test and hired casting director Nan Collins to work as his agent. Collins changed his first name to ‘Gary’ after her hometown of Gary, Indiana.

Cooper also worked in non-Western films. He appeared as a masked Cossack in The Eagle (Clarence Brown, 1925) with Rudolph Valentino, as a Roman guard in Ben-Hur (Fred Niblo, 1925) with Ramon Novarro, and as a flood survivor in The Johnstown Flood (Irving Cummings, 1926) with George O'Brien.

Gradually he began to land credited roles that offered him more screen time, such as Tricks (Bruce M. Mitchell, 1925), in which he played the film's antagonist. As a featured player, he began to attract the attention of major film studios and in June 1926, Cooper signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn Productions.

His first important film role was in The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926) with Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky. The film was a major success, and critics called Cooper a "dynamic new personality" and future star.

Cooper signed a five-year contract with Jesse L. Lasky at Paramount Pictures for $175 per week. In 1927, with help from established silent film star Clara Bow, Cooper landed high-profile roles opposite her in Children of Divorce (Frank Lloyd, 1927) and Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927), the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

With each new film, Cooper's acting skills improved and his popularity continued to grow, especially among female film-goers. He received a thousand fan letters per week. The studio placed him opposite popular leading ladies in films such as Beau Sabreur (John Waters, 1928) with Evelyn Brent, Half a Bride (Gregory La Cava, 1928) with Esther Ralston, and Lilac Time (George Fitzmaurice, 1928) with Colleen Moore. The latter introduced synchronised music and sound effects, and became one of the biggest box office hits of the year.


German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. 5138/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for The Last Outlaw (Arthur Rosson, 1927). Cooper was in this silent Western credited as 'Garry Cooper'.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 34. Photo: First National. Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper in Lilac Time (George Fitzmaurice, 1928).


French postcard by Europe, no. 821. Photo: Paramount.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4365/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Defina / First National. Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper in Lilac Time (George Fitzmaurice, 1928).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3999/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount.


British Valentine's postcard, no. 5904 I. Photo: Paramount.

The tall, handsome and shy cowboy

In 1929, Gary Cooper became a major film star with his first sound picture, The Virginian (Victor Fleming, 1929). The Virginian was one of the first sound films to define the Western code of honour and helped establish many of the conventions of the Western genre. The romantic image of the tall, handsome, and shy cowboy hero that embodied male freedom, courage, and honour was created in large part by Cooper's performance in the film.

Cooper transitioned naturally to the sound medium, with his deep, clear and pleasantly drawling voice. One of the high points of Cooper's early career was his portrayal of a sullen legionnaire in Josef von Sternberg's Morocco (1930) with Marlene Dietrich in her American debut. Cooper produced one of his finest performances to that point in his career.

In the Dashiell Hammett crime drama City Streets (Rouben Mamoulian, 1931) he played a misplaced cowboy in a big city who gets involved with gangsters to save the woman (Sylvia Sidney) he loves.

After making ten films in two years Cooper was exhausted and had lost thirty pounds. In May 1931, he sailed to Algiers and then to Italy, where he lived for the next year. During his time abroad, Cooper stayed with the Countess Dorothy di Frasso who taught him about good food and vintage wines, how to read Italian and French menus in the finest restaurants, and how to socialise among Europe's nobility and upper classes.

In 1932, a healthy Cooper returned to Hollywood and negotiated a new contract with Paramount for two films per year, a salary of $4,000 per week, and director and script approval. He appeared opposite Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932), the first film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel. Critics praised his highly intense and at times emotional performance, and the film went on to become one of the year's most commercially successful films.

The following year, Cooper appeared in the Ernst Lubitsch comedy Design for Living (1933) with Miriam Hopkins and Fredric March, and based loosely on the successful Noël Coward play. Wikipedia: “The film received mixed reviews and did not do well at the box office, but Cooper's performance was singled out for its versatility and revealed his genuine ability to do light comedy”.

Then, he appeared in his first of seven films by director Henry Hathaway, Now and Forever (1934), with Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple. The film was a box-office success. His next two Henry Hathaway films were the melodrama Peter Ibbetson (1935) with Ann Harding, about a man caught up in a dream world created by his love for a childhood sweetheart, and the romantic adventure The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), about a daring British officer and his men who defend their stronghold at Bengal against rebellious local tribes. The latter was nominated for six Academy Awards and became one of Cooper's most popular and successful adventure films.


Belgian postcard. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper in Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930).


British Real Photogravure Portrait. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (Henry Hathaway, 1935).


Latvian postcard. Anna Sten and Gary Cooper in The Wedding Night (King Vidor, 1935).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9640/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper in Desire (Frank Borzage, 1936).


British postcard in the Film Partners series, no. P 214. Photo: Paramount. Madeleine Carroll and Gary Cooper in The General Died at Dawn (Lewis Milestone, 1936).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1605/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Paramount.


British postcard, London, no. FS 191. Photo: Paramount. Robert Preston, Gary Cooper and Ray Milland in Beau Geste (William A. Wellman, 1939).

An ‘open’ marriage

Gary Cooper returned to Poverty Row for the first time since his early silent film days to make Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936) with Jean Arthur for Columbia Pictures. Cooper plays the character of Longfellow Deeds, an innocent, sweet-natured writer of greeting cards who inherits a fortune, leaves behind his idyllic life in Vermont, and travels to New York where he faces a world of corruption and deceit. For his performance in Mr. Deeds, Cooper received his first Oscar nomination.

In the adventure film The General Died at Dawn (Lewis Milestone, 1936) with Madeleine Carroll, he plays an American soldier of fortune in China who helps the peasants defend themselves against the oppression of a cruel warlord. Written by playwright Clifford Odets, the film was a critical and commercial success.

In Cecil B. DeMille's sprawling frontier epic The Plainsman (1936) with Jean Arthur— his first of four films with the director — Cooper portrays Wild Bill Hickok in a highly-fictionalised version of the opening of the American western frontier. That year, Cooper appeared for the first time on the Motion Picture Herald exhibitor's poll of top ten film personalities, where he would remain for the next twenty-two years.

In Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) with Claudette Colbert, Cooper plays a wealthy American businessman in France who falls in love with an impoverished aristocrat's daughter and persuades her to become his eighth wife.

In the adventure film Beau Geste (William A. Wellman, 1939) with Ray Milland, he joined the French Foreign Legion to find adventure in the Sahara fighting local tribes. Wikipedia: “Beau Geste provided Cooper with magnificent sets, exotic settings, high-spirited action, and a role tailored to his personality and screen persona.”

Cooper cemented his cowboy credentials in The Westerner (William Wyler, 1940). He won his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 1942 for his performance as Alvin York, the most decorated U.S. soldier from the Great War, in Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941).

Cooper worked with Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood, 1943) which earned him his third Oscar nomination. The film was based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway, with whom Cooper developed a strong friendship.

On 23 October 1947, he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, not under subpoena but responding to an invitation to give testimony on the alleged infiltration of Hollywood by communists. Although he never said he regretted having been a friendly witness, as an independent producer, he hired blacklisted actors and technicians. He did say he had never wanted to see anyone lose the right to work, regardless of what he had done.

Cooper won his second Oscar for his performance as Marshal Will Kane in High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952), one of his finest roles and a kind of come-back after a series of flops. He continued to play the lead in films almost to the end of his life.

His later box office hits included the influential Western Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954) in which he guns down villain Burt Lancaster in a showdown, William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion (1956), in which he portrays a Quaker farmer during the American Civil War, Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon (1957) with Audrey Hepburn, and the hard-edged action Western Man of the West (Anthony Mann, 1958), with Lee J. Cobb.

Cooper's final film was the British-American co-production The Naked Edge (Michael Anderson, 1961). In April 1960, Cooper underwent surgery for prostate cancer after it had metastasized to his colon. But by the end of the year the cancer had spread to his lungs and bones. On 13 May 1961, six days after his sixtieth birthday, Gary Cooper died.

The young and handsome Cooper had affairs with Clara Bow, Lupe Velez, Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead. In 1933, he married socialite Veronica Balfe, who, billed as Sandra Shaw, enjoyed a short-lived acting career. They had an ‘open’ marriage and Cooper also had relationships with the actresses Grace Kelly, Anita Ekberg, and Patricia Neal. Sir Cecil Beaton also claimed to have had an affair with him.


Belgian postcard by N.V. Victoria, Brussels, no. 639. Photo: Warner Bros.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 307. Photo: Paramount. Gary Cooper in Unconquered (Cecil B. DeMille, 1947).


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 19E. Photo: Warner Bros, 1953. Gary Cooper in Dallas (Henry Hathaway, 1950).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 40. Photo: United Artists. Sara Montiel and Gary Cooper in Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954).


German postcard by ISV, no. A 17. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Gary Cooper in Garden of Evil (Henry Hathaway, 1954).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf.no. 2892. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Friendly Persuasion (William Wyler, 1956).


French postcard by PSG, offered by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 49.


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului ACIN. Photo: Gary Cooper and Suzy Parker in Ten North Frederick (Philip Dunne, 1958).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Let's puzzle

June 7, 2019, 10:00 pm

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Do you know the phenomenon 'mystery cards'? We have several mystery cards in our collection. Marlene Pilaete defines them as "cards uncorrectly captioned or cards without any name on them or cards on which I have doubts." Sometimes, it’s easy to recognise the actor or actress but, unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Happily we have our own Sherlock, Marlene, who solved some mysteries for us. But now she comes with a mystery of her own. Do you help solving it?

Lucy or Linda?

A few days ago, Marlene wrote us: "I have, since several years, two postcards showing the same Italian silent movie actress wearing the same dress on the two photos. I’ve made the scans for you. One is captioned Lucy San Germano and the other is captioned Linda Moglia. Those two sisters look alike a lot and I haven’t been able to decide so far who is on the postcards: Lucy or Linda? What do Ivo and you think about it?"


Italian postcard by Unione Cinematografica Italiana, Roma, no. 164. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


Italian postcard, no. 580. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Linda

What a great postcards! And we also love the dress that's definitevly on both postcards.

About the second postcard: we think it must be Linda Moglia. We have a non-tinted postcard of the same picture and it's definitively Linda Moglia.

Moglia, born in 1896, peaked in the Italian silent cinema of the late 1910s and early 1920s. Her biggest role was that of Roxane in Cirano di Bergerac/Cyrano de Bergerac (Augusto Genina, 1923).

This is our postcard:


Italian postcard by Fotocelere, Torino, no. 80.


Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 558.

Lucy

But is she also the actress on the other postcard? Who was Lucy di San Germano?

Little is known about her private life. She was born in Turin in 1898.

From 1918 on, Sangermano worked for the Ambrosio studio in Turin. Later she worked for studios like Audax and Cines, and Sangermano’s last film was at the Turinese company Fert: L’inafferabile (Mario Almirante 1922), with Alberto Collo.

This is how she looked like:


Italian postcard, no. 378. Photo: Fontana.


Italian postcard by Ed. G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 13, 1058. Photo: UCI (Unione Cinematografica Italiana).

So, Lucy San Germano looks familiar to Linda Moglia, and yes, like Marlene suggests, they were real sisters: Lucy was Linda's younger sister. Di San Germano was Lucy's stage name, her real name was Lucy Moglia.

The two sisters acted together in one film, Noblesse oblige (1918), based on a boulevard comedy by Maurice Hennequin and Pierre Veber.

The film was apparently directed by the famous poster designer and illustrator Marcello Dudovich, whose only film direction this was.

Noblesse oblige (1918) was an Ambrosio production, so our guess was that Lucy borrowed her sister's dress from this production.

But, what do you think?

Lilian of Renee?

Italian postcard by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze. Photo: Metro Goldwyn (MGM), Roma, no. 287. Publicity still for La Bohème (King Vidor, 1926).

Although the postcard credits Lillian Gish, it's actually co-star Renée Adorée who is portrayed.

Thanks to Marlene Pilaete, for mentioning this to us some time ago, and for sending us the puzzle of the dress.

Claudia Cardinale is here

June 8, 2019, 10:00 pm

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La Cardinale is in town! CC visits Amsterdam as a special guest of the Italian film week 'Fare Cinema'. Tonight, she will be interviewed before the screening of Luchino Visconti's Il gattopardo (1963) in EYE Filmmuseum. Yesterday, Ivo Blom met her at a cocktail party at the Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam and presented her his book 'Reframing Luchino Visconti'. For this post at EFSP, I use a series of Czech collectors cards, which I recently acquired. The cards were published in 1965 after Cardinale's visit to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1964.


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/6. Photo: Claudia Cardinale, Paolo Stoppa and Alain Delon in Il gattopardo/The Leopard (Luchino Visconti, 1963).


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/10. Photo: Claudia Cardinale arrives at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1964.


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/7. Photo: Claudia Cardinale in La ragazza di Bube/Bebo's Girl (Luigi Comencini, 1964), the film which was presented at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/8. Claudia Cardinale and director Luigi Comencini, director of La ragazza di Bube/Bebo's Girl (1964), at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/3. Photo: Claudia Cardinale and Renato Salvatori in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Fiasco in Milan (Nanni Loy, 1959).


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/4. Photo: Claudia Cardinale and Renato Salvatori in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Fiasco in Milan (Nanni Loy, 1959).


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/5. Photo: Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Max Cartier and Renato Salvatori in Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960).


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/2. Photo: Claudia Cardinale at the Taormina Film Fest in Sicily, in 1962. The American actress Susan Strasberg is sitting next to her.


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/1, 1965. The retail price was 0,50 Kcs.


Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 101/9, 1965. The retail price was 0,50 Kcs.


Claudia Cardinalewith Caterina D'Amico, producer and former president of the Scuola Nazionale del Cinema (Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia) in Rome, and Ivo Blom at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Amsterdam, 8 June 2019.