John Travolta

August 12, 2021, 10:00 pm

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John Travolta (1954) is an American actor and singer, who rose to fame during the 1970s, when he appeared on the television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975-1979), and starred in the box office successes Carrie (1976), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978) and Urban Cowboy (1980). His acting career declined throughout the 1980s, but in 1994, Travolta made one of the most stunning comebacks in entertainment history by starring in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). Since then he starred in such films as Get Shorty (1995), Face/Off (1997), Primary Colors (1998), and Hairspray (2007). Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for performances in Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. In 2016, he received his first Primetime Emmy Award, as a producer of the anthology series American Crime Story in which he also played lawyer Robert Shapiro.


American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. CL/Personality #12. Photo: Douglas Kirkland / Contact, 1977.


German promotion card by Polydor, no. 118. John Travolta in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. C.P.C.S. 33 150. John Travolta in Staying Alive (Sylvester Stallone, 1983).


British postcard, no. C077. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994). The Hitman: "You play with matches, you get burned."


Vintage autograph photo. John Travolta in Broken Arrow (John Woo, 1996).

A latter-day Rebel Without a Cause in the New York City disco nightlife

The youngest of six children, John Travolta was born in 1954 in Englewood, New Jersey, an inner-ring suburb of New York City in Bergen County, New Jersey. His father, Salvatore "Sam" Travolta was a semiprofessional American football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company. His mother, Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) was an actress and singer who had appeared in The Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher. His siblings Joey, Ellen, Ann, Margaret, and Sam Travolta were all inspired by their mother's love of theatre and drama and became actors.

He was raised Roman Catholic but converted to Scientology in 1975. Travolta attended Dwight Morrow High School. By the age of 12, Travolta himself had already joined an area actors' group and soon began appearing in local musicals and dinner-theater performances. He started acting appearing in a local production of 'Who'll Save the Plowboy?'. At 16 he landed his first professional job in a summer stock production of the musical 'Bye Bye Birdie'.

In 1971, he dropped out of school at age 17 and moved across the Hudson River to New York City. He made his off-Broadway debut in 1972 in 'Rain' and then landed a small role in the touring company of the hit musical 'Grease'. Then followed on Broadway 'Over Here!', starring The Andrews Sisters, in which he sang the Sherman Brothers' song 'Dream Drummin''.

He then moved to Los Angeles to try Hollywood. Travolta's first screen role in California was as a fall victim in the television series Emergency!, in September 1972, but his first significant film role was as Billy Nolan, a bully who was goaded into playing a prank on Sissy Spacek's character in the horror film Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976), the first film adaptation of a Stephen King novel.

Around the same time, he landed the role as Vinnie Barbarino in the ABC TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979), in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared as Arnold Horshack's mother. He shot to overnight superstardom, and his face instantly adorned T-shirts and lunch boxes. Travolta had a hit single titled 'Let Her In', peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July 1976. That year, he starred in the TV movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (Randal Kleiser, 1976).

Then followed the first of his two most noted screen roles: Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977). Jason Ankeny at AllMovie: "A latter-day Rebel Without a Cause set against the backdrop of the New York City disco nightlife, it positioned Travolta as the most talked-about young star in Hollywood. In addition to earning his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, he also became an icon of the era, his white-suited visage and cocky, rhythmic strut enduring as defining images of late-'70s American culture."

He followed it up with the part of Danny Zuko in the film adaptation of Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) with Olivia Newton-John. Its box-office success was even greater than Saturday Night Fever's. Both films were among the most commercially successful pictures of the decade and catapulted Travolta to international stardom. Saturday Night Fever earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, making him, at age 24, one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. Travolta performed several of the songs on the Grease soundtrack album.

After the laughable May-December romance Moment by Moment (Jane Wagner, 1978) in which he starred with Lily Tomlin, Travolta, in 1980, inspired a nationwide country music craze that followed on the heels of his hit film Urban Cowboy (James Bridges, 1980), in which he starred with Debra Winger. Another success was the thriller Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981) with Nancy Allen.


Dutch postcard, no. AX 7380.


Dutch postcard, no. AX 7377. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978).


Dutch postcard, no. AX 7381. John Travolta in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978).


Dutch postcard, no. AX 7377. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978).


Dutch postcard, no. AX 7376.


Dutch postcard, no. AG 1015. John Travolta in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978).

Travolta reportedly waived his salary to play the role

During the 1980s, John Travolta starred in a series of commercial and critical failures that sidelined his acting career. These included Two of a Kind (John Herzfeld, 1983), a romantic comedy reuniting him with Olivia Newton-John, and Perfect (James Bridges, 1985), co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis.

He also starred in Staying Alive (Sylvester Stallone, 1983), the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, for which he trained rigorously and lost 20 pounds. The film was a financial success, grossing over $65 million, though it, too, was scorned by critics.

During that time, Travolta was offered, but declined, lead roles in what would become box-office hits, including American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980) and An Officer and a Gentleman (Taylor Hackford, 1982), both of which went to Richard Gere, as well as Splash (Ton Howard, 1984), which went to Tom Hanks.

In 1989, Travolta starred with Kirstie Alley in Look Who's Talking (Amy Heckerling, 1989), which grossed $297 million, making it his most successful film since Grease. He subsequently starred in Look Who's Talking Too (Amy Heckerling, 1990) and Look Who's Talking Now (Tom Ropelewski, 1993).

But it was not until he played Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's hit Pulp Fiction (1994), with Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, that his career was revived. Quentin Tarantino, a longtime Travolta fan, wrote the role of Vincent Vega specifically with the actor in mind. Jason Ankeny at AllMovie: "Travolta reportedly waived his salary to play the role. A critical as well as commercial smash, Pulp Fiction introduced Travolta to a new generation of moviegoers, and suddenly he was again a major star who could command a massive salary, with a second Academy Award nomination to prove it."

Travolta was inundated with offers. He followed Pulp Fiction with the Elmore Leonard adaptation Get Shorty (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1995). His turn as Mafioso-turned-movie producer Chili Palmer is acclaimed by many critics as his finest performance to date. The film was another major hit. Then followed roles in White Man's Burden (Desmond Nakano, 1995), Broken Arrow (John Woo, 1996), and Face/Off (John Woo, 1997) with Nicolas Cage. He also played a charismatic, Bill Clinton-like U.S. President in Primary Colors (Mike Nichols, 1998) opposite Emma Thompson. The political satire was critically acclaimed but earned only $52 million from a $65 million budget.


Dutch postcard. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978).


French postcard in the Collection John Travolta by Star, Paris. John Travolta in Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978). Sent by mail in 1986.


French postcard in the Collection John Travolta by Star, Paris. Caption: John Travolta, 1978. Sent by mail in 1985.


Spanish collectors card in the Cine Exitoso series by Ediciones Este, Barcelona, no. 230. Debra Winger and John Travolta in Urban Cowboy (James Bridges, 1980).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 53190. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Two of a Kind (John Herzfeld, 1983).


French postcard, no. C 583. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994).

A leader of a group of aliens that enslaves humanity

In 2000, John Travolta starred in and co-produced the science fiction film Battlefield Earth (Roger Christian, 2000), based on the novel of the same name by L. Ron Hubbard, in which he played the villainous leading role as a leader of a group of aliens that enslaves humanity on a bleak future Earth. The film had been a dream project for Travolta since the book's release in 1982 when Hubbard had written to him to try to help make a film adaptation. The film received almost universally negative reviews and did very poorly at the box office. Travolta's performance in Battlefield Earth also earned him two Razzie Awards.

Throughout the 2000s, Travolta remained busy as an actor, starring in many films, including Swordfish (Dominic Sena, 2001) with Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry, the crime-comedy Be Cool (F. Gary Gray, 2005) in which he again played ultra cool Chili Palmer, and the biker road comedy Wild Hogs (Walt Becker, 2007) starring Tim Allen.

In 2007, Travolta played Edna Turnblad in the remake of Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2008), his first musical since Grease. In the Disney computer-animated film Bolt (Chris Williams, Byron Howard, 2008), Travolta voiced the title character. The next year, he appeared in the re-make of The Taking of Pelham 123 (Tony Scott, 2009) opposite Denzel Washington and in Old Dogs (Walt Decker, 2009) with Robin Williams.

Since 2010, Travolta has starred mostly in action films and thrillers. In 2016, he returned to television in the first season of the anthology series American Crime Story, titled The People v. O. J. Simpson, in which he played lawyer Robert Shapiro.

Travolta was in a relationship with actress Diana Hyland, 18 years his senior, whom he met while filming The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). They remained together until Hyland's death from breast cancer in 1977. Travolta also had an on-again/off-again relationship with actress Marilu Henner, which ended permanently in 1985. He married actress Kelly Preston in 1991, and they bought a house in Islesboro, Maine. They had three children: Jett (1992–2009), Ella Bleu (2000), and Benjamin (2010).

In 2009, Jett died at age 16 while on a Christmas vacation in the Bahamas. A Bahamian death certificate was issued, attributing the cause of death to a seizure. Jett, who had a history of seizures, reportedly suffered from Kawasaki disease since the age of two. In 2020, Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, died at the age of 57, two years after she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Travolta has been a practitioner of Scientology since 1975. Following the death of his wife Kelly Preston in July 2020, Travolta hinted on his Instagram account that he would be putting his career on hold, stating "I will be taking some time to be there for my children who have lost their mother, so forgive me in advance if you don’t hear from us for a while."


Belgian postcard by Multichoice Kaleidoscope. Photo: Isopress / Outline (Bernstein).


British postcard, no. MM 389. Photo: John Travolta in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994).


British postcard by Memory Card, no. 78. Samuel Jackson, John Travolta, Bruce Willis, and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994). Caption: lobby card.


Vintage postcard, no. 2102. John Travolta and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994). Caption: John n Uma at table.


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC9577. Photo: Miramax Film Corp. John Travolta and Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994). Caption: Guns B&W.


Vintage autograph card.

Sources: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Turismofoto

August 13, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Turismofoto is one of the lesser-known Italian editors of 'cartoline'. During the late 1950s, Turismofoto produced more than 100 black & white postcards of Italian film stars and entertainers, with a few cards of Hollywood and French stars included.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 3.
Charming and beautiful Jacqueline Sassard (1940-2021) had a short but successful career in the European cinema of the late 1950s and 1960s.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 8. Silvana Mangano in This Angry Age (René Clément, 1957).

Beautiful Italian film star Silvana Mangano (1930-1989) will be remembered most for the sexy rice picker in Riso Amaro/Bitter Rice (1949), and for Tadzio's elegant mother in Morte a Venezia/Death in Venice (1971).


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 12.

Alessandra Panaro (1939-29019) was an Italian film actress of the late 1950s and early 1960s. She is best known for Luchino Visconti's crime drama Rocco e i suoi fratelli/Rocco and His Brothers (1960).


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

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


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 18.

Before she was 20, Pier Angeli (1932-1971) had starred with Vittorio de Sica in two Italian box office hits and was discovered by Hollywood. There she won a Golden Globe, had an affair with James Dean, and died before she was 40.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 23.

Gabriella Pallotta (1938) was an Italian film and TV actress between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s. She had her breakthrough with the drama Il tetto (Vittorio De Sica, 1956), for which she was selected by De Sica after screentests. The release of the film provided her with instant success and she immediately got supporting parts in films by Michelangelo Antonioni (Il grido) and Mario Moncelli (Il medico e lo stregone), both from 1957.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 31.

At 19, American film actress Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) became an overnight star as 'Slim' opposite Humphrey Bogart in her memorable film debut in To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1942). She became known for her distinctive husky voice and glamorous looks in Film Noirs as The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946), Dark Passage (Delmer Daves, 1947), and Key Largo (John Huston, 1948), and the delicious comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953) with Marilyn Monroe. After a 50-year career, she received a Golden Globe and her first Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her role as Barbra Streisand’s mother in The Mirror Has Two Faces (Barbra Streisand, 1997).


Italian postcard by Turismofoto.

Italian actor Franco Interlenghi (1931-2015) was a popular leading man during the 1950s and worked with major directors like De Sica, Fellini, Antonioni, Bolognini, and Rossellini. Although he never gained international stardom, he was just as revered in his country as Marcello Mastroianni.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 49.

Linda Christian (1923-2011) was the first Bond girl ever. This sensuous, incredibly beautiful starlet appeared in dozens of films in Mexico, Hollywood, and Europe. She starred with Johnny Weissmuller in his last Tarzan film, Tarzan and The Mermaids (1948), but she became most famous as Mrs. Tyrone Power.



Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 51.

After her 'discovery' at the age of 14, Italian actress Lorella De Luca (1940-2014) became the Sandra Dee of the Italian cinema of the 1950s. Her fresh and graceful appearance in hit comedies like Poveri ma belli/Poor But Beautiful (1956) endeared her to the public. De Luca was the widow of film director Duccio Tessari, in whose films she often starred.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 60.

French actress Myriam Bru (1932) appeared in some 15 European film productions of the 1950s. She was the wife of Horst Buchholz.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 63.

Voluptuous, visually stunning Italian film actress Eleonora Rossi Drago (1925–2007) played princesses and temptresses throughout Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. She never found the international cross-over fame destined for Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, but she earned respect as a fine actress playing leading roles in films by famous directors like Michelangelo Antonioni, Luigi Comencini, and Valerio Zurlini.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 71.

Italian actress Sandra Milo (1933) is best known for her roles in Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) and Giulietta degli spiriti/Juliet of the Spirits (1965), but also worked with the famous directors Antonio Pietrangeli and Roberto Rossellini. She won a Silver Ribbon for best supporting actress award for both 8½ and Juliet of the Spirits.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 74.

Mike Bongiorno (1924-2009) was an Italo-American journalist and television host. For the history of Italian television, he has been an institution as Italy’s famous quiz master between the 1950s to the 1980s. As such he played himself in various films too.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 76.

Film actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was Italy's favorite leading man since the 1950s, as well as one of the finest actors of European cinema. In his long and prolific career, Mastroianni almost singlehandedly defined the contemporary type of Latin lover, then proceeded to redefine it a dozen times and finally parodied it and played it against type.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 78.

Handsome, flamboyant Vittorio Gassman (1922-2000) was one of the greatest Italian theatre and film actors with an extraordinary career that spanned five decades. With his powerful voice, he was an extremely versatile, magnetic interpreter, whose long career included both highlights of the 'Commedia all Italiana' genre as well as powerful melodramas in which he played the beloved rogue.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 80.

Italian actor Franco Fabrizi (1926–1995) played in about 150 films, usually as the superficial opportunistic sidekick. He made his film debut under Michelangelo Antonioni and became known as a cynical but charming womanizer in Federico Fellini’s I Vitelloni (1953). In later life, he appeared in Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice (1971) and Fellini’s Ginger and Fred (1986).


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 86.

Italian film actor Rik Battaglia (1927-2015) made nearly 100 film appearances between 1954 and 1999. He played the bad guy in dozens of Peplums, Eurowesterns, and war films. In Germany, he became notorious as ‘The Man Who Shot Winnetou.'


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 93.

Handsome Antonio Cifariello (1930–1968) was an Italian actor and documentary filmmaker. In his short but intense career, he starred in several Italian comedies as a young and seductive Don Giovanni. He worked with several famous directors, including Federico Fellini, Dino Risi, Luigi Comencini, and Valerio Zurlini. Cifariello also appeared in a few international films.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 94.

Film actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was Italy's favorite leading man since the 1950s, as well as one of the finest actors of European cinema. In his long and prolific career, Mastroianni almost singlehandedly defined the contemporary type of Latin lover, then proceeded to redefine it a dozen times and finally parodied it and played it against type.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 95.

The legendary idol of the French cinema, Gérard Philipe (1922–1959) was adored for his good looks, but he was also a very talented actor. He played roles as diverse as Faust and Modigliani and he was sought out by France's preeminent directors for his versatility and professionalism.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, Milano, no. 97.

Teddy Reno (1926), is an Italian singer, record producer, and actor, and naturalized Swiss.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 98.

Italian film actor Maurizio Arena (1933-1979) appeared in 78 films between 1952 and 1978. In the late 1950s, he became popular as the poor but handsome Roman working-class boy in a comedy trilogy by Dino Risi.


Italian postcard. Turismofoto, no. 100.

Giorgio Albertazzi (1923-2016) was an Italian actor and theatre director. An active theatre actor for decades, he was also one of the first television stars.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 108

Good-looking Walter Chiari (1924-1991) was a hugely successful Italian stage and screen actor. He appeared opposite Anna Magnani in Luchino Visconti's Bellissima (1951) and played countless roles in the Commedia all'italiana. Chiari achieved international success with The Little Hut (1957), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1966), and The Valachi Papers (1972). In the late 1950s and 1960s, he was one of the main protagonists of the ‘Dolce Vita’, the glitzy and glamorous Italian jet-set scene, but a drug scandal in 1970 hurt his screen career.

See also our Turismofoto album at Flickr.

Three early silent films starring Theodor Loos

August 14, 2021, 10:00 pm

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German stage and screen actor Theodor Loos (1883-1954) is now best-known for his parts in Fritz Lang’s German films. Loos played his first film part already in 1913 and soon followed several more films by renowned directors such as Richard Oswald, Stellan Rye, Robert Wiene, Otto Rippert, and Robert Reinert. For this post, we selected three of his early silent films. All were made in one year for one production company and by the same director: Die singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918), Die Buße des Richard Solm/The Penance of Richard Solm (Arthur Wellin, 1918), and Getrennte Welten/Separated Worlds (Arthur Wellin, 1918).

Die singende Hand (1918)

German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 530/1. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Theodor Loos as the violin player Leonid Heller in Die singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918). The woman is Eva Speyer.


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 530/2. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Theodor Loos in Die singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918).


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 530/3. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Theodor Loos in Die singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918). The woman on the ground is Eva Speyer as Esther. The man left of Loos is Otto Gebühr, playing the Duke of Gralby.


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 530/4. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Theodor Loos in Die singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918). The woman is Eva Speyer.

Who were Hugo Landsberger and Arthur Wellin?

Die Singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918) was scripted by Hans Land, the pseudonym of Hugo Landsberger. Some sources erroneously mention the film was based on a novel by Hans Lau, but it was Landsberger who in hindsight in 1926 published his script as a novel, edited by Oestergaard. The producer, Rudolf Dworsky, was also responsible for the set design.

Hugo Landsberger (1861-reported missing 1938) was a Jewish writer, who produced several socially engaged short stories, books, and plays under the pseudonym of Hans Land, while he also produced popular entertainment works such as 'Stürme' (1909) and 'Staatsanwalt Jordan' (1915). From 1913 he also wrote various film scripts. Land also acted occasionally and directed the film Stürme (1913), based on his own work.

Arthur Wellin (1880-prob. 1941) was a Jewish film director, originally Arthur Lewin. He had been a prolific stage director before shifting to film, the reason for Austrian actor Alexander Moissi to engage him as a film director for 5 films between 1918 and 1920.

Wellin was also co-owner of Ambross-Film, with Dworsky. All in all, he directed some 27 silent films, and at times also acted. In 1933 he was expelled from acting when Hitler took over in Germany. In 1941 he was deported from Prague to the Lodz ghetto in Poland, and from there probably sent to one of the extermination camps.

The film Die Singende Hand/The Singing Hand (Arthur Wellin, 1918) premiered in Berlin in May 1918.

Die Buße des Richard Solm (1918)

German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 539/2. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Theodor Loos in Die Buße des Richard Solm/The Penance of Richard Solm (Arthur Wellin, 1918).


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 539/3. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Lia Borré and Theodor Loos in Die Buße des Richard Solm/The Penance of Richard Solm (Arthur Wellin, 1918).


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 539/4. Photo: Amboß-Film Dworsky & Co., Berlin. Theodor Loos in Die Buße des Richard Solm/The Penance of Richard Solm (Arthur Wellin, 1918). The woman on the left is Lia Borré, the one on the right is Else Kühne.

Getrennte Welten (1918)

German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 540/1. Photo: Amboß-Film - Dworsky Co. Theodor Loos and an unknown woman in Getrennte Welten/Separated Worlds (Arthur Wellin, 1918). It was Amboss's seventh film.


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 540/2. Photo: Amboß-Film - Dworsky Co. Theodor Loos and Gertrud Beitz in Getrennte Welten/Separated Worlds (Arthur Wellin, 1918).


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 540/3. Photo: Amboß-Film - Dworsky Co. Theodor Loos and Gertrud Beitz in Getrennte Welten/Separated Worlds (Arthur Wellin, 1918).


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no. 540/4. Photo: Amboß-Film - Dworsky Co. Theodor Loos and Gertrud Beitz in Getrennte Welten/Separated Worlds (Arthur Wellin, 1918).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Cyril Maude

August 15, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Cyril Maude (1862-1951) was a famous English actor-manager. From 1914 on, he appeared in several British and American films.


British postcard, no. 3345. Photo: La Fayette.


British postcard by J. Beagles & Co., no. 184 D. Photo: Dover Street Studios. C. Aubrey Smith and Cyril Maude in the play 'The Flag Lieutenant' (1908).


British postcard. Cyril Maude as Captain Barley in the play 'Beauty and the Barge' (first performed in 1904). This card was mailed in 1905. In 1914 Maude would debut on screen in an eponymous adaptation of the play, directed by Harold M. Shaw.

Grumpy

Cyril Francis Maude was born in London in 1862. Maude was the eldest son of Captain Charles Henry Maude, a captain in the Indian Army, and the Honorable Georgina Hanbury-Tracy. His maternal grandfather was Thomas Hanbury-Tracy, 2nd Baron Sudeley. In 1881, Cyril was sent to Adelaide, South Australia, on the clipper ship City of Adelaide to regain his health. He returned to Britain without having regained his health but nursing the ambition to be an actor.

He studied theatre under Charles Cartwright and Roma Le Thiere but was again forced to leave Britain for ill-health and went to Canada. Afterward, he went to the US, where he debuted with Daniel Bandman's company in Denver, Colorado, in 1884. The same year he went back to Britain and had a long-lasting, glorious career.

From 1896 until 1905 he was co-manager of the Haymarket Theatre in London with Frederick Harrison. There he became known for his quietly humorous acting in many parts. In 1906 he went into management on his own account, and in 1907 he opened the Playhouse, also in London

Maude became very well known for his role in 'Grumpy' as a spoiled old man, who as a retired lawyer solves a crime to keep his loved ones happy. Maude took this play to Australia and toured Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney where it was immensely popular.

In 1923 he toured America with Lydia Bilbrook and Mabel Terry-Lewis in 'If Winter Comes', playing at Chicago in April and New York in the autumn.


British postcard by Rapid Photo Co., London, no. 1124.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. E.C. 1147 B. Photo: Biograph. Cyril Maude as Sir Joseph Lacy in 'Joseph Entangled', first performed in Britain in 1904.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. E.C. 1147 C. Photo: Biograph.


British postcard by AL, no. E.B.13. Photo: Bassano.

Paramount

In 1914, Cyril Maude debuted on-screen in an adaptation of his successful play Beauty and the Barge (Harold Shaw, 1914), in which he played an old barge captain who adopts the mayor's runaway daughter and she falls in love with his mate.

In the US he starred in the title role of the Henrik Ibsen adaptation Peer Gynt (Oscar Apfel, Raoul Walsh, 1915), with Myrtle Stedman as Solveig. The film was produced by the Oliver Morosco Photoplay Company and distributed by Paramount. In the drama The Greater Will (Harry Knoles, 1915) Maude takes revenge on the man (Montague Love) who hypnotised his own daughter (Lois Meredith), whom he ruined and pushed to suicide.

For the Stage Women's War Relief Fund, Maude starred in Winning His Wife (George Terwilliger, 1919). Maude's last silent part was in the British comedy-drama The Headmaster (Kenelm Foss, 1921), in which he is the headmaster of a school who tries to persuade his daughter (Margot Drake) to marry the idiotic son of an influential figure in the hope of being promoted to bishop.

When sound cinema set in, Maude acted in several films, first of all, the adaptation of his famous play Grumpy (George Cukor (his debut), Cyril Gardner, 1930), filmed in the U.S. and released by Paramount Pictures. The film also featured Frances Dade, Philips Holmes, and Paul Lukas.

Afterward, he acted in the British Paramount film These Charming People (Louis Mercanton, 1931) with Godfrey Tearle, the British films Counsel's Opinion (Allan Dwan, 1933) starring Henry Kendall and Binnie Barnes, the comedy Orders Is Orders (Walter Forde, 1933) starring Charlotte Greenwood and James Gleason, the cross-dressing comedy Girls Will Be Boys (Marcel Varnel, 1934) starring Dolly Haas, and the musical comedy Heat Wave (Maurice Elvey, 1935). After an absence from the screen for over a decade, Maude played one final role as an old admiral in While the Sun Shines (Anthony Asquith, 1947). He was 85 at the time.

Cyril Maude died in Torquay, Devon in 1951, at the age of 88. From 1888 till 1924, he was married to the actress Winifred Emery, the daughter of Samuel Anderson Emery and granddaughter of John Emery, both well-known actors in their day. Their children included Margery Maude, who became an actress; Pamela Cynthia Maude (1893–1975); and John Cyril Maude, who became a barrister, judge, and Member of Parliament. Cyril Maude married Mrs. P.H. Trew in 1927. They remained together till his death.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. 1147.


British postcard by J. Beagles & Co. Ltd., London, no. 184E. Photo: Dover St. Studios. Publicity still for the play The Flag Lieutenant with Cyril Maude as Lieutenant Richard Lascelles and C. Aubrey Smith as Major Thesiger at The Playhouse, 1908.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. E.C. 1260 A. Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Maude (Miss Winifred Emery).


British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Circle Plate Sunk Series. Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Maude (Miss Winifred Emery).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Margarita Terekhova

August 16, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Margarita Terekhova (1942) is a Soviet and Russian film and theatre actress. She is internationally best-known for her dual role in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Serkalo/Mirror (1975).


Soviet-Russian postcard by Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, 1973.


Soviet-Russian postcard. Photo: G. Ter-Ovanesova.


Russian postcard by Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, 1978. Photo: B. Bondareva.


Dutch postcard by Eye. Dutch poster for Zerkalo/The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975). The title in Dutch is 'De spiegel'. Caption: Digitally restored classic (Sovet Union, 1974) of Andrei Tarkovsky.

Cleopatra

Margarita Terekhova (Russian: Маргари́та Бори́совна Те́рехова) was born in 1942 in Turinsk, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian SFSR. Her parents were Boris Terekhov, an actor of the Sverdlovsk Theater, and actress Galina Stanislavovna Tomasevic. In school, Margarita was interested in sport and was a basketball captain.

After finishing school with a gold medal, Margarita studied at the physics and mathematics faculty at the National University of Uzbekistan in Tashkent from 1959 until 1961. Then, she left everything behind and went to Moscow, where she applied to the WGIK, but was rejected.

Instead, she trained at the drama studio of director Yuri Zavadsky in the Mossovet Theatre in Moscow until 1964, when she joined the troupe of this theatre. While still a student, she played Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw's 'Caesar and Cleopatra' in 1964.

Terekhova's film career began in 1965 with the Armenian film Barev, yes em (Здравствуй, это я!)/Hello, it's me! (Frunze Dovlatyan, 1965). The film is based on the biography of Artem Alikhanian, a famous physicist and founder of a cosmology laboratory in Aragats. The film was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, nominated to Palme d'Or, and awarded the State Prize of Armenia in 1967.

Margarita Terekhova continued her film career with the dramas Belorusski vokzal/Belarus Station (Andrei Smirnov, 1970), and Monolog/Monologue (Ilya Awerbach, 1972), which was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.


Soviet-Russian postcard by Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, 1971.


Soviet-Russian/Ukrainian postcard by Ukrreklamfilm, Kiev, 1973.


Soviet-Russian postcard. Photo: B. Bondareva, Caption on the back: "The Wonderful Artist of the RSFSR", 1978.

Milady de Winter

In 1975, Margarita Terekhova played a dual role in Andrei Tarkovsky's acclaimed art film Zerkalo (Зеркало)/The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975). It is loosely autobiographical, unconventionally structured, and incorporates poems composed and read by the director's father, Arseny Tarkovsky. The Mirror initially polarised critics and audiences, with many considering its narrative to be incomprehensible. The work has grown in reputation since its release and is now considered one of the greatest films of all time. Tarkovsky also directed her on stage as Gertrud in 'Hamlet' (1977).

Her next film was the Finnish-Soviet historical drama Doverie/Trust (Edvin Laine and Viktor Tregubovich, 1976) which portrays the events leading up to the Finnish Declaration of Independence from Russia in 1917. Terekhova also worked in international co-productions such as in the children's fantasy film The Blue Bird (George Cukor, 1976), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda, and the East-German film Mama, ich lebe/Mama, I'm Alive (Konrad Wolf, 1977) with Donatas Banionis.

Terekhova was also popular in the Soviet Union for her roles on television, including Masha in My Life (1972) based on Anton Chekhov, and Countess Diana in Sobaka na sene/The Dog in the Manger (Yan Frid, 1977) based on the eponymous 1618 play by Lope de Vega.

She gained national fame with her role as Milady de Winter in D'Artanyan i tri mushketera/D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers (Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich, 1978), based on the 1844 novel 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexandre Dumas, père. The Mini-series contained numerous songs that became extremely popular in the Soviet Union throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the series is now considered a classic.

In 1983, together with Igor Talkov, Terekhova set up her own theatre group 'Balagantchik' (The Puppet Show) where she performed until 1986. She then returned to the Mossovet theater. In 1996, the actress was named People's Artist of the Russian Federation.

As a director, she staged Gabriel Garcia Lorca's 'Once Five Years Pass' and Alexander Ostrovsky's 'The Guiltlessly Guilty' (Без вины виноватые) at the Mossoviet Theater. In 2005, she directed a film adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull (Чайка).

Terekhova was married three times. Her first husband (1964-1967) was the actor Vyacheslav Butenko. From 1967 till 1969, she was married to the Bulgarian actor Savva Kirillovich Hashimov and her third husband (1980-1995) was director Georgiy Yurievich Gavrilov. She has a daughter, actress Anna Terekhova (1967 or 1970), from second husband Savva Hashimov. Her son is actor and artist Alexander Terekhov (1981). His father is Georgiy Gavrilov.

Since 2011, Margarita Terekhova is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She does not leave her home anymore and does not give interviews. In 2013, she was awarded the Order of Honor for her life's work.


Soviet-Russian postcard by Len. Otdelenie Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 109/76, 1976. Kirill Lavrov and Margarita Terekhova in Doverie/Trust (Edvin Laine, Viktor Tregubovich, 1976). The postcard was issued in 200,000 copies. Retail price: 5 Kop.


Soviet-Russian postcard, issued by Patvinskoe Otdelenie Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, Riga, 1977, no. 2119783. Margarita Terekhova as Milk and Jane Fonda as The Night in the American-Russian coproduction The Blue Bird (George Cukor, 1976). The man behind them is Richard Pearson, who plays Bread.


Soviet-Russian postcard by Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, 1983.

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

Elio Steiner

August 17, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Elio Steiner (1905-1965) was an Italian stage and screen actor, who peaked in the early 1930s in films such as La canzone dell'amore (1930), Corte d'Assise (1930) and Pergolesi (1932).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano. Photo: Cines Pittaluga / ACIEP.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 39. Photo: Cines. Pittaluga, Roma. Isa Pola and Elio Steiner in La canzone dell'amore/The Song of Love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930).


French postcard by Europe, no. 993. Photo: Produzione Pittaluga Cines Roma.

The protagonist of the first Italian sound film

Elio Steiner was born in Stra, Italy, in 1905 as the son of Francesco Steiner and Countess Elena Lupati.

He devoted himself to the theatre when still a teenager. Following his family when they moved to Rome in the first half of the 1920s, he had the opportunity to join, in 1925, the Teatro degli Indipendenti, directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia.

Subsequently, he made his debut in silent cinema in the short film La chimera del biondo cavaliere/The chimera of the blond knight (1927), followed by the feature film La vena d'oro/The Golden Vein (1929), written and directed by Guglielmo Zorzi. Zorzi made him the protagonist opposite film diva Diana Karenne.

At the end of the twenties, he was, therefore, a young protagonist of Italian silent cinema, among which the drama Assunta Spina (Roberto Roberti, 1929) stood out, in which Rina De Liguoro and Febo Mari had the leads as Assunta and Michele.

But Steiner's real fame came in 1930 when, alongside Dria Paola and Isa Pola, he was the protagonist of the first Italian sound film: La canzone dell'amore/The Song of Love (1930), directed by Gennaro Righelli and shot at the Cines-Pittaluga studios and on location in Rome.

Here, young Lucia (Paola), who has adopted the illegal baby of her mother (who has just died) and pretends to be the baby's mother herself, breaks off her engagement with Enrico (Steiner), a promising singer. Two years after, they meet again when she has become a worker in a record shop. Enrico is still in love with her. After a series of misunderstandings and rivalry by Enrico's other girlfriend Anna (Pola), a happy end follows.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 883. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga, Roma. After an attempted suicide, Lucia (Dria Paola) and Enrico (Elio Steiner) make up towards the end of La canzone dell’amore/The Song of Love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930). The cityscape of Rome in the background.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 889. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga, Roma. Lucia (Dria Paola) and Enrico (Elio Steiner) hide from their friends in order to be able to kiss each other, in La canzone dell’amore/The Song of Love (Gennaro Righelli, 1930).


Italian postcard. Photo: Produzione Cines-Pittaluga. From left to right: Lya Franca, Renzo Ricci, Marcella Albani, Mercedes Brignone, and far right Elio Steiner in the courtcase melodrama Corte d'Assise/Court of Assizes (Guido Brignone, 1930), released in 1931.

Increasingly employed in secondary roles

In the early 1930s, Elio Steiner was one of the most popular Italian male actors together with Vittorio De Sica, Nino Besozzi, Gianfranco Giachetti, Sergio Tofano, Carlo Ninchi, and Mino Doro.

After La canzone dell'amore, he immediately acted in a string of films, firstly in Corte d'Assise/Court of Assizes (Guido Brignone, 1930), the first Italian sound film in the detective genre, starring Steiner himself as a reporter investigating a murder and costarring Marcella Albani and Lya Franca.

This was followed by Stella del cinema/Cinema star (Mario Almirante, 1931), where the plot was rather an excuse to showcase the work and the talent at the Cines studios. After that followed e.g. the period piece melodrama Pergolesi (Guido Brignone, 1932), with Dria Paola and Livio Pavanelli, and Acqua cheta/Still water (Gero Zambuto, 1933), starring Gianfranco Giachetti.

In 1934 Elio Steiner temporarily returned to the theatre to perform alongside Uberto Palmarini and Guglielmina Dondi in 'Caterina Sforza' and then returned to the set to act in the films Pensaci, Giacomino!/Think It Over Jack (Gennaro Righelli, 1936) based on a Pirandello play, and Giallo/Yellow (Mario Camerini, 1936).

Progressively Steiner, though, became overshadowed by emerging stars such as Amedeo Nazzari, Fosco Giachetti, Leonardo Cortese, Gino Cervi, Rossano Brazzi, and Raf Vallone, and lost his leading roles. Suffering from incipient baldness, he was increasingly employed in secondary roles, e.g. in the Propaganda film, Giarabub (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942) about the Italian army besieged in a Libyan fortress by the Britains.

The day after 8 September 1943 he was among the most active in trying to reorganise the Republican film industry in Venice but the outcome was disappointing. Steiner only acted in one released film, Aeroporto (Piero Costa, 1944), mostly shot at Montecatini Terme. The film had only a limited release in early 1945.

Steiner returned to the screen from 1946, first as the evil James Milligan in Senza famiglia/Without Family (Giorgio Ferroni, 1946), He was now confined to character roles. His career would continue with dignity until the end of the fifties, with parts in mostly forgotten films but also La signora senza camelie/Camille Without Camelias (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953).

Elio Steiner died in 1965 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was 61.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga.


Italian postcard. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Marcella Albani, Lya Franca and Elio Steiner in Corte d'Assise (Guido Brignone, 1930), the second Italian sound film, after La canzone dell'amore, and one the first Italian court case crime stories.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 65. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Dria Paola as Maria in Pergolesi (Guido Brignone, 1932). The man left could be Elio Steiner as Pergolesi.


Italian postcard by ASER (A. Scarmiglia Edizioni, Roma), no. 123. Photo: Pesce. Could be for the film Giarabub (1942).

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

Julius Falkenstein

August 18, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Julius Falkenstein (1879-1933) was a bald, often monocle-wearing German character actor. He was known for such films as Zopf und Schwert - Eine tolle Prinzessin (1926), Der Meister von Nürnberg (1927) and Ich und die Kaiserin (1933). Falkenstein appeared in 184 films between 1914 and 1933.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 611/5. Photo: Union / Ufa. Julius Falkenstein and Ossi Oswalda in Die Austernprinzessin/The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 636/1. Ohoto: Maxim Film. Lotte Neumann in the comedy Romeo und Julia im Schnee/Romeo and Juliet in the Snow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920). The man on the left dressed as antique hero could be Julius Falkenstein as Paris. The others are from left to right Jakob Tiedtke (Herr Capulethofer), Marga Köhler (his wife), Lotte Neumann (Julia) and Gustav von Wangenheim (Romeo Montekugerl).


German postcard by Verlag Hans Dursthoff, Berlin, no. 1646. Photo: Ufa Kulturfilm. Julius Falkenstein in Der behexte Neptun (Willi Achsel, 1925).

One of the most popular film comedians of the German silent cinema

Julius Falkenstein was born in 1879 in Berlin, the capital of Germany.

Falkenstein probably received his first theatre engagement in Berlin in 1904/1905. From 1906, he was on stage at the Residenztheater in Berlin. In the following years, he played mostly on the Berlin theaters, interrupted only by engagements from 1908 to 1910 at the Lustspielhaus Düsseldorf, 1911 at the Vienna Volkstheater, and 1912 at the Theater an der Wien. Falkenstein, who was valued above all for his comedic qualities, often went on guest tours and acted himself several times as a game director.

From 1914, he was also prolific in silent films, essaying diverse eccentric character parts. He had his first film appearance in the detective film Die geheimnisvolle Villa/The Black Triangle (Joe May, 1914) the first in the series starring the fictional gentleman detective Stuart Webbs (Ernst Reicher), modeled on Sherlock Holmes.

During the silent era, he did his best work for the famous directors Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Ernst Lubitsch. For Murnau, he played in Schloß Vogelöd/The Haunted Castle (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1921), and Die Finanzen des Großherzogs/The Grand Duke's Finances (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1924) with Harry Liedtke and Mady Christians.

He appeared in such Lubitsch comedies as Der Rodelkavalier/The Toboggan Cavalier (Ernst Lubitsch, 1918) Die Austernprinzessin/The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919) starring Ossi Oswalda, and Romeo und Julia im Schnee/Romeo and Juliet in the Snow (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) starring Lotte Neumann. Julius Falkenstein belonged to the most popular film comedians of the German silent cinema.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Phoebus Film Julius Falkenstein in the historical comedy Der Meister von Nürnberg (Ludwig Berger, 1927), based on Richard Wagner's opera 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Phoebus Film. Veit Harlan and Julius Falkenstein in Der Meister von Nürnberg/The Master of Nuremberg (Ludwig Berger, 1927).

The audience has to laugh and cry at the same time

Julius Falkenstein played aristocrats, military, directors, secretaries, and accountants in a stream of films. In addition, he still found time for theater assignments, at the Komische Oper and in the Theater am Kurfürstendamm. He also wrote a comedy himself called 'Julie', which was staged with great success.

IMDb quotes Falkenstein: "It is my wish to play good tragic-comical roles under good directors - roles where the audience has to laugh and to cry at the same time".

The transition to the sound film didn't cause him any trouble. In the 1930s he even made more films than he did in the 1920s. In the last four years of his life, he played in almost twenty films a year.

Among his sound films are hits like Der Kongress tanzt/The Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931) with Lilian Harvey and Willy Fritsch, Berlin-Alexanderplatz/Berlin-Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf (Phil Jutzi, 1931), Ich und die Kaiserin/The Only Girl (Friedrich Hollaender, 1933) starring Lilian Harvey and Das häßliche Mädchen/The Ugly Girl (Henry Koster (as Hermann Kosterlitz), 1933) featuring Dolly Haas.

Falkenstein was Jewish but he secured a special permit to continue making films following the Nazi rise to power in 1933. However, he made only one further film. Julius Falkenstein died of meningitis in 1933 in Berlin, Germany. He was 54. His grave is in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee. He was married to Helene Julie Zillinger.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3708/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ufa.


German collectors card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 32. Photo: Cine-Allianz / Ross Verlag. Jan Kiepura and Julius Falkenstein in Das Lied einer Nacht/The Song of Night (Anatole Litvak, 1932).

Sources: Thomas Städeli (Cyranos - German), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

Robert Wagner

August 19, 2021, 10:00 pm

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American actor Robert Wagner (1930) started his career as a handsome hunk in Hollywood films like A Kiss Before Dying (Gerd Oswald, 1956). In the following decades, he appeared in such box office hits as The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1963), Harper (Jack Smight, 1966) starring Paul Newman, and the disaster film The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974). He is best known for starring in the television shows It Takes a Thief (1968–1970) with Fred Astaire, Switch (1975–1978) opposite Eddie Albert, and Hart to Hart (1979–1984), co-starring Stefanie Powers.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 31. Photo: Robert Wagner in White Feather (Robert D. Webb, 1955).


West-German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 1257. Photo: 20th Century-Fox. Robert Wagner in Prince Valiant (Henry Hathaway, 1954).


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 401.

Unable to make the transition to top-level star

Robert John 'R.J.' Wagner was born 1930 in Detroit. He is the son of Hazel Alvera (née Boe), a telephone operator, and Robert John Wagner Sr., a traveling salesman who worked for the Ford Motor Company.

His family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven. Wagner attended and graduated from Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, and attended military academies and Harvard. Always wanting to be an actor, he held a variety of jobs while pursuing his goal.

After making his uncredited screen debut in The Happy Years (William A. Wellman, 1950), he was signed by agent Henry Willson. He was put under contract with 20th Century-Fox, which carefully built him up toward stardom.

He played romantic leads with ease, but it was not until he essayed the two-scene role of a shell-shocked war veteran in With a Song in My Heart (Walter Lang, 1952) starring Susan Hayward, that studio executives recognised his potential as a dramatic actor.

He supported James Cagney and Dan Dailey in John Ford's version of What Price Glory (1952) and supported Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck in Titanic (Jean Negulesco, 1953).

Fox gave Wagner his first starring role in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (Robert D. Webb, 1953) with Terry Moore and Gilbert Roland. The screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides was inspired by 'Romeo and Juliet' by William Shakespeare. Reviews were poor but the film was only the third ever to be shot in CinemaScope and was a big hit.

Wagner went on to play the title roles in Prince Valiant (Henry Hathaway, 1954) opposite James Mason and Janet Leigh, and The True Story of Jesse James (Nicholas Ray, 1957), with Jeffrey Hunter. He portrayed a ruthless college student, who resorts to murder in an attempt to marry an heiress (Joanne Woodward) in A Kiss Before Dying (Gerd Oswald, 1956). The latter two films were box office disappointments and it seemed Wagner was unable to make the transition to top-level star.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès Carboplane, no. 24 H. Photo: Paramount, 1956.


German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3512. Photo: Centfox.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 998. Photo: Robert Wagner in The Mountain (Edward Dmytryk, 1956).

A respectable transition to television

In Europe, Robert Wagner had a small role in the epic war film The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, a.o., 1962), produced by Daryl Zanuck for Fox. He had a larger part in The Condemned of Altona (1962), a commercial and critical disappointment despite being directed by Vittorio de Sica and co-starring Sophia Loren.

In the mid-1960s, Robert Wagner's film career skidded to a stop after the massive hit The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards, 1963) with David Niven, Peter Sellers, and Claudia Cardinale. Blake Edwards wanted Wagner for the lead in The Great Race (1965), but Jack L. Warner overruled him.

Wagner found a good supporting role in the modern-day private investigator hit, Harper (Jack Smight, 1966), starring Paul Newman. He signed with Universal Pictures in 1966, starring opposite future wife Jill St. John in the films How I Spent My Summer Vacation/Deadly Roulette (William Hale, 1967), and Banning (Ron Winston, 1967).

He returned to Italy to make a caper film with Raquel Welch for MGM, The Biggest Bundle of Them All (Ken Annakin, 1968), but it was not a success.

Wagner made a respectable transition to television as the star of the lighthearted espionage series It Takes a Thief (1968) with Fred Astaire. He also starred in the police series Switch (1975) with Eddie Albert and Sharon Gless.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3431. Photo: Dear Film. Robert Wagner in A Kiss Before Dying (Gerd Oswald, 1956).


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Charlottenbrug. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Robert Wagner in The Hunters (Robert D. Webb, 1958).


West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 1582. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

One of Hollywood's nicest citizens

Robert Wagner's greatest success was opposite Stefanie Powers on the internationally popular TV series Hart to Hart (1979), which ran from 1979 through 1984 and has since been sporadically revived in TV-movie form. Another series, Lime Street (1985-1986), was quickly canceled due to the tragic death of Wagner's young co-star, Samantha Smith.

Considered one of Hollywood's nicest citizens, Robert Wagner has continued to successfully pursue a leading man career; he has also launched a latter-day stage career, touring with Stefanie Powers in the readers' theater presentation 'Love Letters'. He also had a recurring role as Teddy Leopold on the TV sitcom Two and a Half Men (2007-2008) and had a recurring role as Anthony DiNozzo Sr. on the police procedural NCIS (2010-2014).

In the cinema, Wagner played Number Two, a henchman to Dr. Evil opposite Mike Myers in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach, 1997) and its sequels, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Jay Roach, 1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (Jay Roach, 2002).

In 2008, Wagner published his autobiography 'Pieces of My Heart: A Life', written together with author Scott Eyman. Robert Wagner says in his autobiography that he had a four-year relationship with Barbara Stanwyck who was more than twenty years older than he was. He says she was his first great love and that she gave him more than any woman in his life.

Robert Wagner married four times. He married Natalie Wood twice (1957-1962) and (1972-1981 - her death). In between, he was married to Marion Marshall (1963-1971). Since 1990, he is married to actress Jill St. John. He has known her since 1959, and they've been a couple since 1982, eight years before their wedding.

Robert Wagner is the father of Katie Wagner (1964) with Marion Marshall and Courtney Wagner (1974) with Natalie Wood. Though the double surname suggests otherwise, he never legally adopted his ex-stepdaughter Natasha Gregson Wagner. In 2006, he became a grandfather when his daughter Katie Wagner gave birth to her son, Riley John.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 26.


Italian postcard in the series Artisti di Sempre by Ed. ris. Rotalfoto S.p.A., Milano, no. 287.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. CD4.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

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17 New treasures

August 20, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Today a post with all kinds of postcards I've found and acquired in the last months. Just for the fun of it.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 126. From left to right, Albert, François and Paolo (Paul) Fratellini.


French postcard by Europe, no. 647. Photo: Mercure Film. Marlene Dietrich in Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt/The Woman One Longs For (Kurt Bernhardt, 1929).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 480-2. Photo: Fox Film. Madge Bellamy.


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5853. Photo: British International Pictures (BIP). Anna May Wong in Piccadilly (Ewald André Dupont, 1929).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 897/2, 1925-1926. Photo: First National Pictures, New York. Corinne Griffith.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4993/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Fox. Lily Damita.


French postcard by Publications J.P., Paris. Caricature by Raoul Cabrol. Félix Mayol.


Big German card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Paramount. Buster Crabbe in King of the Jungle (H. Bruce Humberstone, Max Marcin, 1933).


Big German collectors card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Charles Bickford.


Big German collectors card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Paramount. Baby LeRoy embarks on a tour of the Paramount studios in a cart pulled by two dogs, Mutt and Jeff, Hollywood, circa 1934.


Big German collectors card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Paramount. Baby LeRoy.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1542/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Paramount Pictures. Mae West.


French postcard, no. 764. Photo: Warner Bros. Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, William Keighley, 1938).


Italian postcard, no. 358. Yvonne De Carlo.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2276. Photo: Paramount Films. Alan Ladd.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1301. Photo: Hoffmann / Ufa. Jayne Mansfield.


French postcard for the French DVD release by Dark Star / Carlotta. Photo: AV Svenska Film Industr. Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann in Scener ur ett äktenskap/Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman, 1973).

Francesca Bertini in La signora delle camelie (1915)

August 21, 2021, 10:00 pm

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In the mid-1010s, Chocolate Pi in Barcelona released a series of 6 colourful collector cards of the Italian film La signora delle camelie/The Lady of the Camellias (Gustavo Serena, 1915). The drama was based on the popular novel and stage play 'La Dame aux Camélias' by Alexandre Dumas fils and this time the courtesan Marguerite Gautier was played by a famous diva of the Italian silent cinema, Francesca Bertini.


Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 1 of series of 6 cards. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertini and Gustavo Serena in La signora delle camelie (Gustavo Serena, 1915). The man on the right is Carlo Benetti.


Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 2 of series of 6 cards. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertini and Gustavo Serena in La signora delle camelie (Gustavo Serena, 1915).


Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 3 of series of 6 cards. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertini and Gustavo Serena in La signora delle camelie (Gustavo Serena, 1915).

After a life with many men, she chooses Armand

La signora delle camelieThe Lady of the Camellias (Gustavo Serena, 1915 chronicles the well-known tragic love story of courtesan Marguerite Gautier (Francesca Bertini) and the provincial bourgeois Armand Duval (Gustavo Serena). After a life with many men, she chooses Armand. Yet, unknowing to Armand, Marguerite accepts Armand's father's (Antonio Cruichi) plea to separate herself from Armand because of the family's reputation and she sells all of her belongings.

Armand is so upset about the separation that, before a shocked audience of many, he throws stacks of money onto her, shouting out that he has now fully paid his debts. Marguerite withdraws and succumbs to tuberculosis. Armand, whose repenting father has confessed Marguerite's sacrifice, is just in time to hold her in his arms before she dies.

Alexandre Dumas's play was scripted by Renzo Chiosso, the cinematography was by Bertini's fixed cameraman Alberto Carta, and the sets were by Alfredo Manzi. In addition to Bertini, Serena, and Cruichi, also other Caesar Film regulars such as Olgaand Carlo Benetti, and Camillo De Riso were part of the cast. Olga played the role of Marguerite's friend Mme Duvernoy, the Flora of Verdi's opera.

Dumas's play was indeed turned into one of the most famous operas by Giuseppe Verdi, 'La Traviata', in which the main characters were called Violetta and Alfredo. Even if a fiasco at its premiere in 1853 in Venice, it has become a classic, and probably Verdi's most performed opera. Arias from 'La Traviata' have even led a life of their own, and the scene on the sixth card perfectly expresses the aria 'Addio al passato' in the opera.

Bertini's film was a huge hit at the time, and all over Europe, the film was shown for months in a row. And this despite fierce competition within Italy from a parallel released version of La signora delle camelie starring Hesperia, and directed by Hesperia's husband and promotor Baldassarre Negroni. While camera-wise perhaps not very innovative, the performances by the leads and the settings and costumes are very remarkable.

M. Congedi at IMDb: "In 1915, 'La Bertini' and Serena were setting standards in cinema worldwide with their subtle and realistic acting. This acting brilliance was most notable in their collaboration on the silent masterpiece Assunta Spina filmed in the same year, arguably the finest film made that year, anywhere. Compared to other major titles of the same period, this film lacks some of the technical brilliance that was developing in cinema at the time (e.g. camera movement, facial close-ups), but the film makes up for this lack in other ways. The compositions are elegant, the way scenes are lit are well thought out (note the light and darkness on Bertini's face in certain scenes), the acting subtle (for its time), the crowd scenes are so well-handled."

In 1992 a restoration of the film was made, on basis of, alas, poor materials. Provided with a new score by Ennio Morricone, the film was shown to the Roman beau-monde at the Teatro Sistina in Rome, a fitting venue for such a bourgeois spectacle. Unfortunately for Bertini, she had already died in 1985. She deplored in the documentary L'ultima diva (Gianfranco Mingozzi, 1983) that so little of her oeuvre had survived. Luckily, more and more film prints of her film career have shown up all over the globe and have been preserved, such as Sangue bleu and Il processo Clemenceau. Still, several titles are still missing, while from two other successful films of hers, Tosca and Fedora, only fragments have resurfaced but not complete prints.


Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 4 of series of 6 cards. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertini and probably Antonio Cruichi in La signora delle camelie (Gustavo Serena, 1915). If this is the scene with Armand's father, then the Verdi operatic equivalent would be the aria of Germont: 'Di Provenza il mar, il suol'.


Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 5 of series of 6 cards. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertiniand Gustavo Serena in La signora delle camelie (Gustavo Serena, 1915). The little rotund man on the right is Camillo De Riso. The man just left of Serena, looking at him, is Carlo Benetti. The woman whose head is partly covered by Bertini is Olga Benetti.


Spanish collector card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 6 of series of 6 cards. Photo: Caesar Film. Francesca Bertini in La signora delle camelie (Gustavo Serena, 1915).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Constance Worth

August 22, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Constance Worth (1892–1973) was a British stage actress who had a short career in European silent cinema between 1919 and 1923. She is not to be confused with her Australian namesake who had a career in 1930s Hollywood.


British postcard in the Cinema Stars series by Lilywhite, no. CM-61.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, no. A 298/2, hand-coloured.


British postcard in the Cinema Stars series by Lilywhite Ltd. London, no. CM-423 F. Caption: Film Favourite.

An artist framing a parson for poisoning his wife

Constance Worth was born in 1892 in Rawdon, West Yorkshire, England as Constance Emsley Wadsworth.

Worth debuted in the British Lion film A Non-conformist Parson (A.V. Bramble, 1919), about an artist framing a parson for poisoning his wife. She immediately had the female lead in the film.

Worth remained with British Lion for The Starting Point (Edwin J. Collins, 1919) and Wisp o' the Woods (Cecil M. Hepworth, Louis Willoughby, 1919).

In 1920 she worked for the Anglo-Hollandia company, where she had the female lead in the Dutch-British coproduction Fate's Plaything/Wat eeuwig blijft (Maurits Binger, B.E. Doxat-Pratt, 1920), distributed by Butcher.

The plot is about a woman (Worth) who on the eve of her engagement runs away with a dancer (Adelqui Migliar). When pregnant, she runs away from him when he gets brutal, and finds refuge with a hunchback bachelor (Hector Abbas). Years after, a doctor saves the life of her child and he proves to be her ex-fiancée (Bruce Gordon). They reunite.


British postcard in the Cinema Chat series. Photo: Dolson / Grangers Exclusives.


British postcard by "Pictures" Portrait Gallery, London, no. 52. Photo: Claude Harris Ltd.

A lieutenant who plants a baby on a retired captain

Constance Worth then did a range of films with James Knight and Marjorie Villis for the Harma company, The Education of Nicky (Arthur Rooke, 1921), Love in the Welsh Hills (Bernard Dudley, 1921), and No. 7 Brick Row (Fred W. Durrant, 1922), distributed by Walturdaw.

Rooke directed her again in A Bachelor's Baby (Arthur Rooke, 1922), distributed by the company Granger (so this card may refer to that film). The story of the latter is about a lieutenant (Malcolm Tod) who plants a baby on a retired captain (Tom Reynolds) to promote his romance with a neighbour's niece (Worth).

Worth's last part was in the Franco-Austrian film La maison dans la forêt/Das Haus im Walde/The House in the Forest (Jean Legrand, 1922), also with Jean Angelo and Gerald Ames.

Constance Worth died age 80 in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1973. She was married to Alfred Herbert Taylor who worked under the stage name Dan Rolyat (1915-1924) and to Frano Petrinovic from 1927 till his death in 1951. They had one child.


British postcard by Rotary Photo. Sent by mail in 1919.


British postcard by Rotary Photo. On the back: "This is a Real Photograph of a British Beauty: Constance Worth".

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Elena Solovey

August 23, 2021, 10:00 pm

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(Y)Elena Solovey (1947) is a Russian-American film and stage actress, internationally best known for her films with director Nikita Mikhalkov during the 1970s and 1980. Later she emigrated to the USA, where she appeared in the TV series The Sopranos (2002) and several films by director James Gray. Since 1966, she appeared in 55 films.

Soviet-Russian postcard. Photo: A. Manukyana / Lenfilm. Elena Solovey in Drama iz starinnoy zhizni/The Drama from Ancient Life (Ilya Averbakh, 1972).


Soviet-Russian postcard. Photo: A. Manukyana / Lenfilm. Elena Solovey and Tatyana Piletskaya in Drama iz starinnoy zhizni/The Drama from Ancient Life (Ilya Averbakh, 1972).


Soviet-Russian postcard by Leningradskoe otdenenie byuro propaganda sovetskogo kinoiskusstva. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey as Sophia in Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino/An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1977). The film was based on Anton Chekhov's 'Platonov', as well as several of his other short stories. In The Netherlands, the film was released at the time as Piano mécanique.

A dream of becoming an actress

Elena (also written as Yelena) Solovey was born Elena Yakovlevna Solovey in 1947, in Neustrelitz, East Germany. Her parents met in Berlin at the end of the Second World War. Her father, Yakov Solovey, was an artillery officer in the Red Army. Her mother was a medical nurse.

Young Elena lived in Germany until the age of 4, then moved to Novosibirsk, Siberian Russia, where her father continued his military career, then moved to Moscow. Elena had a dream of becoming an actress. She was fond of art, music, films, and theatre, and attended a music school in addition to her high school.

Eventually, she became a music teacher at a Moscow school, after failing to enter the Soviet State Institute of Cinema (VGIK). However, she was persistent and determined in pursuit of her dream, and a year later, she was admitted to VGIK, studied at the acting class of Boris Babochkin, graduating in 1970 as an actress.

Elena Solovey made her film debut in short films during the 1960s, while a VGIK student. In 1969 she played her first serious role as Clarice in Korol-olen/King Stag (1970) by director Pavel Arsyonov.

In 1970 she was invited to the troupe of Maly Theatre in Moscow. There Solovey was cast as Nina in 'The Seagull' by Anton Chekhov, albeit she followed her heart and married a Leningrad artist, Yuri Pugach, and the couple settled in Leningrad. There Solovey worked at Lenfilm Studios.


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Elena Solovey and Yuriy Yakovlev in Korol-olen/King Stag (Pavel Arsyonov, 1970).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: A. Manukyana / Lenfilm. Elena Solovey and Tatyana Piletskaya in Drama iz starinnoy zhizni/The Drama from Ancient Life (Ilya Averbakh, 1972).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey in Deti Vanyushina/ Vanyushin's Children (Evgeniy Tashkov, 1974).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey and Sergey Martynov in Kontsert dlya dvukh skripok/Concerto for Two Violins (Ekaterina Stashevskaya-Naroditskaya, 1975).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey in Raba lyubvi/Slave of Love (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1976).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey as Sophia in Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino/An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1977).

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

During the 1970s Elena Solovey played her best-known roles. She had her international breakthrough as Olga Vosnesenskaya (alluding to 1910s film star Vera Kholodnaya), opposite Rodion Nahapetov in Raba lyubvi/Slave of Love (1976). In 1918, at the height of the Bolshevik revolution, a small group of filmmakers are hurriedly trying to complete a silent melodrama while the world changes all around them. As production progresses, leading lady Elena Solovei metamorphoses from self-centered film star to committed revolutionary. With Slave of Love, director Nikita Mikhalkov gained his first serious international attention.

For Nikita Mikhalkov, Solovey also acted as Sofia opposite Aleksandr Kalyagin in Neokonchennaya pyesa dlya mekhanicheskogo pianino/An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1977), and as Olga opposite Oleg Tabakov in Neskolko dney iz zhizni I.I. Oblomova/Oblomov (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1980). In 1980 she received the award for best actress at the Oxford Film festival for Oblomov and in 1981 she won in Cannes the award for Best Supporting Actress for the Soviet-Lithuanian war film Faktas/Fakt/Fact (Almantas Grikevicius, 1981).

From 1983 till 1991 Elena Solovey was a member of the troupe at the Theatre of Lensoveta in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia. There she appeared in leading and supporting roles in Russian and international stage production. Her last work on stage in St. Petersburg was the acclaimed production of 'Foto-finish' written and directed by Peter Ustinov. Ustinov cast Solovey as a co-star opposite Pyotr Shelokhonov as the male lead, supported by Anna Aleksakhina, Roman Gromadsky, and other notable Russian actors.

In the fall of 1991, Solovey emigrated from Russia and settled in New Jersey with her husband Yuri Pugach, two children, and a granddaughter. She appeared in Russian films, worked for Russian radio in New York, and played in several stage productions of 'Bluzhdayushcie zvezdy' (Wandering stars) troupe at the Russian area of Brighton Beach. In 2002 she played Branca Libinsk in three episodes of the TV series The Sopranos.

In 2007 she appeared in a supporting role as Kalina in We Own the Night (James Gray, 2007), a crime thriller about the Russian mafia starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, and Eva Mendes. She also appeared in the drama The Immigrant (James Gray, 1013), starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Her most recent film with writer-director James Gray was the biographical adventure drama The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2016), starring Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson.

Since the 1990s Elena Solovey has been teaching children of Russian emigrants at 'Etude' acting school in New Jersey, USA. In 1981, Elena Solovey was designated People's Actor of Russia.


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


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey and Oleg Tabakov in Neskolko dney iz zhizni I.I. Oblomova/Oblomov (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1980).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Mosfilm. Elena Solovey in Beshenye dengi/Easy Money (Evgeniy Matveev, 1982).


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984.


Soviet-Russian postcard, part of a series of black and white postcards on Elena Solovey, issued in 1984. Photo: Lenfilm. Elena Solovey in Blondinka za uglom/The Blonde Around the Corner (Vladimir Bortko, 1984).

Source: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Erno Crisa

August 24, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Erno Crisa (1914-1968) was a handsome Italian actor, who appeared in a long series of films during the 1950s and 1960s.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1434. Photo: Dott. De Blasi.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1034. Erno Crisa in L'amant de lady Chatterley/Lady Chatterley's Lover (Marc Allégret, 1955).

Ballet and modern and classical choreography

Erno Crisa was born Ernesto Crisà in 1914 in Biserta, Tunisia, into a family of Sicilian emigrants.

Fascinated by the world of show business, after emigrating to France he attended Preobajenska's courses in ballet and modern and classical choreography, later managing to work in some Parisian theatre productions.

In 1945, after a few uncredited bit parts, he made his debut in French cinema as a vagabond opposite Fernandel in the comedy Le mystère Saint-Val/St. Val's Mystery (René Le Hénaff, 1945). Fernandel's first film following the liberation of Paris was a big hit in France.

He also appeared in Le jugement dernier/The Last Judgment (René Chanas, 1945), a French film drama starring Raymond Bussières. He returned to Italy, where he was recruited by Wanda Osiris' company. There he worked as a ballet soloist in Garinei and Giovannini's revue 'Al Grand Hotel' in the 1948-1949 season.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2779. Photo: Minerva Films.

Peplum muscleman

In 1950 Erno Crisa was noticed by director Luigi Zampa, who asked him to play a role in the drama Cuori senza frontiere/The White Line (1950), starring Raf Vallone and Gina Lollobrigida. This was the beginning of a long series of films that he would make until the end of the 1960s. He also appeared in many Foto romanzi, the Italian photo novels, including the infamous Killing (aka Sadistik).

Memorable titles of the fifties in which he had leads were e.g. Gelosia/Jealousy (Pietro Germi, 1953), Violenza sul lago/Violence in the lake (Leonardo Cortese, 1954) with Lia Amanda, La figlia di Mata Hari/Mata Hari's Daughter (Renzo Merusi, Carmine Gallone, 1954) starring Ludmilla Tchérina, the French drama L'amant de lady Chatterley/Lady Chatterley's Lover (Marc Allégret, 1955) opposite Danielle Darrieux, and I mafiosi/The mafia (Roberto Mauri, 1959).

In addition, Crisa had supporting parts in modern dramas, period pieces, and Musicarellos. In the early 1960s, Crisa acted in several Peplums like Cartagine in fiamme/Carthage in Flames (Carmine Gallone, 1960) starring Pierre Brasseur, and other historical or mythological films with musclemen like Ed Fury, Gordon Mitchell, and Mark Forest.

He appeared in one episode of the Angelique series starring Michèle Mercier, Angélique et le Sultan/Angelique and the Sultan (Bernard Borderie, 1968), and played the inspector in the crime thriller Plein soleil/Purple Noon (René Clement, 1960) starring Alain Delon. He also appeared in such Spaghetti Westerns as Sugar Colt (Franco Giraldi, 1966), credited as James Parker.

In 1968, Erno Crisa suddenly died in Rome at the age of 54. He is buried in the cemetery of Casalpusterlengo, near Lodi, next to his wife Giuseppina Ferri.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 356.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 405.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian and English) and IMDb.

Article 0

August 25, 2021, 6:28 am

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Charles Morton (1908-1966) was a good-looking and athletic American film and television actor. His film career started as a leading man in the silent era in films by John Ford and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Morton continued into sound features and finally acted on television.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 720. Photo: Max Munn Autrey / Fox. Janet Gaynor and Charles Morton in 4 Devils (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1928).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5668. Photo: Fox-Film.


French postcard by Europe, no. 834. Photo: Fox / Astra Cinegrafica.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5466/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Fox.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC 64. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Charles Morton and Anita Page in Caught Short (Charles Reisner, 1930).

The most mourned of the lost films of the silent era

Charles Morton was born in 1908 in Illinois, USA. Morton spent his adolescence in Madison, Wisconsin, and received his education at Madison High School and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

He made his first stage appearance at the age of seven and later appeared in vaudeville, stock, and the legitimate stage. At the age of 19, Charles was discovered by film director Randall Faye while starring in a stage production of 'Romeo and Juliet' in Los Angeles. Impressed by his polished physical appearance, personality and youthful charm, he arranged for him to be a career in the film industry.

Morton signed his first contract with Fox in 1927. Under the supervision of Randall Faye, he made his film debut in Rich But Honest (1927). Audiences first discovered the handsome youth that same year as the dashing Terry O'Flynn opposite the studio's leading flapper, Madge Bellamy, in Colleen (Frank O'Connor, 1927), one of the era's many comedy dramas.

Morton went on to star in John Ford's World War I silent film Four Sons (1928) with Margaret Mann and James Hall. It is one of only a handful of survivors out of the more than 50 silent films Ford directed between 1917 and 1928. He also starred in Fox's None but the Brave (Albert Ray, 1928) with Sally Phipps as Mary.

Charles Morton was also a member of the ultimately tragic circus troupe in F. W. Murnau's near-classic 4 Devils, among the most mourned of the lost films of the silent era.The plot concerns four orphans (Janet Gaynor, Nancy Drexel, Barry Norton, and Charles Morton) who are raised by an old clown and become a high wire act. But there are sinister goings-on at a circus. 4 Devils was released by Fox Film Corporation and was produced by William Fox, who had hired Murnau to come to the United States. It was initially released as a silent with a synchronised music score and sound effects in October 1928, and grossed $100,000 in New York City, but because of the talkie picture craze, Fox pulled it from distribution and ordered sound to be added. No copies of either version of the film are known to exist.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 279. Photo: Fox Film.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 708. Photo: Max Munn Autrey / Fox. Janet Gaynor, Nancy Drexel, Barry Norton, and Charles Morton in 4 Devils (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1928).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 711 Photo: Charles Munn Autrey / Fox. Charles Morton, Janet Gaynor, Nancy Drexel, and Barry Norton in 4 Devils (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1928).


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5824. Photo: Fox.

A few days behind bars

Charles Morton had a supporting part in the sound comedy Check and Double Check (Melville W. Brown, 1930) based on the Amos 'n' Andy radio show. The title was derived from a catchphrase associated with the show. It starred Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden, in blackface, in the roles of Andy and Amos, respectively, which they had created for the radio show. The film also featured Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra.

In 1931, Charles Morton married Lya Lys, but the marriage ended in divorce some months later, not long after the birth of their daughter. Later a dispute over alimony payments would see Morton spending a few days behind bars.

After 1933 with the widespread use of sound film, Morton's career began to lose momentum; and by 1936 his roles were significantly reduced, playing minor roles on television until his death from heart disease in 1966, at the age of 58.

Even though Charles Morton's career continued into the mid-1960s, almost all of his roles after 1933 were so minor he was left uncredited for the majority of his performances.

Charles Morton was cremated and his ashes interred in an unmarked grave in Valhalla Memorial Park, North Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California. According to IMDb, he was married three times. His wives were Lya Lys, Frances Lane, and Lola Resk.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4392/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Fox.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4858/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Fox.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5002/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Fox.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5411/1, 1930-1931. Photo: RKO Radio Pictures. Charles Morton and Sue Carol in Check and Double Check (Melville W. Brown, 1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5820/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Fox.

Source: Lowell Thurgood (Find A Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Michel Strogoff by Albert Bergeret

July 31, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Around 1900, Jules Verne's 'Michel Strogoff' (Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar) was one of the most popular adventure novels, set in 1860s Imperial Russia. The book, published in 1876, was four years later adapted to a play, by Verne himself and Adolphe d'Ennery. In the 20th century several film adaptations would follow in France, Germany and elsewhere. Ivan Mozzhukhin and Nathalie Kovanko were the stars of the French-German silent film Michel Strogoff (Victor Tourjansky, 1926). Next week at EFSP, a post on one of the best sound film adaptations. Today, we present a curious set of ten 'Michel Strogoff' postcards published by French photographer and publisher Albert Bergeret (1859-1932) from Nancy ca. 1900. The setting of this possibly refers to a stage version of 'Michel Strogoff' but the pictures may also have been staged for Bergeret's own interest.

French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: (Mother Russia:) Aren't you the Children of our old Siberia? For her you need to die.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: On the road to Irkutsk.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: Nadia Fedor.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: The traitor Ivan Ogareff.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: Caption: Sangarre and Ivan Ogareff.

A courier for Tsar Alexander II

The Michael Strogoff series by Bergeret is unnumbered but we've tried to follow the plot. Michael Strogoff, a 30-year-old native of Omsk, is a courier for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Tartar Khan (prince), Feofar Khan, incites a rebellion and separates the Russian Far East from the mainland, severing telegraph lines. Rebels encircle Irkutsk, where the local governor, a brother of the Tsar, is making a last stand. Strogoff is sent to Irkutsk to warn the governor about the traitor Ivan Ogareff, a former colonel, who was once demoted and exiled and now seeks revenge against the imperial family. He intends to gain the governor's trust and then betray him to the Tartar hordes.

On his way to Irkutsk, Strogoff meets Nadia Fedor, daughter of an exiled political prisoner, Basil Fedor, who has been granted permission to join her father at his exile in Irkutsk; the English war correspondent Harry Blount of the Daily Telegraph; and Alcide Jolivet, a Frenchman reporting for his 'cousin Madeleine'. Blount and Jolivet tend to follow the same route as Michael, separating and meeting again all the way through Siberia. He is supposed to travel under a false identity, posing as the pacific merchant Nicolas Korpanoff, but he is discovered by the Tartars when he meets his mother in their home city of Omsk.

Michael, his mother, and Nadia are eventually captured by the Tartar forces, along with thousands of other Russians, during the storming of a city in the Ob basin. The Tartars do not know Strogoff by sight, but Ogareff is aware of the courier's mission and when he is told that Strogoff's mother spotted her son in the crowd and called his name, but received no reply, he understands that Strogoff is among the captured and devises a scheme to force the mother to indicate him.

Strogoff is indeed caught and handed over to the Tartars, and Ogareff alleges that Michael is a spy, hoping to have him put to death in some cruel way. After opening the Koran at random, Feofar decides that Michael will be blinded as punishment in the Tartar fashion, with a glowing hot blade. For several chapters, the reader is led to believe that Michael was indeed blinded, but it transpires in fact that he was saved from this fate (his tears at his mother evaporated and saved his corneas) and was only pretending.

Eventually, Michael and Nadia escape and travel to Irkutsk with a friendly peasant, Nicolas Pigassof. They are recaptured by the Tartars; Nicolas witnesses Nadia being raped by a Tartar soldier and murders Nadia's assaulter. The Tartars then abandon Nadia and Michael and carry Nicolas away, reserving him for greater punishment. Nadia and Michael later discover him buried up to his neck in the ground. They continue onward where they are delayed by fire and the frozen river. However, they eventually reach Irkutsk and warn the Tsar's brother in time of Ivan Ogareff. Nadia's father, who has been appointed commander of a suicide battalion and later pardoned, joins them and Michael and Nadia are married.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: Caption: Sangarre and Ivan Ogareff.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: God offers the afflicted ineffable consolations.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: My mother! My mother! They killed my mother!


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: The death of the traitor.


French postcard by Phototypie A. Bergeret et Cie., Nancy. Caption: For God, czar, and fatherland! Following the thread of the plot, this could be the last card. Yet, this card talks about consolations by God, which may refer to Michel getting his sight again. When his mother faints when he is blinded, his tears have saved his eyes. So that card could also be the last or penultimate card.

Sources: Gazette Drouot (French), and Wikipedia (French and English).

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The Rolling Stones: Charlie Watts (1941-2021)

August 25, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Last Tuesday, 24 August 2021, Charlie Watts (1941-2021), the drummer for the Rolling Stones, passed away. He was one of the band's longest-serving members, joining in January 1963 and remaining a member until his death in 2021. Watts cited jazz as a major influence on his drumming style. The Rolling Stones is a legendary English rock band known for such hits as 'Paint it Black', 'Lady Jane', 'Ruby Tuesday', and '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'. The band and notably singer Mick Jagger appeared in several films.


French postcard by PSG / Korès, no. 445. The Rolling Stones, with Charlie Watts right above.


French postcard by PSG, no. 446. The Rolling Stones. Charlie Watts is on the far right.


West-German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/315. Photo: Michael Lyons. The Rolling Stones with Charlie Watts in the middle.


West-German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/316. Photo: Michael Lyons. The Rolling Stones. Charlie Watts is in the middle.

The British invasion

The Rolling Stones was formed in 1962 in London when original leader Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart were joined by singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, whose songwriting partnership later contributed to their taking the leadership role in the group.

Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up. Ian Stewart was removed from the official line-up in 1963 but continued to work with the band as road manager and keyboardist until his death in 1985.

The band's early recordings were mainly covers of American blues and R&B songs. After first achieving success in the UK, they became popular in the US during the ‘British Invasion’ of the early 1960s.

Their 1965 single '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' established The Rolling Stones as a premier rock and roll act. It was composed by Keith Richards in his sleep, and with the addition of provocative lyrics by Mick Jagger, it became their greatest hit.

During 1966-1969 they toured the world and constantly updated their song-list with great hits like 'Let's Spend the night together' (1967), 'Sympathy for the Devil' (1968), and 'Honky Tonk Woman' (1969).

The rehearsal and recording of 'Sympathy for the Devil' were filmed by Jean Luc Godard, who used it in his satirical collage of rock documentary and political commentary, One Plus One/Sympathy for the Devil (Jean-Luc Godard, 1968).

The following year the first concert film of the Stones was released: The Stones in the Park (Leslie Woodhead, 1969).

It was followed by the harrowing documentary Gimme Shelter (Albert & David Maysles, 1970). In December of 1969, four months after Woodstock, the Rolling Stones, and Jefferson Airplane gave a free concert in Northern California, east of Oakland at Altamont Speedway. About 300,000 people came, and the organizers put Hell's Angels in charge of security around the stage. Armed with pool cues and knives, Angels spent the concert beating up spectators, killing at least one.

Cocksucker Blues (1972) was a film by photographer Robert Frank on the 1972 American tour. The film was not released by the Stones reportedly because it contained scenes of drug use and groupie orgies.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 6302.


Dutch postcard.


Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 1187.


Dutch postcard, no. 6223.

It's only rock and roll

In 1969, Brian Jones died shortly after being fired from the band. He was replaced by Mick Taylor.

At the end of the 1960s, the creativity of The Rolling Stones reached new highs. Their albums 'Beggars Banquet' (1968) and 'Sticky Fingers' (1971) were among the most popular albums they ever made. They had hits as 'Wild Horses' and 'Brown Sugar'.

During the 1970s, the Rolling Stones remained the biggest band in the world. In 1974 former Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood replaced Mick Taylor. Wood has been with the band ever since.

The Stones made thousands of live performances and multi-million record sales with hits like 'Angie' (1973), 'It's Only Rock and Roll' (1974), 'Hot Stuff' (1976), and 'Respectable' (1978).

At that time both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger had individual ambitions and applied their untamed creativity in various projects outside the Stones.

Wyman left the Rolling Stones in 1993. Bassist Darryl Jones, who is not an official band member, has worked with the group since 1994. The Rolling Stones have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.


French postcard by PSG, no. 1189, offered by Corvisart, Epinal. Photo: Decca.


West-German Kolibri postcard by Friedrich-W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 2474. Photo: Teldec / Decca London. The Rolling Stones, with Charlie Watts on the far right.


Italian postcard by Silvercart, Milano, no. 516/7.

A challenge to respectable standards

Mick Jagger (1943) has been called "the heart of The Stones" and Keith Richards (1943) "the soul".

Jagger dropped out of college and never received a formal musical education, and even could not read music. Every move of Jagger on-stage and off-stage seemed to signal a challenge to respectable standards. The public loved it.

Jagger worked hard and emerged as the lead singer and songwriter in partnership with Richards, following the example of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songwriting for The Beatles.

Mick Jagger also starred in several films, such as Performance (Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell, 1970), Ned Kelly (Tony Richardson, 1970), Running Out of Luck (Julien Temple, 1987), Freejack (Geoff Murphy, 1992), Bent (Sean Mathias, 1997), and The Man from Elysian Fields (George Hickenlooper, 2001).

Keith Richards was a schoolmate of Jagger since primary school. In 1960 they contemplated starting up a band together. Since the formation of the Rolling Stones in 1962, Richards has been the principal songwriting partner with Jagger, and most of the songs on all Rolling Stones albums are credited to Jagger/Richards.

Besides his music career, Richards made a cameo appearance as Captain Teague, the father of Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski, 2007).



Dutch postcard.


British postcard by Go Card. Photo: Rolling Stones at the Max. Caption: A 90-minute IMAX concert experience! Charlie Watts is in the middle.

50 & Counting

In 2008 the Rolling Stones united with legendary director Martin Scorsese for Shine A Light (2008). For this career-spanning documentary, Scorsese used concert footage from their A Bigger Bang tour and he filmed the Stones over a two-day period at the intimate Beacon Theatre in New York City in the fall of 2006. In between, there are some short clips of old Stones interviews and some Behind-the-Scenes-Footage.

It was followed by The Stones in Exile (Stephen Kijak, 2010). This documentary gives a look at the creation and impact of the 1972 Rolling Stones album Exile on Main St.

The Rolling Stones celebrated their 50th anniversary in the summer of 2012 by releasing a large hardback book titled '50'. It was followed by a documentary titled Crossfire Hurricane (Brett Morgen, 2012). Approximately fifty hours of interviews were conducted by Morgen for use for the documentary, including interviews with Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor.

In November 2012, the Stones started their 50 & Counting tour, which kept them busy throughout 2013. It was followed by a live DVD, Sweet Summer Sun: Live in Hyde Park (2013).  In 2027 followed the No Filter Tour. From Wyman's departure in 1993 to Watts' death in 2021, the band continued as a four-piece core, with Darryl Jones playing bass on tour and on most studio recordings.


Trailer for Sympathy For The Devil (1968). Source: ABKCO Records & Films (YouTube).


Trailer for Gimme Shelter (1970). Source: HD Retro Trailers (YouTube).


Trailer for Performance (1970). Source: Warner Bros. (YouTube).


Trailer for Bent (1997). Source: LGBT MONEY (YouTube).


Trailer for the documentary Shine A Light (2008), directed by Martin Scorsese. Source: VidereTrailer (YouTube).


Trailer for The Stones in Exile (2010). Source: Mercury Studios (YouTube).

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

Keira Knightley

August 26, 2021, 10:00 pm

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British actress Keira Knightley (1985) has starred in both independent films and big-budget blockbusters and she is particularly noted for her roles in period dramas. In 2006, she was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her lead role as Elizabeth Bennet in the book adaptation Pride & Prejudice (2005).


Vintage postcard. Keira Knightley in King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua, 2004). Knightley's first name is misspelled here as Kiara.


Chinese postcard by Oriental City Publishing Group Limited.


Vintage postcard by Idoles. Photo: Walt Disney Pictures. Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006).

A tomboy football player struggling against social norms

Keira Christina Righton-Knightley OBE was born in 1985 in London to stage actor Will Knightley and acclaimed playwright Sharman Macdonald. Knightley has an older brother, Caleb. Keira attended Teddington School.

At age six, she obtained an agent and initially acted in commercials and television films. She focused on art, history, and English literature while studying at Esher College, but left after a year to pursue an acting career.

On TV, Keira played Natasha Jordan, a young girl whose mother (Sophie Ward) is involved in an extramarital affair, in the romantic drama A Village Affair (Moira Armstrong, 1995). She showed unusually artistic tastes in her early roles, playing the young Gabrielle Anwar in Innocent Lies (Patrick DeWolf, 1995) and the youthful Emily Mortimer in the Rosamund Pilcher TV adaptation Coming Home (Giles Foster, 1998).

In the cinema, she appeared as Sabé, Queen Padmé Amidala's (Natalie Portman) handmaiden and decoy, in the Science-Fiction blockbuster Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999). Her resemblance to Portman at the time was such that her appearance during the promotion of the film was kept a secret. Outwardly, it was maintained that Portman played both Amidala and Sabé.

Her first major role, she had in the Walt Disney Productions TV film Princess of Thieves (Peter Hewitt, 2001). Knightley played the daughter of Robin Hood. Concurrently, she appeared in The Hole (Nick Hamm, 2001), a thriller that received a direct-to-video release in the US.

Despite having appeared in over a dozen film and television roles, Knightley struggled to get a breakthrough until portraying a tomboy soccer player in the British sports film Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2001), co-starring Parminder Nagra and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Knightley portrayed Jules, a tomboy football player struggling against social norms who convinces her friend to pursue the sport. The film was a surprise critical and commercial success with a gross of $76.6 million at the box office.

As Lara Antipova in the TV miniseries Doctor Zhivago (Giacomo Campiotti, 2002), Knightley gracefully slipped into a role that was previously made famous by Julie Christie, and the timeless romantic drama proved a hit with British television viewers.

Knightley achieved global stardom at age 18 when she portrayed the role of Elizabeth Swann opposite Orlando Bloomand Johnny Depp in the fantastic Swashbuckler Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski, 2003).

"Her debut Hollywood film, writes Alexander Larman at Screenonline, "allowed her to look fetching while battling undead pirates, but she remained subsidiary to Johnny Depp's grandstanding hamming - though not enough to prevent her being cast in the two sequels." The film opened at number one on the box office, and became one of the highest-grossing releases of the year, with worldwide revenues of $654 million.

In the same year, she played a cameo in the Christmas romantic comedy Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003) alongside some of the best-known British film actors of the time including Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rowan Atkinson, and Colin Firth. It became another box-office success, grossing $246 million worldwide on a budget of $40–45 million. Frequently shown during the Christmas season, the film has proved more popular with audiences than critics, and it has been discussed as being arguably a modern-day Christmas staple.


French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 1705. Photo: Disney. Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006).


British postcard by Arcards, no. 0842. Photo: Walt Disney Pictures. Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006).


Vintage postcard. Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski, 2007).


Belgian postcard by Nieuwsblad.be. Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski, 2007).

Elizabeth Bennet and Elizabeth Swann

Keira Knightley gave a feisty performance as Guinevere in King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua, 2004) opposite Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd. It reinforced her credentials as a contemporary action heroine. Then she portrayed Elizabeth Bennet in an adaption of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, 2005), which earned Knightley her first Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. At age 20, she became the second-youngest Best Actress nominee.

In 2006, she reprised her role as Elizabeth Swann in the second and third productions of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski, 2007).

Knightley then starred in a series of further period pieces, portraying a complex love interest in Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007) with James McAvoy, tastemaker Georgiana Cavendish in The Duchess (Saul Dibb, 2008), and the titular socialite in Anna Karenina (Joe Wright, 2012).

She then forayed into contemporary dramas, appearing as an aspiring musician in Begin Again (John Carney, 2013) and a medical student in the spy thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (Kenneth Branagh, 2014), starring Chris Pine. Knightley returned to historical films by playing Joan Clarke, a woman who helped crack German codes during WWII, in The Imitation Game (Morten Tyldum, 2014), earning her a second round of Academy Award and BAFTA nominations, and by starring as the eponymous belle époque writer in Colette (Wash Westmoreland, 2018) to critical acclaim.

Knightley reprised the role of Elizabeth Swann with a cameo appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg, 2017) after test audiences repeatedly inquired about her character. On stage, she has appeared in two West End productions: Molière's comedy 'The Misanthrope' in 2009, which earned her an Olivier Award nomination, and 'The Children's Hour' by Lillian Hellman in 2011. She also starred as the eponymous heroine in the 2015 Broadway production of Émile Zola's 'Thérèse Raquin.

Keira Knightley is known for her outspoken stance on social issues and has worked extensively with Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Comic Relief. Knightley was in a relationship with her Pride and Prejudice counterpart Rupert Friend for five years. She married musician James Righton in 2013; they have two children.

Knightley's first role of the new decade was feminist activist Sally Alexander in Misbehaviour (Philippa Lowthorpe, 2020), a British comedy-drama about the crowning of the first black contestant at the 1970 Miss World competition. Knightley is set to star in the upcoming holiday comedy Silent Night, written and directed by Camille Griffin.


Vintage postcard by Idoles. With Orlando Bloom.


French postcard by Dream'up. Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski, 2007).


Vintage postcard. Keira Knightley in The Duchess (Saul Dibb, 2008).

Sources: Alexander Larman (BFI Screenonline), Jason Buchanan (AllMovie), Wikipedia (English and Dutch), and IMDb.

Ivo's Bologna finds

August 27, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Another fun post. This time EFSP shows a selection of the postcards that Ivo Blom found at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Book Fair in Bologna, or the 'Mostra mercato dell'editoria cinematografica'. This fair is held every year during the Bologna film festival in the setting of the Biblioteca Renzo Renzi at the Piazzetta Pier Paolo Pasolini.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 276. Photo: Pesce.

Italian character actor Paolo Stoppa (1906–1988) is best known for his stage work with director Luchino Visconti. In a career of more than 50 years, he also appeared in such cinema classics as Miracolo a Milano (1951), Il Gattopardo (1962), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).


Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, no. 31. Photo: Massaglia, Torino.

Italian actress Maria Melato (1885-1950) appeared in the theatre, on the radio, and in the cinema. Her films included Ritorno/Return (1914), Anna Karenina (1917), and Il volo degli aironi/The flight of the herons (1920). Unfortunately, all of her films are considered lost.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 663. Photo: Pittaluga Films. Maria Jacobini as the title character and probably Gino Talamo as her lover Olimpio Calvetti in Beatrice Cenci (Baldassarre Negroni, 1926). Jacobini stars in this film based on the true events of the murder of the cruel, violent, frugal and rapist Count Francesco Cenci, by his daughter Beatrice, her lover Calvetti, the carpenter nicknamed The Catalan, Beatrice's stepmother Lucrezia, and Beatrice's brothers Giacomo and Bernardo. Pope Clemens VIII shows no clemency despite his name, and all but the youngest brother Bernardo are killed.

Among the Italian divas, Maria Jacobini (1892-1944) was an island of serenity, as film historian Vittorio Martinelli expressed it. She was the personification of goodness, of simple love. Her weapon was her sweet and gracious smile. However, in some Italian, and later also in German films, she could as well play the vivacious lady, the femme fatale, the comedienne, the hysterical victim, or the suffering mother or wife.


Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, V. Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 9500. Photo: Milano Films. Luigi Duse as the title character in Jacopo Ortis (Giuseppe Sterni, 1918). Caption: Jacopo admires the medallion of Teresa.

Italian stage and film actor Luigi Duse (1857-1930) was parented to the Duse stage actors family to which also famous stage actress Eleonora Duse belonged.


Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, V. Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 9504. Photo: Milano Films. Paola Borboni as Teresa and Luigi Duse as the title character in Jacopo Ortis (Giuseppe Sterni, 1918), Caption: Jacopo in ecstasies over the sweet sound of the harp.

Paola Borboni (1900-1995) was one of the greatest stage actresses of Italy who also played in many films. She was often heard on the radio and seen on television, but her true passion was the stage.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 681/2. Photo: Paramount-Film / National-Verleih. Estelle Taylor as Miriam, sister of Moses in The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1923). Caption: Miriam.

Estelle Taylor (1894–1958) was an American actress, singer, model, and animal rights activist. With "dark-brown, almost black hair, and brown eyes", she was regarded as one of the most beautiful silent film stars of the 1920s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 681/1. Photo: Paramount-Film / National-Verleih. Estelle Taylor as the woman who embraces the Golden Calf, in The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1923). Caption: The Adoration of the Golden Calf.


Italian postcard in the Cines-Pittaluga series by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 42. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Armando Falconi (the man with the bandage) as count Armando, and possibly left Giuseppe Pierozzi as the little creditor and Arturo Falconi as Armando's best friend Paolino in Patatrac (Gennaro Righelli, 1931).

Armando Falconi (1871-1954) was an Italian stage and screen actor. Though he was foremost a theatre actor and comedian, he had a prolific career as a comedian in Italian cinema of the 1930s and early 1940s.

Arturo Falconi (1867-1934) acted in some 11 Italian silent films between 1916 and 1918, most of which were directed by Guido Brignone and starring Lola Visconti-Brignone and Falconi himself. He returned to the sets in 1931 for 8 more films between 1931 and 1935, starting with Patatrac (1931).

Little Giuseppe Pierozzi (1883-1956) was a typical character actor in Italian who acted in some 125 Italian silent and sound films between 1917 and 1954.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano. Photo: Cines-Pittaluga. Carlo Fontana and probably Enrica Fantis in the Italian early sound film Vele ammainate/Lowered Sails (Anton Giulio Bragaglia, 1931). The front and back of the card don't indicate the film title but we managed to identify it. See also our blog post on the film at European Film Star Postcards.


Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 516. Photo: Fox Film Corp. Lola Salvi as Marcelle in Plastered in Paris (Benjamin Stoloff, 1928). The film was shot as a silent production, but afterward, a soundtrack with music was added.

Lola Salvi was an Italian actress, whose real name was Marcella Battelini. Born in Trieste, Battelini won a beauty contest by Fox in Italy. Her mother accompanied her to Hollywood, where she had a female lead in Plastered in Paris (1928), a comedy about two American veterans who visit Paris and end up in the French Foreign Legion. The film clearly mocked Foreign Legion dramas such as Beau Geste, while the two male leads were caricatures of the Jew with the big nose and the dumb Swede. Salvi then was cast as an Italian girl in her first sound film, Irving Cummings, and Raoul Walsh's In Old Arizona, Fox's first all-sound film, but her role was small and uncredited. After another small role, as a maid in Thru Different Eyes (John G. Blystone, 1929), Fox ended her contract.

The site Bizarre Los Angeles notes that afterward, she agreed to costar in a film by another Fox outcast actor, the former Brazilian journalist Olympio Guilherme, who also had been hired by Fox after winning a contest: "Guilherme decided to make his own film. Using hidden cameras on the streets of Los Angeles, he and Salvi interacted with each other as well as other Angelenos, who didn’t know they were being filmed. As a result, he completed Hunger, a drama that depicted the hardships of Latino Americans trying to survive in Los Angeles in the late 1920s." The Spanish title of the film is Fome (1929).

Sources: Bizarre Los Angeles and IMDb.

Guess Who

August 28, 2021, 10:00 pm

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A while ago I bought a large set of small black and white cards with starlets. They must date from the early 1960s. I guess someone took quite bad photos of magazine pictures. According to the seller at the Dutch version of eBay, Marktplaats, the photos had been published in Dutch Oh-la-la magazines like De Lach, in English 'The Smile'. Why the pictures were taken and what was done with them is unclear. Anyhow, we like them. I uploaded the cards at Flickr and asked our followers to Guess Who the portrayed starlets were. Many stars have been guessed, but the last five are for you to guess.


Anita Ekberg.


Elsa Martinelli.


Jackie Lane a.k.a. Jocelyn Lane.


Barbara Nichols.


Chelo Alonso.

A Dutch weekly for men with scantily clad female movie stars

De Lach (The Smile) was, together with De Piccolo, a Dutch weekly for men that appeared from 1924 to 1972. The magazine contained many photos of scantily clad female movie stars in bathing suits, bikinis, etc., very daring for that time, especially in the early days. The magazine took its name from the many humorous pages with jokes and cartoons and it also contained stories. However, the interest of the readers went mainly to the ladies in bikinis. The magazine was for sale in newsstands and was read at the hairdresser.

The first volumes of the magazine focused on the family, with features such as "What Fashion Says" for women and "For our toddlers" for the children. In 1925, photos of American movie stars started to appear in the magazine. In the early years, these were portraits that illustrated stories about the latest films, but in the 1930s more and more actresses could be seen in bathing suits. The photos were gradually getting more blotchy and daring.

It is not really possible to speak of a sex magazine, it was mainly about covert eroticism. It was only in the last years of the magazine that more photos appeared of completely undressed ladies. De Lach has never posted "action photos" and the stories also had little porn-like, but could be called 'naughty'. The magazine was not allowed to appear during the war years, the reason is unclear.

In the late 1960s, after the sexual revolution, De Lach had a hard time because other magazines emerged in the Netherlands that showed much more. The real sex magazines arose such as Chick and Candy, and former family magazines like Panorama suddenly also contained nudity. De Lach tried to participate but could not survive. The last issue was published in 1972.

A little anecdote: as young kids in the 1960s, Truus and I read 'De Lach' at home. My parents received these magazines from our grandmother. Grandma never read them, but out of pity for the man who sold the magazines, she refused to cancel the subscription and gave the magazines to my father. As young kids, Truus and I loved the magazines too, and like serious beauty-contestant judges, we gave all the models numbers for who we liked best.


Marilyn Monroe.


Angie Dickinson.


Julie Newmar.


Dorothy Malone.


Pamela Tiffin.


Nancy Sinatra.


Shirley MacLaine.


Mamie van Doren.


Carole Lesley.


Claudia Cardinale.


Miss Xmas 1954: Belinda Lee.


Happy New Year: Myrna Hansen.


Ann-Margret.


Mylène Demongeot.


Martha Hyer.


Jacqueline Jones.


Connie Francis.


Brigitte Bardot (barefoot) and her father Louis Bardot at Maxim's restaurant during a "Mic Mac" party in April 1967.


Brigitte Bardot at the dancefloor of Maxim's restaurant during a "Mic Mac" party in April 1967.


Brigitte Bardot and her then-husband Gunter Sachs leaving Maxim's restaurant after a "Mic Mac" party in April 1967. "Mic Mac" was Sachs's fashion brand.


Guess Who...


Guess Who...


Guess Who...

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch) and KB (Dutch).

Dorothy Jordan

August 29, 2021, 10:00 pm

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Dorothy Jordan (1906-1988) was an American film actress, who emerged as an actress in musicals at the start of the talkies. In 1933, she married film producer Merian C. Cooper and retired.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4964/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Dorothy Jordan and Ramon Novarro in In Gay Madrid (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5100/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ramon Novarro and Dorothy Jordan in Devil-May-Care (Sidney Franklin, 1929).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5621/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5784/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5925/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7247/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Her debut as Mary Pickford's sister

Dorothy Hendricks Jordan was born in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1906. Jordan studied at what is now Rhodes College and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

She performed in Broadway musicals, including 'Garrick Gaieties', a revue with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It was the first successful musical by this songwriting team.

She was a chorus girl in top-flight musicals, like 'Funny Face' (1927), with Fred Astaire, and 'Treasure Girl' (1928), with Gertrude Lawrence and Clifton Webb.

In 1929, she made her film debut as Bianca, the sister of Mary Pickford's Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew (Sam Taylor, 1929) with Douglas Fairbanks as Petruchio. It was the first sound film adaptation of the Shakespearean play of the same name.

In the next four years, Dorothy Jordan made 22 more films. She worked for various studios and until 1933 played the female lead in various early sound films.

She co-starred with Ramon Novarro in his talkie debut, the Pre-Code musical Devil-May-Care (Sidney Franklin, 1929) with a Technicolor sequence of the Albertina Rasch Dancers. She next appeared with Novarro in another musical, In Gay Madrid (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930). But the film was critically panned though it was moderately successful at the box-office. More successful was their next film together, Call of the Flesh (Charles Brabin, 1930).


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 613. Dorothy Jordan in Devil-May-Care (Sidney Franklin, 1929). The French title was Bataille de Dames.


French postcard by Europe, no. 741. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ramon Novarro and Dorothy Jordan in Devil-May-Care (Sidney Franklin, 1929).


French postcard by Europe, no. 763. Photo: United Artists. Ramon Novarro and Dorothy Jordan in Devil-May-Care (Sidney Franklin, 1929). The French title was Bataille de Dames. The United Artists logo on this card is puzzling, as the film was an MGM production.


French postcard by Europe, no. 967. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).


Dutch postcard, no. 20. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Dorothy Jordan and Ramon Novarro in In Gay Madrid (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930). Editor unknown (back of the card is blank), but compare it to the postcard below, made for the same film with the same typography of the text and the number. That one is edited by JosPe in Arnhem, so this must be a JosPe card too.


Dutch postcard, no. 23. JosPe, Arnhem. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ramon Novarro and Dorothy Jordan in In Gay Madrid (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930).

She left the film industry to marry a film producer

In the early 1930s, Dorothy Jordan worked with various well-known actors, including Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston, and Jimmy Durante. She was also paired with Robert Montgomery in two films: Love in the Rough (Charles Reisner, 1930) and Shipmates (Harry A. Pollard, 1931).

Jordan also was Nancy, the adopted daughter of Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler in the comedy-drama Min and Bill (George W. Hill, 1930). The film was a runaway hit and made stars of Beery and Dressler.

Jordan had also an important part in the drama The Cabin in the Cotton (Michael Curtiz, 1932) with Richard Barthelmess and Bette Davis.

In 1933 Jordan left the film industry to marry film producer and director Merian C. Cooper, who co-wrote, produced and directed King Kong (1933). The couple had three children, a son, and two daughters.

In 1937, she emerged from retirement unsuccessfully when she auditioned for the role of Melanie in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) and screen-tested for the role alongside Susan Hayward as Scarlet.

In the 1950s she returned to the film industry and played small roles in three films directed by John Ford, The Sun Shines Bright (1953), The Searchers (1956), and finally The Wings of Eagles (1957).

Jordan had moved to Coronado, San Diego County, after her marriage to Cooper. She continued to live there until his death in 1973. 15 years later, Dorothy Jordan died of heart failure in Los Angeles. She was 82.


Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del cine series by Editorial Grafica, Barcelona, no. 81. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Belgian postcard. by S.A. Cacao et Chocolat Kivou, Vilvo[o]rde, Belgium.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


British postcard in the Cameo Series, London, no. K.17.


British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 475b. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Italian postcard by Cinema-Illustrazione, Milano, series 1, no. 12. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Sources: Wikipedia, and IMDb.