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Dina Gralla

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Polish-born, German actress Dina Gralla (1905-1994) started as a naive, sexy dancer in German revues. The amiable brunette then was the leading lady in more than 35 silent and early sound films of the Weimar cinema. Tuberculosis ended her career in 1934.

Dina Gralla
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5069. Photo: Manassé, Wien.

Dina Gralla
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5070. Photo: Manassé, Wien.

Dina Gralla
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1208/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder / Eichberg-Film, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Dina Gralla
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6345/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Heros.

Naive and Sexy


Dina Gralla was born as Dina Sventen in Warsaw, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) in 1905.

She had a dance training in 1919 and performed as a ballet dancer at the revue of the Wintergarten theatre in Berlin. After some private acting lessons from Walter Steinbeck, she appeared in the film drama Leidenschaft/Passion (Richard Eichberg, 1925).

From then on she was seen regularly in German silent films in roles as a naive, sexy girl, often appearing with Lilian Harvey, like in Die Kleine vom Bummel/The Girl on the Road (Richard Eichberg, 1925) and Prinzessin Trulala/Princess Trulala (Erich Schönfelder, Richard Eichberg, 1926).

Repeatedly she played dancers, most famously in the leading part of the hit revue film Das Girl von der Revue/The Girl from the Revue (Richard Eichberg, 1928) with Werner Fuetterer. She also worked as a stage actress, for example at the Theater in der Behrenstraße.

Other films included Die Tolle Komtess/The Crazy Countess (Richard Löwenbein, 1928) with Max Ehrlich and Werner Fuetterer, Ein Kleiner Vorschuß auf die Seligkeit/A Small Down Payment on Bliss (Jaap Speyer, 1929) opposite Paul Hörbiger, Wer wird denn weinen, wenn man auseinandergeht?/No Use Crying If Your Sweetheart Goes Away (Richard Eichberg, 1929) with Paul Morgan.

Werner Fuetterer and Dina Gralla in Das Girl von der Revue (1928)
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5363. Photo: Hugo Engel-Film. Publicity still for Das Girl von der Revue (Richard Eichberg, 1928) with Werner Fuetterer.

Dina Gralla and Harry Halm in Prinzessin Trulala (1926)
Polish postcard by Polonia, Krakow, no. 1320. Dina Gralla and Harry Halm in Prinzessin Trulala/Princess Trulala (Erich Schönfelder, Richard Eichberg, 1926).

Dina Gralla in Du sollst nicht stehlen (1928)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3003/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Eichberg-Film, Berlin / Ufa. Dina Gralla in Du sollst nicht stehlen/Thou Shalt Not Steal (Victor Janson, 1928).

Dina Gralla
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4550/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Tuberculosis


Despite her Polish accent, Dina Gralla could continue her film career into the sound era.

She appeared in such comedies as Keine Feier ohne Meyer/No Celebration Without Meyer (Carl Boese, 1931) with Sig Arno, Der Liebesarzt/Doctor Love (Erich Schönfelder, 1931) opposite Harry Liedtke, and Der Liebesexpreß/Eight Days of Happiness (Robert Wiene, 1931) with Georg Alexander.

Her later films included Schwebende Jungfrau/The Soaring Maiden (Carl Boese, 1931) with Lissi Arna and Szöke Szakall, and Ein Auto und kein Geld/A Car and No Money (Jacob Fleck, Luise Fleck, 1932) with Paul Kemp.

Tragically, in 1933 tuberculosis developed in her lungs, and she had to retire. Her final role was in Grüß' mir die Lore noch einmal/Say Hello to Lore for me one more time (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1934).

In the following decade, she worked as a stenotypist, and after 1945 as a cleaning lady and a waitress. Finally, she worked at a Berlin library. Gralla returned one last time for the cameras in the revue film An jedem Finger zehn/Ten on Every Finger (Erik Ode, 1954).

Dina Gralla died in 1994, in Berlin-Charlottenburg. She was 89. In 1926, she had married newspaper correspondent Lincoln Eyre.

Dina Gralla in Das Girl von der Revue (1928)
German collectors card by Ross Verlag in the series Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film, picture no. 184, group 43. Photo: Ufa. Dina Gralla in Das Girl von der Revue/The Girl from the Revue (Richard Eichberg, 1928).

Dina Gralla
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4028/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Kiesel, Berlin.

Dina Gralla
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4163/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ufa.

Dina Gralla
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 6071. Photo: Max Wirstchafter & Co.

Sources: Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Photo by Bernard of Hollywood

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Bruno Bernard (1912–1987) fled from Nazi Germany to the USA in the 1930s. As Bernard of Hollywood, he became one of the most popular glamour photographers of Tinseltown. In 1961 he returned to Germany, where he photographed many European starlets and also worked as a set photographer.

Mylène Demongeot
Mylène Demongeot. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/66. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/67. Sent by mail in France in 1966. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Barbara Valentin
Barbara Valentin. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/192. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Vivi Bach
Vivi Bach. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/277. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Sophie Hardy
Sophie Hardy. German postcard by Kruger, no. 902/291. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Margaret Rose Keil
Margaret Rose Keil. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/288. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

The Vargas of Photography


Bruno Bernard was born Bruno Bernard Sommerfeld (or Sommer) in Berlin, Germany in 1912. His Jewish parents were poor. He and his four siblings were on welfare by the time he was 8 years old and were placed in orphanages.  

At age 11, his parents gave him his first camera, a Rolleiflex, in 1923. It led to a lifelong interest in photography. As a young man, he worked as a photographer and reporter and earned a Ph.D. in criminal psychology at the Kiel University. He was in the two percent of Jews to gain a doctorate in 1934.

His activism in a Jewish youth organization landed him on the Gestapo’s blacklist and caused him to emigrate to the United States in 1937. He claimed to the German authorities that he was leaving the country to continue his graduate studies.

He was 26 and attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he planned to continue his education but soon became interested in the arts. He settled in Los Angeles and set up a darkroom in the basement of his apartment.

In 1940, he became a directorial apprentice at the Reinhardt School of the Theatre, opened by Max Reinhardt on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Unable to get a job as a director, however, Bruno returned to his interest in photography. He started out taking photos of the wives and children of the directors and producers he had come to know through his apprenticeship.

As he began making money, he opened a proper studio at Sunset Boulevard in 1940. Agent Paul Kohner, who helped many Europeans flee after the rise of Adolph Hitler and re-establish themselves in Hollywood, took notice of Bernard’s work. Kohner sent him clients, and thus brought him to the attention of the film industry. 'Bernard of Hollywood' was to reign at this studio for 25 years. It became a landmark of Hollywood.

Bruno developed a unique portrait style that he called the "posed candid"; a style that evolved into what is now known as 'pin-up' photography. Bernard preferred a moderate use of artificial light. He preferred natural light like the sun at the beach and sometimes added a flash to his light concept.

Soon he was called 'The King of Glamour Photography' and 'The Vargas of Pinup Photography', after his mentor, pin-up painter Alberto Vargas. Over the next two years, Bernard opened studios at Laguna Beach, at Las Vegas’s Riviera Hotel, and at the Palm Springs Racquet Club, then the favourite retreat for Hollywood’s top stars.

Monique Van Vooren
Monique Van Vooren. French postcard by De Marchi Frères, Marseille. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe. American postcard by The American Postcard Company, no. 282, 1981. Photo: Bruno Bernard (Bernard of Hollywood).

Rita Cadillac
Rita Cadillac. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/297. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Heidi Brühl
Heidi Brühl. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/321. Postcard: Bernard of Hollywood.

Helga Sommerfeld
Helga Sommerfeld. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/324. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Marisa Mell
Marisa Mell. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/349. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Strippers, Showgirls, Starlets


Bernard of Hollywood photographed most of the big stars of Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s: Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, John Wayne, and of course Marilyn Monroe.

Bruno Bernard is credited with first photographing Marilyn Monroe at his studio in 1946. She was still known then as Norma Jean Dougherty. In 1947, Bernard introduced Monroe to agent Johnny Hyde, vice president of the William Morris Agency.

Hyde revamped Norma Jean completely from the loveable, carefree All-American Girl to the breathtakingly beautiful Hollywood blonde. A cosmetic surgeon in the Springs restyled her nose and straightened the facial tissues under her skin. Hude got her seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox. There, Bernard took the well-known photographs of Monroe in the red dress she wore for Niagara (Henry Hathaway, 1953).

One of Bernard's most famous photos is 'Marilyn in White', shot in New York in September 1954. Monroe is holding her white pleated skirt down from a blast of steam from a New York sidewalk grating in The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder, 1955). This photograph was selected as the 'Symbol of the Century' by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Bernard's artistic muse, however, was the late, legendary striptease artist Lili St. Cyr, a spectacularly stunning beauty with wit, elegance, and a sense of humor. Bernard of Hollywood's pin-up work ranges from strippers, Vegas showgirls; unknown, poignantly unnamed models; to all the starlets of the 1950s and 1960s. Bernard's daughter Susan Bernard has made the case that the pinup style popularised by Bernard and Alberto Vargas was "celebrating and empowering women rather than exploiting them".

Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times: "No less than Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower praised Bernard’s pinups, and when--incredibly--Bernard had to fight an obscenity charge all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1950s, he submitted in his defense a letter from the Secretary of Defense thanking him for the morale-building effect of his pinups."

Pierre Brice in Old Shatterhand (1964)
German postcard by Kruger. Photo: Bruno Bernard/CCC Produktion. Pierre Brice as Winnetou Old Shatterhand (Hugo Fregonese, 1964).

Lex Barker in Old Shatterhand (1964)
German postcard by Kruger. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood (Bruno Bernard) / CCC-Produktion. Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand in Old Shatterhand (Hugo Fregonese, 1964).

Pierre Brice in Old Shattterhand (1964)
German postcard by Krüger. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC Produktion. Pierre Brice in Old Shattterhand (1964). Sent by mail in Luxemburg in 1966.

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

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

Renate Hütte, Britt Lindberg
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/358. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood / CCC-Zugsmith Co-produktion. Renate Hütte and Britt Lindberg in Fanny Hill (1964).

Legends


In 1961 Bruno Bernard sold his studios and started a new career as a foreign correspondent and photojournalist in Europe. For the German magazine Der Spiegel, he photographed the Eichmann Trial in Israel.

The German postcard publisher Krüger commissioned him to photograph European starlets during the early 1960s. Among them were German film stars as Heidi Brühl, Marisa Mell, and voluptuous Barbara Valentin, a.k.a. the German Jayne Mansfield.

Bernard of Hollywood also photographed the original, when Jayne Mansfield was working in Europe after her Hollywood career had dried up.

Bruno Bernard also worked as a still photographer for films including the erotic film Fanny Hill (Russ Meyer, 1964) and the Eurowestern Old Shatterhand (Hugo Fregonese, 1964).

Bernard returned to the USA, and in the 1980s he was living in Palm Springs and writing his memoirs. In 1984, Bernard became the first still photographer to be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles with a 50-year retrospective of his work. The exhibition showed 130 of his portraits and other pictures.

The celebration was to mark Bernard’s 50th year as a photographer. His 'Marilyn in White' was also chosen by the International Center of Photography as one of the '20 Unforgettable Photographs'.

In 1987, Bruno Bernard died of cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 75. He had just compiled the book 'Requiem for Marilyn'. His daughter Sue Bernard (1948–2019) was the founder and president of Bernard of Hollywood Publishing and wrote several books, among them 'Marilyn: Intimate Exposures' and 'Bernard of Hollywood’s Ultimate Pin-Up Book'. She preserved exhibited and published her father's legacy, introducing his photos to a new generation.

Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times: "There is in Bernard’s pinups an exuberant sexuality that is both innocent and mischievous, seductive yet sweet. Surely, it was the rapport that Bernard had with movie stars and models alike that yielded these wonderful combinations".

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Krüger, no. 900/78. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Sources: Kevin Thomas (Los Angeles Times), Susan Bernard (Marilyn Intimate Exposures), Adrienne Miller (Esquire - offline), Bernard of Hollywood.com, Find A GraveWikipedia, and IMDb.

Renato Salvatori

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Thanks to his good looks and impressive physique, Italian actor Renato Salvatori (1933-1988) became a popular star of the European cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. He started as a romantic juvenile actor and reached his apex as Simone in Luchino Visconti’s masterpiece Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers (1960). In the 1960s, Salvatori turned into one of Italy's strongest characters actors of grim, harrowing drama.

Renato Salvatori
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1296. Photo: Titanus.

Renato Salvatori
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1301. Photo: Titanus.

Renato Salvatori in Poveri Millionari (1959)
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit. (Casa Editr. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze), no. 3712. Photo: G.B. Poletto / Titanus. Publicity still for Poveri Millionari/Poor Millionaires (Dino Risi, 1959).

Renato Salvatori
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3770. Photo: Cineriz.

Handsome and Muscular Baywatch


Renato Salvatori was born Giuseppe Salvatori in Seravezza, near Lucca, in 1933. He was the son of a marble mason.

When he was 18 and bay-watching at a small seaside resort near Forte dei Marmi, Salvatori was discovered by Italian film director Luciano Emmer. The handsome and muscular baywatch landed a part in the romantic drama Le ragazze di Piazza di Spagna/Girls of the Spanish Steps (Luciano Emmer, 1952) starring Lucia Bosé.

Salvatori had his first lead opposite May Britt in the adventure Jolanda la figlia del corsaro nero/Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Corsair (Mario Soldati, 1954).

Salvatori’s popularity grew enormously thanks to his part of Salvatore in Dino Risi’s trilogy Poveri ma belli/A Girl in Bikini (1956), Belle ma povere/Poor Girl, Pretty Girl (1957) and Poveri milionari/Poor Millionaires (1958), also with Maurizio Arena and Marisa Allasio.

He also knew public success with the two-part comedy La nonna Sabella (Dino Risi, 1957) and La nipote Sabella (Giorgio Bianchi, 1958), next to Peppino de Filippo and Sylva Koscina.

Success was even bigger with the classic crime comedy I soliti ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958) about a gang of clumsy burglars (including Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Salvatori and others), while Claudia Cardinale played Salvatori’s girlfriend. Its success propelled the sequel Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Hold up à la milanaise (Nanni Loy, 1960), again with Gassman and Cardinale.

Renato Salvatori, Marisa Allasio, Maurizio Arena
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1356, 1960. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Progress. Publicity still for Poveri ma belli/Poor But Beautiful (Dino Risi, 1957) with Renato Salvatori, Marisa Allasio and Maurizio Arena.

Claudia Cardinale and Renato Salvatori in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti (1959)
Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), 1965, no. S 101/3. Photo: Claudia Cardinale and Renato Salvatori in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Fiasco in Milan (Nanni Loy, 1959).

Claudia Cardinale and Renato Salvatori in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti (1959)
Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), 1965, no. S 101/4. Photo: Claudia Cardinale and Renato Salvatori in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Fiasco in Milan (Nanni Loy, 1959).

Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Max Cartier and Renato Salvatori in Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)
Small Czech collectors card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), 1965, 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)

Rocco's Eldest Brother


Renato Salvatori was also a good dramatic actor in such films as I magliari/The Magliari (Francesco Rosi, 1959) with Alberto Sordi, La ciociara/Two Women (Vittorio De Sica, 1960) with Sophia Loren, and Era notte a Roma/Blackout in Rome (Roberto Rossellini, 1960) with Giovanna Ralli.

Salvatori’s fundamental part was that of Simone in Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and his Brothers (Luchino Visconti, 1960). Simone is the eldest brother of a fatherless and poor family from a village in southern Italy who come to Milan seeking a better life. When Simone’s girlfriend, the prostitute Nadia (Annie Girardot), prefers his younger brother Rocco (Alain Delon) to him, he rapes her in front of his brother.

Reduced to an outcast and ridiculed by his former friends after his boxing career has faltered - while that of Rocco is summiting - Simone takes revenge on Nadia. In real life, Salvatori and Girardot treated each other quite differently. Salvatori met her on the set of the film, they fell in love and married two years after. Salvatori also became close friends with Delon.

Other memorable performances of Salvatori’s film career were in Un giorno da leoni/A Day for Lionhearts (Nanni Loy, 1961), La banda Casaroli/The Casaroli gang (Florestano Vancini, 1962) and I compagni/The Organizer (Mario Monicelli, 1963).

He also played in polemic and counter-cultural films such as Smog (Franco Rossi, 1962), also with Girardot, the Science-Fiction comedy Omicron (Ugo Gregoretti, 1964), and Una bella grinta/The Reckless (Giuliano Montaldo, 1965), films that wanted to give an Italian answer to the French Nouvelle Vague.

Salvatori’s last important roles were in Queimada/Burn (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1969) starring Marlon Brando, and in La prima notte di quiete/Indian Summer (Valerio Zurlini, 1972), again next to Alain Delon.

Renato Salvatori
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1019, 1959. Photo: G. B. Poletto.

Renato Salvatori
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1595, 1962.

Renato Salvatori
Spanish postcard by Ediciones Raker, Barcelona, no. 286, 1963. Retail price: 3 ptas.

Renato Salvatori
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 394.

Drinking Problem


In France, Renato Salvatori also played major parts in the films Le glaive et la balance/The Sword and the Balance (André Cayatte, 1963) with Anthony Perkins and Jean-Claude Brialy, Les grands chemins/Of Flesh and Blood (Christian Marquand, 1963) with Robert Hossein, L’harem/The Harem (Marco Ferreri, 1967) with Carol Baker, and the political thriller Etat de siege/State of Siege (Costa-Gavras, 1972) starring Yves Montand.

He also had small parts in Costa-Gavras’Z (1969) and Henri Verneuil’s Le casse/The Burglars (1971) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

In 1969 he also acted in the Mexican film Los recuerdos del porvenir/Memories of the Future (Artur Ripstein, 1969).

In the early 1970s, Salvatori also played in a few French police films which starred Alain Delon: Les granges brûlées/The Burned Barns (Jean Chapot, 1973) also with Simone Signoret, Flic Story/Cop Story (Jacques Deray, 1975) also with Jean-Louis Trintignant, Le gitan/The Gypsy (José Giovanni, 1975) also with Annie Girardot, and Armaguedon/Armageddon (Alain Jessua, 1977) also with Jean Yanne.

In the same years, Salvatori also played in Italian films about crime & politics such as Il sospetto/The Suspect (Franco Maselli, 1975) with Gian Maria Volonté, Cadaveri eccellenti/Illustrious Corpses (Francesco Rosi, 1976) with Lino Ventura, and Todo modo (Elio Petri, 1976). He also appeared in films on sexual politics such as La dernière femme/The Last Woman (Marco Ferreri, 1976).

After the mid-1970s, however, Salvatori’s parts became much smaller, as in films as Ernesto (Salvero Samperi, 1979) and Bernardo Bertolucci's La luna/Luna (1979) and La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo/The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981).

Salvatori’s last major parts were in the erotic drama La cicala/The Cricket (Alberto Lattuada, 1980), the comedy Asso/Ace (Castellano & Pipolo aka Franco Castellano, Giuseppe Moccia, 1981) with Adriano Celentano, and the drama Oggetti smarriti (Giuseppe Bertolucci, 1980) with Mariangela Melato.

Salvatori had one daughter with Girardot: Giulia Salvatori, who became an actress as well. In later years the couple separated but kept a good relation. Salvatori had a son Nils from his second marriage with German photo model Danka Schroeder.

In the 1970s Salvatori started to have drinking problems, possibly caused by his delusion over his shrinking career. In 1984 Renato Salvatori entered politics while working for the external relations of the Ministry of Transport, but by now he was physically declining because of liver cirrhosis, which eventually killed him in 1988. He was 55. His grandson, the son of Giulia Salvatori, is also named Renato Salvatori.

Renato Salvatori
Small Romanian collectors card.

Renato Salvatori
Italian postcard, no. 466.

Renato Salvatori
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 757.


Short documentary Renato Salvatori Povero ma Bello. Source: Moviexperience (YouTube).


Trailer Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960). Source: Raccetto (YouTube).

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

What letter? THE letter

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Long before WhatsApp, before e-mail, even before the telephone, there was... the letter. People wrote them by hand, with ink and in the early days even with a feather. In films, letters were mostly mysterious. Especially in the silent era, letters could carry secrets and lies, but also many love letters were written and read and discovered. Ivo and I searched through our collections and chose 21 film European star postcards with a letter.

Henny Porten in Die Faust des Riesen II (1917)
German postcard in the Film Sterne Series by Rotophot, no. 515/2. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Henny Porten in the German two-part silent film drama Die Faust des Riesen (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917).

Hesperia and Claudio Nicola in La Cuccagna (1917)
Italian postcard by IPA CT. V. Uff. Rev. St. - Terni, no. 5074. Photo: Tiber Film. Postcard for La Cuccagna (Baldassarre Negroni, 17 1917), starring Hesperia as Renata Beraud, here also with Claudio Nicola as Aristide Saccard. Caption: "Saccard cannot pay the bills of his wife anymore."

Lyda Borelli in Il dramma di una notte
Spanish collectors card for Chocolat Imperiale by Imp. Bayer Hnos. y C.a. Chromophotography. Lyda Borelli in the Italian melodrama Il dramma di una notte/The Drama of One Night (Mario Caserini, 1918).

Suzanne Grandais in Lorena (1918)
Spanish postcard by Amatller Marca Luna, Series 6, no. 14. Photo: Eclipse. Suzanne Grandais in the French drama Lorena (Georges Tréville, 1918).

Rosa Porten and Theodor Loos in Die Augen der Schwester (1918)
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3239. Photo: Treumann-Larsen-Film. Rosa Porten and Theodor Loos in Die Augen der Schwester/The eyes of the sister (Franz Eckstein, 1918). Porten also scripted the film.

Lya Mara in Die Serenyi (1918)
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, K. 2268. Photo: Berliner Film-Manufaktur. Lya Mara and Victor Janson in Die Serenyi (Alfred Halm, 1918).

Bruno Kastner and Hanni Weisse in Zwischen zwei Welten (1919)
German postcard by Verlag Ross, no. 590. Photo: Ring-Film. Bruno Kastner and Hanni Weisse in the German silent film Zwischen zwei Welten/Between two worlds (Adolf Gärtner, 1919).

Fern Andra
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 288/2, 1919-1924. Fern Andra Atelier. Caption: Fern Andra in ihrem Heim (Fern Andra at her home).

Pina Menichelli in La seconda moglie (1922)
Italian postcard. Photo: Rinascimento Film, Roma. Pina Menichelli in La seconda moglie (Amleto Palermi, 1923). Caption: That monotonous and grey life awoke in the rebel a whole lost world.

Pina Menichelli and Livio Pavanelli in La seconda moglie (1923)
Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano. Pina Menichelli and Livio Pavanelli in La seconda moglie (Amleto Palermi, 1923).

The rising gorge of the wicked woman


In her fascinating, ironic text, 'Short Manual for the Aspiring Scenario Writer', the French author Colette gave a typical description of the femme fatale in cinema, largely based on Pina Menichelli. Talking about the 'arms' of the femme fatale Colette indicates the hat and the rising gorge:

"The femme fatale's hat spares her the necessity, at the absolute apex of her wicked career, of having to expend herself in pantomime.

When the spectator sees the evil woman coiffing herself with a spread-winged owl, the head of a stuffed jaguar, a bifid aigrette, or a hairy spider, he no longer has any doubts; he knows just what she is capable of.

And the rising gorge? The rising gorge is the imposing and ultimate means by which the evil woman informs the audience that she is about to weep, that she is hesitating on the brink of crime, that she is struggling against steely necessity, or that the police have gotten their hands on the letter.

What letter? THE letter."

Ernst Rückert
Ernst Rückert. Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 686. Photo: Naxos-Film / Verleih E. Weil & Co.

Lars Hanson in The Scarlet Letter
Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 403. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Roma. Lars Hanson as Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in the period piece The Scarlet Letter (Victor Sjostrom, 1926), set in the era of the Puritans.

Corinne Griffith
Corinne Griffith. Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 87.

Henny Porten in Tragödie (1925)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1192/3, 1927-1928. Photo: Henny-Porten-Film. Henny Porten in the German silent drama Tragödie/Tragedy (Carl Froelich, 1925).

Elisabeth Bergner in Fräulein Else (1929)
German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm, no. 6656. Photo: Poetic-Film. Elisabeth Bergner in Fräulein Else/Miss Else (Paul Czinner, 1929), based on the play by Arthur Schnitzler.

Rod La Rocque in The Locked Door (1929)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3851/2, 1928-1929. Photo: PDC. Rod La Rocque in The Locked Door (George Fitzmaurice, 1929).

Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh. Dutch postcard by Foto-archief Film en Toneel, no. AX 283. Photo: Warner Bros.

Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 288. Photo: Warner Bros.

Cécile Aubry (1928-2010) RIP
Cécile Aubry. Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 377. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Nadia Gray in Puccini (1953)
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 135. Photo: Dear Film. Nadia Gray in Puccini (Carmine Gallone, 1953).

Gardy Granass
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no 2323. Photo: Berolina / Constantin. Gardy Granass in Die Christel von der Post (Karl Anton, 1956).

Sean Connery in From Russia with Love (1963)
Dutch postcard. Sean Connery as James Bond in From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963).

Fay Wray

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Canadian-born American actress Fay Wray (1907-2004) attained international recognition as the first 'scream queen' in a series of horror films during the early 1930s. Through an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, Wray is best known as Ann Darrow, the girl held in the hand of King Kong (1933). Two days after her death, the lights of the Empire State Building, the location of King Kong's climax scene, were dimmed for 15 minutes in memory of the "beauty who charmed the beast".

Fay Wray in Pointed Heels (1929)
French postcard by Europe, no. 720. Photo: Paramount. Fay Wray in Pointed Heels (A. Edward Sutherland, 1929).

Fay Wray in Street of Sin (1928)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3993/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount. Fay Wray in Street of Sin (Mauritz Stiller, 1928).

Fay Wray
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1940. Photo: Radio Pictures.

One of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1926


Vina Fay Wray was born in 1907 on a ranch near Cardston in the province of Alberta, Canada. Her American parents, Elvina Marguerite Jones and Joseph Heber Wray, were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was one of six children.

Her family returned to the United States a few years after she was born, in order for her father to find better work than what was offered in Alberta. They moved to Salt Lake City in 1912, and later they relocated to Los Angeles, where Fay attended Hollywood High School. Her parents divorced, which put the rest of the family in hard times.

Being in entertainment-rich Los Angeles, there was ample opportunity to take advantage of the chances that might come her way in the entertainment industry. At the age of 16, Wray made her film debut, when she landed a role in a short historical film, Gasoline Love (1923), sponsored by a local newspaper. The film was not a hit, nor was it a launching vehicle for her career.

It would be two more years before she ever got another chance. Wray landed a major role in the silent film The Coast Patrol (Bud Barsky, 1925), as well as uncredited bit parts at the Hal Roach Studios. In 1926, the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers selected Wray, along with Janet Gaynor and Mary Astor, as one of the 'WAMPAS Baby Stars', a group of thirteen starlets whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. She was at the time under contract to Universal Studios, mostly co-starring in low-budget Westerns opposite Buck Jones.

The following year, Wray was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures. In 1926, director Erich von Stroheim cast her as the main female lead in his film The Wedding March (Erich von Stroheim, 1928), released by Paramount two years later. Over the six months of filming, Stroheim shot over 200,000 feet of film. The film's original budget was estimated at $300,000 ($4,333,000 today). By the time film producer Pat Powers shut down production, the budget had risen to $1,250,000 ($18,398,000 today). While the film was noted for its production values, it was a financial failure.

After her first lead role, Wray stayed with Paramount to make more than a dozen films, including Thunderbolt (Josef von Sternberg, 1929) with George Bancroft, and made the transition from silent films to 'talkies'.

Fay Wray
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 1169. Photo: Capitol.

Fay Wray and George Raft in The Bowery (1933)
British postcard in the Film Shots series by Film Weekly. Photo: 20th Century. Fay Wray and George Raft on the beach in the pre-Code movie The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933).

A giant gorilla as her 'tall, dark leading man'


After leaving Paramount, Fay Wray signed to various film companies. Under these deals, Wray was cast in various horror films, including Doctor X (Michael Curtiz, 1932), The Vampire Bat (Frank R. Strayer, 1933), and Mystery of the Wax Museum (Michael Curtiz, 1933), all starring Lionel Atwill.

In addition, she appeared in many other types of roles, including in The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933) and Viva Villa (Jack Conway, 1934), both of which starred Wallace Beery.

However, her best-known films were produced under her deal with RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Her first film under RKO was The Most Dangerous Game (Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1932), co-starring Joel McCrea.

It was followed by Wray's most memorable film, King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) with Bruce Cabot. The Most Dangerous Game was shot at night on the same jungle sets that were being used for King Kong during the day, with Wray and Robert Armstrong starring in both films.

When first-choice Jean Harlow proved to unavailable, Wray was approached by director Merian C. Cooper to play the role of Ann Darrow, the blonde captive of King Kong. Cooper told her that he had a part for her in a picture in which she would be working with a tall, dark leading man. What he didn't tell her was that her "tall, dark leading man" was a giant gorilla. Wray was paid $10,000 ($200,000 in 2020 dollars) to play the role.

Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Perhaps no one in the history of pictures could scream more dramatically than Fay, and she really put on a show in "Kong". Her character provided a combination of sex appeal, vulnerability, and lung capacity as she was stalked by the giant beast all the way to the top of the Empire State Building."

The film was a commercial success and Wray was reportedly proud that the film saved RKO from bankruptcy. Ann Darrow became the role with which Wray was most associated. In 1933, Fay Wray also became a naturalised citizen of the United States.

She continued to star in various films, including the romantic comedy The Richest Girl in the World (William A. Seiter, 1934), a second film with Joel McCrea, but by the early 1940s, her appearances became less frequent. She retired from acting in 1942 after her second marriage but due to financial exigencies soon resumed her acting career.

Fay Wray
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 513. Photo: Paramount.

Fay Wray
British postcard by Milton, no. 149. Photo: British & Dominions Films.

Turning the Titanic down


Over the next three decades, Fray Wray appeared in several films and she was also frequently seen on television. Wray was cast in the sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953-1954) as Catherine Morrison. Paul Hartman played her husband, Albie Morrison. Natalie Wood and Robert Hyatt played their children, Ann and Junior Morrison, respectively.

Wray appeared with fellow WAMPAS Baby Star Joan Crawford in the Film Noir drama Queen Bee (Ranald MacDougall, 1955). Wray appeared in three episodes of Perry Mason: The Case Of The Prodigal Parent (1958); The Case of the Watery Witness (1959), as murder victim Lorna Thomas; and The Case of the Fatal Fetish (1965), as voodoo practitioner Mignon Germaine.

Other roles around this time were in the episodes Dip in the Pool (1958) and The Morning After of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1960, she appeared as Clara in an episode of 77 Sunset Strip, Who Killed Cock Robin?

She ended her acting career in the made-for-television film Gideon's Trumpet (Robert Collins, 1980), starring Henry Fonda.

In 1988, she published her autobiography 'On the Other Hand'. In her later years, Wray continued to make public appearances. In 1991, she was crowned Queen of the Beaux-Arts Ball presiding with King Herbert Huncke.

She was approached by James Cameron to play the part of Rose Dawson Calvert for his blockbuster Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) with Kate Winslet to play her younger self, but she turned down the role, which was played by Gloria Stuart.

In 1998, King Kong wound up being named one of the 100 greatest films of all time by the American Film Institute. On the 70th Annual Academy Awards (1998), Billy Crystal introduced a clip of her in King Kong (1933) and then came offstage and stood next to Miss Wray in the audience, and introduced her as the "Beauty who charmed the Beast, the Legendary Fay Wray".

In 2003, the 95-year-old Wray appeared at the 2003 Palm Beach International Film Festival to celebrate the documentary film Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (Rick McKay, 2003), which she also appeared in. She was honored with a 'Legend in Film' award.

In 2004, Wray was approached by director Peter Jackson to appear in a small cameo for his remake of King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005). Jackson wanted Fay to say the closing line of the film. She met with Naomi Watts, who was to play the role of Ann Darrow, but she politely declined the cameo and claimed the original "Kong" to be the true "King".

Before the filming of the remake commenced, Wray died in her sleep of natural causes on 8 August 2004, in her apartment in Manhattan, five weeks before her 97th birthday. Wray is interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.

Fay Wray married three times. Her husbands were the authors John Monk Saunders (1928-1939; divorce) and Robert Riskin (1942-1955; his death), and the neurosurgeon Sanford Rothenberg (1971-1991; his death). She had three children: Susan Saunders, Victoria Riskin, and Robert Riskin Jr.

Denny Jackson at IMDb: "She was an excellent actress who never was given a chance to live up to her potential, especially after being cast in a number of horror films in the '30s. Given the right role, Fay could have had her star up alongside the great actresses of the day. No matter. She remains a bright star from cinema's golden era."


Trailer The Most Dangerous Game (Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1932). Source: WKAJ Entertainment (YouTube).


Trailer King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933). Source: Warner Bros (YouTube).

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Hans Mierendorff

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Hans Mierendorff (1882-1955) was a German stage and film actor and film director. He became a star as the gentleman-detective Harry Higgs in silent Krimis and also appeared in such classics as Hilde Warren und der Tod (1917), scripted by Fritz Lang, and the popular serial Die Herrin der Welt (1919). He set up his own production company, Lucifer-Film GmbH, serving for four years as its artistic director. During his career, Hans Mierendorff played in over 100 films.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by NPG, no. 658. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Hans Mierendorff as Harry Higgs
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5446. Hans Mierendorff as Harry Higgs.

Hans Mierendorff as Harry Higgs
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5447. Hans Mierendorff as Harry Higgs.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 247 Photo: Alex Binder.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1836. Photo: A. Binder, Berlin.

Tonbilder


Hans Mierendorff was born Johannes Reinhold Mierendorff in Rostock, Germany in 1882, as the son of the merchant Carl Mierendorff and painter Johanna Reinke. He frequented the Oberschule in Rostock and the grandducal gymnasium in Doberan.

After an initial career as a bookshop seller in Schwerin, he had acting lessons at the Hoftheater in Schwerin and soon switched to a stage career, performing in Hamburg, Halle, and Breslau. Between 1911 and 1919 he worked in Berlin on various stages: at the Residenztheater, the Lessingtheater, the Deutsche Künstlertheater, and the Meinhard-Bernauer-Bühnen.

From 1909 on, Mierendorff was also appearing in the so-called 'Tonbilder' or early sound films by Franz Porten. Thanks to the mediation of Henny Porten’s husband, director/actor Curt Stark, Mierendorff’s real first performance in a silent fiction film was in the Henny Porten-Film Das Adoptivkind/The adoptive child (Rudolf Biebrach, 1911).

In the same year, he played next to Asta Nielsen as her father in Der fremde Vogel/The strange bird (Urban Gad, 1911). Often Mierendorff performed as the elegant, distinguished gentleman.

From 1916 his career took a new turn when he started to perform as the gentlemen-detective Harry Higgs, cashing in on the popular trend of German detective films at the time. The films were scripted by E.A. Dupont, later by Rudolf Meinert.

Mierendorff was also successful as Baron Murphy in the eight-part adventure-serial Die Herrin der Welt/Mistress of the World (1919), produced and partly directed by Joe May and starring Mia May.

Fritz Schulz and Hans Mierendorff in Götz von Berlichingen
German postcard by Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 1766. Photo: Hans Mierendorff. Fritz Schulz as Georg and Hans Mierendorff as Lerse in the stage play 'Götz von Berlichingen', a successful 1773 drama by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, based on the memoirs of the historical adventurer-poet Gottfried or Götz von Berlichingen.

Asta Nielsen and Hans Mierendorff in Jugend und Tollheit (1913)
German postcard. Asta Nielsen and Hans Mierendorff in Jugend und Tollheit/Lady Madcap's Way (Urban Gad, 1913).

Mia May and Hans Mierendorff in Nebel und Sonne
German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 503/2. Photo: May Film. Mia May and Hans Mierendorff in Nebel und Sonne (Joe May, 1916). The film narrates about the martyrdom of a mother.

Mia May in Hilde Warren und der Tod (1917)
German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 516/6. Photo: May Film. Mia May and Hans Mierendorff in Hilde Warren und der Tod (Joe May, 1917), scripted by Fritz Lang.

Hans Mierendorff in Ich bin Du (1921)
Hungarian postcard, no. 72. Photo: Hans Mierendorff in Ich bin Du/I am you (Hans Mierendorff, Urban Gad, 1921).

Olga Tschechova, Hans Mierendorff and Hans Brausewetter in Soll und Haben (1924)
German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 684/6. Photo: Carl-Wilhelm-Film / Terra Film. Olga Tschechova, Hans Mierendorff, and Hans Brausewetter in Soll und Haben/Debit and Credit (Carl Wilhelm, 1924). This German silent film, adapted from the novel by Gustav Freytag, had anti-Semitic and anti-Polish tendencies.

Mady Christians, Hans Mierendorff, Ida Wüst, Auguste Prasch-Grevenberg in Die Jugend der Königin Luise (1927)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 88/3. Photo: Terra Film. Mady Christians as Louise, Hans Mierendorff, Ida Wüst, and Auguste Prasch-Grevenberg in Königin Luise, 1. Teil - Die Jugend der Königin Luise/Queen Louise (Karl Grune, 1927).

Lucifer


Hans Mierendorff’s detective films were so successful, that he could found his own film company Lucifer-Film GmbH in 1919. He managed Lucifer-Film until its sellout in 1923. He directed some of the films as well, while others were directed by James Bauer.

In his own productions, mostly adventure and crime films, he often played the leads, as in Teufelskirche/The Devil's Church (Hans Mierendorff, 1919). In this film, Mierendorff plays a priest who is seduced by a farmer’s wife (Agnes Straub), who acts on behalf of the devil (Paul Rehkopf) who wants to found a devil’s church on the place of German village chapel. In the end, it proves to be just somebody’s nightmare.

Remarkable were Mierendorff’s dual role in Ich bin Du/I am you (Hans Mierendorff, Urban Gad, 1921), and his role of Fiesco in Die Verschwörung zu Genua/The Genoa Conspiracy (Paul Leni, 1921), co-starring Erna Morena and Fritz Kortner.

In the mid-1920s, Mierendorff was often cast as a banker, industrialist, consul, manager, or lawyer. Examples are his parts as Lee Parry’s father in Die Motorbraut/The Motor Bride (Richard Eichberg, 1925), and the industrial in Der Mann der sich verkauft/The man who sells himself (Hanns Steinhoff, 1925), co-starring Vivian Gibson and Olaf Fjord.

In the sound film era, Mierendorff only performed as a supporting actor in such films as the historical drama Die Tänzerin von Sans Souci/The Dancer of Sanssouci (Friedrich Zelnik, 1932). Set at the court of Frederick the Great the film is part of a group of Prussian films made during the era. In 1945 Mierndorff completely withdrew from film acting. Subsequently, he ran a pension at the Ostseebad Scharbeutz.

Since 1903 he was married to animal painter Gertrud Schmidt. In 1923 he remarried with singer and actress Auguste Herta Katsch. From this marriage, their son Klaus (1923-1966) stemmed. In 1940 Mierendorff married for the third time with Auguste’s sister Antonie Katsch.

Hans Mierendorff died in 1955 in Eutin, Germany. He was 73. Although he played in more than 100 films during his active career, the name Hans Mierendorff belongs to the forgotten names in film history.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 185. Photo: Hans Mierendorff.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 2400. Photo: Karl Schenker.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 9611. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot., no. 178/1. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot., no. 178/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Rotophot., no. 178/3. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Hans Mierendorff
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 753. Photo: Sascha Film / Phoebus-Film.

Hans Mierendorff
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3103/1. Photo: Suse Byk, Berlin.

Walter Slezak and Hans Mierendorff in Mein Leopold (1931)
German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 130. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Walter Slezak and Hans Mierendorff in Mein Leopold/My Leopold (Hans Steinhoff, 1931).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film-zeit.de (German- now off-line), Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Les Trois Mousquetaires (1921), Part deux

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The Pathé serial Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant Berger, 1921), is one of the great French films of the silent era. The second film adaptation of the famous adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas père had a mega-budget of 2,5 million French francs, and it showed also in the publicity materials. Last week we had a post on 21 postcards with film scenes, produced in 1921 by M. Le Deley, Paris for Pathé. Today a post on two postcard series with character portraits. The first was part of the Les Vedettes de l'Écran series by Editions Filma. The other, larger series of sepia postcards was published by Editions Cinémagazine.

Les Vedettes de l'Écran


Aimé Simon-Girard in Les trois mousquetaires (1921)
French postcard in the Les Vedettes de l'Écran series by Editions Filma, no. 119. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Aimé Simon-Girard as D'Artagnan in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Pierre de Guingand as Aramis
French postcard in the Les Vedettes de l'Écran series by Editions Filma, no. 122. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Pierre de Guingand as Aramis in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Charles Martinelli as Porthos
French postcard in the Les Vedettes de l'Écran series by Editions Filma, no. 123. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Charles Martinelli as Porthos in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger 1921).

Cinémagazine: Les Trois Mousquetaires


Pierrette Madd in Les Trois Mousquetaires
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 17. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Pierrette Madd as Constance Bonacieux in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger 1921).

Pierre de Guingand
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine no. 18. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Pierre de Guingand as Aramis in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Aimé Simon-Girard as D'Artagnan in Les Trois Mousquetaires (1921)
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 19. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Aimé Simon-Girard as D'Artagnan in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Armand Bernard
French postcard by Cinémagazine Edition, no. 21. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Armand Bernard as Planchet in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1921).

Claude Mérelle as Milady de Winter
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 22. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Claude Mérelle as the evil Milady de Winter in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger 1921).

Henri Rollan
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine no. 23. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Henri Rollan as Athos in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Cinémagazine: Vingt ans après


In 1922, one year after the enormous success of Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1921), a sequel followed, Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (1922).

The sequel was also directed by Henri Diamant-Berger. And again, Cinémagazine and Pathé produced a beautiful series of sepia portrait postcards for Vingt ans après.

Vingt ans après was based on another novel by Alexandre Dumas père, which follows events in France during the Fronde, during the childhood reign of Louis XIV, and in England near the end of the English Civil War, leading up to the victory of Oliver Cromwell and the execution of King Charles I.

In Vingt ans après, D'Artagnan was not played by Aimé Simon-Girard this time. Jean Yonnel replaced him. The other three musketeers of the original cast returned: Henri Rollan as Athos, Pierre de Guingand as Aramis, and Charles Martinelli as Porthos.

Other actors who returned were Édouard de Max (Monsieur de Gondi), Armand Bernard (D'Artagnan's servant Planchet) and Pierrette Madd. In Les Trois Mousquetaires, she had played D'Artagnan's girlfriend Constance, who was murdered. In the sequel she returns as a man, Raoul, the Vicomte de Bragelonne, the son of Athos.

They were joined in Vingt ans après by amongst others Marguerite Moreno as Queen Anne of Austria, Jean Périer as Mazarin, Simone Vaudry as Henriette d'Angleterre, and Béatrice Bretty as a beautiful in-keeper.

Pierre de Guingand in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine no. 43. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Pierre de Guingand as Aramis in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Charles Martinelli as Porthos in Les trois mousquetaires
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 44. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Charles Martinelli as Porthos in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Jean Yonnel as D'Artagnan in Vingt ans après
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 45. Photo: Pathé Consortium. Jean Yonnel as D'Artagnan in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Marcel Vallée as Mousqueton in Les Trois Mousquetaires (1921)
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 46. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Marcel Vallée as Mousqueton in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Pierrette Madd in Vingts ans après
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 47. Photo: Pathé Consortium. Pierrette Madd as Raoul, the Vicomte de Bragelonne in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922), the sequel to Les Trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921).

Antoine Stacquet as Bazin in Les trois mousquetaires
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 50. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Antoine Stacquet as Bazin, one of the aids of the musketeers, in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Louis Pré Fils in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 56. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Louis Pré Fils as Grimaud, one of the aids of the musketeers, in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Jean Daragon in Vingt ans après
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 60. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinema. Jean Daragon as Duc de Beaufort in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Simone Vaudry in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Édition, Paris, no. 61. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Simone Vaudry as Henriette d'Angleterre in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Jean Périer
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 62. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinema. Jean Périer as Mazarin in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922). Collection: Didier Hanson.

Édouard de Max in Vingt ans après
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 63. Photo: Pathé Consortium. Édouard de Max as Monsieur de Gondi (and not as Richelieu as IMDb and Wikipedia claim) in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (1922), Henri Diamant-Berger's sequel to his earlier film Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1921).

Denise Legeay in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 64. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinema. Denise Legeay as Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, Duchess of Longueville in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Jane Piérly in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine no. 65. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Jane Piérly as Henriette de France in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Béatrice Bretty
French postcard by Cinémagazine, no. 67. Photo: Pathé Consortium. Béatrice Bretty as the beautiful hotelier in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Maxime Desjardins as Charles I in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Cinémagazine, no. 68. Photo: Pathé Consortium. Maxime Desjardins as the English King Charles I in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Marguerite Moreno in Vingt ans après (1922)
French postcard by Cinémagazine, no. 69. Photo: Pathé Consortium. Marguerite Moreno as Queen Anne of Austria, widow of King Charles XIII in Vingt ans après/The Return of the Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922).

Sources: Fondation Jerome Seydoux (French), Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

La Jana

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Sexy German dancer and film actress La Jana (1905-1940) is a mysterious legend of the German cinema. In the 1940s, she was the most popular showgirl of Berlin and she appeared in 25 European films, often dancing in exotic costumes. In 1940, Goebbels sent her on tour for the Wehrmacht and while dancing half-naked in the cold, La Jana got ill and died of pneumonia and pleurisy.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1589/1, 1938-1939. Photo: Eichberg-Film. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1590/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Sasha, London. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1745/2, 1937-1938. Photo: Wog, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1910/2, 1937-1938. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin / Tobis.

La Jana in Stern von Rio (1940)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2504/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Tobis. La Jana in Stern von Rio/Star of Rio (Karl Anton, 1940).

The most beautiful body I had seen in my life


La Jana was born as Henriette Margarethe Hiebel in Mauer near Wien (Vienna), Austria-Hungary, in 1905. ‘Henny’ was the second and youngest daughter of Heinrich and Anna Hiebel. Her older sister, Anny, was later trained as an opera singer. Her father was a gild master and the family moved to Frankfurt when Henny was only two years.

At the age of eight, she already appeared in the children's ballet of the Frankfurt Opera. Henny completed a dance training at the Opera Ballet in Frankfurt and became a dancer in cabarets and revues. In 1921, she performed her own improvisations in Trude Hesterberg’s cabaret Die wilde Bühne (The Wild Stage).

In Paris, she met Géza von Cziffra, who, according to his autobiography, brought her to Berlin, director Friedrich Zelnik and the cinema. He writes "... And there I saw her dance for the first time: this woman had the most beautiful body I had seen in my life. The girl, that moved here up and down in the stage lights (...) was boyishly built: slim hips, almost only a hint of breasts. She was a simple, friendly, approachable girl but she had as much interest for sex as Immanuel Kant."

There are at least three different versions of the discovery of La Jana. According to contemporary sources, La Jana was discovered in Cabaret Weinklause in Frankfurt by a nightclub owner from Paris and later returned as a dancer to Berlin. Another report says that La Jana was hired overnight as a substitute for Claire Bauroff, the ill star of a Revue in Dresden and that she later also received offers from Berlin.

However, in 1925 she made her first film appearance in Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit - Ein Film über moderne Körperkultur/Ways to Strength and Beauty (Nicholas Kaufmann, Wilhelm Prager, 1925). This film about the ‘modern body culture' was very much an artifact of the Naturist fad that swept Germany at the time.

Friedrich Zelnik engaged her for his production company the Deutsche Film Union (Defu), and employed her in silent films like Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Fur (Erich Schönfelder, 1928).

She also appeared in international silent films such as the Danish-German production Die weisse Geisha/The White Geisha (Valdemar Andersen, Karl Heiland, 1926), the Swedish production En perfekt gentleman/A Perfect Gentleman (Vilhelm Bryde, Gösta Ekman, 1927) in which she costarred with Gösta Ekman and Hans Albers, and the French-German-Belgian production Thérèse Raquin/Shadows of Fear (Jacques Feyder, 1928) based on the novel by Émile Zola.

La Jana became engaged in 1926 to actor Ulrich Bettac. In that year, she still used her civil name, Henny Hiebel and she moved to Berlin with her fiancé. A few years later, this relationship was resolved.

La Jana
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 6606. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3224/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Arthur Benda, Wien. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4657/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Badekow, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5035/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Manassé, Wien. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5443, 1938-1939. Photo: DEFU / Defina / Verleih Philipp & Co. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Served Half Naked, On A Silver Platter


La Jana danced in revues in Berlin, Stockholm (1933) and London (1934-1935) and she participated in the shows 'An und Aus' (To and From) by Herman Haller, 'Casanova' by Erik Charell and 'Die schöne Helena' (The beautiful Helen) by Max Reinhardt.

In the revue 'Casanova', La Jana was served half-naked, on a silver platter to the audience. The reaction of the public was accordingly: La Jana was the talk of Berlin.

In his autobiography, director Géza von Cziffra claims that La Jana had an affair with Kronprinz Wilhelm (Crown Prince William) but he dismisses rumors about an affair between La Jana and Joseph Goebbels.

The show 'Streamline' by Charles B. Cochran led La Jana in 1934 on a tour throughout England and Scotland. Upon her return to Germany in 1936, she made almost every year one or more films.

The sound film had underlined her dancing in an optimal way with the audible music and she had had success with her appearance in Der Schlemihl/The Unlucky Devil (Max Nosseck, 1931) as a dancer opposite Curt Bois.

The circus drama Truxa (Hans H. Zerlett, 1937) made La Jana in one stroke acquainted all over Germany. At IMDb, Jan Onderwater writes about her performance: "La Jana, here in her first major part, cannot dance but she is not that bad an actress as she is reputed to have been; with her half-naked body she is exotic and lovely to look at."

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3269/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Arthur Benda, Wien. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3911/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Badekow.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4657/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Badekow, Berlin.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4657/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Badekow, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5485/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Manassé, Wien. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Contradicting the ideal vision of womanliness of the Third Reich


La Jana travelled to India for the films Der Tiger von Eschnapur/The Tiger of Eschnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938) and Das indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Richard Eichberg, 1938), co-starring with Frits van Dongen (aka Philip Dorn) and Theo Lingen.

Millions of people admired the exotic magic of the film and La Jana. Filmportal.de analyzes: “although typifying the embodiment of the ‘non-Aryan’ woman, which clearly contradicted the ideal vision of womanliness of the Third Reich, she became for this same very reason the ideal projection of all the various desires of the public.”

Her next films films were the musical Es leuchten die Sterne/The Stars Shine (Hans H. Zerlett, 1938) and the crime film Menschen vom Variete/People from the Music Hall (Josef von Báky, 1939) with Hans Holt.

After she earlier had refused to go, Goebbels forced her on a tour for the Wehrmacht in 1939/1940. Her fame made her a sure crowd-puller. It was a cold winter and she wore little clothes on the stage. She became ill with pneumonia on both lungs in February 1940.

On 13 March 1940, La Jana died of pneumonia and pleurisy in a hospital in Berlin. She was only 35 and became a mysterious legend. She was dearly missed at the glamorous world premiere of her last film, Stern von Rio/Star of Rio (Karl Anton, 1940), at the Ufa Palast am Zoo in Berlin.

In 1954, fourteen years after her death, a person appeared who claimed to be La Jana's son. After Anny Bittlinski, La Jana's sister denied his story he was charged with forgery and fraud. There was also a rumour that La Jana helped Jews escape from Germany. The SS would have killed her for this and the pneumonia story would have been invented to conceal the murder.

Another rumour is about her name. ‘La Jana’ is supposed to originate from the Indian language, and to mean ‘The Flower-like’. In fact, La Jana is a purely invented name and has only superficial similarities with words from Sanskrit. How Henny Hiebel came to her artist's name is not recorded. Henny Hiebel and a partner performed for a time under the name The Charming Sisters. There are some Swedish autograph cards of her with the name Lary Jana. The mystery of La Jana remains.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7417/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Manassé, Wien.

La Jana in Das indische Grabmal (1938)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1239/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Ewald / Eichberg-Film. La Jana in Das indische Grabmal/The Indian Tomb (Richard Eichberg, 1938).

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1699/1, 1937-1938. Photo: K.J. Fritzsche Prod. / Tobis-Magna. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2231/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Sandau, Berlin.

La Jana in Menschen vom Varieté (1939)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2248/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Märkische / Panorama / Schneider, Südost. La Jana in Menschen vom Varieté/People from the variety show (Josef von Báky, 1939).

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2396/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Sandau, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2404/3, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Tobis.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2504/2, 1939-1940. Photo: Quick / Tobis. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
Latvian postcard by JDA, Riga, no. 2503. Photo: Tobis. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Das Programm von Heute / Ross Verlag. Photo: Tobis. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Das Programm von Heute / Ross Verlag. Photo: Tobis / Kilian.

La Jana
German postcard by Das Programm von Heute / Ross Verlag. Photo: Tobis / Quick. Collection: Didier Hanson.

La Jana
German postcard by Das Programm von Heute / Ross Verlag. Photo: Tobis.

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. K 1138. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Jan Onderwater (IMDb), Operator 99 (Allure), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), The Androom Archives, and IMDb.

Photo by Ernst Sandau

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One of the Berlin studios which photographed film stars for the postcards of Ross Verlag was Atelier Sandau. Between 1919 and 1939, Ernst Sandau portrayed many actors in his studio at Unter den Linden, but he also made fashion photos for such women magazines as >die neue linie<. During the Third Reich, he changed his subject to Ritterkreuzträger (Knight Cross Holders). For this post, we selected 20 Ross Verlag postcards for which Sanday made the photographs between 1919 and 1940.

Liane Haid
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 480/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

Prima ballerina, dancer, singer, and actress Liane Haid (1895-2000) was the first film star of Austria. She was the epitome of the Süßes Wiener Mädel (Sweet Viennese Girl), and from the mid-1910s on she made close to a hundred films.

Pola Negri
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 510/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

A postcard from Pola Negri's (1897-1987) German years before she moved to Hollywood. In the late 1910s and the 1920s, she achieved notoriety as a femme fatale in silent films in Poland, Berlin, and Hollywood. Negri was an overnight sensation in Ernst Lubitsch's Madame du Barry/Passion (1919). Her vamp roles were so popular that she was a direct rival of Theda Bara, and lived in a Hollywood palace, modelled after the White House.

Ossi Oswalda
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

Ossi Oswalda (1895-1947) was one of the most popular comediennes of the German silent cinema. Her popularity at the time earned her the nickname 'The German Mary Pickford'.

Margarete Lanner
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 982/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

Margarete Lanner (1896–1981) was a German stage and film actress. She appeared in around 30 films during the silent era in a mixture of leading and supporting roles. She had a small part in Fritz Lang's classic Metropolis (1927).

Margarete Schön
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1097/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

Margarete Schön (1895-1985) is best known for her role as Kriemhild, the beautiful but revengeful princess of Burgundy in Fritz Lang’s silent epic Die Nibelungen (1924). The career of this German stage and film actress spanned nearly fifty years.

Elisabeth Bergner
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1141/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

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

Fritz Kortner
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1325/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

Austrian-born stage and film actor and theatre director Fritz Kortner (1892-1970) was one of the best-known character actors of the German silent cinema. His specialty was playing sinister and threatening roles.

Alfred Abel
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1427/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ernst Sandau.

Alfred Abel(1879-1937) played in over 140 silent and sound films between 1913 and 1938. He is best known as the industrial Fredersen in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).

Käthe von Nagy
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4014/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Sandau, Berlin.

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

Brigitte Helm
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4015/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Sandau, Berlin. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

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

Father and Son


Ernst Sandau was the son of another photographer named Ernst Sandau. His father was born in 1880 in Linköping in Sweden and his original name was allegedly Ernst Sigfrid Pettersson, which he changed around 1895. Sandau senior was a royal Swedish court photographer and a civil engineer.

Ernst Senior came to Berlin around 1905 and established himself there as a portrait photographer. From about 1910, he ran his studio in the house Unter den Linden 19, where Erich Sellin had worked before him. Later the Atelier Sandau was in Unter den Linden 41, in which photographer Tita Binz later also worked.

After his death in 1918, Ernst Sandau's photo studio in Berlin was taken over by photographer Suse Byk.

Ernst Junior had also become a photographer. He focused on fashion and worked for such women magazines as >die neue linie<. Like Tita Binz, Ernst Jr. also got work orders from Ross Verlag.

He started there around 1919. The last Ross Verlag postcards with his pictures date from ca. 1940. In this period, he also portrayed Ritterkreuzträger (Knight Cross Holders). Little is known further about Ernst Sandau's life.

Anita Dorris
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4194/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Ernst Sandau, Berlin.

Beautiful German leading lady Anita Dorris (1903-1993) started as a stage actress in 1921, after which some 15 silent films followed. Dorris was beloved in the late 1920s and smoothly made the passage to sound. In 1930, however, she married Austrian film director E. W. Emo and withdrew from the cinema. Her daughter, Maria Emo, would also become a well-known stage and film actress.

Hans Stüwe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4285/1. 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Sandau, Berlin.

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

Anna Sten
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6646/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Vogel-Sandau, Berlin.

Strikingly beautiful Anna Sten (1908-1993) was a Ukrainian-born actress, who became the most famous, or rather, the most notorious of the many ‘new Greta Garbos’ of the 1930s.

Jenny Jugo
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9289/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Atelier Sandau, Berlin.

Pretty Austrian actress Jenny Jugo (1904-2001) starred between 1931 and 1942 in eleven smart and charming comedies directed by Erich Engel.

Anneliese Uhlig
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1623/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Sandau.

Classic beauty Anneliese Uhlig (1918) was an elegant and enchanting femme fatale of Ufa crime films of the 1940s, who unwillingly bewitched Joseph Goebbels. After the war, the German actress worked also internationally as a journalist, theatre producer, and university teacher and became an American citizen.

Lida Baarova
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1772/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Sandau, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Beautiful Lída Baarová (1914–2000) was a glamorous Czech film star who worked in Prague, Berlin, and Rome. A dangerous affair with Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of the Third Reich, first enhanced and later seriously damaged her career.

Peter Bosse
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2122/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Sandau, Berlin.

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

La Jana
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2231/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Sandau, Berlin.

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

Viktor de Kowa
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2401/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Tobis / Sandau.

Viktor de Kowa (1904-1973) was a German actor, singer, director and comedy writer. In the 1930s he became one of the most prominent and beloved comedy actors of the German cinema.

Viktoria von Ballasko
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2454/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Sandau / Tobis.

Austrian actress Viktoria von Ballasko was a leading lady of the German cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. She also worked as a writer.

Sources: Johannes Christoph Moderegger (Modefotografie in Deutschland 1929-1955 - German), Wikipedia (German), and Pantorijn.

Fred Thomson

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Handsome Fred Thomson (1890–1928) was an American silent film cowboy, who rivaled Tom Mix in popularity in the mid-1920s. He was the no. 2 box office star for 1926 and 1927 and played the legendary Jesse James and Kit Carson. In 1928, he suddenly died of tetanus, only 38 years old. He should not be confused with silent film director Frederick A. Thomson.

Fred Thomson
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1993/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Paramount.

Fred Thomson
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3500/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount.

Fred Thomson
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4355/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Walter F. Seely, Hollywood / Paramount.

Discovered by Mary Pickford


Frederick Clifton Thomson was born in Pasadena, California to Clara and Williell Thomson, a Presbyterian minister.

Fred attended the Princeton Theological Seminary from 1910 till 1913 and won the All-Around Champion title given out by the Amateur Athletic Union in 1910, 1911, and 1913.

Initially interested in the ministry, he became a pastor in both Washington, DC, and in Los Angeles, and subsequently married his college sweetheart, Gail Jepson, in 1913. Three years later, Gail died of tuberculosis. Following her tragic death in 1916, he left his fellowship and enlisted in the military.

During World War I, Thomson served as a U.S. Army chaplain in the 143rd Field Artillery Regiment, known informally as 'the Mary Pickford Regiment'. While playing football, he broke his leg. Mary Pickford visited the patients in the hospital ward with her friend, screenwriter Frances Marion. (Other sources write that Fred was assigned as technical advisor for a Mary Pickford war film, Johanna Enlists (William Desmond Taylor, 1918), and thus he met Pickford's friend Marion.) Anyway, Thomson and Marion fell in love, and in 1919, after the war was over, they married with Pickford as the maid of honour.

Initially interested in directing, Thomson ended up acting in one of Frances' films, the drama Just Around the Corner (Frances Marion, 1921). The film was a success. Next, he had a co-starring role in a Pickford film, the drama The Love Light (1921), which was also directed and written by Frances.

In 1923, Thomson starred in his own action serial for Universal, The Eagle's Talons (Duke Worne, 1923), in which he performed his own stunts. Signed by Joseph P. Kennedy's studio Film Booking Offices of America, he made his debut for FBO in The Mask of Lopez (Albert S. Rogell, 1924). Thomson became a superstar at FBO: he was the no. 2 box office star for 1926 and 1927.

His April 1925 contract paid him $10,000 a week (equivalent to approximately $145,787 in 2019 dollars) and also gave Thomson his own independent production unit at the studio. In 1927, Kennedy—sensing that Thomson had reached the peak of his popularity and seeing a financial opportunity for FBO—arranged a four-picture deal with Paramount Pictures, one of the major Hollywood studios. The deal essentially ceded Thomson to the rival studio. For guaranteeing $75,000 in the financing, Thomson would star in Paramount productions. In return, Paramount would return the $75,000 in financing plus an additional $100,000 and pay Thomson $15,000 a week, wiping Thomson's salary off of FBO's books.

Fred Thomson
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3379/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount.

Fred Thomson
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 434. Photo: Paramount.

The legendary Silver King


Paramount's exhibition circuit was more prestigious than FBO's, and its cinemas, many located in larger cities, charged a premium for a ticket. In addition, Paramount boosted the price of a Fred Thomson picture to cover the backend deal with FBO and Thomson's hefty salary.

The new production arrangement meant that Thomson fans in rural theatres that were the core of FBO's audience often had to wait months for a chance to see a new Thomson picture, if it was even released to backwater cinemas, or were forced go to a larger city where the film was playing on the Paramount circuit.

Some critics found that the Thomson Westerns, which essentially were "B-pictures", were not suited for the high-end, more expensive cinemas they were being shown in. As a result, the Thomson-Paramount Westerns such as Jesse James (Lloyd Ingraham, 1927) and The Sunset Legion (Lloyd Ingraham, Alfred L. Werker, 1928) proved not to be as profitable.

In early December 1928, Thomson stepped on a nail while working in his stables. Contracting tetanus, which his doctors initially misdiagnosed, he died in Los Angeles on Christmas Day 1928. His final Western was Kit Carson (Lloyd Ingraham, Alfred L. Werker, 1928)

He was survived by his widow, screenwriter Frances Marion, and their children Richard Thomson (adopted) and Frederick C. Thomson. Because of her memories of Fred, Frances Marion could not live anymore on Enchanted Hill, their 160-acre estate in Beverly Hills with a house designed by Wallace Neff. So she sold everything, including Thomson's horse Silver King, the co-star of his films. In 1997, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, bought the estate, up till then lovingly kept, bulldozed all of it, and basically didn't do anything else with it.

Silver King was legendary. It was a white Palomino horse seventeen hands high. Al Rogell, who directed Thomson's first seven Western films, told about Silver King: "He did all of the work...everything in the early pictures — the mouth work, the jumps, the chases, the falls, quick stops — and could untie knots, lift bars, etc. He could wink one eye, nod his head yes or no, push a person with his head. Thomson trained him to do certain things and expected him to perform them."

Only three of Thomson's films have survived to the present day: Just Around the Corner is in the collection of the Library of Congress; The Love Light, starring Mary Pickford, has been released on VHS and DVD; and Thundering Hoofs has been released on VHS. In Thundering Hoofs, Thomson performs a dangerous jump from a moving stagecoach to one of the horses pulling the coach. He fell and suffered a compound fracture of his right thigh. Yakima Canutt completed the stunt. Production of the film was delayed for weeks while Thomson recovered from his injury. Canutt told the story in the episode 'Hazard of the Game' in Kevin Brownlow's fascinating TV series Hollywood (1980), produced by Thames Television.

Fred Thomson in The Bandit's Baby (1925).
American postcard. Photo: F.B.O. Fred Thomson riding his horse Silver King in The Bandit's Baby (James P. Hogan, 1925).

Fred Thomson
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3260/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount. Thomson is marked dead at the postcard.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Steve Vaught (Paradise Leased), Hollywood (Thames Television 1980), Wikipedia, and IMD.

Recently acquired: La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, Part 1

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We found a series of vintage Spanish cards with pictures of silent film stars - in blue, brown, purple, pink, and green. Not exactly a common style, now nor then. And all the pictures are oval-formed, to top it off. These blank-backed cards were published in Barcelona by Francisco Mario Bistagne, editor of 'La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica'. This magazine was very popular in Spain from November 1922, when the first number appeared, until August 1932, when it stopped being published. Interestingly, the cards show that Italian stars must have been still popular in Spain at the time, and there are also many cards of forgotten stars whose postcards are now hard to find. Ivo and I selected 50 cards which we will publish in two posts. The second post will follow tomorrow.

Francesca Bertini
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, Número especial (special number).

Majestic diva of the Italian silent cinema Francesca Bertini (1892-1985) was one of the first European film stars. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, she often played the 'femme fatale', with men devouring eyes, glamorous attire, clenched fists, and in opulent settings.

Charles Chaplin in A Dog's Life (1918)
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 3. Photo: United Artists (but the film was produced by First National). Charles Chaplin in A Dog's Life (Charles Chaplin, 1918). Charlot was the Spanish nickname for Chaplin.

Marie Prevost
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 13.

Marie Prevost (1898-1937) was a Canadian-born, American silent screen actress. She was excellent in such comedies as Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle (1924). The end of her life was filled with tragedies.

Ben Turpin
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 14. Photo: United Artists.

Cross-eyed silent comedian Ben Turpin (1869-1940) was not born that way. Supposedly his right eye slipped out of alignment while playing the role of the similarly afflicted Happy Hooligan in vaudeville and it never adjusted. Ironically, it was this disability that would enhance his comic value and make him a top name in the silent film era. Turpin's true forte was impersonating the most dashingly romantic and sophisticated stars of the day and turning them into clumsy oafs. He also invented a Hollywood tradition by being the first actor to receive a pie in his face.

Pina Menichelli
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 15.

Fascinating and enigmatic Pina Menichelli (1890-1984) was the most bizarre Italian diva of the silent era. With her contorted postures and disdainful expression, she impersonated the striking femme fatale.

Livio Pavanelli
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 16. Photo Pinto, Rome.

Livio Pavanelli(1881-1958) was an Italian actor of the Italian and in particular German silent cinema. He also worked in Italian sound cinema as an actor and as a production manager. He directed four Italian films, both in the silent and the sound era.

Gladys Walton
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 19.

Gladys Walton (1903-1993) was an American actress, who peaked in the American silent film of the 1920s. She was a flapper in such films such as The Girl Who Ran Wild (1922), and The Wise Kid (1922).

Aimé Simon-Girard
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 20.

Aimé Simon-Girard (1889-1950) was a French film actor and operetta singer. He mostly played in French costume films of the 1920s and 1930s.

Hesperia,
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 25.

Hesperia (1885-1959), was one of the Italian divas of the silent screen. She often worked with director Baldassarre Negroni, who later became her husband.

George Walsh
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 34.

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

Alberto Capozzi
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinemátografica, no. 52.

Alberto Capozzi (1886-1945) was an Italian film and stage actor who had an enormous career in Italian cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. Afterward, he pursued a career abroad in Austria and as a sound dubber in France. He returned to film acting in Italian cinema in the early 1940s.

Thomas Meighan
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 72.

Thomas Meighan (1879-1936) was an American stage and screen actor. He starred in seven silent films by William C. de Mille and five others by his brother, Cecil B. DeMille.

Mary Philbin
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 73.

Mary Philbin (1902-1993) was an American film actress of the silent film era, who is best known for playing the roles of Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925) opposite Lon Chaney, and as Dea in The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928), opposite Conrad Veidt.

Alla Nazimova
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 75.

Alla Nazimova (1879–1945) was a grand, highly flamboyant star of the American silent cinema. The Russian-born film and theatre actress, screenwriter, and film producer was widely known as just Nazimova. On Broadway, she was noted for her work in the classic plays of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Turgenev. Her efforts at silent film production were less successful, but a few sound-film performances survive as a record of her art.

Tullio Carminati
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 76.

Tullio Carminati (1895-1971) was an Italian stage and film actor with a longstanding career from the 1910s to the 1960s. He played in Italian, German, American, British, and French films and on Italian, American, and British stages.

Virginia Valli
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 77.

Virginia Valli (1895–1968) was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s.

Erich von Stroheim
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 78.

Was Austrian-born Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957) a Hollywood movie star or a European film star? (Who cares!) As the sadistic, monocled Prussian officer in both American and French films, he became ‘The Man You Love to Hate’. But maybe he is best known as one of the greatest and influential directors of the silent era, known for his extravaganza and the uncompromising accuracy of detail in his monumental films.

Jacqueline Logan
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 81.

Jacqueline Logan (1901-1983) was an American actress of the silent screen. Her most famous part is that of Mary Magdalene in the biblical epic The King of Kings (1927) by Cecil B. DeMille.

Tom Moore
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinemátografica, no. 82.

Tom Moore (1883-1955) was an Irish-American actor and director. From 1908 to 1954, he appeared in at least 186 films. Frequently cast as the romantic lead, he starred in silent films as well as in some of the first sound films.

Bessie Love
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 83.

American actress Bessie Love (1898-1986) was introduced to the cinema by D.W. Griffith. He also gave the actress her screen name. She played innocent young girls and wholesome leading ladies in silent films and early talkies. Her acting career spanned eight decades, and her role in The Broadway Melody (1929) earned her a nomination for the Oscar for Best Actress.

Wesley Barry
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 84.

Wesley Barry (1907-1994) was an adorable child actor in silent films who was known for his face full of freckles. He later became a producer and director of both film and television. As a director, he was sometimes billed as Wesley E. Barry.

Lon Chaney
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 86.

American stage and film actor, director, and screenwriter Lon Chaney (1883-1930) is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema. Between 1912 and 1930 he played more the 150 widely diverse roles. He is renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’ starred in such silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

Corinne Griffith
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 87.

Corinne Griffith (1894–1979) was an American film actress, producer, and author. Dubbed 'The Orchid Lady of the Screen', she was one of the most popular film actresses of the 1920s and widely considered the most beautiful actress of the silent screen. While she started out at Vitagraph in 1916, she became a very popular actress at First National Pictures. Griffith was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Frank Lloyd's The Divine Lady, a 1929 American Vitaphone sound film with a synchronised musical score, sound effects, and some synchronised singing, but no spoken dialogue. Griffith played the female lead of Lady Hamilton, opposite Victor Varconi as Horatio Nelson. When sound film set in, Griffith stopped acting and became a successful writer and businesswoman.

Douglas Fairbanks Junior
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 88.

Handsome and distinguished, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (1909-2000) was much more than the son of his superstar father. He was a bright, multi-talent, who excelled in sports and sculpting, was involved in the business, and was knighted for his war efforts as a lieutenant. And he acted in approximately 100 films or TV shows.

Anita Stewart,
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 89.

Anita Stewart (1895-1961) was an American actress who achieved success during the silent period. From 1911 on, she worked with director Ralph Ince for Vitagraph, later she had her own film company at Metro. The advent of the sound film ended her career.

To be continued tomorrow.

Recently acquired: La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, Part 2

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Today the second and last part of our post about the postcards published by the Spanish magazine 'La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica'. Yesterday we posted 25 cards, today the second series of 25 plus one. Again it's a combination of Hollywood and European stars of the early 1920s, including several German silent film stars this time. The complete series must have counted circa 460 cards*. 

Jack Pickford
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 90.

Jack Pickford (1896-1933) was a Canadian-born American actor, film director, and producer. He was the younger brother of Mary Pickford. While Jack also appeared in numerous films as the 'All American boy next door' and was a fairly popular performer, he was overshadowed by his sister's success. Also, by the late 1920s, his career had begun to decline due to alcohol, drugs, scandals, and chronic depression.

Marg Madys
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 93.

Marguerite 'Marg' Madys (1899–1986) was a French actress, born Alice Marguerite Blandin. She had a rich career in 1920s French silent cinema, acting in e.g. the serial L'Enfant-Roi (Jean Kemm, 1923), based on a fictive story to save the French dauphin from the guillotine.

William Russell
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 98.

Willam Russell (1884-1929) was an American popular actor of the silent screen. He became a star in Western comedies. Russell died already at age 44 in 1929.

Patsy Ruth Miller
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 99.

Patsy Ruth Miller (1904-1995) was an American film actress who played Esmeralda in the silent version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) opposite Lon Chaney. After a few early talkies, she retired in 1931. She later became known as a prize-winning writer.

Emilio Ghione
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 100.

Emilio Ghione (1879-1930) was an Italian silent film actor, director, and screenwriter. He is best known for writing, directing, and starring in the Za La Mort series of adventure films, in which he played a likable French apache and 'honest outlaw.'

Mildred Harris
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 103.

American film actress Mildred Harris (1901-1944) began her career in the film industry as a child actress when she was 11 years old. She was also the first wife of Charlie Chaplin.

Charles de Rochefort
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 104.

Charles de Rochefort (1887-1952) was a star of the French silent cinema. He appeared in 34 films between 1911 and 1932. In 1923 he went to the US and as Charles De Roche, he made several films in Hollywood. After his return to France, he became a film director of sound films.

Enid Bennett
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 105.

Enid Bennett (1893-1969) was an Australian-born silent film actress, mostly active in the American cinema. She peaked in the late 1910s and early 1920s with films such as Robin Hood (1922), starring Douglas Fairbanks, and The Sea Hawk (1924). In the sound era, she played Jackie Cooper's mother in the Oscar-winning film Skippy (1931). She was the wife of director Fred Niblo and after his death of director Sidney Franklin.

Geraldine Farrar
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 109.

American soprano opera singer and film actress Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967) was noted for her glamorous beauty, acting ability, and the timbre of her voice. Barely 20, she was already the toast of Berlin. Later at the Met in New York, she had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed ‘Gerry-flappers’. Farrar also starred in more than a dozen silent films from 1915 to 1920. She was married to and co-starred with Dutch matinee idol Lou Tellegen.

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

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

John Barrymore
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 114.

John Barrymore (1882-1942) was an American stage and screen actor whose rise to superstardom and subsequent decline is one of the legendary tragedies of Hollywood. A member of the most famous generation of the most famous theatrical family in America, he was also its most acclaimed star. He excelled in high drama, in productions of 'Justice' (1916), 'Richard III' (1920) and 'Hamlet' (1922). After a success as Hamlet in London in 1925, Barrymore left the stage for 14 years and instead focused entirely on films.

Louise Lorraine
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 115.

Louise Lorraine (1904-1981) was an American film actress, who started out in two-reel comedies for independent studios, then spent time at MGM and Universal. She became very popular in action-filled silent serials and may be best remembered for being the third actress to portray Jane, in the serial The Adventures of Tarzan (1921). In 1930, she retired from the film industry.

Febo Mari
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 116.

Febo Mari (1881-1939) was an Italian actor, director, and writer of the stage, screen, and radio, who peaked in the 1910s with films such as Il fuoco (1915), Cenere (1916) and Il fauno (1917).

Lucy Doraine
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 133.

Despite her French name, Lucy Doraine (1898-1989) was a major Austrian-Hungarian actress in the Austrian and German cinema of the 1920s. When she moved to Hollywood, the revolution of the sound film finished her career.

Warren Kerrigan,
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 136.

J. (Jack) Warren Kerrigan (1879-1947) was an American actor of the silent screen. From 1910, he had a most active career first in shorts at Essanay, American at Victor, then in features at Universal. After a gap in the early 1920s, he came back with a bang in James Cruze's The Covered Wagon (1923) but stopped acting in 1924 after a car accident.

Lee Parry
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 139.

Lee Parry (1901-1977) was a glamorous German film actress of the silent and the early sound era. She often starred in films by her husband Richard Eichberg. She appeared in 48 films between 1919 and 1939.

Lya Mara
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 143.

Lya Mara (1897-1969) was one of the biggest stars of the German silent cinema. Her stardom was even the subject of a novel, which was published in 100 episodes between 1927 and 1928. Her career virtually ended after the arrival of sound film.

Conrad Veidt
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 148.

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

Al St. John
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 150.

Al St. John (1892-1963) was an early American film comedian, and nephew of Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, with whom he often appeared. He played in dozens of Mack Sennett's early Keystone comedies and worked with Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Mabel Normand. He would eventually create and star in his own vehicles for other studios. In the sound era, he was the sidekick of B-Western heroes like Bob Steele and Buster Crabbe. He played the scruffy comedy relief character 'Fuzzy Q. Jones' in the Billy the Kid series (1940-1946), and the Lone Rider series (1941-1943). From 1912 to 1952, Al St. John acted in 346 films.

Shirley Mason
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 167.

Shirley Mason (1901-1979) was an American actress of the silent era. She was a sister of Viola Dana. She made her film debut at the age of 10. Between 1910 and 1929, she made more than 110 films.

Amleto Novelli
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 186.

Amleto Novelli (1885-1924) was a famous actor in Italian silent cinema, as well in epic and historical cinema as in diva films.

Lil Dagover
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 353.

German, but Dutch-born film actress Lil Dagover (1887-1980) was an exotic, dark beauty, who featured prominently during the golden age of the German silent cinema. She had her breakthrough as the prey of Dr. Caligari's monster in the classic expressionist film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) but gradually her fine and evanescent beauty changed and she turned into a 'Salondame', a lady of the screen. Her career would span nearly six decades.

Jean Hersholt
Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 372.

Jean Hersholt (1886-1956) was a Danish-born actor who lived in the United States, where he appeared in 75 silent films and 65 sound films and directed four films. He was best known for his villain role in Erich von Stroheim's classic Greed (1924) and as Shirley Temple's grandfather in Heidi (1937). For 17 years he starred on American radio in 'Dr. Christian'.

Charles Murray
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 399.

American comedian Charles Murray (1872-1941) worked with George Sydney on a series of comedies around the Jewish Nate Cohen and the Irish-Catholic Patrick Kelly, two business partners who are constantly fighting. Murray appeared in 283 films between 1912 and 1938, and also directed 5 films.

* Troy Kirk's The Movie Card Website contains a list of the  La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica cards, which goes as far as number 455.

Mogens Enger

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Mogens Enger (1894-1918) was a Danish actor and director in the German silent cinema. In 1918 he died at the age of 24 because of the Spanish flu.

Mogens Enger
German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 1967. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Mogens Enger
German postcard by NPG, no. 429. Photo: Alex Binder.

Detectives and crime police commissioners


Mogens Enger was born on 21 January 1894 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the son of bank manager Christian Enger.

Probably his film debut was as a detective in the crime film Det røde Alfabet/The Red Alphabet (Holger Rasmussen, 1915-1916) with Einar Bruun. Enger seems to have had a lead right away, judging the photos of this film on the site of the Danish Film Institute.

This was followed by a film for the Dania Biofilm Kompagni, Doktor Mors/Doctor Mors (unknown director, 1916) starring Poul Reumert. However, the usually well-informed site Danske film lists Doktor Mors as being from 1914.

Between 1915 and 1918 Enger was active in the German silent cinema. As crime films were popular in Germany during the First World War, Enger would often if not always play detectives and crime police commissioners.

He first acted in William Kahn's Der Fall Klerk/The Klerk case, shot in 1915, and released in Berlin in February 1916, at the Berlin Tauentzien-Palast. Enger immediately got the lead in this film. The film dealt with a man (Enger) suspected of murdering his father (Emil Rameau), but X-Rays clear this suspicion.

Enger subsequently became the hero as a detective in two Harry Piel crime films, Das geheimnisvolle Telephon/The mysterious phone (Harry Piel, 1916) and Unter heißer Zone/Under hot zone (Harry Piel, 1916) with Victor Janson and Martha Novelly.

After this he acted as the male lead opposite Hella Moja in three films by Otto Rippert made for Decla: Der Schwur der Renate Rabenau/The oath of Renate Rabenau (1916-17), Wenn die Lawinen stürzen/When the avalanches fall (1916-17), and Wer küßt mich?/Who kisses me? (1916-17).

Other films from 1916 with Enger were Wahn und Wahnsinn (Carl Schönfeld, 1916), Und das Blatt wendet sich/And the tide is turning (Preben Rist, 1916) with Henny Porten, Die Nicht sterben sollen/Those who shouldn't die (dir. unknown, 1916), and the Danish film Natekspressens Hemmelighed/The Secret of the Night Express (dir. unknown, 1916) again with Enger as a detective.

In 1917 he could be seen for Eiko in Blinder Lärm/Blind noise (dir. unknown, 1917) with Hanne Brinkmann, Die Bronzeschale/The bronze bowl (Rudolf Del Zopp, 1917) with Sybil Smolova, Eine Perle auf dunklem Grunde/A pearl on a dark background (Rudolf Del Zopp, 1917), Der Giftbecher/The poison cup (Fred Stranz, 1917), Der Fall Routt/The Routt Case (William Kahn, 1917), and the Danish spy film I Spionklør/In Spy claws (dir. unknown, 1917).

Mogens Enger in Der flammende Kreis
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2473. Photo: Imperator Film. Mogens Enger in Der flammende Kreis/The flaming circle (Siegfried Dessauer, 1918).

The pandemic of the Spanish Flu


In 1917 Mogens Enger joined the company Imperator-Film with a series of films starring himself, first the war propaganda film Hoch klingt das Lied vom U-Boot-Mann/Das Heldenleben des Erfinders der U-Boote Wilhelm Bauer/The song of the submarine man sounds high (Kurt Matull, 1917) with Enger as the inventor of the German submarine.

From Das verrufene Schloss Greifenstein/Ben Kabara (Siegfried Dessauer, 1917), Enger could be seen in crime films as crime police commissioner Ernst. Die Spur im Schnee/Der Schatten im Fenster/The trail in the snow (Siegfried Dessauer, Kurt Matull, 1917) with Hanne Brinkmann, and Das Geheimnis der Wetterfahne/The secret of the weather vane (Kurt Matull, 1917) with Victor Janson, followed with Enger as Detective Commissioner Ernst.

Enger directed himself in a two-part film: Marineleutnant von Brinken. 1. - Der Schuldschein des Pandola/Pandola's promissory note (Mogens Enger, 1917) and Marineleutnant von Brinken. II - Das Goldtal/The gold valley (Mogens Enger, 1918).

In 1918 he also acted in Der eiserne Käfig/The iron cage (Siegfried Dessauer, 1918), Der König der Nacht/The king of the night (Siegfried Dessauer, 1918), Der flammende Kreis/The flaming circle (Siegfried Dessauer, 1918), Falsches Geld/Wrong money (Kurt Matull?, Siegfried Dessauer, 1918), Der Fakir/The faki (Siegfried Dessauer, 1918), and Kinder der Liebe I./Children of love I. (Siegfried Dessauer, Mogens Enger, 1919) with Charlotte Böcklin.

During the shooting of Kinder der Liebe I., Mogens Enger died on 9 October 1918, at the age of only 24. He was a victim of the third wave of the pandemic of the Spanish Flu. Siegfried Dessauer had to finish the film.

Mogens Enger was married to Gertrud Enger, born Wittrup. In 1919 she remarried with director  and actor Emil Johannes Zuergius Nissen.

Mogens Enger
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1736.

Mogens Enger
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no K. 1737.

Sources: DFI, Early German Film Database, Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

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Leonardo DiCaprio played a double role as the title character and the villain in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998). The picture uses characters from Alexandre Dumas's Musketeers novels with Jeremy Irons as Aramis, John Malkovich as Athos, Gerard Depardieu as Porthos, and Gabriel Byrne as D'Artagnan. The film story is very loosely adapted from some plot elements of the novel 'The Vicomte de Bragelonne', the epilogue of the Musketeers novels. Gérard Depardieu was nominated for the European Film Academy Achievement in World Cinema Award for his role as Porthos. DiCaprio won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple for his interactions as twins in the film.

Gérard Depardieu and Jeremy Iron in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 853. Photo: United Artists. Gérard Depardieu and Jeremy Irons in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Gabriel Byrne, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Malkovich, Gérard Depardieu and Jeremy Irons in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 854. Photo: United Artists. Gabriel Byrne, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Malkovich, Gérard Depardieu, and Jeremy Irons in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
French postcard by Sonis, no. C 856. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio, Gérard Depardieu, Jeremy Irons, and John Malkovich in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Will D'Artagnan stand against his long time friends?


The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998) centers on the aging four musketeers, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan, during the reign of King Louis XIV and attempts to explain the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask.

This man is a secret twin brother to the cruel King Louis XIV of France. While Paris is starving, the King is more interested in money and bedding women. When a young soldier dies for the sake of a shag, Aramis, Athos, and Porthos band together with a plan to replace the king by his twin who was hidden at birth, then imprisoned for years behind an iron mask.

All that remains now is D'Artagnan, will he stand against his long time friends, or do what is best for his country?

This plot is less related to the original Dumas book than to the flamboyant film version starring Douglas Fairbanks, The Iron Mask (Alan Dwan, 1929), and the version directed by James Whale, The Man in the Iron Mask (James Whale, 1939) with Louis Hayward. Like the 1998 version, these two adaptations were also released through United Artists.

Gérard Depardieu, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gabriel Byrne and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. MG 2001. Photo: United Artists. Gérard Depardieu, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gabriel Byrne, and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
British postcard by the London Postcard Company, no. MG 2004 (Series 1 of 9), Portrait #2. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
British postcard by the London Postcard Company, no. MG 2004 (Series 1 of 9), Portrait #3. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio as King Louis in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
British postcard by the London Postcard Company, no. MG 2004 (Series 1 of 9), Portrait #6. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio as Phillippe in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Many persons and events are heavily fictionalised


The novel and the filmed versions of the tale have some differences in how they portray the royal twins and the plot to switch them. In the 1929 silent version, The Iron Mask starringDouglas Fairbanks as D'Artagnan, the King is depicted favourably and the twin brother as a pawn in an evil plot whose thwarting by D'Artagnan and his companions seems more appropriate.

In the 1998 film, the King is depicted negatively while his twin brother is sympathetically portrayed. D'Artagnan's loyalties are torn between his King and his three Musketeer friends. He is also revealed as the father of the twins, as well as being dedicated to the interests of France.

Many historical persons and events depicted in the film are heavily fictionalised, as declared in an opening narration. Louis XV was the great-grandson and successor of Louis XIV. He was born in 1710, and the events of the film take place about half a century before his birth.

D'Artagnan's death in the film is also inconsistent with biographic fact. The character is based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, a captain of the Musketeers of the Guard, who was killed in battle during the Siege of Maastricht (1673) - an event that concludes the Dumas novels, in which D'Artagnan is killed while reading the long-awaited notice of his promotion to the supreme command.

Louis XIV had a real-life brother, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, who is not depicted in the film and was not the King's twin. Set in 1662, the film portrays the king as unmarried. The historical Louis XIV married his first wife Maria Theresa of Spain in 1660. They remained married until her death in 1683. Notwithstanding the peace and prosperity alluded to at the film's conclusion, Louis XIV spent most of the remainder of his reign at war.

Jeremy Irons in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
British postcard by Boomerang Media. Photo: United Artists. Jeremy Irons in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Leonardo DiCaprio and Anne Parillaud in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions Ltd., Zoetermeer, no. FA 466. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio and Anne Parillaud in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998)

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions Ltd., Zoetermeer, no. FA 467. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio as Phillippe in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
American postcard by Classico San Francisco, no. 105-641. Photo: United Artists. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jeremy Irons in The Man in the Iron Mask (Randall Wallace, 1998).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Andrée Pascal

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Andrée Pascal (1892-1982) was a French actress who was highly active in the silent cinema. Pascal did over 30 films for Pathé in the early 1910s but she suddenly stopped her film career after acting in L'empereur des pauvres (1922).

Andrée Pascal
French postcard. Photo: Pathé.

Andrée Pascal de l'Odéon
French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Andrée Pascal
French postcard, no. 4. Photo: Félix. Design of the dress by Elise Poret.

Awoken with a kiss by Sarah Bernhardt


Andrée Pascal was born Andrée Alice Georgette Pascal in 1892 in Paris.

At the Conservatoire, Sarah Bernhardt was so smitten by Pascal's recital of 'La Passante', that she asked her to perform in her own theatre. So while only 15 years old, Pascal debuted on stage as the princess in the play 'La belle au bois dormant', a lyrical fairy tale by Jean Richepin and Henri Cain, first performed at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt on 25 December 1907. Sarah Bernhardt herself played the poet Landry who in this version awakens the princess with a kiss. Anna Judic played Maman Landry.

While working at the Odéon in all 1909, Pascal remained administered at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, where on 15 May 1910 she acted in the stage version of 'Vidoq, empereur des policiers' by Emile Bergerat. Jean Kemm played Vidoq, Jean Worms Salvador and Pascal played Léocadie.

In the same year, she acted opposite Galipurge and Henry Krauss in 'Les noces de Panurge', which premiered at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt on 21 December 1910. In 1911 André Antoine cast her at the Odéon theater as Brittanicus opposite Marie Ventura as Nero, in an attempt to modernise Racine's classic play and accentuate the youthfulness of the two characters Racine had stressed in his foreword to his play.

Pascal would continue to act on stage, notably in 1913 in 'La folle enchère', by Lucien Besnard and starring Catherine Fonteney, and in 1914 in 'Le destin est maître' by Paul Hervieu.

From 1909 onward she would also pursue a major career in the French silent cinema. IMDb mentions parts of her in Pathé films before 1910, but these are not confirmed by the Seydoux-Pathé site. Pascal probably started in 1909 at the French company Eclair, in the three-part episode film Morgan le pirate/Morgan the Pirate (part 1 and 2 in 1909, part 3 in 1910) by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset. Later in 1909, Pascal acted opposite upcoming actor Harry Baur (then from the Odéon) in La Légende du bon chevalier/The Legend of the Good Knight (Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, 1909).

In 1910 Pascal moved to the company Pathé Frères, where she had a prolific career between 1911 and 1914. She acted in classic dramas such as Les deux orphelines/The Two Orphans (Albert Capellani, 1910), comedies such as La ruse de Miss Plumcake/Miss Plumcakes List (Georges Danola, 1911) with Mistinguett, and in the early three-reeler period piece Le courier de Lyon/The Courier of Lyons (Albert Capellani, 1911) starring Louis Ravet.

She appeared in adaptations of popular classics dramas and novels, such as Les mysteres de Paris/Mysteries of Paris (Albert Capellani, 1912) based on Eugène Sue, and with Pascal playing Fleur-de-Marie. Just like in Les mystères de Paris, Pascal often acted the poor girl menaced by male adults. Also in Seule dans Paris/Alone in Paris (1914), Pascal is a poor girl chased by evildoer Émile Mylo.

Pascal starred in La fille des chiffoniers (Georges Monca, 1912), about Marion, a girl adopted by ragpickers, while her father moves to the US. When Dr. Verdier (Paul Capellani), who has fallen in love with her, treats a woman, she proves to be Marion's stepmother. During a duel between the doctor and Marion's father (Jean Kemm), ragpicker Smiley (Émile Mylo) recognises the father and a reunion follows, but the stepmother remains an obstacle.

Andrée Pascal in Barbegrise (1911)
Big photo card by Cinéma Pathé. Photo: Andrée Pascal in Barbegrise (Georges Monca, 1911). Script by Léon Chavignaud.

Gabrielle Robinne, Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (1916)
Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 3 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Andrée Pascal, Gabrielle Robinne and Henri Bosc in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (1916)
Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, no. 4 of 6 cards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Henri Bosc and Andrée Pascal in Le mot de l'énigme (Georges Monca, 1916).

Liking to act in detective and crime stories


Andrée Pasc;l played many supporting parts in short and longer Pathé films of the years 1912-1914. Remarkable is her part in the adventure and crime serial Rocambole (La Jeunesse de Rocambole / Les Exploits de Rocambole / Rocambole et l’héritage du marquis de Morfontaine, Georges Denola 1914), based on the stories by Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail and with Gaston Sylvestre in the title role. Pascal played the evil wife of Armand de Kergaz (Jean Hervé), brother of Rocambole's worst enemy, Andréa de Kergaz (Paul Escoffier).

In 1915 Pascal didn't act in film, but in 1916 she started again, now in a series of films for the Société cinématographique des auteurs et gens de lettres (SCAGL). These were mostly romantic dramas such as Le Mot de l’énigme (Georges Monca, 1916) starring Gabrielle Robinne, La Coupe d’amertume (Maurice Fleury, 1917), L'Heure sincère (René Plaissetty, 1917) with Maurice Lagrenée, and Les Feuilles tombent (Georges Denola, 1917) with Andrée Divonne.

She also played in period dramas such as Marie Tudor (Albert Capellani, 1917) starring Jeanne Delvair. In 1916 she also starred in the patriotic film Coeur de Française (Gaston Leprieur, 1916), based on a novel by Arthur Bernède, the first of his Chantecoq detective stories. It was a propagandistic spy drama in which Maxime Desjardins had the male lead as inventor Aubry opposite Andrée Pascal as his wife. They were involved in espionage between Germany and France. But the detective Chantecoq (Louis Ravet) is valiant. All actors in the film were acclaimed stage actors, such as Albert Dieudonné.

During the war, Pascal also acted on stage, in particular at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu. Pascal must have liked to act in detective and crime stories, as after 'Vidoq' she acted in 1913-1914 in 'Raffles' at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu. In 1916 she acted in a play on Sherlock Holmes by Pierre Decourcelle, and in 1920 in 'Arsène Lupin', the play by Francis de Croisset and Maurice Leblanc, reprised at the Théâtre de Paris.

After the First World War, Pascal played supporting parts, e.g. as Claire Fromont in Fromont jeune et Risler aîné (1921) starring Henry Krauss and Maurice Escande, and as Clémence Sarrias, her last role, in L'empereur des pauvres (René Leprince, 1922), starring Léon Mathot and Gina Relly.

Pascal continued to act on stage in the 1920s. She could be seen in e.g. 'Les don Juanes' (1922) at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin; in Edmond Rostand's evergreen 'L'Aiglon' (1923-1924) at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. Rostand had written the play for Bernhardt herself, but many women after her would also perform the crossdressing part).

Pascal appeared opposite Marcel Herrand in 'Mouchoir de nuages' (1924) by Tristan Tzara and in 'Romeo and Juliet' (1924) by Jean Cocteau, both at the Cigale. Then she played in 'Montmartre' (1925) at the Gymnase; in 'La menace' (1925) at the Théâtre de la Renaissance; and in 'Les yeux du coeur' (1927) and 'Monsieur Beverly' (1927) at the Théâtre Antoine.

In 1924 Pascal and Pierre Magnier also led a big stage tour to Canada, with the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin actors, while in 1928 Pascal and Harry Baur did a stage tour through Spain and North-Africa (Tunisia and Algeria). Winter 1928 she also performed in Nice in 'La Garçonne' by Victor Margueritte, while in 1929 she acted in 'La Famille heureuse' at the Odéon. Pascal would also continue to appear in fashion magazines in the 1920s.

In 1930 Pascal played Fanny in the stage version of 'Marius' by Marcel Pagnol, later adapted for film. 'Marius' was staged at the Théâtre de Paris, where Pascal was employed in the late 1920s. It is not exactly clear when Pascal stopped stage acting.

Andrée Pascal would live on for many, many years, and she would die in Clichy in 1982, at the high age of 90 years.

Andrée Pascal in Coeur de Française (1916)
French postcard by L. [Louis] Aubert, Concessionnaire, Paris. Photo: Les Grands Films Populaires G. Lordier, Paris.

In 1916 Andrée Pascal starred in the patriotic film Coeur de Française (Gaston Leprieur, 1916), based on a 1912 novel by Arthur Bernède, the first of his Chantecoq detective stories. It was a propagandistic spy drama in which Maxime Desjardins had the male lead as inventor Aubry opposite Andrée Pascal as his wife, involved in espionage between Germany and France. But the detective Chantecoq (Louis Ravet) is valiant. All actors in the film were acclaimed stage actors.

L'empereur des pauvres
French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Publicity still for L'empereur des pauvres/The Emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1921). In the middle, Gina Relly as Sylvette, at right, Henry Krauss, as her uncle Jean Sarrias, revolting against society, and at left Andrée Pascal as Clémence Sarrias.

L'empereur des pauvres
French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Publicity still for L'empereur des pauvres/The Emperor of the poor (René Leprince, 1921). Left to right: Andrée Pascal as Clémence Sarrias, Gina Relly as Sylvette, Léon Mathot as Marc Anavan, and Henry Krauss as Jean Sarrias.

Sources: Gallica, Filmographie Eclair in Griffithiana 44/45 (May-September 1992), Fondation Jerome Seydoux - Pathe (French), Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

Photo by Zander & Labisch

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Zander & Labisch in Berlin was the first German photo studio that, as a photo agency, dealt exclusively with the production of professional press photos and their direct sales. It was founded in 1895, and at the turn of the century, the photo agency focused on new areas of activity, such as theatre photography. From 1918 on, the studio also produced many portraits of film stars.

Alexander Moissi
German postcard by Verlag Louis Blumenthal, Berlin, no. 3233. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Alexander Moissi as the fool in 'König Lear' (King Lear).

Albanian-Austrian Alexander Moissi (1879-1935) was one of the great European stage actors of the early-20th century. The attractive and charismatic women's idol also appeared in several silent and early sound films.

Theodor Loos in König Salomon
German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin Wilm., no. 1860. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Theodor Loos in the play 'König Salomon' (King Solomon).

Theodor Loos (1883-1954) was a German stage and screen actor between the 1910s and the 1950s. He became famous for his parts in Fritz Lang’s German films.

Paul Wegener in König Oedipus (1910)
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 4553a, Berlin. Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin. Paul Wegenerin 'Oedipus Rex' (1910).

Paul Wegener in König Oedipus (1910)
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 4581a. Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin. Tiresias at the palace of Oedipus.

Paul Wegenerin 'Oedipus Rex', Sophocles's classic tragedy, directed by Max Reinhardt in a translation by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This production was first performed in 1910, first in a Summer festival in Munich and then in the Fall in a circus arena Berlin. Stars were Paul Wegener as Oedipus and Tilla Durieux as Jocasta, though some considered the masses of extras performing the Thebans to be the real stars. Emily Bilski, in Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture, 1890-1918, writes: "Oedipus was the first major theater-in-the-round production in modern times that featured masses of actors performing for a mass audience."

Max Pallenberg in Tobias Buntschuh (1917)
German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin, no. 9307. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Max Pallenberg in the play 'Tobias Buntschuh' (1917).

The engineer and the rabbi


Against the background of the development of photo and printing technology and its effects on the print media of the early days, the engineer and photographer Albert Zander (1864–1897) from Colmar near Poznan and the rabbi and photographer Siegmund Labisch (1863 –1942) from Samter in the same region recognised the possibilities and opportunities that arose from the increased demands of publishers, editorial offices and readers with regard to current press photos of good quality.

Albert Zander first worked as an engineer at the Berlin machine factory Carl Flohr. In 1895, a fire broke out at the factory, which was photographed by Zander. Two of his photos were then published by the Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung. A few months later, he and Siegmund Labisch founded a photo studio in Berlin under the company name Zander & Labisch-Illustrations-Photographen. Later they operated as Zander & Labisch Neue Photographische Gesellschaft A.G., and finally as Zander & Labisch oHG.

The photo studio specialised in supplying the press, daily newspapers, magazines and magazines, and was thus involved in the creation of the tabloid press in Germany. The agency was initially located at Leipziger Strasse 105, in the immediate vicinity of important newspaper publishers such as the August Scherl Verlag and the Ullstein Verlag.

The portfolio of the photo studio included current events as well as portrait photos of contemporary personalities that were of interest to the press. Already two years later, about a tenth of all photos published in the Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung were from Zander & Labisch.

In 1897 the photo studio had to search for larger premises and moved to Mohrenstrasse 19, where two of its employees, Olga Badenberg and Waldemar Titzenthaler, previously worked. When Zander suddenly died by poisoning in 1897, Labisch continued to run the photo studio alone but he retained the company name of Zander & Labisch.

Irail Gadescov and Magda Bauer
German postcard, no. 1529. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Iraïl Gadescov and partner
German postcard, no. 6673. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Iraïl Gadescov was the exotic stage name of the Dutch dancer Richard Vogelesang (1894-1970), who enjoyed an international career. During the 1920s he often performed together with German dancer Magda Bauer. In 1921, Gadescov danced in the German silent film Die Diktatur der Liebe. 1. Die böse Lust/The dictatorship of love I -The evil desire (Willy Zeyn, 1921), credited as Jrail Godescou.

Marianne Winkelstern
German postcard, no. 3789. Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin.

German actress Marianne Winkelstern (1910-1966) became well known as a ballerina in Germany and England. In Germany, she appeared in some silent films and early sound films.

Maria Solveg
German postcard, no. 4064 . Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin.

German film and screenwriter Maria Solveg or Maria Matray (1907–1993) was a star of the late Weimar cinema. When Hitler came to power, the Jewish actress went into exile and had a new career in the US as a choreographer and writer.

Rose Barsony
Austrian postcard Iris Verlag, no. 6586. Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin.

Hungarian actress, dancer, and singer Rose Barsony (1909-1977) appeared in 16 films from 1929 to 1938, and in one more in 1957. The soubrette was a popular star of the operettas by Paul Abraham.

New areas of activity


At the turn of the century, Zander & Labisch focused on new areas of activity, such as architecture, industry, and theatre photography. As a result, the agency found new customers in addition to the press: AEG, Borsig, Osram, and Siemens were among its renowned international clients. The large companies used Zander & Labisch, for example, to have photo documentation of their products made for their company archives, but also for advertising purposes.

The photo agency was also active outside of Berlin. For example, in 1905 Zander & Labisch photographed for the magazine Ost und West - an illustrated monthly magazine for the entire Jewish community.

In 1917, Labisch accepted his nephew Paul Wittkowsky (1892–1949), born in Strasbourg in Alsace, as a co-owner of the company. In 1918 the agency moved from Mohrenstrasse 19 to Leipziger Strasse 115/116. There, rooms for portrait photography were created, on which a separate department specialised. At that time, the photo agency had nine employees, with whom it was able to process the numerous orders of the 1920s.

In 1929, the prominent society magazine Die Dame published five full pages with photos from Alfred Flechtheim's Berlin apartment, which was a celebrity get-together for artists, bankers, writers, journalists, and film and stage stars. The photos were all made by Zander & Labisch.

Their artist portraits were used for many postcards. They made e.g. a popular 'stage stars' series on which artists posed in the costumes of their most famous roles. The autograph of Zander & Labish on the card was a quality label for collectors.

Johannes Riemann am Vortragstisch
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 281. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Caption: Johannes Riemann at the lecture table

German actor Johannes Riemann (1888-1959) appeared from World War I till the end of World War II in some 90 films, often as the gentleman who elegantly breaks a woman’s heart.

Ernst Lubitsch, Ossi Oswalda
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 337/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Zander & Labisch.

Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) was a German-American actor, screenwriter, producer, and film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having ‘the Lubitsch touch.’ He was nominated three times for the Oscar for Best Director and in 1947, he received an Honorary Academy Award.

Ossi Oswalda (1895-1947) was one of the most popular comediennes of the German silent cinema.

Grete Weixler
German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 300/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Zander and Labisch.

Grete Weixler
(ca. 1900- after 1922) was a German actress of the silent cinema. From 1914 on, she appeared in secondary roles in melodramas by directors like Carl Boese, Friedrich Zelnik, and Lupu Pick.

Ernst Reicher
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 3076, Photo: Stuart-Webbs-Films / Zander und Labisch.

Ernst Reicher (1885-1936) was a German stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter, and producer, famous for his Stuart Webbs detective films.

Lu L'Arronge
German postcard by NPG. Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin.

Little is known about German actress Lu L'Arronge. While IMDb lists just one film: Anna Karenina (Friedrich Zelnik 1919), a film in which she only had a minor part, Filmportal.de indicates that she formed her own company in 1919 to star in her own film Die weisse Maus (Leonhard Haskel, 1919) and that she also played the lead in Die Geisterbraut (Herbert Gerdes, 1919).

Senta Söneland
German postcard by NPG, no. 1419. Photo: Zander & Labisch, Berlin.

Senta Söneland (1882-1933) was a German actress whose peaks in her film career were in the later 1910s and the early 1930s.

The impact of anti-semitism


The rise of the National Socialists and their anti-Semitism in the early 1930s had a significant impact on Zander & Labisch. The result was a massive drop in sales. Orders from newspaper publishers were increasingly dropped because they were no longer wanted to employ Jewish employees and suppliers. The first layoffs occurred.

In 1936, the agency was banned from the Reich Association of German Correspondence and News Offices e. V. and thus excluded from the superior Reich Press Chamber (RPK). In architecture and industrial photography, however, Zander & Labisch was able to remain active for some time.

In 1938, however, the photo agency had to give up its premises in the Leipziger Strasse. The rest of the business was moved entirely to the private apartments of the two owners, Labisch and Wittkowsky, where they carried out small orders from the private sector.

When the ordinance to eliminate Jews from German economic life came into force, Zander & Labisch had to finally cease business on 31 December 1938. In 1939 the company was deleted from the Berlin commercial register. Paul Wittkowsky emigrated to Australia in 1939.

Siegmund Labisch was deported to the concentration camp Theresienstadt, where he died in 1942.

Mady Christians
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser. Berlin-Wilm., no. 436. Photo: Zander & Labisch.

Austrian-born stage actress Mady Christians (1892-1951) was a star of the German silent cinema and appeared in Austrian, French, British and Hollywood films too.

Hella Moja
German postcard by Ross verlag, no. 298/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Zander & Labisch / Hella Moja Film.

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.

Paul Hartmann
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 9303. Photo: Zander & Labisch. Paul Hartmann in Volk in Not/People in Need (Wolfgang Neff, 1925).

German stage actor Paul Hartmann (1889-1977) made over 100 films, both in the silent and the sound period. Despite his commitment to the Nazi regime, he could continue his career quite smoothly into the 1950s and 1960s.

Lucie Englisch
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6764/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Zander & Labisch, Berlin.

Popular Austrian folk-actress Lucie Englisch (1902-1965) played both leading and supporting roles on stage, in films, and on television. As the native girl with the loose tongue, she was seen in countless comedies, in both leading and supporting parts.

Luise Ullrich
Dutch postcard by Isa-Film, no. 4636. Photo: Zander & Labisch.

Austrian actress Luise Ullrich(1910-1985) starred in many German films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. No German star played self-sacrificing womanhood better than the blond actress and her film Annelie (1941), became the main morale-booster of World War II Germany.

Sources: Wikipedia (German)

Enid Bennett

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Enid Bennett (1893-1969) was an Australian-born silent film actress, mostly active in the American cinema. She peaked in the late 1910s and early 1920s with films such as Robin Hood (1922), starring Douglas Fairbanks, and The Sea Hawk (1924). In the sound era, she played Jackie Coogan's mother in the Oscar-winning film Skippy (1931). She was the wife of director Fred Niblo and after his death of director Sidney Franklin.

Enid Bennett
Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del Cine series by Ediciones Victoria, Barcelona, no. 1282.

Enid Bennett
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, Paris, no. 113. Photo: Hoover.

Enid Bennett
Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 105.

Touring through Australia with Fred Niblo


Enid Eulalie Bennett was born in 1893 in York in Western Australia. She was the daughter of Nellie Mary Louise (née Walker) and Frank Bennett. She had an older brother, Francis Reginald 'Reg' Bennett, and a younger sister, the future actress Marjorie Bennett.

After an unsuccessful attempt to start his own school, Frank took up the role of headmaster at the newly established Guildford Grammar School in 1896. He died in 1898 when he drowned in a river while suffering from depression.

In 1899, Nellie married the new headmaster, Alexander Gillespie. With him, she had a daughter named Catherine and a son named Alexander. Following Gillespie's death in 1903, Nellie supported her five children by working as a school matron.

Enid attended Lionel Logue's acting and elocution classes in Perth, and after receiving encouragement from Katherine Gray, a visiting American actress in 1910, she joined a touring company.

By 1912, Bennett had joined the Fred Niblo-Josephine Cohan touring company, performing comedies around Australia and understudying for Cohan herself, for which she received consistently positive reviews. Her family had moved to Sydney by this time. In 1917, her brother Reg was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium while serving with the First Australian Imperial Force.

In the early part of 1915, theatre agent J. C. Williamson decided to make short films of some of their popular plays, to forestall the release of imported American filmed versions. They used Fred Niblo as director, and members of his troupe appeared in Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford (Fred Niblo, 1916) and Officer 666 (Fred Niblo, 1916). Enid Bennett appeared in both. Three reels of Officer 666 survive today in the National Film and Sound Archive. Film historians Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper described it as "a crude production doggedly faithful to the stage." Both films were released in Australia after Bennett left for the United States in June 1915, travelling with Niblo and his wife Josephine Cohan.

Enid Bennett
British postcard. Photo: Apeda / Paramount.

Enid Bennett's Home, Beverly Hills, Cal.
American postcard, no. 794. Caption: Enid Bennett's Home, Beverly Hills, Cal.

Enid Bennett
British postcard in the Pictures Portrait Gallery by Pictures Ltd., London, no. 9/190. Sent by mail in Belgium in 1923.

Walking through Robin Hood in a queenly manner


Enid Bennett's first appearance in the U.S. was on Broadway in Henry Arthur Jones' play 'Cock o' the Walk' at George M. Cohan's Theatre in late 1915 and early 1916. It was a vehicle for popular comedian Otis Skinner and Enid played a supporting part.

Film roles of increasing importance followed soon after. One of her early films was The Little Brother (Charles Miller, 1917) for Kay-Bee Pictures. This brought her to the attention of Thomas H. Ince, who signed her up with the Triangle Film Corporation. From 1918 to 1921, she starred in 23 Triangle films, becoming well-established as an actress and attracting great publicity and consistently positive reviews.

Following Josephine Cohan's death in 1916, Bennett married her widower Fred Niblo in 1918. Niblo’s first American directing experience was The Marriage Ring (Fred Niblo, 1918), with Enid in a leading role. He had learned a lot since the days of his Australian film experience.

Niblo went on to direct until the early 1930s and the first years of sound film. Enid Bennett was also busy. In 1922, she starred in three films, one of which became her most famous role, the female lead of Maid Marian in Robin Hood (Allan Dwan, 1922) with Douglas Fairbanks.

Interviewed in the 1960s by Kevin Brownlow, Bennett said, "I had a wonderful time playing Maid Marian. Of course, the part was not too demanding, I just walked through it in a queenly manner. [Fairbanks] was wonderful, inspiring."

In 1922, she and Niblo had their first child, a daughter named Loris. A son, Peter, was born later that year, and another daughter, Judith, was born in 1928. So, between 1923 and 1928 her career slowed and she appeared in leading roles in fewer films.

She starred opposite Ramon Novarro in Niblo's film Red Lily (Fred Niblo, 1924). Another stand-out role was as Lady Rosamund Godolphin in the adventure film The Sea Hawk (Frank Lloyd, 1924) with Milton Sills and Wallace Beery. When the film was released, New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall called it "far and away the best sea story that's yet been done up to that point".

Enid Bennett
French postcard by Editions Paramount, Paris.

Milton Sills and Enid Bennett in The Sea Hawk (1924)
Danish postcard by J. Chr. Olsons Kunstforlag, Eneret, no. 536. Photo: Milton Sills and Enid Bennett in The Sea Hawk (Frank Lloyd, 1924).

Enid Bennett
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 849/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Bafag (British-American-Film AG).

Jackie Cooper's decent mother figure


Enid Bennett made the transition to sound, appearing as a decent mother figure in two Jackie Cooper-Robert Coogan films: Skippy (Norman Taurog, 1931), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and its sequel Sooky (Norman Taurog, 1931).

She also played a mother in Waterloo Bridge (James Whale, 1931), with Mae Clarke and Douglass Montgomery. Later at the end of the decade, she appeared in Intermezzo (Gregory Ratoff, 1939) with Ingrid Bergman, and in a few minor roles.

Her last film was the Marx Brothers comedy The Big Store (Charles Reisner, 1941), in which she had an uncredited bit part as a clerk. Niblo had retired in 1933, and it appears Bennett did also.

In later life, her sister Marjorie Bennett explained that, somewhat against her will, she had been encouraged by the family to join Bennett in 1915 to keep her company in the U.S. Enid helped to launch the career of her younger sister as a character actress. By the mid-1920s, their mother Nellie and their other siblings were also living in the U.S. In 1934, her brother Alexander married actress Frances Lee. The wedding was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest names, including Gloria Swansonand Greta Garbo.

Niblo and Bennett commissioned architect Wallace Neff to design their house on Angelo Drive, which they named 'Misty Mountain'. It was completed in 1926 and sold by the couple to Jule C. Stein in 1940 after a decline in their fortunes. Fred Niblo died in 1948.

In 1963, Enid married American film director Sidney Franklin. In later life, she resided in Malibu, California, and was a sculptor and created pottery. She also worked until her death for the Christian Science Church. She regularly appeared on radio and TV, sometimes credited as Enid Bennett Niblo, hosting short Christian Science programs on healing, including 'Light of Faith' and 'How Christian Science heals'.

In 1969, Enid Bennett died of a heart attack at her home in Malibu, California, aged 75. Her ashes were interred next to Fred Niblo’s.

Enid Bennett
French postcard in the Les vedettes de cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 39. Photo: Film Paramount.

Enid Bennett
French postcard in the Les vedettes de cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 83. Photo: United Artists.

Enid Bennett
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition / A.N., Paris, no. 135. Photo: Hoover, L.A.

Enid Bennett
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition / A.N., Paris, no. 296. Photo: Evans Studio, L.A.

Sourced: Heathcote Pursuit (Forgotten Australian actors), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Zizi Jeanmaire (1924-2020)

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Glamorous ballet dancer and film star Zizi Jeanmaire (1924) passed away on 17 July 2020 in Tolochenaz, Switzerland. She became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet version of Carmen, produced in London in 1949. She went on to appear in films in France and Hollywood. She was the widow of dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, one of the major creative forces in ballet during the 1940s and 1950s. Zizi Jeanmaire was 96.

Zizi Jeanmaire
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 797. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Zizi Jeanmaire in Casino de Paris
French postcard by Iris / Editions Chantal, Paris, no. 455. Caption: Le tableau final de la revue du Casino de Paris. (The final picture of the stage production 'Revue' at the Casino de Paris.)

Erotic Frankness in Dance


Renée Marcelle Jeanmaire was born in Paris, France, in 1924.

At the age of nine, she entered the Paris Opéra Ballet school in 1933, where she would meet her future husband and long-time collaborator Roland Petit.

In 1940, she was engaged in the corps de ballet. In 1944, Renée Jeanmaire left the Paris Opera House to work with Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. She briefly joined Petit’s new company, Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées in 1946, and reunited with him at Les Ballets de Paris in 1949.

Petit defined a new French chic and erotic frankness in dance, and Jeanmaire became his muse and prima ballerina. Petit reinvented the suffering, virginal ballerina as a provocative, irresistible modern-day femme fatale. Two of their most famous ballets were Le jeune homme et la mort (The Young Man and the Death) and Carmen, with Jeanmaire as the lethal female destroying a hapless male in both.

In its 2011 obituary of Petit, The Telegraph candidly recalled: “Petit created Carmen, an encapsulation of Bizet's opera in ballet, which premiered in 1949 at the Prince's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, and became an instant world hit. Jeanmaire bobbed her hair short and wore a scant black corset, which, coupled with the candid seductiveness of her pas de deux with Petit, caused both shock and delight among the crowds who rushed to see it. One observer commented that he could see men's trouser buttons popping during the performance.“

Their ballets caused a sensation worldwide and Petit and Jeanmaire (now Zizi Jeanmaire) swiftly became the most exciting names in French dance. Samuel Goldwyn invited them to come to Hollywood for the choreography and leading lady role in the fantasy Hans Christian Andersen (Charles Vidor, 1952) starring Danny Kaye as the famous Danish fairytale writer.

In 1954 Petit and Jeanmaire married.

Zizi Jeanmaire
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 615. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Reinventing the Paris Revue


When Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire toured the Ballets de Paris through the U.S. in 1955 they were showered with Hollywood invitations. To Jeanmaire's chagrin, Petit chose a younger lookalike, Leslie Caron, to be the lead in his Fred Astaire musical Daddy Long Legs (Jean Negulesco, 1955).

Jeanmaire did appear in Petit’s Anything Goes (Robert Lewis, 1956) with Bing Crosby, but her Hollywood stint was brief. She returned to France to appear in such musicals as Folies-Bergère (Henri Decoin, 1956) with Eddie Constantine and choreography by Petit. In this film she first sang her hit song Mon truc en plumes (My Feather Trick).

Petit also choreographed 1-2-3-4 ou Les Collants noirs/Black Tights (Terence Young, 1960) to show Zizi Jeanmaire's magnetic balletic gifts alongside Cyd Charisse and Moira Shearer.

Petit then created La Revue des Ballets de Paris and set about reinventing the Paris revue around his wife, exploring new levels of luxury and sophistication for her many talents. Not only did Jeanmaire dance like an angel in any style, dressed flamboyantly (and sometimes minimally) by costumiers such as Erté, but she possessed an alluring singing voice and a worldly verbal wit that sold countless records.

In 1970, Petit accepted to take the direction of the Paris Opera ballet, but he resigned after only six months. He bought Le Casino de Paris to create two musicals: 'La Revue' and 'Zizi je t’aime', with scenery and costumes from Erté, Yves Saint Laurent, Vasarély, Guy Pellaert, and César. Lyrics are by Jean-Jacques Debout, Guy Béart, Jean Férrat, Michel Legrand, and Serge Gainsbourg. The result was a supercharged new kind of music-hall, in which Zizi was the centre. In 1976, in spite of the big success, the tax burden forced Roland Petit and Zizi Jeanmaire to give up Le Casino de Paris.

During her career, Zizi Jeanmaire produced more than 60 shows with Petit. She was honoured to be Chevalier des arts et des lettres (in 1962), Chevalier de la légion d’honneur (1974), Officier de l’ordre national du mérite (1983), Officier de la Légion d’honneur (1993), and Commandeur de l’ordre national du mérite (1997).

Roland Petit passed away in 2011. He and Zizi had one daughter, Valentine Petit, a dancer and actress. Zizi Jeanmaire passed away in Tolochenaz, Switzerland.

Zizi Jeanmaire, Rudolf Nureyev
French postcard by Repetto, Paris. Photo: Studio Mardyks.

Sources: Official Roland Petit site, The Telegraph, Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.

Doppelgänger

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What happens when you see your doppelganger? Doppelganger, a loan word from German, stands for the perfect replica. In the cinema, the tradition of the doppelganger is long and varied. Occasionally the doppelganger can be mischievous or a trickster, like Kim Novak in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Often seeing one’s own double is a fearful experience, sometimes even the harbinger of death, such as in the German silent classic Der Student von Prag (1913) with Paul Wegener. And what, if you have a twin and you don't know it, as in the Disney classic The Parent Trap (1961). Hayley Mills played both sisters, which happens to be another tradition in the cinema.

Maria Carmi in Das Mirakel (1912)
Maria Carmi. German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, no. 7267. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Das Mirakel (1912) re-tells an old legend about a nun in the Middle Ages who runs away from her convent with a knight. She has several adventures, eventually leading to her being accused of witchcraft. During her absence, the statue of the Virgin Mary in the convent's chapel comes to life and takes the nun's place in the convent, until her safe return. Then she becomes a statue again. The play's stage director was Max Reinhardt, the Austrian theatrical genius, whose inspired use of lighting, mechanical effects, and spectacle (particularly crowds) startled audiences across Europe. He told the story of Das Mirakel without words in a cathedral setting. 1,000 performers and 500 choristers and 25 horses filled out the epic drama, supported by a wonderful array of stage mechanics, ingenious theatrical effects, and music of the great composer Engelbert Humperdink played by an orchestra of 2,000. For many, the spectacular Das Mirakel was a theatrical event like no other. Das Mirakel/The Miracle was adapted to three different film versions. The original authorised version, The Miracle (1912), was a full-length, hand-coloured film, which was shot in Austria in 1912 but was a British production. Das Mirakel launched the career of Italian silent film star and stage actress Maria Carmi(1880-1957), who interpreted the virgin Mary. With her aristocratic air, her severe looks but also her sweet undertones, Carmi was the cinematic translation of the 19th-century Primadonna.

Maria Carmi in Das Mirakel (1912)
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 8579. Photo: Becker & Maass. Publicity still for Das Mirakel/The Miracle with Maria Carmi as the Madonna.

Paul Wegener and Lyda Salmonova in Der Student von Prag (1913)
German collectors card by Ross Verlag in the series Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film, no. 9. Photo: Sokal-Film. Paul Wegener and Lyda Salmonova in Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague (Paul Wegener, Stellan Rye, 1913).

In the silent horror classic Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague (1913), it was the first time you really see the idea of the double on-screen (sadly not on the card). Actor-director Paul Wegener was one of the pioneers of the German cinema who realised the potential of the new medium and used the possibilities of cinematic trick photography as a method for presenting fantastic tales in a serious matter. Audiences flocked to see the film, in part because it tapped into a very real sense of dissociation and alienation inherent in a society that was struggling with the burgeoning collapse of the German empire. Appropriately enough for a film about a double, it was remade at least twice.

La statua di carne
Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 243. Italia Almirante as Maria and Lido Manetti as Paolo La statua di carne/A Statue of Flesh (Mario Almirante, 1921).

La statua di carne vaguely follows the plot of Georges Rodenbach's often adapted novel Bruges-la-Morte (1892). Here a widower is appalled when the lookalike of his chaste wife proves to be a frivolous actress. She mocks the man's cherished braid of his dead wife, so he strangles her with it. The film by Almirante has a less gruesome finale. This card shows a moment at the beginning. Poor Maria is deeply in love with Paolo, at first unknowing that he is a count who pretends to be a poor artist. She will die of tuberculosis, in the arms of Paolo.

La statua di carne (1921)
Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, La Fotominio no. 94. Italia Almirante as Noemi and Lido Manetti as Paolo La statua di carne/A Statue of Flesh (Mario Almirante, 1921).

Count Paolo's first night back in society after Maria's death provides him with a shock. He meets an elegant masked lady, Noemi Keller, the toast of the town. She agrees to cheer him up. In a room in the theatre she takes off her mask and proves to be the spitting image of Maria. He is devastated. She agrees to pose for him every day, even though she knows that he is only thinking of the other woman. Finally, in a duel with a former lover of Noemi, Paolo recognises that he loves Noemi for who she is.

Henny Porten in Kohlhiesels Töchter (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag no. 630/2. Photo: Messter Film, Berlin. Publicity still for Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) with Henny Porten as Gretel.

Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (1920) was the most successful film of Ernst Lubitsch's German period. The comedy was extremely popular at the box office and was re-released more than once. It takes its basic premise from William Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew', relocated to 19th-century southern Bavaria. The sweet-natured young Gretel (Henny Porten) wants to get married to Peter Xaver (Emil Jannings) but her father refuses to allow the match until her elder sister Liesel (also Henny Porten) has married first. As Liesel is notorious for her bad-tempered personality, this is no easy challenge. Xaver's friend Seppel suggests, that Xaver should marry Liesel first, get rid of her, and then marry Gretel...

Emil Jannings and Henny Porten in Kohlhiesels Töchter (1920)
German postcard by Ross Verlag no. 639/5. Photo: Messter-Film. Emil Jannings as Peter and Henny Porten as Liesel in Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920).

Henny Porten in Wehe, wenn sie losgelassen...!
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 55/5. Photo: A. Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten Film. Henny Porten in the film comedy Wehe, wenn sie losgelassen...! /When She Starts - Look Out! (Carl Froehlich, 1926).

Just like she had done before in Kohlhiesels Töchter (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), Henny Porten again played two parts in Wehe, wenn sie losgelassen: that of a good-looking bourgeois housewife, Cecilia Angeropp, and that of an ugly countryside girl, Liesl, the maid of the other. Porten said herself about this: "I have always had a special preference for double-roles. It was not the masquerades that were particularly appealing to me but the psychological aspects: I wanted to portray two completely different characters to the point that the spectator would as long as possible keep the illusion of both roles being played by two different actresses." Two-shots with both characters within the same shot were obtained with double exposure.

Henny Porten in Liebe und Diebe (1928)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 92/2. Photo Alex Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Froehlich Produktion. Henny Porten in a double role in Liebe und Diebe/Love and Thieves (Carl Froehlich, 1928).

Baroness Anna von Belling (Henny Porten), who is staying in a posh Wiesbaden hotel, has her jewelry, valuable diamonds, stolen. She personally pursues the thief and is promptly mistaken for an impostor whom the police have long sought. Taken into custody, Ms. von Belling is only released when her own uncle confirms her identity. The hotel guest who, in their eyes, has made himself particularly suspicious, turns out to be a detective and her stolen jewelry proves to be fake. As if by coincidence, the real thief Anna Magdalena Kaludrigkeit, internally called "Brillanten-Anna" (also Porten), appears, who has just returned from a thief tour and has a striking resemblance to her noble namesake. After all the confusion, Baroness Anna and the police commissioner von Langen (Anton Pointner), who handled the case, get closer and get married.

Henny Porten in Kohlhiesels Töchter (1930)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 126/1. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Nero-Porten-Film. Henny Porten in the sound remake Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930).

Vladimir Gajdarov in Hochstapler wider Willen (1925)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 887/1. Photo: Bavaria Film. Vladimir Gajdarov in a double role in Hochstapler wider Willen aka Der Doppelgänger des Herrn Schnepfe/Reluctant Imposter (Géza von Bolváry, 1925). The film was shot at the Bavaria studios in Munich in 1924 and released on 25 February 1925.

Vladimir Gajdarov in Hochstapler wider Willen (1925)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 887/2. Photo: Bavaria Film Vladimir Gajdarov in a double role in Hochstapler wider Willen aka Der Doppelgänger des Herrn Schnepfe/Reluctant Imposter (Géza von Bolváry, 1925). The film was shot at the Bavaria studios in Munich in 1924 and released on 25 February 1925.

Conrad Veidt in Die Brüder Schellenberg
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 54/2. Photo: Ufa. Conrad Veidt in a double role in Die Brüder Schellenberg/The Brothers Schellenberg/ (Karl Grune, 1926).

The two brothers in Die Brüder Schellenberg are opposite characters: Wenzel (right)is the gold-digging opportunist, while Michael (left)is the caritative aid to the poor and destitute.

Harry Piel in Sein grösster Bluff (1927)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1901/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Nero Film. Harry Piel played a double role in Sein grösster Bluff/His Greatest Bluff (Harry Piel, Henrik Galeen, 1927).

In Sein grösster Bluff,  Harry Piel played two twin brothers. A year earlier, co-director Henrik Galeen had made a new version of Der Student von Prag/The Student of Prague (1926), this time with Conrad Veidt as Balduin, the student.

Isa & Jutta Günther
German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 533. Photo: Carlton - Film National. Isa and Jutta Günther in Das Doppelte Lottchen/Two Times Lotte (Josef von Baky, 1950).

German twin sisters Isa and Jutta Günther (1938) are former child actresses. In 1950 they were a huge success in the Erich Kästner adaptation Das Doppelte Lottchen/Two Times Lotte. Several more light entertainment films with the twins followed during the 1950s. Das Doppelte Lottchen would be remade by Walt Disney as The Parent Trap (1961).

Alice & Ellen Kessler
German postcard by Graphima, Berlin.

Twins became an item in the European cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. Alice & Ellen Kessler (1936) were popular in Europe, especially in Germany and Italy, as a singing, dancing, and acting twin. The German sisters are usually credited as the Kessler Twins or Die Kessler-Zwillinge.

Pili y Mili
Spanish postcard by Bergas, no. 461.

Blond twin sisters Pili and Mili Bayona (1947) were a popular comedy duo in the Spanish cinema as Pili y Mili. Their films such as the musical comedy Como dos gotas de agua/Like two drops of water (Luis César Amadori, 1963) were engaging examples of European teen pop culture of the 1960s.

Sources: Emma Jones (BBC), Christiane Schönefeld and Hermann Rasche, ed.. (Processes of Transposition: German Literature and Film, 2007), Indiewire, Wikipedia, and IMDb

Ann Sheridan

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American actress and singer Ann Sheridan (1915-1967) worked from 1934 in film and later on television. She could both play the girl next door and the tough-as-nails dame. Known as the 'Oomph Girl', she became one of the most glamorous women in Hollywood. Her notable films include Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.

Ann Sheridan
French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 257. Photo: George Hurrell / Warner.

Ann Sheridan
French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 257. Photo: George Hurrell / Warner Bros.

Search for Beauty


Clara Lou Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, in 1915, as the youngest of five children of G.W. Sheridan and Lula Stewart Warren Sheridan, an automobile mechanic and his homemaker wife.

She was a self-described tomboy and was very athletic, and played on the girl's basketball team for North Texas State Teacher's College, where she was planning to enter the teaching field. She was active in dramatics and also sang with the college's stage band.

In 1932, her sister Pauline sent a photograph of Clara Lou in a bathing suit to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won the 'Search for Beauty' contest, with part of her prize being a screen test and a bit part in a film by that name.

She left college to pursue a career in Hollywood and, aged 19, made her film debut in Search for Beauty (Erle C. Kenton, 1934), starring Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino. For the next two years, she played uncredited bit parts in Paramount films, starting at $75 a week (equivalent to $1,400 in 2020).

Sheridan can be glimpsed in 13 films in 1934, including Come On Marines! (Henry Hathaway, 1934) still billed as 'Clara Lou Sheridan', Murder at the Vanities (Mitchell Leisen, 1934), College Rhythm (Norman Taurog, 1934), and One Hour Late (Ralph Murphy, 1934).

Sheridan worked with Paramount's drama coach Nina Mouise and performed plays on the lot with fellow contractees, including 'The Milky Way' and 'The Pursuit of Happiness'. 'When she did 'The Milky Way', she played a character called Ann and the Paramount front office decided to change her name to 'Ann'.

Sheridan had a part in Behold My Wife! (1934), which she got at the behest of director Mitchell Leisen, who was a friend. She had two good scenes, one in which her character had to commit suicide. Sheridan attributed Paramount's keeping her for two years to this role.

Twelve more bit parts followed in 1935 in such films as Enter Madame (Elliott Nugent, 1935) starring Elissa Landi and Cary Grant, the drama Home on the Range (Arthur Jacobson, 1935) starring Jackie Coogan, and Rumba (Marion Gering, 1935,) an unsuccessful follow-up to George Raft and Carole Lombard's smash hit Bolero (Wesley Ruggles, 1934).

Sheridan's first lead came in Car 99 (Charles Barton, 1935) with Fred MacMurray. She had the female lead in Rocky Mountain Mystery (Charles Barton, 1935), a Randolph Scott Western.

She then appeared in Mississippi (A. Edward Sutherland, 1935) with Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields, The Glass Key (Frank Tuttle, 1935) with George Raft, and (having one line) the historical adventure The Crusades (Cecil B. DeMille, 1935) with Loretta Young.

Paramount lent her out to Talisman, a small production company, to make the Western The Red Blood of Courage (John English, 1935) with Kermit Maynard. After this, Paramount declined to take up her option.

Sheridan did one film at Universal, Fighting Youth (Hamilton MacFadden, 1935) with Charles Farrell, and then signed a contract with Warner Bros. in 1936.

Ann Sheridan
American postcard. Sent by mail in 1940.

The actress with the most "oomph" in America


Ann Sheridan's career prospects began to improve. Her early films for Warner Bros. included the musical Sing Me a Love Song (Ray Enright, 1936), and the crime drama Black Legion (Archie Mayo, 1937) with Humphrey Bogart.

Her first real break came in the crime film The Great O'Malley (William Dieterle, 1937) with Pat O'Brien and Bogart. She sang for the first time in San Quentin (Lloyd Bacon, 1937), again with O'Brien and Bogart.

Sheridan then moved into B picture leads such as The Footloose Heiress (William Clemens, 1937), Alcatraz Island (William C. McGann, 1937) with John Litel, and She Loved a Fireman (John Farrow, 1937) with Dick Foran for director John Farrow.

She was a lead in The Patient in Room 18 (Bobby Connolly, Crane Wilbur, 1937) and its sequel Mystery House (Noel M. Smith, 1938). Sheridan was in Little Miss Thoroughbred (John Farrow, 1938) and supported Dick Powell in Cowboy from Brooklyn (Lloyd Bacon, 1938).

Universal borrowed her for a support role in Letter of Introduction (1938) at the behest of director John M. Stahl. For John Farrow, she was in Broadway Musketeers (1938), a remake of Three on a Match (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932).

Sheridan's notices in Letter of Introduction impressed Warner Bros. executives. She began to get roles in A pictures, starting with the gangster film Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938), wherein she played James Cagney's love interest; Bogart, O'Brien and the Dead End Kids had supporting roles. The film was a big hit and critically acclaimed.

Sheridan was reunited with the Dead End Kids in They Made Me a Criminal (Busby Berkeley, 1938) starring John Garfield. She was third-billed in the Western Dodge City (Michael Curtiz, 1939), playing a saloon owner opposite Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film was another notable success.

In March 1939, Warner Bros. announced Sheridan had been voted by a committee of 25 men as the actress with the most "oomph" in America. Oomph" was described as "a certain indefinable something that commands male interest." She received as many as 250 marriage proposals from fans in a single week. Now tagged 'The Oomph Girl'— a sobriquet which she reportedly loathed — Sheridan was a popular pin-up girl in the early 1940s.

She was top-billed in Indianapolis Speedway (Lloyd Bacon, 1939) with Pat O'Brien and Angels Wash Their Faces (Ray Enright, 1939) with O'Brien, the Dead End Kids, and Ronald Reagan. Castle on the Hudson (Anatole Litvak, 1940) put her opposite John Garfield and Pat O'Brien.

Ann Sheridan
Vintage card. Photo: George Hurrell / Warner Bros, 1952.

Ann Sheridan
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 352. Photo: Warner Bros.

Film Noirs and Screwball Comedies


Ann Sheridan's first real starring vehicle was It All Came True (Lewis Seiler, 1940), a musical comedy co-starring Humphrey Bogart and Jeffrey Lynn. She introduced the song 'Angel in Disguise'.

Sheridan and James Cagney were reunited in Torrid Zone (William Keighley, 1940) with Pat O'Brien in support. She was with George Raft, Bogart, and Ida Lupino in the Film Noir They Drive by Night (Raoul Walsh, 1940), a trucking melodrama.

She was in a lot of comedies and a number of forgettable films, but the public liked her, and her career flourished. Sheridan was back with Cagney for City for Conquest (Anatole Litvak, 1941) and then made Honeymoon for Three (Lloyd Bacon, 1941), a comedy with George Brent.

Sheridan did two lighter films: Navy Blues (Lloyd Bacon, 1941), a musical comedy, and The Man Who Came to Dinner (William Keighley, 1941), wherein she played a character modeled on Gertrude Lawrence.

She then made Kings Row (Sam Wood, 1942), in which she received top billing playing opposite Ronald Reagan. It was a huge success and one of Sheridan's most memorable films. Sheridan and Reagan were reunited for Juke Girl (Curtis Bernhardt, 1942).

She was in the war film Wings for the Eagle (Lloyd Bacon, 1942) and made a comedy with Jack Benny, George Washington Slept Here (William Keighley, 1943). She played a Norwegian resistance fighter in Edge of Darkness (Lewis Milestone, 1943) with Errol Flynn and was one of the many Warners stars who had cameos in Thank Your Lucky Stars (David Butler, 1943).

She was the heroine of a novel, 'Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx', written by Kathryn Heisenfelt and published by Whitman Publishing Company in 1943. While the heroine of the story was identified as a famous actress, the stories were entirely fictitious. The story was probably written for a young teenaged audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as 'Whitman Authorized Editions', 16 books published between 1941 and 1947 that always featured a film actress as heroine.

Sheridan was given the lead in the musical Shine On, Harvest Moon (David Butler, 1944), playing Nora Bayes, opposite Dennis Morgan. She was in a comedy The Doughgirls (James V. Kern, 1944).

Sheridan was absent from screens for over a year, touring with the USO to perform in front of the troops as far afield as China. She returned in One More Tomorrow (Peter Godfrey, 1946) with Morgan. She had an excellent role in the Film Noir Nora Prentiss (Vincent Sherman, 1947), which was a hit.

It was followed by The Unfaithful (Vincent Sherman, 1948), a popular remake of the crime drama The Letter (William Wyler, 1940) starring Bette Davis, and Silver River (Raoul Walsh, 1948), a Western melodrama with Errol Flynn. Leo McCarey borrowed her to support Gary Cooper in Good Sam (Leo McCarey, 1948).

She then left Warner Bros., saying: "I wasn't at all satisfied with the scripts they offered me." Her role in the screwball comedy I Was a Male War Bride (Howard Hawks, 1949), co-starring Cary Grant, was another success at Fox. In 1950, she appeared on the musical television series Stop the Music, and in Stella (Claude Binyon, 1950), a comedy with Victor Mature.

Ann Sheridan
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1213. Photo: Warner.

Ann Sheridan
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1213a. Photo: Walter Wanger.

Beware the Hangman


Ann Sheridan made Woman on the Run (Norman Foster, 1950), a Film Noir, which she also produced. Woman on the Run was distributed by Universal, and Sheridan signed a contract with that studio.

While there, she made Steel Town (George Sherman, 1952), Just Across the Street (Joseph Pevney, 1952), and Take Me to Town (1953), a comedy directed by Douglas Sirk. Sheridan supported Glenn Ford in Appointment in Honduras (Jacques Tourneur, 1953).

She appeared opposite Steve Cochran in Come Next Spring (R. G. Springsteen, 1956) and was one of several stars in MGM's The Opposite Sex (David Miller, 1956). Her last film, The Woman and the Hunter (George P. Breakston, 1957), was shot in Africa. Sheridan later said she wished the movie "had been lost somewhere in Kenya".

She went to New York to appear in a Broadway show, but it did not make it to Broadway. She did stage tours of 'Kind Sir' (1958) and 'Odd Man In' (1959), and 'The Time of Your Life at the Brussels World Fair' in 1958. In all three shows, she acted with Scott McKay, whom she later married.

In 1962, she played the lead in The Mavis Grant Story on the Western series Wagon Train. In the mid-1960s, Sheridan appeared on the NBC soap opera Another World (1965-1966). Her final work was a TV series of her own, a comedy Western entitled Pistols 'n' Petticoats (1966-1967). Her career was taking off again, but the success was short-lived.

The 19th episode of the series, Beware the Hangman, aired, as scheduled, on the same day that she died. Sheridan had married actor Edward Norris in 1936, in Ensenada, Mexico. They separated a year later and divorced in 1939. In 1942, she married fellow Warner Bros. star George Brent, who co-starred with her in Honeymoon for Three (Lloyd Bacon, 1941). They divorced exactly one year later. Following her divorce from Brent, she had a long-term relationship with publicist Steve Hannagan, which lasted until his death in 1953. Hannagan’s estate bequeathed Miss Sheridan $218,399 ($2.1 million in current dollars).

On 5 June 1966, she married actor Scott McKay, who was with her when she passed away, six months later. She died of gastroesophageal cancer with massive liver metastases at age 51 in 1967, in Los Angeles. She was cremated and her ashes were stored at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles until they were interred in a niche in the Chapel Columbarium at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2005. For her contributions to the film industry, Ann Sheridan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7024 Hollywood Boulevard.

Ann Sheridan
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 539. Photo: Universal-International.

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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