European Film Star Postcards

Attractive Austrian actress and singer Elfie Maierhofer (1917-1992) was nicknamed 'the Viennese Nightingale' by the press and the public. During her long career, she starred in nineteen European entertainment films, most of them with Viennese settings.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 99, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3748/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Clear Coloratura Soprano
Elfie Maierhofer (sometimes written as Meyerhofer) was born as Elfie Lauterbach in Marburg an der Drau, Austria-Hungary (now Maribor, Slovenia) in 1917 (according to some sources in 1923). She was the daughter of an Austrian teacher. Even as a child she was interested in acting and singing, and participated in performances of fairy tales and church concerts. Her parents gave her singing and piano lessons and later she studied music in Zürich under Prof. Fred Husler and in Vienna. In 1935 she was a student at the Berlin High School of Music under Prof. Lula Mysz-Gmeiner along with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Elfie made her acting debut at the Jugendtheater (Youth Theater) in München (Munich). She performed at the Staatsoper (State Opera) in Vienna, the Metropoltheater in Berlin and various other theaters in Austria and Berlin in the early 1930’s. Elfie Mayerhofer excelled as Pamina in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), as Mimi in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata, as well as Rosalinda in Joan Strauss II' Die Fledermaus (The Bat). Her clear coloratura soprano voice was so unusual it earned her the nickname ‘The Viennese Nightingale’. The film industry became interested in her. In 1938, she received her first major role in the German made western Frauen für Golden Hill/Women of Golden Hill (Erich Waschneck, 1938) starring Kirsten Heiberg. The following year she had a role in the Austrian film Hotel Sacher (Erich Engel, 1939) with Sybille Schmitz, where she sang a Yugoslavian gypsy folk song. Hereafter followed again and again roles in such well-known musicals and operettas as Wir bitten zum Tanz/Invitation to the Dance (Hubert Marischka, 1941) with Hans Holt, and Meine Frau Teresa/My Wife, Teresa (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1942) opposite Hans Söhnker. Her leading role in Das Lied der Nachtigall/The Song of the Nightingale (Theo Lingen, 1944) winked at her nickname, the Viennese Nightingale.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3450/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier/Tobis.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3905/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier/Tobis.

The Queen of the Waltzes
After the war, Elfie Maierhofer performed for Allied troops in Austria and Germany and sang at concerts and in operas. Herbert von Karajan wanted her in 1949 for the Salzburger Musikfestspiele (Salzburg Music Festival) in Austria, where she sang and played the role of Cherubino alongside Maria Cebotari in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Hochzeit des Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). In 1949 she appeared in Paris, in the operetta La Reine des Valses (The Queen of the Waltzes), playing opposite the Belgium tenor Henri Legay. She released records in France, Great Britain, Germany and the USA, but never in her home country. After 1945, she could also continue her successes in the cinema with popular entertainment films like Wiener Melodien/Viennese Melodies (Theo Lingen, Hubert Marischka, 1947) opposite Johannes Heesters, and Der Himmlische Walzer/The Heavenly Waltz (Géza von Cziffra, 1948) with Paul Hubschmid. In Anni (Max Neufeld, 1948), she sang with Siegfried Breuer and Josef Meinrad several well-known operetta melodies. Her last Austrian film was Verlorene Melodien/Vanished Melodies (Eduard von Borsody, 1952) with Evelyn Künneke, and her last German film was Madame Pompadour (Gerhard Freund, 1960) with Heinz Bennent. Between 1957 and 1960 she also participated in early television programs. Her last TV-film was the musical Die Landstreicher/The Tramps (Peter Dörre, 1968). In 1974, Elfie Mayerhofer (then sixty plus) went on an extensive international tour, and sang and played successfully in operas and operettas in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Elfie Mayerhofer received in the course of her career numerous awards, including the Goldene Ehrenzeichen des Landes Wien (Golden Medal of the Province of Vienna) and the Johann-Strauß-Statuette (Johann Strauss statue). She was married with the architect Thomas Lauterbach until their divorce in 1959. Elfie Maierhofer continued to give live performances in Austria almost up until her death. She died in 1992 in Maria Enzersdorf in Lower Austria.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 217, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Elfie Mayerhofer sings a Slovenian folk song in Hotel Sacher (1939). Source: Rudi Polt (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie D’Heil (Steffi-line) (German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Canadian postcard in the Fan Club Postcard Series, no. 2.

Today, glamorous English actress Joan Collins (1933) had her 80th birthday. One of the great survivors of the cinema, she began in the early 1950s as a starlet of the British film. 20th Century Fox brought her to Hollywood as their answer to MGM's Elizabeth Taylor. In the 1970s she was the ‘Queen of the B-pictures’, but in the 1980s Joan became the highest-paid TV star, thanks to Dynasty. Happy birthday, ms. Collins.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 561. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / International Press.

British postcard by L.D. LTD., London in the Film Star Autograph Portrait Series, nr. 60. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Italian postcard by Ed. Ris. Rotalfoto S.p.A., Milano (Milan) in the series Artisti di Sempre, no. 295.

German postcard.

Russian dancer, choreographer and actress Ileana Leonidoff or Helena Leonidof (1893 - ?) had a rather short but quite prolific film career in the Italian silent cinema in the late 1910's. Her film debut was the futurist classic Thais (1917). Later 'la divina Ileana' became an important choreographer, first in Italy and later in South America.

Vintage Italian postcard.

Futurist Film
Ileana Leonidoff was born as Elena Sergeevna Pisarevskaja in 1893. She started her career as a dancer and was the inventor of the 'Russian Dance Leonidoff'. She made her film debut in the legendary futurist film Thais (1917, Anton Giulio Bragaglia). Three quarters of this film is a classic diva drama about a man-devouring woman, played by Thais Galitzky. Thais causes a noble friend and rival in love (Leonidoff) to commit suicide by racing with her horse towards an abyss. Thais repents and kills herself by mortal vapours, in the only scene where we really see futurist settings, designed by Enrico Prampolini. Curiously enough, in the film Leonidoff's character was named Bianca Stagno-Bellincioni, the name of a real and known actress. Maybe because the real Stagno-Belllincioni was the Italian interpreter of Massenet's Thais.

Italian postcard by Ed. Vettori, Bologna. Photo: publicity still for one of Leonidoff's costume films.

Period Pieces
Ileana Leonidoff had leads in several period pieces directed by Aldo Molinari for the Vera Film company and almost always opposite Guido Guiducci. The first of these was Saffo (1918), where Leonidoff played the title role, followed by Maria di Magdala (1918), Venere/Venus (1919), Il mistero di Osiris/The mystery ofOsiris(1919) and Giuditta e Oloferne/Judith andHolofernes(1920). She also performed in films by renowned directors such as Augusto Genina (Il siluramento dell'Oceania/The torpedoingof Oceania, 1917), Leopoldo Carlucci (La flotta degliemigranti/The fleetof migrants, 1917), Febo Mari (Attila, 1918), Eleuterio Rodolfi (Il mistero della casa di fronte/The mysteryof the house across, 1919) and Ugo Falena (Giuliano l'Apostata/Julian theApostate, 1919; Il volo degli aironi/Theflight of herons, 1920). She had a minor part as Tamah in La sacra Bibbia/The Bible (1920, Pier Antonio Gariazzo) with Bruto Castellani, a film in which her co-partner Guiducci played Moses. Costumes for this film were by the well-known Caramba (Luigi Sapelli). The film was shown worldwide, in the US too (in 1922, under the title After Six Days). After one more film by Molinari, Il principe di Kaytan (1922) Leonidoff withdrew from the cinema. She went back to dancing. Together with Dimitri Rostaff she was the first director of the newly founded dance school of the Teatro Reale dell'Opera of Rome in 1928. She remained active in Italy as a choreographer in the 1930's. On the eve of World War II, she emigrated to South America. In 1951 she was the first director of the newly founded Ballet Oficial de Bolivia. In the mid-1950's she was also highly active in Guayaquil, Equador, at the Casa de la Cultura del Guayas. They still have a Sala Ileana Leonidoffthere, opened in 1991. Last year the biography Ileana Leonidoff: lo schermo e la danza (IleanaLeonidoff: the screen andthe dance, 2009) written by Laura Piccolo was published. Our sources did not give details about when or where Ileana Leonidoff died.

Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 180.

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, 1917/1918/1919/1920), Italian Gerry and IMDb.

Gordon Harker (1885 – 1967) was a popular English film actor who specialized in Cockney roles. Throughout the 1930’s and 1940’s, he seemed to appear in every crime film produced in England. Between 1921 and 1959, he appeared in a total of 68 films, including four directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

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

Vintage card.

Cockney Characters
In 1885, Gordon Harker was born in London’s Eastend into a well-known family of stage actors. He began his career as a prompter to Fred Terry in 1902. The following year he made his stage debut when he walked on in an Ellen Terry show. He became a popular theatre actor who specialized in endearing Cockney characters. He made his film debut in the silent comedy General John Regan (1921, Harold M. Shaw) starring Milton Rosmer. Next, he made The Crooked Billet (1927, Adrian Brunel) with Madeleine Carroll. That year he worked for the first time with the then 28 years old Alfred Hitchcock. The Ring (1927) is a silent sports film, both directed and written by Hitchcock. After directing Downhill (1927) and Easy Virtue (1928), two stage adaptations for the Gainsborough company, Hitchcock was frustrated and jumped at the chance to develop an idea of his own. Surprisingly, The Ring is Hitchcock's one and only original screenplay. The film's title refers not only to the boxing arena, but also to the wedding ring - and to a suggestive snake bracelet. This bracelet becomes a symbol of the love triangle between a fairground boxer (Carl Brisson) whose lover (Lillian Hall-Davis) falls for the charms of a professional boxer (Ian Hunter). Harker played the trainer of Brisson’s character. The film was a major critical success on its release. It features photography tricks Hitchcock would use again years later in films like The Man Who Knew Too Much, most notably during the climactic boxing sequences. Harker then appeared in Hitchcock’s romantic comedy The Farmer's Wife (1928, Alfred Hitchcock) starring Jameson Thomas and Lillian Hall-Davis. Harker played a comic surly servant called Churdles Ash. He also appeared in The Wrecker (1929 Géza von Bolváry) with a spectacular staged steam locomotive crash. The third Hitchcock film was the silent comedy Champagne (1928, Alfred Hitchcock) starring Betty Balfour as a spoilt rich girl forced to get a job after her father (Harker) tells her he has lost all his money. Hitchcock's attempt at a change of pace with a comedy was poorly received when released. Although his expanding visual technique continued to draw recognition and praise, they were not enough to distract the audience from the film's lack of usual suspenseful plot lines.

British Raphael Tuck & Sons' Real Photograph postcard, no. 18. Photo: Gaumont-British.

Gordon Harker, Alfred Drayton, Owen Nares

British postcard by S.C. Allen & Company, Ltd., Belfast and London for Wyndham's Theatre, London. Photo: publicity still for the play The Calendar (1931).

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 717. Photo: Gaumont British.

A Red-Herring Suspect
Gordon Harker’s film career went full speed ahead in the sound era. Her made a cameo appearance in Elstree Calling (1930, Andre Charlot, Jack Hulbert, Paul Murray, Alfred Hitchcock). This lavish musical film revue was Britain's answer to the all-star revues which had been produced by the major Hollywood studios, such as Paramount on Parade (1930). He had a supporting part in the spy film The W Plan (1930, Victor Saville) with Brian Aherne. In Escape (1930, Basil Dean) escapes a man (Gerald du Maurier) from Dartmoor Prison and is hunted across the moors by policemen to whom it is an unpleasant reminder of their experiences during the First World War. Another crime film was Shadows (1931, Alexander Esway) about an estranged son of a newspaper owner who returns to his father's good favour by unmasking a gang of criminals. In these films, he often was the comic relief, but also sometimes a red-herring suspect. Among his many notable film credits were Rome Express (1932, Walter Forde), The Phantom Light (1935, Michael Powell), and the Will Hay vehicle Boys Will Be Boys (1935, William Beaudine). Brian McFarlane in Encyclopedia of British Film: “Lugubrious, shifty, aggressive, occasionally chirpy, Cockney Gordon Harker, of the protruding lower lip, was a cherished fixture in British films”. He was noted for his performance as Inspector Hornleigh in a trilogy of detective films with Alastair Sim as Sergeant Bingham. The first was Inspector Hornleigh (1938, Eugene Forde), followed by Inspector Hornleigh on Holiday (1939, Walter Forde) and Inspector Hornleigh Goes To It (1940, Walter Forde). For the Ealing Studios, he appeared in yet another Walter Forde film, Saloon Bar (1940). After the war, he played Alfred Doolittle in an early TV performance of Pygmalion (1948) opposite Margaret Lockwood. He did a lovely cameo as a casually corruptible pub-keeper in Bang! You're Dead (1953, Lance Comfort); and starred in Small Hotel (1957, David MacDonald). Here he played a devious waiter, matching wits with Marie Löhr, in the role he had created on stage. His final film was the satirical comedy Left Right and Centre (1959, Sidney Gilliat) about the events of a by-election in a small English town. Gordon Harker died in 1967 in London. He was 81.

British Raphael Tuck & Sons' Real Photograph postcard, no. 126-S. Photo: Gaumont-British.

British Real Photograph postcard by Raphael Tuck & Sons, no. 19-S. Photo: Gaumont-British.

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 717A. Photo: Cannons.

Sources: Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), BritMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

German actress Mady Rahl (1915-2009) was one of the last of the female Ufa Stars. She had a legion of male admirers during the Second World War. The platinum blonde actress had a perfect comic timing, vampish good looks and a sultry, smoky voice. On TV she was the German voice of Lucille Ball. Mady Rahl appeared in more than 120 film and television shows in a career spanning some 70 years.

German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. A 2702/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Haenchen / Tobis.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 2552/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Terra.

Babelsberg
Mady Rahl was born Edith Gertrud Meta Raschke in Berlin-Charlottenburg, in 1915. During her schooltime, she came in contact with the theatre and took acting lessons from the famous actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge. She also had lessons in singing and dancing. In 1934 she made her film debut in a short comedy Zwei Genies/Two Geniuses (Detlev Sierck, 1934) by a young, struggling director who would later become the famous Hollywood director Douglas Sirk). In 1935 she made her stage debut in his Die Wandlung/The Change at the Old Lyceum Theatre in Leipzig, with Rudolf Klein-Rogge. As his own career began to take off, Sierck introduced Mady Rahl to the bosses of the Ufa studios in Babelsberg, Berlin. A four-year contract quickly followed. First she played a small role in Der geheimnisvolle Mister X/The Mysterious Mister X (J.A. Hübler-Kahla, 1936), starring Ralph Arthur Roberts and Hermann Thimig. Then she got bigger parts in the Pat & Patachoncomedy Blinde Passagiere/Stowaways (Fred Sauer, 1936), and in Das Gäßchen zum Paradies/Paradise Road (Martin Fric, 1936) with Hans Moserand little Peter Bosse.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 212, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Baumann / Ufa.

Darling of the German Public
Mady Rahl became known to the general public with her role at the side of the legendary La Jana in the circus drama Truxa (Hans H. Zerlett, 1937). Till the end of the war followed 30 more roles in films like the melodrama Zu neuen Ufern/To New Shores (Detlev Sierck, 1937) starring Zarah Leander, and the musical Hallo Janine!/Hello Janine! (Carl Boese, 1939) with Marika Rökk undJohannes Heesters. Under the Third Reich, Mady Rahl's career continued to flourish. Propaganda minister Josef Goebbels was a fan of lightweight musical comedies, and one of his favourites was Die lustigen Vagabunden/The Jolly Vagabonds (Jürgen von Alten, 1940), in which Mady Rahl played Gisela Merz. It was rumoured that they had an affair, but the actress always denied it. Other popular films from this period were Meine Frau Teresa/My Wife Teresa (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1942), Tonelli (Victor Tourjansky, 1943) with Ferdinand Marian and Winnie Markus, and Die tolle Susanne/The Great Susanne (Géza von Bolváry, 1945). These films made her a darling of the German public.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3944/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Baumann / Ufa.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3747/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Baumann / Ufa.

Harrowing Drama
After the war Mady Rahl continued her career and to her well known films belong Schuss um Mitternacht/A Shot at Midnight (Hans H. Zerlett, 1949), Die Dame in Schwarz/The Lady in Black (Erich Engels, 1951) with Paul Hartmann, Ober zahlen/Waiter, the Bill (E.W. Emo, 1957) with Hans Moserand Paul Hörbiger, the authentic war drama Haie und kleine Fische/Sharks and Little Fish (Frank Wisbar, 1957), Der Page vom Palast-Hotel (Thomas Engel, 1958), the Heinz Erhardt comedy Immer die Radfahrer/Always the Bikers (Hans Deppe, 1958), and the crime film Der Greifer/The Ripper (Eugen York, 1958) starring Hans Albers. Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen/Darkness Fell on Gotenhafen (Frank Wisbar, 1959) was a harrowing drama about the first month of 1945 when the Russian Red Army broke into the eastern part of Germany and forced millions of civilians to flee. In later years, she also appeared frequently on stage and TV. She was the German voice for Lucille Ball in her shows.

German postcard by Ufa, no. FK 3542. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Czerwonski / HD-Film / NF.

Horror and SM
During the sixties Mady Rahl appeared in a lot of crime and horror films like the Edgar Wallace crime film Der Fälscher von London/The Forger of London (Harald Reinl, 1961), Die weisse Spinne/The White Spider (Harald Reinl, 1963), the thriller Das Wirtshaus von Dartmoor/The Inn on Dartmoor (Rudolf Zehetgruber, 1964) and Der Hund von Blackwood Castle/The Horror of Blackwood Castle (Alfred Vohrer, 1968). She also appeared in the curious SM film Le Malizie di Venere/Venus in Furs (Massimo Dallamano, 1969) starring Laura Antonelli. To her later films belong Karl May (Hans Jürgen Syberberg, 1974) with Helmut Käutner and Kristina Söderbaum, and Der Angriff/The Agression (Theodor Kotulla, 1986) with Pascale Petit. Mady Rahl was married three times, first to Theodor Reimers, then to film producer Wilhem Sperber, and finally to architect Werner Bürkle. Mady Rahl died in 2009 in a retirement home in Munich, Germany.

Trailer of Immer die Radfahrer/Always the Bikers (1958). Source: Kingstoen83 (YouTube).

German trailer of Der Fälscher von London/The Forger of London (1961). Source: R6dw6c (YouTube).

Sources: Telegraph, Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D'Heil (Steffi-line), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Imre Soós (1930 - 1957) was the Hungarian James Dean. He had a comet-like film career and appeared in fourteen films between 1948 and 1956. After this short but successful film career, he committed suicide in 1957.

East-German starcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 152. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Magyar-Film.

Intense Acting
Imre Soós was born in Balmazújváros, Hungary, in 1930. He was the son of a poor family, but he got the chance to study from 1948 till 1952 at the theatre and film academy in Budapest. After his graduation he worked at the Theater in Debrecen. His intensive acting and strong stage presence, for example as Romeo, made the sensitive young actor a star. In 1954 he won the Jászai Award. Later he was a member of the company of the Madách Theater in Budapest. Imre Soós also had a comet-like film career. He started as an intern in the newly nationalized Hungarian film industry. Their first film was also Soós' film debut, Tapalatnyl Fold/The Soil Under Your Foot (1948, Frigyes Bán). Tapalatnyl Fold segues from a love story to a celebration of the People's Republic set up by Hungary's postwar communist government. In his next film, Lúdas Matyi/Mattie the Goose-boy (1950, Kálmán Nádasdy, László Ranódy), he already played the lead opposite Éva Ruttkay. The film was inspired by Mihaly Fazekas' epic poem. Soós featured as Matyi, who tries to sell his geese at the market, but runs into trouble with the servants of the local squire. The plot revolves around Matyi's scheme to get back at the squire. Lúdas Matyi was the first film made in Gezacolor. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Goose Boy was filmed in Gezacolor, a European color process that rendered pleasing exterior views, but was somewhat lacking when used indoors. Goose Boy might have fared better in the U.S. with stronger names in the leading roles.".

Hungarian postcard by Képzömüvészeti Alap Kiadóvállata, Budapest, no. 331/12/564. Photo: Saphir. Publicity still for Liliomfi (1954, Károly Makk).

Dream Couple
Between 1949 and 1953 communist propaganda films were common in Hungary. Imre Soós appeared in the quite watchable communist propaganda film Dalolva szép az élet/ Singing beautiful life(1950, Márton Keleti), the musical Állami áruház/State Department Store (1953, Viktor Gertler), and Kiskrajcár/Girls From Today (1953, Márton Keleti), the Hungarian entry into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. In Liliomfi (1954, Károly Makk) he appeared again as a couple with Éva Ruttkay. This comedy was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, where Károly Makk won a Golden Palm for his direction. In 1955 Mari Töröcsik and Imre Soós were the dream couple of Körhinta/Merry-Go-Round (1956, Zoltán Fábri). This lyrical love story was Hungary's primary entry in the Cannes Film Festival of 1956. It became the first international success of the post-war Hungarian Cinema. Körhinta is a timeless classic with unforgettably beautiful images and equally memorable acting of Soós and Törőcsik. The ride of the two lovers on the merry-go-round ranks among the classic sequences in international cinematography. Körhinta was voted as one of the '12 Best Hungarian Films 1948-1968' by Hungarian filmmakers and critics in 1968 and then again as one of the '12 Best Hungarian Films' in 2000.

Hungarian postcard by Képzömüvészeti Alap Kiadóvállata, Budapest, no. 331/12/564. Retail price: 60 fillér. Photo: Saphir. Publicity still for Liliomfi (1954, Károly Makk) with Imre Soós and Éva Ruttkay.

Double SuicideKörhinta was to be the last film of Imre Soós. In June 1957 the troubled Imre Soós committed suicide together with his wife Hedvig Kenyesi. Why? The year 1956 ended with an uprising in October of the Hungarians against the Soviets, then the Soviet tanks rolled in and the resulting oppression is history. Was this the reason for the double suicide? Wikipedia in their excellent bio of Soós: "The media of the time, highly motivated by politics, dealt with him in varying pace. If the instructed subject was fitting to Soós, he was over-popularized, when the government's focus was elsewhere, he was completely omitted. This constant change of values weighted heavily on the actor, questioning his own worth, despite national and international success, the latter ignored by newspapers. Trying to bury himself with work, and to meet more and more expectations, he slowly sank into depression, along with drug usage and alcohol problems. His state become worse when his love, Violetta Ferrari left the country in 1956, and he was denied to travel to the Moscow World Festival of Youth of 1957, the era's only legal meeting place for youth of East and West. Under hospital treatment after a failed suicide attempt, he falls in love with his doctor, Hedvig Perjési, leading to a passionate and rough relationship. A few weeks after their marriage, the couple was found dead on 20 June 1957. Authorities interpreted the tragedy as double suicide, but a number of clues like Soós scratching the wall until his fingernails bled were hinting to a number of possible scenarios, including an accidental event, or murder. The short investigation drew no further conclusions, leaving ground for several myths and conspiration theories." The sad end of what appeared to be such a promising career.

Violetta Ferrari and Imre Soós in Dalolva szép az élet (1950). Opera singer József Simándy sings the aria Hazám, hazám from Ferenc Erkel's opera Bánk bán. Source: Csuberda (YouTube).

Mari Töröcsik and Imre Soós share an illicit dance in Körhinta/Merry-Go-Round (1956). Source: Yahlliw (YouTube).

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

In 1908, English actress Ivy Close (1890-1968) was chosen as 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World'. She became one of the first stars of the British cinema and started a dynasty of British filmmakers. Ivy Close acted in 44 British, American, French and German films between 1912 and 1929. Most notable is Abel Gance's La roue/The wheel (1923).

French postcard by G.M.R.-B, Déposé series 4018. The card refers to Close's award as 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World'.

British postcard in the PPC Series, no. 1069-4. Photo: Elwyn Neame.

British postcard in the Philco Series, no. 1032/2. Photo: Elwyn Neame.

Sultry Knowing Look and Porcelain Skin
Ivy Lilian Close was born in Stockton-on-Tees, England in 1890. She was the elder daughter and one of four children of John Robert Close, a jeweller in Stockton, and his wife, Emma née Blackburn. Her proud father, an amateur photographer, believed his daughter was destined for greater things than being a housewife and mother, and in 1908 he sent a photo of his 18-year-old daughter in for the 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the World' contest organized by The Daily Mirror. With her mop of blonde ringlets, sultry knowing look and porcelain skin, she beat 1,500 hopefuls and was shortlisted along with 24 other girls. She was invited to London to sit for a professional portrait by 23-year-old society photographer Elwin Neame. Neame, like the judges after him, fell for Ivy's ‘dreamy, sylph-like brand of loveliness’. She won and her picture graced the front page of the famous newspaper. The first prize consisted of a Rover car, and her portrait was painted by Arthur Hacker and exhibited at the Royal Academy's 1908 summer show. After a long engagement, she married Neame in 1910. They would rear two sons: Ronald Neame (1911), who went on to become a distinguished film producer and director, earning Oscar nominations for writing the screenplays for the classic films Brief Encounter (1945, David Lean) and Great Expectations (1946, David Lean), and Derek Neame (1915 - 1979), an author who scripted three films. Elwin had made a first attempt at a short film, using his home as a set and wife as his star. It led to Ivy's 12- month acting contract with film producer Cecil Hepworth. In 1912 she starred for the Hepworth Company in the short silent comedy Ghosts (1912, Hay Plumb). Her husband directed her with Austin Melford in the silent shorts Dream Paintings (1912, Elwin Neame) in which she appeared as several works of art, and The Lady of Shallot (1912, Elwin Neame). At the end of her contract, she formed Ivy Close Productions, and made silent shorts as The Girl From The Sky (1914, Elwin Neame) in which she played an aviatrix who lands in a misogynist’s garden, The Haunting Of Silas P. Gould (1915, Elwin Neame) and Darkest London (1915, Bert Haldane). Her first feature film was The Lure of London (1914, Bert Haldane). Outside of acting, Ivy's other passions were golf and motorcycling - unusual hobbies for a woman back then. She also sang in music halls and modelled for advertising campaigns. The First World War and a slowdown in British film production forced her to accept a one-year contract from the American Kalem Company. In New York, she appeared in Rival Artists (1916, Robert Ellis) and other short comedies directed by Robert Ellis. The following year, she was back in the UK and co-starred with Matheson Lang and Violet Hopson in the melodramas The Ware Case (1917, Walter West), and The House Opposite (1917, Walter West, Frank Wilson). In the propaganda film Nelson (1918, Maurice Elvey), she co-starred with Donald Calthrop, as Admiral Horatio Nelson and Malvina Longfellow as Lady Hamilton. Elvey also directed her opposite Bransby Williams in Adam Bede (1918, Maurice Elvey), an adaptation of the novel Adam Bede by George Eliot. She also played a lead role in Darby and Joan (1919, Percy Nash), set on the Isle of Man.

French postcard by GMR-B, Depot serie 4048.

French postcard by GMR-B, Depot serie 4012, sent by mail from Spain to France in 1909. Caption: 'Preisgekrönte schönheit. English Beauty. Premier Prix de Beauté.'

French postcard by GMR-B, Depot serie 4012.

An Extraordinarily Risky Venture
Ivy Close’s most famous film is the French production La Roue/The Wheel (1923, Abel Gance), who also directed classics as Napoléon (1927) and J'accuse! (1919). Séverin-Mars stars as a railroad engineer who rescues a small orphan, following a disastrous crash. He raises the little girl (Ivy Close) as his own, along with his son Elie (Gabriel de Gravone), whose mother died during his birth. In time, the little orphan becomes a lively and playful young woman. Both father and son fall in love with her, which ends in a tragedy. James Travers at Films de France: “The film originally ran to eight hours but commercial imperatives resulted in substantial cuts. Even in its more widely distributed three hour version, the film feels slow and drawn out, and it is mainly Gance’s innovative techniques (most notably the rapid cutting in the racing train sequences) which keeps the film interesting. Tragically, the star of the film, Severin-Mars, fell ill during the gruelling sixteen month shoot and died in 1921, a few years before the film was released. The film cost 3 million French francs and took five years to complete, an extraordinarily risky venture at the time, and a major cause of anxiety for the film’s production company, Pathé.” Close earned favourable reviews for her performance as Norma. In 1923 her husband Elwin Neame died in a motorcycle accident, leaving her a 33-year old widow with two young boys and little money. She only made two more films, both in Germany. She had a small part in Die Hölle der Jungfrauen/The hell of the virgins (1928, Robert Dinesen) starring Robert Dinesen, and Der fidele Bauer/The Jolly Peasant (1929, Frans Seitz), both with Werner Krauss. In 2008, The Daily Mail wrote: “The looks that had been Ivy's meal ticket were beginning to fade, but the final blow to her career was the advent of the ‘talkies’. Her British accent was considered unsuitable for American audiences and Ivy's star waned as she played an extra in crowd scenes in her final films.” She retired from the film business, but used her influence to get her son Ronald a job at Elstree Studios. In 1938 Ivy wed the Australian-born make-up artist and former stuntman Curly Batson, who died of lung cancer in 1957. Ivy Close died alone in a nursing home in Goring, England in 1968. With her began a dynasty f four generations of Cinema and Television artists. After her sons Ronald and Derek Neame, her grandson Christopher Neame (1942) became a successful film and television producer who was nominated for a Bafta in 1987, and her great-grandson Gareth Neame (1967) also became a TV producer, who won a Bafta in 1996.

Ivy Close with her sons Ronald and Derek Neame. British postcard in the Philco (PPC) Series, no. 1070-3. Photo: Elwyn Neame.

British postcard by Philco, no. 1462/2. Photo: Elwin Neame. Caption:
" I have not send a letter,
But think you'll like this better,
'Twill just convey my greeting,
Because we can't be meeting.
A Birthday Greeting.
Ivy Close"

British postcard in the Philco Series, no. 1073/2. Photo: Elwyn Neame.
Caption:
" A Birthday Wish
Where happiness and friendship twine
I hope that you may be,
And may you in love's sunshine dwell
From care for ever free."

Sources: Mark Rowland Jones (BritMovie), James Travers (Films de France), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), The Ivy Close Tribute Page, Huw Nathan (IMDb), Hepworthfilm.org, Wikipedia and IMDb.

French actor Marcel Dalio (1900-1983) or simply Dalio was a citizen of the world. During the 1930s, he became a much sought-after character actor in France. His lovely animated face with its great expressive eyes became familiar across Europe, when he appeared in Jean Renoir's masterpieces La règle du jeu/Rules of the Game (1939) and La Grande Illusion/Grand Illusion (1937). During the war, he worked in Hollywood and appeared in such classics as Casablanca (1942) and To Have and Have Not (1944).

French postcard by Ed. Chantal, Paris, no. 509. Photo: Gladiator Films.

The Typical Jew
Marcel Dalio was born Israel Moshe Blauschild in Paris, France in 1900. His parents were Romanian-Jewish immigrants. After a stint at the National Drama Conservatoire (CNSAD), he performed in cabarets, revues and stage plays during the 1920s. From 1931 on, he acted in popular French films like Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937) starring Jean Gabin as an infamous gangster, who tries to escape the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers. Dalio also appeared in Jean Renoir's masterpieces La Grande Illusion/Grand Illusion (1937) and La règle du jeu/The Rules of the Game (1939) about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II. These films made his expressive face famous. “Short of stature but giant in talent”, writes Hal Erickson at AllMovie about him. After divorcing actress Jany Holt, he married the seventeen-year-old and breathtakingly beautiful actress Madeleine Lebeau in 1939. Michael Ryerson at IMDb: “Marcel Dalio had it all, but then the Germans crushed Poland, swept across Belgium and pressed on toward Paris. He waited until the last possible moment and finally, with the sound of artillery clearly audible, with Madeleine, fled in a borrowed car to Orleans and then, in a freight train, to Bordeaux and finally to Portugal. In Lisbon, they bribed a crooked immigration official and were surreptitiously given two visas for Chile.” However, when their ship, the S.S. Quanza, stopped in Mexico, they were stranded (along with around 200 other passengers) when the Chilean visas they had purchased turned out to be forgeries. Eventually they were able to get temporary Canadian passports. In the meanwhile in occupied France, the Germans used publicity stills of Dalio for a series of posters labelled 'the typical Jew'. Dalio's parents would die in Nazi concentration camps during the war. The Nazis also ordered the film Entrée des artistes/Stage Door (Marc Allégret, 1938) to be re-edited. All Dalio's scenes were deleted and re-shot with the Aryan actor Fred Pasquali. James Travers at Films de France: “Marcel Dalio almost steals the final act as an investigating magistrate - it is incredible to think that his scenes were re-shot with another actor.” Fortunately, the scenes with Dalio were reinstated after the war.

Jean Gabin. French postcard by Edit. Chantal, Rueil, no. 49B.

Jany Holt. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 29. Photo: Studio Piaz.

Your Winnings, Sir
Friends in the film industry arranged for Marcel Dalio and Madeleine Lebeau to arrive in Hollywood. Nearly broke, Dalio played in a string of largely forgettable films. Interesting was the film noir The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941) starring Gene Tierney. In early 1942, Jack L. Warner was driving production of a film based on a one act play, Everybody Comes to Rick's but he had no screenplay. Shooting started with a mishmash of treatments loosely based on the play and two previous movies. Dalio and Madeleine Lebeau were cast as, respectively, a croupier and a romantic entanglement for the male lead. The film starred Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid; features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, and Peter Lorre, and the title is of course Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Michael Ryerson at IMDb: “And when Claude Rains delivers the signature line, 'I'm shocked! Shocked! To find that there's gambling going on in here!' the croupier, Emil, played by Marcel Dalio, approaches from the roulette table and says simply, 'Your winnings, sir.' It is a delicious moment ripe with scripted irony, one among many in this film, but one made all the more so, knowing where Dalio came from and what he and his wife had endured to arrive at that line.” However, Dalio was unbilled for this memorable part. In 1943, he received some larger roles, like a French policeman in The Song of Bernadette (Henry King, 1943). In Hollywood, Dalio was never able to rescale the heights of prominence that he had enjoyed in France and was too often cast as the stereotypical Frenchman. One of his best-known roles was in the film adaptation of the romantic war adventure To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944), again opposite Humphrey Bogart. Dalio appeared in 19 Hollywood movies during the Second World War.

Italian Film poster Acque del sud (To Have and Have Not, 1944), designed by Luigi Martinati.

Claudia Cardinale. French postcard by Edition P.I., Paris, no. 1102. Photo: Kasparian.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
When the Second World War ended in May 1945, Marcel Dalio returned to France to continue his film career. His first appearance that year was in Son dernier role/Her Last Part (Jean Gourguet, 1946) with Gaby Morlay. He appeared in ten more films in France through the late 1940s. In Englan, he played Captain Nikarescu in Black Jack (Julien Duvivier, José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1950). In Hollywood, Dalio appeared in the musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953) starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe and the romantic comedy Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954) starring Bogart and Audrey Hepburn. In Sabrina, the bearded Dalio played one of Hepburn's fellow cooking students in Paris. He also reunited with Jean Gabin in the French gangster film Razzia sur la chnouf/Raid on the Drug Ring (Henri Decoin, 1955) based on a novel by Auguste Le Breton. That year, he went back to America to appear in the poorly-received television series Casablanca, where he portrayed the Claude Rains character, Captain Renault. Dalio went on to appear in several Hollywood productions, including the hit comedy Pillow Talk (Michael Gordon, 1959) starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day. He also made films in France, such as the adventure Cartouche (Philippe de Broca, 1962) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Claudia Cardinale. Dalio played a small role in the Hollywood mystery The List of Adrian Messenger (John Huston, 1963). This was followed with the part of Father Cluzeot in Donovan's Reef (John Ford, 1963) starring John Wayne. In 1964, Dalio returned to France, but continued to appear in Hollywood productions like How to Steal a Million (William Wyler, 1966) starring Audrey Hepburn. Michael Ryerson at IMDb: “Late in his career, when Mike Nichols was looking for a vaguely familiar face to deliver a long and worldly, near-monologue in Catch-22 (1970), he turned to Dalio. Faced with a hopelessly idealistic young American pilot, Dalio in tight close-up, delivers a discourse on practical people faced with impractical circumstances, of the virtues of expedience in the face of amorality. ”After this, he worked almost entirely in France. The best known of these films is the hilarious comedy Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Gérard Oury, 1973) with Louis de Funès. His last appearance was in a TV movie portraying Lord Exeter in Les Longuelune (Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, 1982). After appearing in almost 150 films, Marcel Dalio died in 1983 in his home in Paris. He was married four times: to Jany Holt (1936-1939), to Madeleine Lebeau (1939-1942) and to Michèle Béryl with whom he had a child. And in 1981 he married Madeleine Prime in Los Angeles.

Trailer La règle du jeu/The Rules of the Game (1939). Source: iamnotatv (YouTube).

French trailer for Les aventures de Rabbi Jacob/The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973). Source: TheCineLady (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), Michael Ryerson (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.

On 28 May, rock ‘n roll singer Little Tony (1941) has died. The artist from San Marino achieved success in Great Britain during the late 1950s and early 1960s, as the lead singer of Little Tony & His Brothers. In 1962, he returned to Italy where he continued a successful career as a singer and film actor in many Musicarellos, the typical Italian youth musical of the 1960s.

Italian promotional card by Dischi Durium.

Italian postcard by Edizione Diesse.

Italian postcard. Photo: Dutrium.

The Boy With The Ducktail
Little Tony was born as Antonio Ciacci in 1941 in Tivoli, Italy, but he is a citizen of San Marino. His parents were born there, and he has never applied for Italian citizenship although he lived there most of his life. His father was a singer and accordionist. Inspired by the new rock ‘n roll sounds from the US, Antonio formed his own rock ‘n roll group in 1957. He was the lead singer, with his older brother Alberto on bass and his younger brother Enrico on guitar. Little Tony was an emulation of Little Richard. The following year, Little Tony & His Brothers were signed by Durium Records, who released a series of covers of American rock and roll songs by them in Italy. Their hits included covers of Lucille, Johnny B. Goode, Splish Splash and Shake Rattle and Roll. In 1959, the Italian singer Marino Marini was in London to appear on the TV show Oh Boy!, and recommended the group to the producer Jack Good. Good visited Italy to see a Milan concert by Little Tony & His Brothers, was impressed, and signed them on the spot. They moved to England, where they would live and perform for some 18 months. They made their first appearance on Good’s new TV show Boy Meets Girls in September 1959, and released their first single in the UK, I Can't Help It - the 11th single of their career in Italy - on the Decca label. Tony was nicknamed ‘the boy with the ducktail’. Their third British single was for the first time recorded in London. The result, the rock ballad Too Good, written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, reached # 19 on the UK singles chart in January 1960. It was their only chart success in Britain. The group continued to appear regularly on TV shows in Britain until 1962.

Italian postcard by Silvercart, Milano, no. 541/1.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 192, 1969. Retail price: 0,20 M.

Raining Stones
Little Tony & His Brothers first revisited Italy in 1961 to appear at the San Remo Festival, where they reached the second place with 24 mila baci (24 thousand kisses). He also contributed songs to popular Musicarellos as I Teddy boys della canzone/The Teddy Boys Lyrics (Domenico Paolella, 1960) and the spoof Rocco e le sorelle/Rocco and the Sisters (Giorgio Simonelli, 1961). The following year the group returned more permanently in Italy. Little Tony then worked as a solo singer and started to sing in Italian. He had his first #1 in Italy with Il ragazzo col ciuffo in 1962. He also began to work as a film actor, notably appearing in 5 marines per 100 ragazze/5 Marines for 100 girls (Mario Mattoli, 1962) starring Virna Lisi, the crime comedy Un gangster venuto da Brooklyn/A gangster came from Brooklyn (Emimmo Salvi, 1966) with Akim Tamiroff, and the Musicarello Riderà!/Laugh! (Bruno Corbucci, 1967). One of his biggest hit songs was Cuore matto (Heart Of The Matter). It was #1 for nine consecutive weeks in 1967. Two years later, he formed his own record label, Little Records. He continued to record regularly since then. During his career he had also hits in several other countries (than Italy and England) in Europe and South America and had countless albums released in Italy. In 1993 he made a come-back in the cinema with a supporting part in Ken Loach’s acclaimed comedy-drama Raining Stones (1993). In all, he appeared in over 20 films. In 2006, he suffered a heart attack during a concert in Ottawa organised by the Italian-Canadian community. He recovered fully and returned at the San Remo festival in 2008. After a long illness (cancer), he passed away on 28 May 2013 in Rome. He was 72. Little Tony had one daughter, Cristiana (1972) and three grandchildren: Martina, Mirko and Melissa.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 219, 1969. Photo: publicity still for Cuore matto... matto da legare/Crazy Heart... Mad as a Hatter (Mario Amendola, 1967) with Eleonora Bron.

East-German prostcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 9/70, 1970. Retail price: 0,20 M. Photo: publicity still for Riderà!/Laugh! (Bruno Corbucci, 1967) with Marisa Solinas.

Sources: Dik de Heer (BlackCat Rockabilly), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Russian character actress Lydia Potechina (1883 – 1934) fled to Germany in 1919, but returned to the Soviet Union in 1932. In between she was popular character actress in the Weimar cinema, who worked with renowned directors like Fritz Lang.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5093. Photo: Verleih Mondial / National.

Moving And Imaginative Places
Lydia Potechina was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1883. Around 1900 she attended the Imperial Theater School in her hometown. She went on to perform for the Russian stages for years. During the Russian revolution, Potechina emigrated to Germany in 1919. In Berlin, she started to work in the booming film industry. First she played small parts in silent films like Die entfesselte Menschheit/The unleashed humanity (1920, Joseph Delmont) starring Eugen Klöpfer and Paul Hartmann, and Die Verschwörung zu Genua/The Genoa Conspiracy (1921, Paul Leni) with Hans Mierendorff and Erna Morena. In 1921 she appeared in a supporting part in the silent classic Der müde Tod/Destiny (1921, Fritz Lang). Lang structured his film, full of special effects, as a frame tale with three stories within the story. Cineanalyst at IMDb: “the narrative has its faults; the frame narrative is great, but only the last of the three episodes within was entertaining - for its light and magical treatment. In the film, a girl's young lover dies, and Death offers her three tries to resurrect his life. The episodes are flimsy at times, but some impressive imagery and powerful performances by Lil Dagover and Bernhard Goetzke make up for much of that. Additionally, the exotic Arabian, historical Venetian and Chinese settings for the three inner episodes are well rendered, surely, but it's the haunting graveyard scenes and the meetings with Death, especially the room of candles scenes, that I'll remember. They're not merely exotic; they're otherworldly - the atmospheric, moving and imaginative places I want movies to take me.” In Germany, the film was poorly received at first, with critics complaining that it was not 'German' enough, Douglas Fairbanks purchased the American rights, to delay its general American release while he copied the effects of the Persian segment for his The Thief of Baghdad (1924). The film was successful in the US, and would influence international directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Bunuel. Potechina worked again with Fritz Lang on Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler/Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922, Fritz Lang). This was the first film in the Doctor Mabuse series, about the Arch-criminal Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) who featured in the novels of Norbert Jacques. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: “The first of three adaptations of the Norbert Jacques' novels by the renowned director, the film also provided Lang's wife and screenwriter Thea Von Harbou a canvas on which to explore and expand her own work. The subject matter, a cat-and-mouse game between a master criminal (with considerable scientific - or, more properly, pseudo-scientific) knowledge at his disposal, and a top law enforcement official, was intrinsically absorbing in Lang's hands, especially as these characters were portrayed by Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Bernhard Goetzke; their duel would go on to influence the plots of comic books and feature films for a generation to come and longer, right into the twenty-first century in the form of the James Bond movies.”

Austrian postcard. Iris Verlag, no. 822. The cross was probably added by a collector after she died.

An Exceptional Expressiveness
Lydia Potechina had her first co-starring role in Fräulein Raffke/Miss Raffke (1923, Richard Eichberg) as the mother of Lee Parry. Thomas Staedeli at Cyranos: “The actress Lydia Potechina belongs to the most interesting appearances of the German silent movies. She wasn't one of these teenagers who disported on the screen but justified her acting existence with an exceptional expressiveness.” She worked with another master of the Weimar cinema, Ewald André Dupont on the silent drama Die grüne Manuela/The Green Manuela (1923, E.A. Dupont). She appeared in a supporting role in the silent historical adventure film Pietro der Korsar/Peter the Pirate (1925, Arthur Robison) starring Paul Richter, Aud Egede Nissen and Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and had another character role in the Asta Nielsen vehicle Athleten/Athletes (1925, Friedrich Zelnik). In her films, she often played roles as the mother or the mother-in-law. Silent German films in which she played such parts were Leidenschaft (1925, Richard Eichberg) with Otto Gebühr, the delightful romantic comedy Ein Walzertraum/A Waltz Dream (1925, Ludwig Berger) with Willy Fritsch, Manon Lescaut (1926, Arthur Robison) featuring Lya de Putti, Familie Schimeck - Wiener Herzen/The Schimeck Family (1926, Alfred Halm, Rudolf Dworsky) as the mother of Olga Tschechova, Heimweh (1927, Gennaro Righelli) starring Mady Christians, and the thriller Die Todesschleife/Looping the Loop (1928, Arthur Robison) starring Werner Krauss. At the time she was very busy. In 1927 she could be seen in 14 films and in 1928 in 11, but these were generally forgettable genre films and were not in the same league as the classic films in which she had appeared five years earlier. Interesting was Der weiße Teufel/The White Devil (1930, Alexandre Volkoff) starring Ivan Mozzhukhin. Sound changed the European film industry completely and was a disaster for many foreign actors. However, Potechina played for the Ufa in such sparkling comedies as Bomben auf Monte Carlo/The Bombardment of Monte Carlo (1931, Hanns Schwarz) starring Hans Albers and Anna Sten, and Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht/I by Day, You by Night (1932, Ludwig Berger) with Käthe von Nagy. In her final film, Der Diamant des Zaren/The Diamond of the Czar (1932, Max Neufeld) featuring Liane Haid, Potechina played a false Grand Duchess. That same year, Lydia Potechina returned to Russia, now the Soviet Union. Two years later, she died in Moscow in 1934, only 50. She was married to the Ufa producer Max Pfeiffer.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5093. Photo: National Film / Verleih Mondial. Signature by Lydia Potechina.

Sourceas: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Cineanalyst (IMDb), AllMovie, Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

French actress Emmanuelle Riva (1927) is best known for her roles in the films Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Léon Morin, Priest (1961), and Amour (2012). This year, Riva received both the Bafta and the César award for her touching performance in Amour.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filvertrieb, Berlin, no. 1269, 1969. Retail price: 0,20 M. Photo: Unifrance Film. Publicity still for Berufsrisiko/Les risques du métier (1967, André Cayatte).

Elle
Emmanuelle Riva was born Paulette Germaine Riva in Cheniménil in eastern France in 1927. She was the only child of Jeanne Riva née Nourdin and Alfredo Riva, an Italian born sign painter. From the age of 6, Emmanuelle dreamed about becoming an actress, and appeared in various school plays and amateur dramatics groups. For a provincial girl, from a modest family with no connection to the world of theatre or cinema, the theatre seemed an impossible ambition. She worked as a seamstress. At the age of 26, Riva moved to Paris where she studied at the Dramatic Arts Centre of Rue Blanche. She made her stage debut in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man. Further classical roles followed in Mrs Warren’s Profession (Shaw), L’Espoir (Henri Bernstein), Le Dialogue des Carmélites (Georges Bernanos), and Britannicus (Jean Racine). She made her screen debut on television playing the Queen of England in the historical anthology series Enigmas de L’Histoire (1956-1957, Enigmas of History). The following year she made her first film appearance with an uncredited role in Les grandes familles/The Possessors (1958, Denys de la Patellière) starring Jean Gabin. The following year she acted in the Dominique Rolin play L'Epouvantail (The Scarecrow) at the Théatre de L'Oeuvre in Paris. She was visited in her dressing room by young documentary film maker who had directed only a few shorts and documentaries, Alain Resnais. He offered her the female lead, Elle, in his first feature film Hiroshima mon amour/Hiroshima My Love (1959, Alain Resnais) written by Marguerite Duras. Riva played an unnamed French woman - Elle translates as She - talking to her young Japanese lover about the bombing of Hiroshima, about memory and forgetfulness. Riva’s powerful, haunting performance helped the film to become a huge art-house hit. For her role she was nominated for a Bafta Award in 1960. Hiroshima mon amour was also a catalyst for the Nouvelle Vague, the French New Wave, innovatively using miniature flashbacks to create a uniquely nonlinear storyline.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1088. Presented by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Studio Vallois.

Tormented By Unrequited Love
In the following years, Emmanuelle Riva appeared in critically acclaimed roles in films like the Oscar nominated Holocaust drama Kapò (1959, Gillo Pontecorvo), the comedy Adua e le compagne/Adua and her Friends (1960, Antonio Pietrangeli) as Simone Signoret's feisty friend, and Léon Morin, prêtre/Leon Morin, Priest (1961, Jean-Pierre Melville) as an atheist widow in a sexually charged friendship with a priest played by Jean-Paul Belmondo. James Travers in his review at Films de France: “What makes this such a compelling film are the extraordinary performances from its two lead actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Emmanuelle Riva. (...) Riva’s portrayal of a woman tormented by unrequited love is equally arresting and gives the film its harrowing realism and poignancy. Both performances are complemented by the film’s austere realist design, the bleakness of the wartime setting underlined by the work of Melville’s trusted cinematographer Henri Decaë. Léon Morin, prêtre is a powerfully moving study in desire and moral conflict, arguably the darkest and most unsettling of all Jean-Pierre Melville’s films.” Riva then won the Volpi Cup for best actress at the Venice Film Festival 1962 for her role as an unhappily married provincial wife who poisons her husband in Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962, Georges Franju). She worked with director Georges Franju again on the Jean Cocteau adaptation Thomas l'imposteur/Thomas the Imposter (1965, Georges Franju). These were all European, mostly French films. Riva speaks French and some Italian but does not speak English and never performed in English.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 177.

An Extraordinary Career Renaissance
Emmanuelle Riva turned down many ‘commercial’ roles and producers stopped calling. Through the years, she enjoyed an extensive theatre career in Paris. In 2001, her last stage appearance was in a production of Medea at Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe. She appeared occasionally on French television programs, published poems and is also a skilled photographer. When she was in Japan to shoot Hiroshima, mon amour (1959), she bought a Ricohflex and began to take photos of people. In 2008, these photographs were exhibited at the Nikon Salon and were issued in the book Tu n'as rien vu à Hiroshima (You have seen nothing in Hiroshima). She continued to appear in respectable films like Les risques du métier/Risky Business (1967, André Cayatte) as the co-star of Jacques Brel, Gli occhi, la bocca/The Eyes, the Mouth (1982, Marco Bellocchio) as a deeply religious mother whose son (Lou Castel) attempts to shield her from the truth about the death of his twin brother, Liberté, la nuit/Freedom, the night (1983, Philippe Garrel) as the estranged wife of a revolutionary (Maurice Garrel), Trois Couleurs: Bleu/Three Colours: Blue (1993, Krzysztof Kieślowski) as the mother of Juliette Binoche, and Vénus beauté (institut)/Venus Beauty Institute (1999, Tonie Marshall) alongside Micheline Presle. In 2011, she appeared in Le Skylab starring and directed by Julie Delpy. The following year she had an extraordinary career renaissance with her role as retired piano teacher Anne Laurent in Amour (2012, Michael Haneke). Anne lives in a chic Paris apartment with her husband, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant), until a series of strokes spark dementia, physical disability and a slow dismantling of her body and mind. The film got rave reviews and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Riva won for her role both the Bafta Award and the César Award for best actress. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for best actress - the oldest actress ever to be so. The 85th Academy Awards were held on her 86th birthday, but she lost out to Jennifer Lawrence. Emmanuelle Riva lives in Paris, France. She has never married and does not have children.

Trailer Hiroshima mon amour/Hiroshima My Love (1959). Source: Criterion Collection (YouTube).

Trailer Léon Morin, prêtre/Leon Morin, Priest (1961). Source: Criterion Dungeon (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (Films in France), Kim Willsher (The Observer), Riccardo Simonazzi (IMDb), New Wave Film.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

German actress Ida Wüst (1884 - 1956) was a popular Ufa star in the 1920´s and 1930´s. Die wüste Ida appeared in almost 150 films mostly as cheerful middled-aged women, aunts and intriguers. During the Second World War she only rarely played in films or in the theatre, and in 1945 her career seemed to have reached its end.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3528/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick / Terra.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2900/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Endemann / Ufa.

Hosenrollen
Ida Wüst was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1884. There is little known about her childhood. She discovered the world of the theatre quite early and after visiting the lyceum of Frankfurt, she took acting classes from Thessa Klinghammer. At 16, she already had her first theatre engagement at the Stadtheater (City Theater) of Colmar. Later she worked in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz in Poland) and from 1904 on in Leipzig. In 1907 she became a company member of the Lessing-Theater in Berlin. She developed into a popular actress in comedies and in ´Hosenrollen´ (roles impersonating men in trousers). She had success in the original production of the play Kammermusik (Chamber music) by Heinrich Ilgenstein. Here she met actor Bruno Kastner, who would become her husband from 1913 till 1924 and with whom she started to write screenplays in 1919 for such films as Nur ein Diener/Just A Servant (1919, Erk Lund) and Der König von Paris/The King of Paris (1920, Erik Lund).

German postcard by NPG, no. 821. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

With Bruno Kastner. German postcard by Rotophot, no. 220/1. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

Bruno Kastner
Ida Wüst played her first big film role in the silent serial Tragödie der Liebe/Tragedy of Love (1922-1923, Joe May). One of her next films was a film adaptation of Kammermusik/Chamber Music (1925, Carl Froelich) opposite Henny Porten. Many other roles in silent productions would follow. With her husband Bruno Kastner she starred in Die vertauschte Braut/The Exchanged Bride (1925, Carl Wilhelm) and in Ledige Töchter/The Single Daughters (1926, Carl Boese) she appeared as the mother of Jenny Jugoand Charlotte Ander. Many of her roles were supporting parts or small roles, but she appeared in bigger roles in Heimweh/Homesick (1927, Gennaro Righelli) with Mady Christians, the operetta adaptation Der Bettelstudent/The Beggar Student (1927, Jacob Fleck, Luise Fleck) with Harry Liedtke, and Das brennende Herz/The Burning Heart (1929, Ludwig Berger) with Mady Christians.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 165/3, 1932-1933. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Wie sag' ich's meinem Mann?/How Shall I Tell My Husband? (1932, Reinhold Schünzel) with Renate Müller.

Dutch postcard by City Film, no. 492. Photo: publicity still for Fräulein Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1933, Carl Lamac) with Anny Ondra.

Die Wüste Ida
After the introduction of the sound film, Ida Wüst continued her film career successfully. Her nickname in the 1930´s was Die wüste Ida. She appeared in dozens of popular entertainment films like Der Walzerkönig/The Waltz King (1930, Manfred Noa) with Hans Stüwe as Johann Strauss, Zweierlei Moral/Different Morals (1931, Gerhard Lamprecht), Bomben auf Monte Carlo/Bombs Over Monte Carlo (1931, Hanns Schwarz) with Hans Albers, and Man braucht kein Geld/You Don´t Need Money (1932) with Hedwig Kiesler aka Hedy Lamarr. One of the liveliest of these films was the musical Das Lied einer Nacht/The Song of Night (1932, Anatole Litvak) starring Jan Kiepura. Also interesting were Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht/I by Day, You by Night (1932, Ludwig Berger) which featured The Comedian Harmonists, and Lachende Erben/Laughing Inherits (1933, Max Ophüls) starring Lien Deyers. She continued her career successfully during the Third Reich in films like Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Coat (1937, Jürgen von Alten) opposite Heinrich George, and Hauptsache glücklich!/Essentially Happy! (1941, Theo Lingen) with Heinz Rühmann. Meanwhile she also had a stage career which was equally successful. The Second World War broke her career. During the war she only rarely played in films or in the theatre, and in 1945 her career seemed to have reached its end. Her application for denazification was rejected, because she seems to have denounced colleagues like Eduard von Winterstein to the Gestapo. Only in 1949 she received a working permit and in the 1950´s she played some film roles as cheerful middled-aged women, grandmothers and intriguers. She also returned to the theatre, but not as a company member. Ida Wüst died of the effects of a stroke in 1958 in Berlin.

German postcard by Das Programm von Heute / Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Cando-Film. Collection: Miss Mertens.

German photocard.

Paul Godwin's Orchestra recorded in 1926 the one-step Meine Tante, deine Tante (My Aunt, Your Aunt). This clip is a tribute to the two most famous aunts of the German cinema: Adele Sandrock and Ida Wüst. Source: Plattensammler88 (YouTube).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

German-born Austrian Susan Denberg (1944) was a Bluebell dancer and Playboy Playmate before she had a brief acting career in the 1960s. One of her few roles was as Peter Cushing’s beautiful new creation in the Hammer horror Frankenstein Created Woman (1967).

German postcard by ISV, Sort. 19/6.

Star Trek
Susan Denberg was born Dietlinde Ortrun Zechner in Bad Polzin, Germany (now Polczyn-Zdrój, Poland) in 1944. She was the eldest of three children of Austrian-German parents, and grew up with her two brothers, Reinhard and Ulrich, in Klagenfurt in Austria. Her father operated several electrical shops there. At 18, she travelled to England to work as an au-pair. In 1963 she met a dancer of the Bluebell Girls and did an audition in Paris. She was hired for the chorus line and in 1964 and 1965, she performed in the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. There she met and married Latino singer Tony Scotti in 1965. She deserted the Bluebells for a movie career in Hollywood, and landed a co-starring role as a German girl on the TV series 12 O'Clock High (1964-1967). This ABC drama set during World War II was the television version of the Oscar winning classic Twelve O'Clock High (1949, Henry King) starring Gregory Peck. The following year, Zechner made her feature film debut with a supporting role in An American Dream (1966, Robert Gist). This trashy melodrama, based on a Norman Mailer novel, starred Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh. While working on this film, Warner Bros. held a nationwide contest to find Dietlinde a new screen name. They offered a $500 award to whoever came up with the best one. There were 5,000 entries, including ‘Norma Mailer’, but all were ultimately rejected. She herself came up with Susan Denberg. She was featured Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine's August 1966 issue. In her profile, Denberg stated that she had ambitions to become an actress. Denberg was later one of the finalists for the title of 1967's Playmate of the Year, though the title ultimately went to Lisa Baker. Denberg's best known screen appearance was in the Star Trek episode Mudd’s Women (1966, Harvey Hart). She played one of the three mysterious and stunningly beautiful women of the title, who have an odd effect on all the male crew of the Starship Enterprise (except Spock, who looks on bemused), causing involuntary arousal.

Susan Denberg, 1966. Source: Pictosh (Flickr).

Frankenstein Created Woman - "Frankenstein Crea La Femme" Original 1967 French Grande Movie Poster

Original French film poster for Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Source: Vintage Movie Posters (Flickr).

Close To Something Sublime
Susan Denberg moved to England to play in Hammer's cult science fiction/horror film Frankenstein Created Woman (1967, Terence Fisher). It is the fourth film in Hammer's Frankenstein series with Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Denberg as his new creation. Where Hammer's previous Frankenstein films were concerned with the physical aspects of the Baron's work, the interest here is in the metaphysical dimensions of life, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body. Frankenstein Created Woman is one of the most critically acclaimed Hammer films. Nick Faust at IMDb: “Within the confines of a Hammer movie's melodrama, Fisher, a classical stylist and at times a superb artist, often created magic. This is one of those times. The performances are all equally compelling. Cushing gives the Baron more texture here than in any of the other films, I think. Thorley Walters is a good foil, and his befuddled affection and respect for the Baron makes some of this really rather touching. Arthur Grant's photography has never been better. I urge viewers to watch the film with an open mind. This is not the usual horror film; it's more a fantasy, a fairy tale.” Martin Scorsese picked the film as part of a 1987 National Film Theatre season of his favourite films, saying "If I single this one out it's because here they actually isolate the soul... The implied metaphysics are close to something sublime." However, Denberg's voice in the film was dubbed as her Austrian accent was considered too strong. Denberg had become immersed in the drugs and sex life style of the 1960’s. She divorced Tony Scotti in 1968. He later married singer/actress Sylvie Vartan. She left show business and returned to Austria. Newspapers reported at the time that Denberg was suicidal and stayed in mental homes. During the 1970’s she also performed in Viennese nightclubs. Nowadays, Susan Denberg lives in Klagenfurt, Austria, under her real name, Dietlinde Zechner.

Scenes from Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Source: Classic Clips TV (YouTube).

Sources: Ted Newsom (IMDb), Memory Alpha (IMDb), Nick Faust (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, HorrorStars.net, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Alda Borelli (1879-1964) was an Italian stage and screen actress, who peaked on stage in the 1920s, and also acted in a handful of silent films in the 1910s. She was the sister of Italian film diva Lyda Borelli.

Italian postcard, no. 303. Photo: A. Badodi, Milano.

Italian postcard, no. 304. Photo: A. Badodi, Milano.

Letting Her Husband Shine
Alda Borelli, nicknamed ‘la Alda’, was a true ‘figlia d'arte’, following in the footsteps of her parents’ stage career. She was born in 1879 at Cava de' Tirreni in the province of Salerno where her parents happened to perform then. Her father Napoleone Borelli, originally a lawyer, belonged to an ancient family from Reggio Emilia. When he was a volunteer with general Giuseppe Garibaldi, he abandoned his profession for the stage. After a stay at the Romanian National Theatre for seven years, he re-emigrated and performed at the company of his son-in-law Alfredo De Sanctis, between 1906 and 1913, the year he died. Alda's mother was the stage actress Cesira Banti. After having frequented the Scuola normale, Borelli entered the company of Pia Marti Maggi in 1898 and had her debut on stage. In 1901 she entered the company of Alfredo De Sanctis whom she married the same year. Because of the centenary of the death of Italian dramatist and poet Vittorio Alfieri, Borelli had her first big part as Micol in Alfieri’s Saul, with Gustavo and Tommaso Salvini. Just to let her husband shine, Borelli had to play minor parts, and their marriage suffered. Still she managed to play Flora Brazier in Il colonnello Brideau, adapted from La Rabouilleuse (The Black Sheep) by Honoré de Balzac; Bianca in I corvi (Les Corbeaux/The Raven) by Henry Becque; and the Duke of Reichstadt in L'aiglon (The Eaglet) by Edmond Rostand, based on the life of Napoleon's son, Napoleon II of France, Duke of Reichstadt. The role was made famous in France by Sarah Bernhardt.

Italian postcard by Vettori, Bologna, no. 2.

Italian postcard by Vettori, Bologna.

Unfit For Film
In 1915, Alda Borelli divorced De Sanctis and inscribed herself at the film company Tiber Film in Rome. Here she played in a handful of silent films, including two directed by Emilio Ghione, Tormento gentile/Kind torment (1916) and Il figlio d’amore/L’enfant de l’amour/The child of love (1916). Already in 1913 she had debuted on the screen in L’eredità di Gabriella/Whom the Gods Destroy, a Savoia production with Maria Jacobini as the title character. This had been followed by the Cines production Rinunzia/When Youth Meets Youth (Carmine Gallone, 1914) with his wife Soava Gallone in the lead. However, Alda Borelli never became the film diva her sister Lyda Borelli was in the 1910s. Actually, a critic from Vita cinematografica considered her acting in Tormento gentile to be 'overacting, unfit for film'. The critic from Apollon praised her acting in Ghione’s other film, the Henry Bataille adaptation L’enfant de l’amour, 'as long as Alda forgets her memories of the stage'. Alda also tried her luck as stage wright with the comedy Controcorrrente played by Ugo Piperno in 1918, but it wasn’t a big success. She recognized that her forte was in stage acting, so she returned there in 1918, entering the company of C. Bertramo. Borelli perfectly managed to alternate bourgeois comedy with avant-garde drama. Striking was her performance as Federica in Sorelle d’amore by Henry Bataille (1919), Anna in La donna di nessuno/Nobody's woman by Cesare Vico Lodovici (1919), and the title character in Monna Vanna by Maurice Maeterlinck (1920). In 1920 Borelli joined the company of Piperno, and performed Mary Chardin in Sogno d'amore/Dream of love by Giovanni Kossorotoff, a drama with strong psychological contrasts which was a sensation because of the interpretation by Borelli.

Italian postcard by Trevisani, Bologna, no. 64.

Two Years Of Huge Successes
In 1921 Alda Borelli acted a few times together with Tullio Carminati in Alexandre Dumas fils’ La dame aux camelias, La danza del ventre/The belly dancer by Enrico Cavacchioli, and Ali by Sem Benelli. Marco Praga united director Virginio Talli with Ruggero Ruggeri and Alda Borelli as main actors at the Compagnia nazionale. This meant two years of huge successes for Borelli. She was the title character in Parisina (1921) by Gabriele D’Annunzio, which success led to a stage tour in 1922, and again the lead in Nastasia based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot (1923). After that she was in Come le foglie by Giuseppe Giacosa (1922), Vestire gli ignudi by Luigi Pirandello (1923), and Amara (1924) by Pier Maria Rosso di San Secondo. In 1923-1924 she formed her own company with first actor Marcello Giorda. In 1926 she associated with the German director Rudolf Frank, a pupil of Max Reinhardt to create an avant-garde theatre. Her talent for innovative theatre was confirmed when Borelli played L'avventuriera (L'Aventurière) by Émile Augier. The play was staged in Italy for the first time, and created quite a shock. In 1927 Borelli returned to Beltramo, but already late 1928 she moved to E. Olivieri, her former colleague at the Compagnia Nazionale. The theatre crisis of those years, which continuously caused the breakup of theatre companies, made her decide to leave the stage in 1928. Only 14 years later she returned: in April 1943 she accepted to direct the Gruppo artistico of the Teatro Odeon in Milan. Her debut there was as Bianca in La porta chiusa (1943) by Praga. She replicated her part of Berta in L'ombra and of Anna de Bernois in La nemica, both by Dario Niccodemi, followed by the direction of Addio giovinezza, by Sandro Carnasio and Nino Oxilia, and Amore senza stima by Paolo Ferrari. In these years her company was the cradle for future famous actors such as Vittorio Gassman. In August 1943 the devastating Allied bombings of Milan caused the company to cease activities. Borelli moved to Rome, where she worked with Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri. In July 1952 Alda Borelli performed a last time in Niccodemi’s La nemica at the Teatro Manzoni. Alda Borelli then withdrew from public life. The loss of her son Beno, who killed himself in 1964, aggravated her health. She died in the same year in Milan.

Italian publicity card for Neuroxin. Capture: 'Il Neuroxin è ottimo contro la nevrosia.' Photo: Graziani, Bologna.

Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano, serie no. 212. Portrait by C. Monastier. Monastier illustrated many cards in the 1920s, mostly phantasy cards in a sweet romantic style.

Sources: Sisto Sallusti (Treccani.it) (Italian), Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Elegant Annabella (1909-1996) was France's most popular actress during the mid 1930s, but she also achieved some success in Hollywood films of the late 1930s.

French postcard by EPC, no. 1. Photo: Fox Film.

French postcard by Viny, no. 46. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Small collector's card. Photo: J. Mandel.

British postcard by Art Photo, no. 180.

French postcard by EPC (Editions et Publications cinématographiques), no. 1. Photo: Fox Film.

Napoléon
Annabella was born as Suzanne Georgette Charpentier in La Varenne Saint Hilaire, France in 1909. In 1926 her father sent her photograph to a producer friend, who arranged her first screen role. This debut at age 16 was in the silent masterpiece Napoléon/Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927), which was re-edited and re-issued in 1934. Soon followed bigger parts in films like Maldone/Misdeal (Jean Grémillon, 1928) and Autour d'une enquête/Inquest (1931, Henri Chomette, Robert Siodmak). Her breakthrough came with two delightful films by René Clair, Le Million/The Million (1931) and Quatorze Juillet/July 14 (1933). The following decade she established herself as one of France's most popular cinema actresses. She starred opposite Charles Boyerin La Bataille/The Battle (Nicolas Farkas, Victor Tourjansky, 1933). In 1936 she won the Volpi Cupfor Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for the war drama Veille d'armes/Sacrifice of Honor (Marcel L’Herbier, 1935). Other successes were La Bandera/Escape from Yesterday (1935, Julien Duvivier) opposite Jean Gabin, Anne-Marie (Raymond Bernard, 1936) with her first husband Jean Murat, and Hôtel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938).

French postcard by Europa, no. 36. Photo: Les Films Osso. Annabella played a.o. in the Osso Films production Un soir de rafle (Carmine Gallone, 1931).

French postcard, no. 8. Photo: Fox Film.

French postcard, no. 10.

French postcard by EPC. Photo: T. Piaz.

Vintage postcard. Photo: Fox Film.

Tyrone Power
In 1936 Annabella went to England to star in three films, including the first British Technicolor production, Wings of the Morning (Harold D. Schuster, 1937), Under the Red Robe (Victor Sjöström, 1937) and Dinner at the Ritz (Harold D. Schuster, 1937). In Wings of the Morning she was cast opposite Henry Fonda, and her success in this role led her to Hollywood. She appeared in Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938) with Loretta Young and Tyrone Power. Her romance with Power was widely reported by movie magazines of the day, and in 1939 they were married. During the 1940’s her career began to wane, although she achieved a notable success with 13 Rue Madeleine (Henry Hathaway, 1947) opposite James Cagney. In 1948 she returned to France after her marriage to Tyrone Power ended. The next year she tried a come-back in films like Dernier amour/Last Love ( Jean Stelli, 1949), but in 1954 she retired after a guest appearance in the American tv series Suspense. Professing that Power was the only love of her life, Annabella never remarried after their divorce. Anne, her daughter by Jean Murat, was the wife of actor Oskar Werner for 12 years until their divorce in 1971. In 1985 Annabella did one final appearance in the short film Elisabeth (Pierre-Jean de San Bartolomé, 1985). She died of a heart attack at her home in Neuilly, France, in 1996.

Dutch postcard by City Film, no. 494, sent by mail in 1935.

Dutch postcard by Filma. Annabella and German actor Gustav Fröhlich were the leads of the Austrian film Sonnnenstrahl/Sunshine (Paul Fejos, 1933).

Dutch postcard by City Film, no. 512. Annabella and Gustav Fröhlich in Sonnenstrahl/Ray of Sunlight/Rayon de soleil (Pål Fejös, 1933).

British postcard by Real Photograph, London, no. FS 177. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938), a highly fictionalized biographical account of the builder of the Suez canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, played by Tyrone Power.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1327/1, 1937-1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Sources: AllMovie, TCM, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Gérard Depardieu (1948) with his trademark bulbous nose is France’s biggest male film star. He developed from France’s young male sensation in 1974 into a bulging and controversial but very talented character actor. Since 1967, he completed over 170 films and received more César nominations than anyone else. Since the critical acclaim for his role as Cyrano de Bergerac, he achieved worldwide stardom.

French postcard by RCA. Photo: GAMMA. Promotion card for his album Ils ont dit moteur... (1980).

Whimsical, Aimless Thug
Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu was born in working-class Châteauroux, France in 1948. He is one of five children of Anne Depardieu-Marillier called ‘la Liette’ and René ‘le Dédé’ Depardieu, a metal worker and volunteer fireman. As a boy, Depardieu spent more time on the street than in the classroom. According to Tracie Cooper at AllMovie: “at twelve years old, he dropped out of school and hitchhiked across Europe on an informal tour funded primarily by the profits of stolen cars and assorted black-market products. Depardieu would likely have continued in his juvenile delinquency were it not for a friend who was attending drama school in Paris.” So in 1966, Depardieu decided to enrol at the École d'art dramatique too. He began acting in the new comedy theatre Café de la Gare, where he met actors Patrick Dewaere, Coluche, and Miou-Miou. He made his film debut in the short Le beatnik et le minet/The beatnik and pussy (Roger Leenhardt, 1967). More minor film parts followed. In 1970, he married Élisabeth Guignot, with whom he had two children, actor Guillaume (1971–2008) and actress Julie (1973). In 1972, he appeared in Nathalie Granger (Marguerite Duras, 1972) with Lucia Bosé. The following year he played in the horror film Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse/At the Meeting with Joyous Death (1973), directed by Juan Luis Buñuel, the son of Luis Buñuel. His breakout film was Bertrand Blier's comedy Les valseuses/Going Places (1974), in which he co-starred with Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou. Les valseuses was the 3rd highest grossing film of the year in France, and his part as a whimsical, aimless thug turned him into France’s young male sensation. In the following years, he went on to become one of France's most renowned actors with films like Vincent, François, Paul... et les autres/Vincent, François, Paul and the Others (Claude Sautet, 1974) with Yves Montand, Sept morts sur ordonnance/Seven Deaths by Prescription (Jacques Rouffio, 1975) starring Michel Piccoli, and Maîtresse/mistress (Barbet Schroeder, 1976) starring Bulle Ogier. The latter provoked controversy in the United Kingdom and the United States because of its graphic depictions of sado-masochism. Then he was the co-star of Robert de Niro in the Italian epic film Novecento/1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976). The film chronicles the lives of two men during the political turmoil that took place in Italy in the first half of the 20th century. Also remarkable was La Dernière femme/The Last Woman (Marco Ferreri, 1976) starring Ornella Muti, in which his character mutilates himself. Another success was the gritty romantic comedy Préparez vos mouchoirs/Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Bertrand Blier, 1978), which received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Other memorable films were Mon oncle d'Amérique/My American Uncle (Alain Resnais, 1980), which won the Grand Prix and the FIPRESCI prizes at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival, the drama Loulou (Maurice Pialat, 1980) with Isabelle Huppert, and Le Dernier Métro/The Last Metro (François Truffaut, 1980) starring Catherine Deneuve. The latter film, set in a small Parisian theatre during the time of the French received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Film and won ten Césars. Depardieu himself was awarded for his performance as a resistance fighter. Le Dernier Métro was one of the most popular films of the year in France and one of Truffaut's most successful productions abroad.

Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Dépardieu, Loulou

French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Nancy, in the collection Cinéma Couleur, no. MC 39. Publicity still for Loulou (1979, Maurice Pialat) with Isabelle Huppert.

Exceptional Talent, Energy and Versatility
During the 1980s Gérard Depardieu’s star continued to rise. Among his most memorable films are Truffaut's final film La femme d'à côté/The Woman Next Door (François Truffaut, 1981), the farce La chèvre/The Goat (Francis Veber, 1981) with Pierre Richard, the medieval drama Le retour de Martin Guerre/The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), and the historical biopic Danton (Andrzej Wajda, 1983). Ginette Vincendeau writes in Encyclopedia of European Cinema: “Apart from exceptional talent and energy, a key to Depardieu’s success is his versatility. Equally at ease in broad farce and romantic leads, he has been a mainstay of popular cinema.” His international fame grew as a result of his performance as a doomed, hunchbacked farmer in Jean de Florette (Claude Berri, 1986) and Manon des sources (Claude Berri, 1986). Five years later, he won a César and an Oscar nomination for his starring role in Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990). He did not win the Oscar, presumably because Time magazine had run a profile that mistakenly suggested that Depardieu might have ‘participated’ in a rape at the age of nine. The claim was based on an interview carried out 13 years earlier and was the result of an incorrect translation. However, Depardieu crossed over into the American film market by co-starring in Green Card (Peter Weir, 1990). Ginette Vincendeau: “Like Jean Gabin before him, Depardieu sums up an idealised French masculinity, merging working-class virility with romanticism. Exporting himself has meant losing some of these complexities, since Depardieu’s global stardom is, so far, dependent (as was Maurice Chevalier’s) on playing a rather clichéd Frenchness as in Green Card, or even Europeanness, as in Ridley Scott’s 1492 Conquest of Paradise (1992).” In 1992, while separated from Élisabeth Guignot, he had a daughter, Roxanne, with the model Karine Sylla. In 1996 he divorced Élisabeth and began a relationship with actress Carole Bouquet, who was his partner from 1997 to 2005. Remarkable films from this period include Tous les matins du monde/All the mornings of the world (Alain Corneau, 1991), Una pura formalità/A Pure Formality (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1994), and Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh, 1996).

French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Nancy, in the collection Cinéma Couleur, no. MC 16. Photo: Georges Pierre. Publicity still for Danton (Andrzej Wajda, 1983).

Obélix
In 1999, Gérard Depardieu played for the first time Obélix in the live-action film Astérix et Obélix contre César/Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (Claude Zidi, 1999) with Christian Clavier as Asterix. The film, based on the comic book by René Goscinny, was tremendously successful at the European box offices. There would be three sequels: Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre/Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (Alain Chabat, 2002), Astérix aux jeux olympiques/Asterix at the Olympic Games (Frédéric Forestier, Thomas Langmann, 2008) and Astérix et Obélix: Au service de Sa Majesté/Astérix and Obélix: God Save Britannia (Laurent Tirard, 2012). In between he appeared in films as the comedy Le placard/The Closet (Francis Veber, 2001) with Daniel Auteuil, Tais-toi!/Shut Up (Francis Veber, 2003) with Jean Reno, the crime drama 36 Quai des Orfèvres/36 (Olivier Marchal, 2004), the Edith Piaf biopic La môme/La vie en rose (Olivier Dahan, 2007) featuring Marion Cotillard, the crime film L'instinct de mort/Mesrine: Part 1 - Killer Instinct (Jean-François Richet, 2008) and the follow-up L'ennemi public n°1/Mesrine: Part II - Public Enemy #1 (Jean-François Richet, 2008) both starring Vincent Cassel, and the drama À l'origine/In the Beginning (Xavier Giannoli, 2009). Depardieu attracted attention from the media and legal authorities for his sometimes stormy behaviour. He made a concerted effort to cut back on his alcohol consumption following a heart attack and an emergency quintuple bypass operation, in 2000. In 2003, he officially cut off contact with his son, Guillaume Depardieu when the young man threatened him with a gun and received a suspended prison sentence. Since 2005, he has lived with novelist Clémentine Igou, but in 2006, he had a son, Jean, with Hélène Bizot. Meanwhile Guillaume made headlines for drug abuse, a motorbike crash and a hospital infection contracted during the post-accident operations, eventually leading to the amputation of his leg. At 37, Guillaume died from complications linked to a sudden case of pneumonia. In August 2012, Depardieu was accused of assault and battery for punching a motorist in Paris. In November 2012, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated after he fell from his scooter. He has been an official resident of Néchin, Belgium since December 2012. French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault claimed the reason for the move was to avoid a looming 75% top rate of tax. Depardieu reacted with a public statement he was handing back his French passport. In January 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an Executive Order granting Russian citizenship to Depardieu. Depardieu soon returned the favour by attacking Putin's critics. More importantly, he continues to make good films. In La tête en friche/My Afternoons with Margueritte (Jean Becker, 2010) he played an illiterate and lonely man who bonds with an older and well-read woman (Gisèle Casadesus). The comedy Potiche/Trophy Wife (François Ozon, 2010) reunited him with Catherine Deneuve. And he played the cook in Life of Pi (Ang Lee, 2012). During his career, Gérard Depardieu has been nominated 15 times for the César for Best Actor and won it twice, in 1981 and 1991. He was also nominated for an Oscar in 1990 for his role in Cyrano de Bergerac. He is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite.

Trailer Les valseuses/Going Places (1974). Source: Michi Turner (YouTube).

Trailer Maitresse (1978). Source: BFITrailers (YouTube).

Trailer Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). Source: Old Hollywood Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: Ginette Vincendeau (Encyclopedia of European Cinema), Tracie Cooper (AllMovie), Yuri German (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Italian model and actress Maria Frau (1930) was a very photogenic starlet of the European cinema of the 1950s.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 455. Photo: Arthur Grimm / CCC-Film / Allianz. Publicity still for Stern von Rio/Star From Rio (Kurt Neumann, 1955).

Lovely Illegitimate Daughter
Maria Frau was born in Sassari on the island of Sardinia in 1930. Very photogenic, she appeared in a photo shoots of various weeklies. In 1950, she was cast in the lead role of a 13th Century mystic in the historical film Margherita da Cortona/Margaret of Cortona (Mario Bonnard, 1950). Her voice was dubbed by Lydia Simoneschi. It was the start of a brief career in the European cinema. Frau played the female lead in Luna rossa/Red Moon (Armando Fizzarotti, 1951) opposite Renato Baldini, and Il lupo della frontier/Frontier Wolf (Edoardo Anton, 1951) with Piero Lulli. Other Italian productions in which she starred were the adventure film Sul ponte dei sospiri/On the bridge of sighs (Antonio Leonviola, 1953) with Françoise Rosay, Questi fantasmi/These Phantoms (Eduardo De Filippo, 1954) starring Renato Rascel. Her first foreign film was the French comedy J'avais sept filles/My Seven Little Sins (Jean Boyer, 1954) in which she played one of the seven lovely illegitimate daughters of an old French count (Maurice Chevalier) who keeps an index of all his past loves. Didier Dumonteil at IMDb: “Maurice Chevalier is absolutely unbearable as an old beau who wants to be still young (‘tomorrow I'm 20’ is one of his repetitive songs). Only 'ham' can describe his work; the same can apply to the seven girls who pass for his illegitimate daughters (?), for his son (played by stage and TV actor Louis Velle), who is more interested in insects than in women, for the servant (an abominable Paolo Stoppa).”

Franco Andrei. German postcard by Universum-Film AG (UFA/Film-Foto), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1459. Photo: Arthur Grimm/CCC-Film/Allianz Film. Publicity still for Stern von Rio/Star from Rio (Kurt Neumann, 1955).

Impossibly Beautiful Woman
Back in Italy, Maria Frau co-starred as Cleopatra opposite Totò in his comedy Totò all'inferno/Totò in Hell (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1955). Then she appeared in the German-Italian adventure film Stern von Rio/Star from Rio (Kurt Neumann, 1955) with Johannes Heesters, Franco Andrei and Willy Fritsch, and in the French-Italian detective film Vous pigez?/Diamond Machine (Pierre Chevalier, 1955) opposite Eddie Constantine in his standard guise of hard-boiled American G-man Lemmy Caution. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “The plot is the usual mélange of intrigue, double-crosses and impossibly beautiful women. The delectable damsels in this outing include the toothsome Maria Frau, Nadine Tallier and Irene Tunc.“ In 1957, Frau left the film business to marry a Roman nobleman. Her last film had been the peplum La Venere di Cheronea/The Venus of Cheronea (Fernando Cerchio, Viktor Tourjansky, 1957) in which Belinda Lee featured as Afrodite. Hal Erickson calls it an ‘overheated melodrama’: “Naturally, the plotline requires the curvaceous Lee to disrobe at the slightest provocation, and just as naturally, the censors had a hissy-fit every time she bared her knee or shoulder. The principal attribute of La Venere di Cheronea is the excellent color cinematography of Arturo Galles.” Maria Frau had acted in 16 films.

Clip of the Luce Journal of 30 May 1956. Maria Frau, Totó and many other stars go voting. Source: Domm59 (YouTube).

Sources: Didier Dumonteil (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Do you know the French website L'Encinémathèque? A true Walhalla for film history lovers. It contains an exhibition room, called 'La collectionneuse'. Since 2003, Marlène Pilaete presents here beautiful albums with her vintage postcards of international film actresses. Take a look and be lured by the glamour and allure of these divine ladies.

Today we proudly present you in our irregular series The Choice of... Marlène's 10 favourite postcards. She writes: "In order to stay in connection with the theme of this blog, I have of course only selected European film stars. I soon realized that it was too difficult to choose my ten favourite postcards… as I have much more than ten favourites. So, I’ve decided to tackle this from another angle and to let me be guided by other criteria. I’ve finally selected these 10 postcards for various reasons: some feature a favourite star of mine, others because of the beauty of the photo, some to render homage to a specific postcard publisher, others because of their scarcity, etc. Of course, I could make a different selection every week! And I’m sure that other collectors would feel the same way."

Here is this week's Choice of Marlène.

Brigitte Bardot. Marlène: "This is not my most beautiful vintage postcard of Brigitte Bardot but it’s certainly one of the most interesting for her fans. It shows Bardot on the famous Grand Place of Brussels. This card has a divided back and the only mentions are ‘Gevaert’, which is the brand of the photographic paper, a stamp with a reference number ‘G.A. 97643' and the mention ’reproduction interdite’ (reproduction prohibited). Bardot is not mentioned anywhere. I assume that a Belgian photographer took candid shots of the star during one of her trips to Brussels and decided afterwards to print them and to sell them as postcards. I have a second card of these series in my collection."

Jacqueline Pierreux. "I like pin-ups postcards and the British Greetings series offered a great range of those. This one features French actress Jacqueline Pierreux, who was at her peak in French, Italian and Spanish movies in the fifties and the beginning of the sixties. She only made one movie in England, Top of the Form (1953). It seems that the Greetings series publishers took this opportunity to have her shapely physique displayed on their cards."

Jenny Hasselqvist. "I wanted to include a Scandinavian actress in my selection and I finally chose the Swedish silent movie star Jenny Hasselqvist, who was also a well-known ballerina in her time. The picture is from famous photographer Henry B. Goodwin."

Luisa Ferida. "This is a nice Ballerini and Fratini postcard featuring the ill-fated Italian movie star Luisa Ferida, who was executed by partisans in April 1945, just two days after Mussolini met the same fate. Alongside her lover, actor Osvaldo Valenti, she paid for her fascist sympathies with her life. It seems however that her case didn't deserve such a drastic measure."

Marlene Dietrich. "This is a scarce postcard of Marlene Dietrich from the British Beagles series, which produced movie stars postcards until the beginning of the thirties. Many collectors know for example the gorgeous hand-coloured postcards with embossed edges published by this company."

Michèle Morgan. "This is a very young Michèle Morgan on a Ross postcard from the F series, which Ross Verlag produced for the French market."

Mistinguett. "This is a French postcard from the twenties, with a caricature of Mistinguett by famous artist Raoul Cabrol (1895-1956). I like caricature postcards as they show actresses from a different angle. I have a few other postcards with drawings of stars made by talented artists. They are also interesting."

Pina Menichelli. "Spanish postcard of the silent diva Pina Menichelli in a sexy vamp pose. I've always liked Italian stars - from any period: silent, Mussolinian and post-war."

Pola Negri. "This Polish postcard shows Pola Negri on stage in Sumurun. Later, in 1920, she starred in the German movie version of this play."

Vera Bergman. "I like this Italian postcard as it has such a modern look about it. You don’t have the impression that this photo has been taken about seventy years ago. Vera Bergman was the daughter of a Dutch diplomat and became a star of Italian movies in the forties. This postcard is autographed by the actress but, as she has signed in the dark area of the photo, it is barely noticeable. You can compare this postcard with another one of Vera Bergman that I have put on l’Encinémathèque which shows her in a more traditional forties look. In any case, she is a very photogenic lady."

Merci beaucoup, Marlène!

The Choice of... is an irregularly appearing series. Earlier guests were Egbert Barten, Véronique3, Didier Hanson, Asa, Bunched Undies, Miss Mertens, Manuel Palomino Arjona, Meiter, Gill and Jan-Hein Bal. Do you also want to share your choice? Write a comment and I'll contact you.

Italian, Yugoslav-born actress Sylva Koscina (1933-1994) may be best-remembered as Iole, the bride of Steve Reeves in the original version of Hercules (1958). She also starred in several Italian and Hollywood comedies of the 1950s and 1960s.

Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, no. 20.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 28. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, Hospitalet (Barcelona), no. 109, 1964.

Miss Di Tappa
Sylva Koscina was born as Sylva Koskinon in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatia), in 1933. As a teenager, she moved to Italy during the Second World War. She was a physics student at Naples University. In 1954, she was chosen as Miss Di Tappa at the Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy bicycle race). A picture of her exchanging a kiss with the winner was published in newspapers all over Europe and this lead to a job as a model. As a fashion model, she was soon discovered for the cinema. She made a fleeting appearance in the part of an aspiring actress in the Toto comedy Siamo uomini o caporali?/Are We Men or Corporals? (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1955) before she had her breakthrough as the daughter of the train engineer in Il ferroviere/The Railroad Man (Pietro Germi, 1956). Pretty, even too elegant for the part, Sylva Koscina immediately confirmed her talent in Guendalina (Alberto Lattuada, 1957) as a young mother of Jacqueline Sassard. She played leading roles in popular comedies like Nonna Sabella/Grandmother Sabella (Dino Risi, 1957), Ladro lui, ladra lei/He a Thief She a Thief (Luigi Zampa, 1958), and Poveri millionari/Poor Millionaires (Dino Risi, 1958), Koscina alternated cleverly between roles as a vamp and as an ingenue. She represented women in the search for social upward mobility, the image of an Italy that had left its worst problems behind.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1021, 1959. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: G.B. Poletto, Rome.

French postcard by Editions P.I,, no. 934, presented by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, no. 220.

Hercules
Sylva Koscina was an actress noted for her carriage. She had an entirely feminine way of walking on the screen and she even lectured Giorgia Moll how to walk like a lady in the sophisticated comedy Mogli pericolose/Dangerous wives (Luigi Comencini, 1958). In many of her roles she gave the impression of modeling at a fashion show, head high, mouth very slightly open, eyes lost in the distance. She was the elegant actress of the sixties with an aristocratic manner bordering on snobbery. However she also seemed at ease in a Peplum (sword and sandal epic): she was a marvelous fiancee for Hercules (Steve Reeves) in Le fatiche di Ercole/Hercules (Pietro Francisci, 1958), a prototype of this film genre. In Il vigile/The Policeman (Luigi Zampa, 1960), she played herself opposite Alberto Sordi as a traffic officer. Charmed by her he lets Sylva go without a ticket, but when the film star thanks him on TV he gets into a lot of trouble. Koscina married Raimondo Castelli, a small producer connected with Minerva Films. She managed to keep well afloat with roles that were anything but negligible such as a dramatic part in Il sicario/Blood Feud (Damiano Damiani, 1961) with Belinda Lee. In La lepre e la tartaruga/The Hare and the Tortoise, an episode in Le quattro verità/The Three Fables of Love (Alessandro Blasetti, Hervé Bromberger, René Clair, Luis García Berlanga, 1963), director Alessandro Blasetti constructs a deliciously sophisticated duel between her and Monica Vitti. In 1965 Sylva took part in Giulietta degli spiriti/Juliet of the Spirits (Federico Fellini, 1965) as one of Giulietta Masina's sisters. But she also became a television personality who was often the special guest on variety shows.

French postcard by EDUG, no. 145. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 109. Retail price: 2 Lei. Photo: publicity still for Deadlier Than the Male (Ralph Thomas, 1967) with Richard Johnson.

Hollywood
After passing thirty, Sylva Koscina tried playing the American card. She starred in the comedy caper Three Bites of the Apple (Alvin Ganzer, 1967) with David McCallum and Deadlier Than the Male (Ralph Thomas, 1966), in which she and Elke Sommer portrayed sophisticated professional killers dueling with Bulldog Drummond (Richard Johnson). She partnered with Paul Newman in The Secret War of Harry Frigg (Jack Smight, 1968) and with Kirk Douglas in A Lovely Way to Die (David Lowell Rich, 1968). She appeared as a German doctor, Bianca, in Hornet's Nest (Phil Karlson, Franco Cirino, 1970) with Rock Hudson, but without luck. Her fame became a bit tarnished, but it was given a boost with her appearance in the Italian edition of Playboy magazine in 1967. The photography by Angelo Frontoni was exquisite, and the fact of a film star photographed bare-breasted in a magazine provoked a scandal. So, the image of Sylva, based on an elegant and slightly snobbish femininity was enriched with an erotic touch. In that same period L'assolute naturale/He and She (Mauro Bolognini, 1969) was released complete with a full nude shot. This was a sign of the radical change Italian cinema and society were undergoing. Some of her lovemaking scenes to Gabriele Tinti in the fantasy film Lisa and the Devil (Mario Bava, Alfredo Leone, 1974) had to be cut because they were considered pornographic.

Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, no. 297.

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 210. Sent by mail in 1977.

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 206.

Erotic Appearances
Since the early 1960s, Sylva Koscina had invested most of her star salaries in a luxurious villa, in the well-to-do district of Marino, Rome, complete with 16th centuries furniture and artists paintings. This lasted until her spending overcame her dwindling income, and in 1976, when she had to face a tax evasion inquest, she was forced to sell her house. She lived with Raimondo Castelli since 1960, but they could not marry because his wife refused a divorce. In 1967 Raimondo and Sylva married in Mexico, but this marriage was not officially recognized in Italy, and they separated in 1971. Sylva depended more and more on erotic appearances. In June 1975 she was on the cover and featured again in the Italian Playboy. She appeared in sex comedies like Some Like It Cool (Franz Antel, 1977) with Tony Curtis, and in a segment of Sunday Lovers (Dino Risi, 1980) with Ugo Tognazzi. In the 1980s Sylva had a long running live theatre performance in Rome. By then a mature but still beautiful Koscina, performed every night in the nude. She only incidentally appeared in films, including Cenerentola '80/Cinderella ´80 (Roberto Malenotti, 1984) with Adolfo Celi, and Rimini Rimini (Sergio Corbucci, 1987) with Laura Antonelli. Koscina returned before the cameras in the year just prior to her death: her last appearance was in the tantalizingly titled C'è Kim Novak al telefono/Kim Novak is on the Phone (Riki Roseo, 1994). After a long battle with breast cancer, Sylva Koscina died in Rome in 1994, aged 61.

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 64.

Vintage postcard by Studio Sombor.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 41. Retail price: 2 Lei.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 217. Retail price: 1,50 Lei.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Simon Benattar-Bourgeay (CinéArtistes) (French), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Mario Guaita aka Mario Ausonia (1881-1956) was an Italian actor, director, producer and scriptwriter in the silent era. He had his international breakthrough with Spartaco (Enrico Vidali, 1913).

French postcard by Cinématographes Méric.

Perfect Body
Mario Ausonia was born Mario Guaita in Milan, Italy in 1881, into a well-to-do family of Lombardy. He left his studies of medicine and dedicated himself to athletics and vaudeville. As member of the Trio Ausonia, ‘Gladiators of the Twentieth Century’, he did tableaux vivants of famous paintings and sculptures. The trio knew triumphant successes, not only in Italy but all over Europe. In 1912 he switched to cinema and played at the Pasquali company of Turin his first – supporting - role in Sui gradini del trono/On the Steps of the Throne (Ubaldo Maria Del Colle, 1912), starring Alberto Capozzi. Here, Guaita already acted under his stage name Ausonia. He would use this name all through his film career. After another supporting part in a film with Capozzi, L’ultimo convegno/Under Suspicion (Giovanni Enrico Vidali, 1913), Guaita had a major role in La zia di Carlo/Charley’s Aunt (Umberto Paradisi, 1913), an adaptation of Charley’s Aunt. His real and international breakthrough came with the epic film Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913, released early 1914), a prestigious production by Pasquali and directed by Enrico Vidali, who had co-acted with Ausonia in Sui gradini del trono and had directed him in L’ultimo convegno. The Italian film journal Vita cinematografica praised Guaita for ‘the plastic beauty of his appearance, the attraction and at the same time the power and swiftness of his perfect body, his penetrating glance, and his perfect acting.’ In American publicity he was described as ‘a celebrated Italian wrestler and fine actor, whose physique and finely chiseled face make him an extraordinary prototype [sic!] of the ancient gladiator.’ Actually in Spartaco the camera is often focusing on Ausonia’s naked upper body, his muscular arms and his stern look into the camera. The film was strongly based on the novel by Raffaello Giovagnoli on Spartacus, but where the hero dies on the battlefield in the novel, Ausonia’s Spartacus reconciles with Crassus and marries his daughter. So romantic love conquers political conflict. After a minor part in Il posto vuoto/The empty place (Giuseppe Giusti, 1914), Guaita-Ausonia played the lead in Il principe saltimbanco/The prince acrobat (Giovanni Enrico Vidali, 1914-1915), about a kidnapped little prince who becomes an acrobat. While the press mocked the audience’s tears over the melodrama, it praised Guaita’s restrained acting. Pasquali also exploited the success of Spartaco by having Ausonia perform in another epic, Salammbo/Salambo, a $100,000 Spectacle (Domenico Gaido, 1914, released early 1915), with Suzanne De Labroy in the title role, and Ausonia as Matho. The film was made in coproduction with George Kleine, the biggest importer of Italian films in the US at the time. Ausonia then acted in other films (athletic and other) at the Gloria company, such as Il romanzo di un atleta/The romance of an athlete (Vittorio Rossi-Pianelli, 1915), Un dramma tra le belve/A drama among the beasts (Amleto Palermi, 1915), Il più forte/The strongest (Guido Di Nardo, 1915), Il mistero dell’educanda di Sant-Bon/The mystery of the education of Saint-Bon, (Guido Di Nardo, 1915-1916), and Un grande drama in un piccolo cuore/A great drama in a small heart, (Guido Di Nardo, 1915-1916). During the First World War, Guaita-Ausonia served in the army, but obtained several leaves for reasons of film parts. Leaving Gloria, he shifted to the Jupiter company of Turin to play opposite Diana Karenne in the drama Il marchio/The Mark (Armand Puget, 1916) – the press praised the mise-en-scene and cinematography of the film but disliked Karenne - and to another Torinese company, Phoenix, for Panther (Gero Zambuto, 1916) where Guaita starred opposite Zambuto’s wife Claudia Zambuto in an adventure film. In 1917 Ausonia played in just one film, Vittime/Victim (Giuseppe Pinto, 1917), produced by Jupiter, while he did no films in 1918.

French postcard. Mario Guaita-Ausonia in the middle.

A Modern Hercules
At Films A. De Giglio in Turin, Marco Guaita, by now known as Ausonia, obtained his greatest successes. Films such as La cintura delle amazzoni/The belt of the Amazons (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1920) and Atlas (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1920) had vast diffusion and obtained positive response all over. In 1919, Ausonia relaunched himself in L’atleta fantasma/Ther ghost athlete (Raimondo Scotti, 1919) about a bland society man who leads a Zorro- or Batman-like double life as a masked athlete – exactly the kind of man his fiancée dreams about. He stops two antiquarians from robbing a precious jewel from a museum, by posing as the statue of the Dying Athlete, which then becomes alive during the robbery. He kicks the thieves out, but they hire a gang to steal the jewel again and to kidnap the fiancée. The whole film constantly plays with Guaita’s physique and powers, from the opening images showing the man with and without clothes to when the fiancée mockingly asks whether he wouldn’t like to be like the statue in the museum. After this film Ausonia did a whole series of films at De Giglio directed by himself and often with Elsa Zara as his female partner. The series started with Lotte di giganti/Battles of the Giants (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1919), about a Duke who wants to refresh his offspring, so he needs a modern Hercules as the man for his daughter. In the two-part film Atlas, he is a European child raised by Indians. One day other Europeans are captured, Atlas’s European roots come back and he flees with them. Back in Europe, he discovers the mystery which destroyed his family and marries his Kate. Next followed La cintura delle Amazzoni, a modern adventure film which had little to do with one of the works of Hercules, the two-part La mascotte di Sparta (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1921), and the Honoré de Balzac adaptation Sotto i ponti di Parigi/Under the bridges ofParis (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1920), which was well received by both press and audiences. In Frisson/Thrill (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1922) he tries to extort money from his aunts to buy a theatre. La nave dei milliardi/Ship of billions (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1922) doubled much of the plot of Atlas and probably used parts of the other film in flashbacks, while in Il pescatore di perle (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1922) Ausonia models for a statue of a wave and afterwards ends up in an island, which afterwards proves to be very close to the coastline. In Gli spettri della fattoria/The ghostsof the farm(Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1923), shot in the mountains of Northern Italy, he is a new country doctor who discovers a former, Spanish girlfriend resides there. She pretends there are ghosts on a farm, to mask the shady business of her husband and herself. Ausonia’s reckless acrobatic tours astounded, even if to avoid suspension of his work he also used a fixed understudy, an extra and athlete called Franco. When the crisis hit Italian cinema in the early 1920s, Ausonia moved to France, where he founded in Marseille the Société Cinématographe Ausonia. According to cinematographer Fiorio who worked with him in France, ‘it was his wife, the little attractive Mrs. Felicie, who wrote the scripts and collaborated in the direction of the films. She was a very good woman who patiently supported the caprices of her husband. We worked in a little studio in the outskirts of Marseille, very badly equipped and of no importance.’ In Marseille Ausonia made the films Dans les mansardes de Paris (1924) and L’emeraude de la folie/Theemeraldof madness (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, Luigi Fiorio, 1925). He also acted in Mes petits/My little ones (Pierre Barlatier, Charles Keppens, 1923) and in La course à l’amour/The raceto love (Pierre Barlatier, Charles Keppens, 1924). Both films starred Edouard Mathé and Gina Relly, and were made at the Marseille based Lauréa Films company. Ausonia shot his last film in Turin, the Western La donna carnefice nel paese dell'oro/The womanhangmanin the landof gold (Mario Guaita-Ausonia, 1926), an adaptation of a novel by Arnaldo Cipolla. Then, Ausonia left the film world and established himself in Marseille, where he opened a small cinema at the Pointe-Rouge in the periphery of the city. He stopped this as well in 1947, when he retired altogether. ‘Calm, slow in his gestures, rosy, fresh, smiling, with an eternal cigarette on his lips, dressed with sportive elegance’, scriptwriter Giovanni Drovetti remembers him. Mario Guaita alias Ausonia died in Marseille in 1956. Mario Guaita-Ausonia was married to Emilia Amoroso, and after she died, he remarried with Renée Felicie Deliot.

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4231. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: I giovani patrizi si arruolano contro Spartaco (The Young patricians conspire against Spartacus).

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4229. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: Valeria si intrattiene con Mirza parlando di Spartaco (Valeria sits with Mirza, talking about Spartacus). Spartaco's sister Mirza (Cristian Ruspoli) has become the slave of Crassus' sister Valeria (Maria Gandini). Valeria gets interested in Spartacus because of what Mirza tells about him.

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4224. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: L'amore di Spartaco per Valeria - Metrobio all'agguato (The Love of Spartaco for Valeria - Metrobio plots a trap).

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4232. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: Il giuramento della Lega degli oppresi (The Oath of the League of the oppressed). The gladiators swear loyalty to Spartacus (Mario Guaita-Ausonia).

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4226. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: Crasso muove contro Spartaco fra i saluti del popolo festante (Crassus moves against Spartacus amongst the celebrating people). Eventually Spartacus will beat Crassus (Enrico Bracci).

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4235. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: I gladiatori discendono dall'accampamento del Vesuvio (The gladiators descend from their camps at Mount Vesuvius).

Italian postcard bt V. Uff. Ref. St., Terni, no. 4227. Photo: Pasquali Film, Torino. Publicity still for Spartaco – Il gladiatore della Tracia/Spartacus (1913). Caption: Spartaco condamnato a servire fra i gladiatori (Spartacus condemned to serve among the gladiators).

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Maciste & Co), Thomas Späth, Margit Tröhler (Spartacus – Männermuskeln, Heldenbilder, oder: die Befreiung der Moral’, in: Antike im Kino), CinéRessources and IMDb.

Elfie Maierhofer

Happy Birthday, Joan Collins!

Ileana Leonidoff

Gordon Harker

Mady Rahl

Imre Soós

Ivy Close

Marcel Dalio

Little Tony (1941-2013)

Lydia Potechina

Emmanuelle Riva

Ida Wüst

Susan Denberg

Alda Borelli

Annabella

Gérard Depardieu

Maria Frau

The Choice of Marlène Pilaete

Sylva Koscina

Mario Guaita-Ausonia