Paul van Yperen's Blog, page 315
March 14, 2017
Rodion Nahapetov
Rodion Nahapetov (1944) works as an actor as well as a writer and director for both the Russian cinema and for Hollywood. He appeared in more than 60 leading roles, including his spot-on depiction of Lenin in Serdtse materi/A Mother’s Heart (1967).
Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. M 11 268, 1970. This postcard was printed in an edition of 250.000 cards. The price was 6 kop.
Orphanage
Rodion (Rodin) Rafailovich Nahapetov was born in 1944 in Pyatikhatki, located in the Dnepropetrovsk region of the Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. His mother, Galina Antonovna Prokopenko was a schoolteacher.
During the Nazi occupation, Galina was involved in the underground organization Motherland that operated in Krivoi Rog. Rodion was delivered by Russian soldiers during the liberation of the Ukraine. Galina aptly named her son Rodina, which means Motherland.
Later, his name was changed to Rodion. Rodion’s father, Raphael Nahapetov, never met his son. After the war, Raphael returned to his family. Galina never married. Rodion lived with his grandmother in the village of Skelevatka (a suburb of Krivoi Rog) until he was 5.
In 1950, Galina and Rodion moved to the city of Dniepropetrovsk. She found a job teaching in Elementary School Number 34. By the early 1950s she was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. The management of the school decided to place Rodion in an orphanage, where he spent almost two years. Galina’s health improved and the school helped her procure a small room in a communal apartment. She brought ten-year-old Rodion home from the orphanage and he resumed his place in school.
Rodion was once asked to play the part of a bear in a school play celebrating the new year. Wearing a mask, he began to growl fiercely and imitate the bear so well the students applauded his performance enthusiastically. This experience influenced his professional path in the days to come.
In 1960, he travelled to Moscow after receiving his high school diploma. His goal was to be accepted in the prestigious acting department of VGIK (USSR University of Cinema). Rodion played the part of an old man for his audition, reading a passage from Maxim Gorky’s novel Childhood. Renowned masters of Russian cinema, Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova recognised the talent in the sixteen-year old, and he moved into the dormitory of the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow.
Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 093 45, 1968. This postcard was printed in an edition of 200.000 cards. The price was 8 kop.
Lenin
Rodion Nahapetov acting career started in the third year of his studies. His film debut role was an engineer named Gena in the romantic comedy Zhivyot takoy paren/There Lived Such a Lad (Vasili Shukshin, 1966).
An important acting challenge was playing the young Vladimir Lenin in Serdtse materi/A Mother’s Heart (Mark Donskoy, 1967) and the sequel Vernost materi/A Mother’s Loyalty (Mark Donskoy, 1968). Rodion was only twenty-years-old and was required to portray the life of Lenin over a period of 31 years (age 16 to 47).
His talent to play much older people served him well. In response to his lauded performance of Lenin, Nahapetov received the Moscow Komsomol Award and was presented the Order of Merit medal. These roles in the 1960s made Nahapetov tremendously popular among a loyal following of fans.
Among his most famous films is the romance Vlyublyonnye/The Lovers (Elyer Ishmukhamedov, 1971) with Anastasiya Vertinskaya . During this period Rodion’s mother had become seriously ill. The last film she saw which starred her son was A Mother’s Heart. Galina Prokopenko died in Moscow in 1966. Rodion grieved deeply over the death of his beloved mother.
Despite his marked success in acting, Rodion chose to return to VKIG to widen the scope of his talent and study directing. His debut work as a director, S toboy i bez tebya/With You and Without You (Rodion Nahapetov, 1974) was filmed at Mosfilm Studios in Moscow. The film was popular among public and critics.
Nahapetov married actress Vera Glagoleva in 1974. They had collaborations in many films. Their first daughter Anna was born in 1978. Their second daughter Maria was born in 1980. They divorced in 1988.
In 1975, Nikita Mikhalkov chose Rodion for the lead role of Pototsky in Raba lyubvi/Slave of Love (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1975). This role brought him major fame. The film remains a classic of the Soviet cinema – applauded by both critics and audiences.
One of Rodion’s most famous roles was playing pilot Belobrov in the classic film Torpedonostsy/Torpedo Bombers (Semyon Aranovich, 1983). In 1985 he received The Gold Medal award (equivalent to an Academy Award) for this role. He also continued his directorial work. He directed such films as the comedy Vragi/Enemies (Rodion Nahapetov, 1979) after Maxim Gorky and the romantic drama Zontik dlya novobrachnykh/Umbrella for Newlyweds (Rodion Nahapetov, 1987).
Anastasiya Vertinskaya . Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no 1574, 1972. This postcard was printed in an edition of 200.000 cards. Retail price: 5 Kop.
Hollywood
In 1987, Rodion Nahapetov filmed the epic Na iskhode nochi/At The Edge of the Night (Rodion Nahapetov, 1988) about the early days of World War II. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film for international distribution. The studio sold the film to 91 countries around the world.
While promoting the international release of the film in Los Angeles he met media consultant Natasha Shliapnikoff. She started to manage Nahapetov’s career in Hollywood, and projects slowly started to materialize. Nahapetov and Shliapnikoff married in 1991. In 1995, he directed his first American film, Stir (Rodion Nahapetov, 1995) starring Traci Lords. Natasha produced the film.
Nahapetov wrote about this period in his biographical book In Love (1999). In 2000, the Russian TV channel ORT asked Rodion to direct three episodes of their TV series Uboynaya sila/Lethal Force (2000-2007). These episodes, filmed in Los Angeles, became the most popular of the entire series. ORT asked Rodion to create a series for them. This resulted in the 12-part series Russkie v Gorode Angelov/Russians in The City of Angels (Rodion Nahapetov, 2002) with guest stars as Gary Busey, Eric Roberts and Sean Young.
Rodion also directed the comedy Moya bolshaya armyanskaya svadba/My Big Armenian Wedding (Rodion Nahapetov, 2004) with the participation of Armenian and Russian stars, and the psychological thriller Contamination (Rodion Nahapetov, 2007) starring Karen Black.
Rodion Nahapetov’s oldest daughter Anna is a ballerina with the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet and an actress in films and theatre. His daughter Maria is an artist. Natasha and Rodion’s daughter, Katia, is a photographer and singer-songwriter who performs in Los Angeles clubs. Rodion has a granddaughter, Paulina, born in 2006 to Anna Nahapetova and Egor Simachev and a grandson, Kiril, born in 2007 to Maria Nahapetova and Eugene Dzyura.
Currently, Rodion Nahapetov is working on a new film, Dandelion Wine, based upon Ray Bradbury’s novel of the same name.
Hilarious scene from Vlyublyonnye/The Lovers (1970). Source: Александр Щипин (YouTube).
Sources: Rodionnahapetov.com, and .

Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. M 11 268, 1970. This postcard was printed in an edition of 250.000 cards. The price was 6 kop.
Orphanage
Rodion (Rodin) Rafailovich Nahapetov was born in 1944 in Pyatikhatki, located in the Dnepropetrovsk region of the Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. His mother, Galina Antonovna Prokopenko was a schoolteacher.
During the Nazi occupation, Galina was involved in the underground organization Motherland that operated in Krivoi Rog. Rodion was delivered by Russian soldiers during the liberation of the Ukraine. Galina aptly named her son Rodina, which means Motherland.
Later, his name was changed to Rodion. Rodion’s father, Raphael Nahapetov, never met his son. After the war, Raphael returned to his family. Galina never married. Rodion lived with his grandmother in the village of Skelevatka (a suburb of Krivoi Rog) until he was 5.
In 1950, Galina and Rodion moved to the city of Dniepropetrovsk. She found a job teaching in Elementary School Number 34. By the early 1950s she was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. The management of the school decided to place Rodion in an orphanage, where he spent almost two years. Galina’s health improved and the school helped her procure a small room in a communal apartment. She brought ten-year-old Rodion home from the orphanage and he resumed his place in school.
Rodion was once asked to play the part of a bear in a school play celebrating the new year. Wearing a mask, he began to growl fiercely and imitate the bear so well the students applauded his performance enthusiastically. This experience influenced his professional path in the days to come.
In 1960, he travelled to Moscow after receiving his high school diploma. His goal was to be accepted in the prestigious acting department of VGIK (USSR University of Cinema). Rodion played the part of an old man for his audition, reading a passage from Maxim Gorky’s novel Childhood. Renowned masters of Russian cinema, Sergei Gerasimov and Tamara Makarova recognised the talent in the sixteen-year old, and he moved into the dormitory of the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow.

Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. A 093 45, 1968. This postcard was printed in an edition of 200.000 cards. The price was 8 kop.
Lenin
Rodion Nahapetov acting career started in the third year of his studies. His film debut role was an engineer named Gena in the romantic comedy Zhivyot takoy paren/There Lived Such a Lad (Vasili Shukshin, 1966).
An important acting challenge was playing the young Vladimir Lenin in Serdtse materi/A Mother’s Heart (Mark Donskoy, 1967) and the sequel Vernost materi/A Mother’s Loyalty (Mark Donskoy, 1968). Rodion was only twenty-years-old and was required to portray the life of Lenin over a period of 31 years (age 16 to 47).
His talent to play much older people served him well. In response to his lauded performance of Lenin, Nahapetov received the Moscow Komsomol Award and was presented the Order of Merit medal. These roles in the 1960s made Nahapetov tremendously popular among a loyal following of fans.
Among his most famous films is the romance Vlyublyonnye/The Lovers (Elyer Ishmukhamedov, 1971) with Anastasiya Vertinskaya . During this period Rodion’s mother had become seriously ill. The last film she saw which starred her son was A Mother’s Heart. Galina Prokopenko died in Moscow in 1966. Rodion grieved deeply over the death of his beloved mother.
Despite his marked success in acting, Rodion chose to return to VKIG to widen the scope of his talent and study directing. His debut work as a director, S toboy i bez tebya/With You and Without You (Rodion Nahapetov, 1974) was filmed at Mosfilm Studios in Moscow. The film was popular among public and critics.
Nahapetov married actress Vera Glagoleva in 1974. They had collaborations in many films. Their first daughter Anna was born in 1978. Their second daughter Maria was born in 1980. They divorced in 1988.
In 1975, Nikita Mikhalkov chose Rodion for the lead role of Pototsky in Raba lyubvi/Slave of Love (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1975). This role brought him major fame. The film remains a classic of the Soviet cinema – applauded by both critics and audiences.
One of Rodion’s most famous roles was playing pilot Belobrov in the classic film Torpedonostsy/Torpedo Bombers (Semyon Aranovich, 1983). In 1985 he received The Gold Medal award (equivalent to an Academy Award) for this role. He also continued his directorial work. He directed such films as the comedy Vragi/Enemies (Rodion Nahapetov, 1979) after Maxim Gorky and the romantic drama Zontik dlya novobrachnykh/Umbrella for Newlyweds (Rodion Nahapetov, 1987).

Anastasiya Vertinskaya . Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no 1574, 1972. This postcard was printed in an edition of 200.000 cards. Retail price: 5 Kop.
Hollywood
In 1987, Rodion Nahapetov filmed the epic Na iskhode nochi/At The Edge of the Night (Rodion Nahapetov, 1988) about the early days of World War II. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film for international distribution. The studio sold the film to 91 countries around the world.
While promoting the international release of the film in Los Angeles he met media consultant Natasha Shliapnikoff. She started to manage Nahapetov’s career in Hollywood, and projects slowly started to materialize. Nahapetov and Shliapnikoff married in 1991. In 1995, he directed his first American film, Stir (Rodion Nahapetov, 1995) starring Traci Lords. Natasha produced the film.
Nahapetov wrote about this period in his biographical book In Love (1999). In 2000, the Russian TV channel ORT asked Rodion to direct three episodes of their TV series Uboynaya sila/Lethal Force (2000-2007). These episodes, filmed in Los Angeles, became the most popular of the entire series. ORT asked Rodion to create a series for them. This resulted in the 12-part series Russkie v Gorode Angelov/Russians in The City of Angels (Rodion Nahapetov, 2002) with guest stars as Gary Busey, Eric Roberts and Sean Young.
Rodion also directed the comedy Moya bolshaya armyanskaya svadba/My Big Armenian Wedding (Rodion Nahapetov, 2004) with the participation of Armenian and Russian stars, and the psychological thriller Contamination (Rodion Nahapetov, 2007) starring Karen Black.
Rodion Nahapetov’s oldest daughter Anna is a ballerina with the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet and an actress in films and theatre. His daughter Maria is an artist. Natasha and Rodion’s daughter, Katia, is a photographer and singer-songwriter who performs in Los Angeles clubs. Rodion has a granddaughter, Paulina, born in 2006 to Anna Nahapetova and Egor Simachev and a grandson, Kiril, born in 2007 to Maria Nahapetova and Eugene Dzyura.
Currently, Rodion Nahapetov is working on a new film, Dandelion Wine, based upon Ray Bradbury’s novel of the same name.
Hilarious scene from Vlyublyonnye/The Lovers (1970). Source: Александр Щипин (YouTube).
Sources: Rodionnahapetov.com, and .
Published on March 14, 2017 23:00
March 13, 2017
Marisa Mell
Curvaceous Austrian actress Marisa Mell (1939-1992) became a cult figure of 1960s Italian B-films. Her most famous role is criminal mastermind Eva Kant in Mario Bava’s Diabolik (1968).
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/349. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/407. Photo: Lothar Winkler.
Nasty Car Accident
Marisa Mell was born as Marlies Theres Moitzi in Graz, Austria, in 1939. She was raised by her schoolteacher mother.
In 1954 she appeared in an uncredited part in the film Das Licht der Liebe/The Light of Love (Robert A. Stemmle, 1954) starring Paula Wessely . Marlies left Graz to study acting at the Max-Reinhard-Seminar in Vienna, where she graduated together with Senta Berger , Heidelinde Weis and Erika Pluhar.
Her beauty and natural talent gave her plenty of stage presence. She changed her name into Marisa Mell and left Austria for Germany in the late 1950s. A string of minor roles followed in films like Das Nachtlokal zum Silbermond/The Night Bar At the Silvery Moon (Wolfgang Glück, 1959), Am Galgen hängt die Liebe/Love Hangs at the Gallow (Edwin Zbonek, 1960) and the Edgar Wallace adaptation Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee/Puzzle of the Red Orchid (Helmut Ashley, 1962) with Christopher Lee .
She played her first lead in Venusberg (Rolf Thiele, 1963). Just now her career began to escalate, she was involved in a nasty car accident in France. For six hours, she lay unconscious, unaware that she nearly lost her right eye. The disfigurement extended to her lip as well. She spent two years undergoing plastic surgery. No damage remained in her face, except for a distinctive curl of her upper lip, but, according to her fan ‘Blundering Man’ at the blog Cult Sirens , this added “even more charm to her already attractive features.”
Following her recovery, Mell headed for Britain, where she easily played the role of a film star in French Dressing (1964), the first feature of Britain's bad boy Ken Russell. She next made Masquerade (Basil Dearden, 1965) with Cliff Robertson. She turned down a seven-year Hollywood contract, saying that while the payment would have been great, "the contract was a whole book. I think that even to go to the toilet I would have needed a permission." Instead of Hollywood she chose for Rome.
German postcard by ISV, Sort. 16/6.
German postcard by Fred W. Sander-Verlag, Minden (Kolibri-karte), no. 1942.
Sexy Criminal Mastermind
Marisa Mell started her Italian film career with the Oscar-nominated comedy Casanova 70 (Mario Monicelli, 1965) starring Marcello Mastroianni . Among her co-stars were other ravishing beauties like Michèle Mercier and Virna Lisi .
The following year she played one of the leads in the spy thriller New York chiama Superdrago/New York Calls Super Dragon (Calvin Jackson Padget aka Giorgio Ferroni, 1966). Mell's beauty and flair for comedy helped bring her career into full swing.
In 1967, she was cast by American producer David Merrick for the title role in the Broadway musical Mata Hari. The director was Vincente Minelli and her co-star Pernell Roberts. Marisa got a buildup that included coverage in Vogue and McCall's, but at the Washington preview “everything from the scenery to the sound system came apart”, according to Time magazine. Mata Hari opened to 'lethal reviews', and Merrick closed the production before it could open on Broadway.
Marisa returned to Italy and starred as Eva Kant in Diabolik/Danger: Diabolik (1968), directed by Mario Bava and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. The film was based on one of the longest running - and most successful - Italian comic strips. Eva Kant is the sexy and mysterious sidekick to antihero Diabolik, a criminal mastermind finding great pleasure in leading the authorities in various wild goose chases.
According to Blundering Man at Cult Sirens , Bava “had preferred her over Catherine Deneuve , no less, as he was searching for a ‘comic book’ style of beauty. Danger: Diabolik remains a successful adaptation of a comic on the big screen (and maybe the ultimate role for stolid star John Philip Law) and the various super hero costumes could've been an inspiration for Tim Burton's Batman.”
Small Romanian collectors card by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Der letzte Ritt nach Santa Cruz/The Last Ride to Santa Cruz (Rolf Olsen, 1964) with Mario Adorf and Thomas Fritsch .
Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Masquerade (Basil Dearden, 1965) with Cliff Robertson.
Small Romanian collectors card by Cooperativa Fotografica. Photo: publicity still for Che notti ragazzi!/That night guys! (Giorgio Capitani, 1966).
Yugoslavian postcard by Cik Razglednica.
Notorious Cocaine Scandal
For Marisa Mell then started the best and more productive years of her career. She worked mainly in Italy, with occasional stops in France and Spain. In 1969 she played the challenging dual role of an asthmatic, dying wife and a seductive stripper in Una sull'altra/One on Top of the Other (Lucio Fulci, 1969).
That year she had a miscarriage. Father of the child was Pier Luigi Torri with whom she lived for about three years. During that time, Torri produced one of Marisa's better (yet unsuccessful) films, Senza via d'uscita/No Way Out (Piero Sciumé, 1970), co-starring Philippe Leroy. Torri had to leave Italy in 1971 after a notorious cocaine scandal to avoid prison.
Another interesting film is Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso/Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (Umberto Lenzi, 1971) starring the father of Hollywood hunk Antonio Sabato, Antonio Sabato Sr. In 1975 she appeared in the Diana Ross musical Mahogany (Berry Gordy, 1975). In Some Like It Cool/Casanova & Co. (Franz Antel, 1977). Marisa was joined by Tony Curtis, Marisa Berenson, Sylva Koscina and Britt Ekland.
In between Marisa found the time to pose nude for the Italian version of Playboy in the November 1976 issue. As Mell got older, femme fatale roles in good films were no longer offered to her. In the 1980s she appeared in more and more obscure B-films, the majority being soft sex comedies, which were distributed only in Europe.
In the late 1980s, the American television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 brought the actress to a new generation of B-film viewers when Danger: Diabolik was featured in an episode in 1988. The show also spoofed another of her films, New York chiama Superdrago/New York Calls Super Dragon.
She wrote her autobiography Coverlove which was published in Vienna in 1990. That same year, she appeared in Quest for the Mighty Sword/Ator III: The Hobgoblin (Joe D'Amato, 1990), co-starring strongman Eric Allan Kramer and Laura ‘Black Emmanuelle’ Gemser. Her last film appearance was in the comedy I Love Vienna (Houchang Allahyari, 1991).
In Vienna Marisa Mell passed away from throat cancer in 1992. She was only 53 and died in poverty. Only a few friends attended her funeral. She had been married twice, to Henri Tucci and to Espartaco Santoni. In 1996 her best friend Erika Plughar published Marisa, Rückblenden einer Freundschaft (Marisa, Flashbacks of a Friendship).
Trailer of Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee/Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962). Source: RialtoFilm (YouTube).
Trailer for Diabolik/Danger: Diabolik (1968). Source: Danios12345 (YouTube).
Scene from Diabolik/Danger: Diabolik (1968). Source: Agodipino (YouTube).
Marisa Mell in Una sull'altra/One on Top of the Other (1969). Source: Stranevisione (YouTube).
Sources: Mirko di Wallenberg (Marisa Mell blog), Blundering Man (Cult Sirens), Brian J. Walker (Brian’s Drive-In Theater), Time, Wikipedia and .

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

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/407. Photo: Lothar Winkler.
Nasty Car Accident
Marisa Mell was born as Marlies Theres Moitzi in Graz, Austria, in 1939. She was raised by her schoolteacher mother.
In 1954 she appeared in an uncredited part in the film Das Licht der Liebe/The Light of Love (Robert A. Stemmle, 1954) starring Paula Wessely . Marlies left Graz to study acting at the Max-Reinhard-Seminar in Vienna, where she graduated together with Senta Berger , Heidelinde Weis and Erika Pluhar.
Her beauty and natural talent gave her plenty of stage presence. She changed her name into Marisa Mell and left Austria for Germany in the late 1950s. A string of minor roles followed in films like Das Nachtlokal zum Silbermond/The Night Bar At the Silvery Moon (Wolfgang Glück, 1959), Am Galgen hängt die Liebe/Love Hangs at the Gallow (Edwin Zbonek, 1960) and the Edgar Wallace adaptation Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee/Puzzle of the Red Orchid (Helmut Ashley, 1962) with Christopher Lee .
She played her first lead in Venusberg (Rolf Thiele, 1963). Just now her career began to escalate, she was involved in a nasty car accident in France. For six hours, she lay unconscious, unaware that she nearly lost her right eye. The disfigurement extended to her lip as well. She spent two years undergoing plastic surgery. No damage remained in her face, except for a distinctive curl of her upper lip, but, according to her fan ‘Blundering Man’ at the blog Cult Sirens , this added “even more charm to her already attractive features.”
Following her recovery, Mell headed for Britain, where she easily played the role of a film star in French Dressing (1964), the first feature of Britain's bad boy Ken Russell. She next made Masquerade (Basil Dearden, 1965) with Cliff Robertson. She turned down a seven-year Hollywood contract, saying that while the payment would have been great, "the contract was a whole book. I think that even to go to the toilet I would have needed a permission." Instead of Hollywood she chose for Rome.

German postcard by ISV, Sort. 16/6.

German postcard by Fred W. Sander-Verlag, Minden (Kolibri-karte), no. 1942.
Sexy Criminal Mastermind
Marisa Mell started her Italian film career with the Oscar-nominated comedy Casanova 70 (Mario Monicelli, 1965) starring Marcello Mastroianni . Among her co-stars were other ravishing beauties like Michèle Mercier and Virna Lisi .
The following year she played one of the leads in the spy thriller New York chiama Superdrago/New York Calls Super Dragon (Calvin Jackson Padget aka Giorgio Ferroni, 1966). Mell's beauty and flair for comedy helped bring her career into full swing.
In 1967, she was cast by American producer David Merrick for the title role in the Broadway musical Mata Hari. The director was Vincente Minelli and her co-star Pernell Roberts. Marisa got a buildup that included coverage in Vogue and McCall's, but at the Washington preview “everything from the scenery to the sound system came apart”, according to Time magazine. Mata Hari opened to 'lethal reviews', and Merrick closed the production before it could open on Broadway.
Marisa returned to Italy and starred as Eva Kant in Diabolik/Danger: Diabolik (1968), directed by Mario Bava and produced by Dino De Laurentiis. The film was based on one of the longest running - and most successful - Italian comic strips. Eva Kant is the sexy and mysterious sidekick to antihero Diabolik, a criminal mastermind finding great pleasure in leading the authorities in various wild goose chases.
According to Blundering Man at Cult Sirens , Bava “had preferred her over Catherine Deneuve , no less, as he was searching for a ‘comic book’ style of beauty. Danger: Diabolik remains a successful adaptation of a comic on the big screen (and maybe the ultimate role for stolid star John Philip Law) and the various super hero costumes could've been an inspiration for Tim Burton's Batman.”

Small Romanian collectors card by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Der letzte Ritt nach Santa Cruz/The Last Ride to Santa Cruz (Rolf Olsen, 1964) with Mario Adorf and Thomas Fritsch .

Italian postcard. Photo: Dear Film. Publicity still for Masquerade (Basil Dearden, 1965) with Cliff Robertson.

Small Romanian collectors card by Cooperativa Fotografica. Photo: publicity still for Che notti ragazzi!/That night guys! (Giorgio Capitani, 1966).

Yugoslavian postcard by Cik Razglednica.
Notorious Cocaine Scandal
For Marisa Mell then started the best and more productive years of her career. She worked mainly in Italy, with occasional stops in France and Spain. In 1969 she played the challenging dual role of an asthmatic, dying wife and a seductive stripper in Una sull'altra/One on Top of the Other (Lucio Fulci, 1969).
That year she had a miscarriage. Father of the child was Pier Luigi Torri with whom she lived for about three years. During that time, Torri produced one of Marisa's better (yet unsuccessful) films, Senza via d'uscita/No Way Out (Piero Sciumé, 1970), co-starring Philippe Leroy. Torri had to leave Italy in 1971 after a notorious cocaine scandal to avoid prison.
Another interesting film is Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso/Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (Umberto Lenzi, 1971) starring the father of Hollywood hunk Antonio Sabato, Antonio Sabato Sr. In 1975 she appeared in the Diana Ross musical Mahogany (Berry Gordy, 1975). In Some Like It Cool/Casanova & Co. (Franz Antel, 1977). Marisa was joined by Tony Curtis, Marisa Berenson, Sylva Koscina and Britt Ekland.
In between Marisa found the time to pose nude for the Italian version of Playboy in the November 1976 issue. As Mell got older, femme fatale roles in good films were no longer offered to her. In the 1980s she appeared in more and more obscure B-films, the majority being soft sex comedies, which were distributed only in Europe.
In the late 1980s, the American television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 brought the actress to a new generation of B-film viewers when Danger: Diabolik was featured in an episode in 1988. The show also spoofed another of her films, New York chiama Superdrago/New York Calls Super Dragon.
She wrote her autobiography Coverlove which was published in Vienna in 1990. That same year, she appeared in Quest for the Mighty Sword/Ator III: The Hobgoblin (Joe D'Amato, 1990), co-starring strongman Eric Allan Kramer and Laura ‘Black Emmanuelle’ Gemser. Her last film appearance was in the comedy I Love Vienna (Houchang Allahyari, 1991).
In Vienna Marisa Mell passed away from throat cancer in 1992. She was only 53 and died in poverty. Only a few friends attended her funeral. She had been married twice, to Henri Tucci and to Espartaco Santoni. In 1996 her best friend Erika Plughar published Marisa, Rückblenden einer Freundschaft (Marisa, Flashbacks of a Friendship).
Trailer of Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee/Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962). Source: RialtoFilm (YouTube).
Trailer for Diabolik/Danger: Diabolik (1968). Source: Danios12345 (YouTube).
Scene from Diabolik/Danger: Diabolik (1968). Source: Agodipino (YouTube).
Marisa Mell in Una sull'altra/One on Top of the Other (1969). Source: Stranevisione (YouTube).
Sources: Mirko di Wallenberg (Marisa Mell blog), Blundering Man (Cult Sirens), Brian J. Walker (Brian’s Drive-In Theater), Time, Wikipedia and .
Published on March 13, 2017 23:00
March 12, 2017
Imported from the USA: Edward G. Robinson
Romanian-born American actor Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973) was a popular star on stage, radio and screen during Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 40 Broadway plays and 101 films during a 50-year career, and is best remembered for his cold-eyed Machiavellian gangster roles, such as his star-making film Little Caesar (1931) and Key Largo (1948). Robinson's character portrayals have covered a wide range, with such roles as an insurance investigator in the Film-Noir Double Indemnity (1944), Dathan, adversary of Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956), and his final performance in the Science-Fiction film Soylent Green (1973). Next to his work in Hollywood, he also appeared during the 1960s in several European films.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 709. Photo: Warner.
Snarling, murderous thug Rico
Edward G. Robinson was born Emmanuel Goldenberg in 1893 to a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, Roumania. He was the fifth of six sons of Sarah (née Guttman) and Morris Goldenberg, a builder. After one of his brothers was attacked by an antisemitic mob, the family decided to emigrate to the United States.
Robinson arrived in New York City in 1903. He grew up in the rough-and-tumble ghetto of the Lower East Side, and attended Townsend Harris High School and then the City College of New York, planning to become a criminal attorney. An interest in acting and performing in front of people led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship. He changed his name to Edward G. Robinson, advised to do because ethnic names were frowned upon. The G. stands for his original surname.
He began his acting career in the Yiddish Theatre District in 1913 and made his Broadway debut in 1915. His work included The Kibitzer, a comedy he co-wrote with Jo Swerling. During World War I, he served in the US Navy but was never sent overseas. In 1923 made his named debut as E. G. Robinson in the silent film The Bright Shawl (John S. Robertson, 1923) with Richard Barthelmess and Jetta Goudal . Years before, he had already appeared in a bit role in Arms and the Woman (George Fitzmaurice, 1916).
He chose for the Broadway stage and played a snarling gangster in the Broadway police/crime drama The Racket (1927). TCM : “The hit production got the attention of movie studios, and though he deflected their offers for years, in 1929 Paramount producer Walter Wanger finally persuaded him to come to the burgeoning film capital in Los Angeles with $50,000 and a chance to star opposite Broadway luminary Claudette Colbert in the film The Hole in the Wall (Robert Florey, 1929).
His work so impressed industry players that he grudgingly returned to L.A. for a follow-up film, East Is West (Monta Bell, 1930), for $100,000. Warner Bros. producer Hal Wallis finally convinced Robinson to go on contract in 1930.”
He had his breakthrough with a stellar performance as snarling, murderous thug Caesar Enrico ‘Rico’ Bandello in Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931). Ed Stephan at IMDb : “all the more impressive since in real life Robinson was a sophisticated, cultured man with a passion for fine art.“
This triumph led to being further typecast as a ‘tough guy’ for much of his early career, in such films as Five Star Final (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931), Smart Money (Alfred E. Green, 1931) - his only film with James Cagney and Boris Karloff, and Tiger Shark (Howard Hawks, 1932).
Robinson was one of the many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era. He had made only three films prior to 1930, but left his stage career that year and made 14 films between 1930–1932. Other classics soon followed, including the screwball comedy The Little Giant (Roy Del Ruth, 1933), Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, 1937) with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, and, in a sendup of his gangster roles, A Slight Case of Murder (Lloyd Bacon, 1938)).
From 1937 to 1942, Robinson starred on the radio as Steve Wilson, editor of the Illustrated Press, in the newspaper drama Big Town. He also portrayed hardboiled detective Sam Spade for a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of The Maltese Falcon.
British postcard. Photo: First National Films.
German postcard by Edition Cicero, no. 150.12. Photo: Elmer Fryer, 1932 / The Kobal Collection / New Eyes GmbH.
A knack for Film-Noir
During the 1930s and 1940s, Edward G. Robinson was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism which was then growing in Europe. In 1938, he was host to the Committee of 56 who gathered at his home, signing a Declaration of Democratic Independence which called for a boycott of all German-made products. He donated more than $250,000 to 850 political and charitable groups between 1939 and 1949.
In early July 1944, less than a month after the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces, Robinson travelled to Normandy to entertain the troops, becoming the first movie star to go there for the USO. Robinson was also active with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, serving on its executive board in 1944, during which time he became a campaigner for Roosevelt's reelection that year.
In 1939, at the time World War II broke out in Europe, he played an FBI agent in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Anatole Litvak, 1939) with George Sanders and Franz Lederer , the first American film which showed Nazism as a threat to the United States. He volunteered for military service in June 1942 but was disqualified due to his age at 48.
In 1940 he played Paul Ehrlich, the passionate, driven German scientist who first cured syphilis, in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (William Dieterle, 1940) and Paul Julius Reuter in A Dispatch from Reuter's (William Dieterle, 1940), both biographies of prominent Jewish public figures.
Meanwhile, throughout the 1940s Robinson also demonstrated his knack for both Film-Noir and dramatic and comedic roles, including The Sea Wolf (Michael Curtiz, 1941), Manpower (Raoul Walsh, 1941) with Marlene Dietrich , Larceny, Inc. (Lloyd Bacon, 1942) with Jane Wyman and Broderick Crawford , Tales of Manhattan (Julien Duvivier, 1942), Flesh and Fantasy (Julien Duvivier, 1943) with Charles Boyer , Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944) and Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945), both with Joan Bennett, The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946), and Night Has a Thousand Eyes (John Farrow, 1948).
He appeared for director John Huston as gangster Johnny Rocco in Key Largo (1948), the last of five films he made with Humphrey Bogart and the only one in which Bogart did not play a supporting role. For his part in Joe Mankiewicz’s House of Strangers (1949), Robinson won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.
French postcard by Edition P.I., Paris, no. 280, 1950. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944).
Yugoslavian postcard by Sedmo Silo / IOM, Beograd.
Science-Fiction cult film
During the early 1950s, Edward G. Robinson was called to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare, but was cleared of any Communist involvement. However, in the aftermath his career noticeably suffered, as he was offered smaller roles and those less frequently. His finances suffered due to underemployment.
His career rehabilitation received a boost in 1954, when noted anti-communist director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the traitorous Dathan in The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956). The film was released in 1956, as was his psychological thriller Nightmare (Maxwell Shane, 1956).
In 1956 he returned to Broadway in Middle of the Night, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination in 1956 for best actor in a dramatic role. He also started to play an increasing number of television roles.
After a short absence from the cinema, Robinson's film career restarted for good in 1959, when he was second-billed after Frank Sinatra in A Hole in the Head (Frank Capra, 1959). Later films include the British adventure film Sammy Going South (Alexander Mackendrick, 1963), The Cincinnati Kid (Norman Jewison, 1965) starring Steve McQueen, the Italian crime drama Ad ogni costo/Grand Slam (Giuliano Montaldo, 1967) with Janet Leigh and Robert Hoffmann , and the Western Mackenna's Gold (J. Lee Thompson, 1969).
The last-ever scene Robinson filmed was a euthanasia sequence in the Science-Fiction cult film Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer, 1973). Wikipedia : “ it is sometimes claimed that he told friend and co-star Charlton Heston that he, Robinson, had in fact only weeks to live at best. As it turned out, Robinson died only twelve days later.”
Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar. He had been notified of the honour, but died two months before the award ceremony, so the award was accepted by his widow, Jane Robinson.
Edward G. Robinson died at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles of bladder cancer in 1973. He had married his first wife, stage actress Gladys Lloyd in 1927. The couple had one son, Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Robinson (1933–1974), known as an actor as Edward G. Robinson Jr., as well as a daughter from Gladys Robinson's first marriage. In 1956 he was divorced from his wife. In 1958 he married Jane Bodenheimer, a dress designer professionally known as Jane Arden. Thereafter he also maintained a home in Palm Springs, California.
Trailer Little Caesar (1931). Source: Warner Movies On Demand (YouTube).
Trailer The Sea Wolf (1941). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).
Trailer Soylent Green (1973). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).
Sources: (IMDb), TCM, Wikipedia and .

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 709. Photo: Warner.
Snarling, murderous thug Rico
Edward G. Robinson was born Emmanuel Goldenberg in 1893 to a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, Roumania. He was the fifth of six sons of Sarah (née Guttman) and Morris Goldenberg, a builder. After one of his brothers was attacked by an antisemitic mob, the family decided to emigrate to the United States.
Robinson arrived in New York City in 1903. He grew up in the rough-and-tumble ghetto of the Lower East Side, and attended Townsend Harris High School and then the City College of New York, planning to become a criminal attorney. An interest in acting and performing in front of people led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship. He changed his name to Edward G. Robinson, advised to do because ethnic names were frowned upon. The G. stands for his original surname.
He began his acting career in the Yiddish Theatre District in 1913 and made his Broadway debut in 1915. His work included The Kibitzer, a comedy he co-wrote with Jo Swerling. During World War I, he served in the US Navy but was never sent overseas. In 1923 made his named debut as E. G. Robinson in the silent film The Bright Shawl (John S. Robertson, 1923) with Richard Barthelmess and Jetta Goudal . Years before, he had already appeared in a bit role in Arms and the Woman (George Fitzmaurice, 1916).
He chose for the Broadway stage and played a snarling gangster in the Broadway police/crime drama The Racket (1927). TCM : “The hit production got the attention of movie studios, and though he deflected their offers for years, in 1929 Paramount producer Walter Wanger finally persuaded him to come to the burgeoning film capital in Los Angeles with $50,000 and a chance to star opposite Broadway luminary Claudette Colbert in the film The Hole in the Wall (Robert Florey, 1929).
His work so impressed industry players that he grudgingly returned to L.A. for a follow-up film, East Is West (Monta Bell, 1930), for $100,000. Warner Bros. producer Hal Wallis finally convinced Robinson to go on contract in 1930.”
He had his breakthrough with a stellar performance as snarling, murderous thug Caesar Enrico ‘Rico’ Bandello in Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931). Ed Stephan at IMDb : “all the more impressive since in real life Robinson was a sophisticated, cultured man with a passion for fine art.“
This triumph led to being further typecast as a ‘tough guy’ for much of his early career, in such films as Five Star Final (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931), Smart Money (Alfred E. Green, 1931) - his only film with James Cagney and Boris Karloff, and Tiger Shark (Howard Hawks, 1932).
Robinson was one of the many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era. He had made only three films prior to 1930, but left his stage career that year and made 14 films between 1930–1932. Other classics soon followed, including the screwball comedy The Little Giant (Roy Del Ruth, 1933), Kid Galahad (Michael Curtiz, 1937) with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, and, in a sendup of his gangster roles, A Slight Case of Murder (Lloyd Bacon, 1938)).
From 1937 to 1942, Robinson starred on the radio as Steve Wilson, editor of the Illustrated Press, in the newspaper drama Big Town. He also portrayed hardboiled detective Sam Spade for a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of The Maltese Falcon.

British postcard. Photo: First National Films.

German postcard by Edition Cicero, no. 150.12. Photo: Elmer Fryer, 1932 / The Kobal Collection / New Eyes GmbH.
A knack for Film-Noir
During the 1930s and 1940s, Edward G. Robinson was an outspoken public critic of fascism and Nazism which was then growing in Europe. In 1938, he was host to the Committee of 56 who gathered at his home, signing a Declaration of Democratic Independence which called for a boycott of all German-made products. He donated more than $250,000 to 850 political and charitable groups between 1939 and 1949.
In early July 1944, less than a month after the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces, Robinson travelled to Normandy to entertain the troops, becoming the first movie star to go there for the USO. Robinson was also active with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, serving on its executive board in 1944, during which time he became a campaigner for Roosevelt's reelection that year.
In 1939, at the time World War II broke out in Europe, he played an FBI agent in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Anatole Litvak, 1939) with George Sanders and Franz Lederer , the first American film which showed Nazism as a threat to the United States. He volunteered for military service in June 1942 but was disqualified due to his age at 48.
In 1940 he played Paul Ehrlich, the passionate, driven German scientist who first cured syphilis, in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (William Dieterle, 1940) and Paul Julius Reuter in A Dispatch from Reuter's (William Dieterle, 1940), both biographies of prominent Jewish public figures.
Meanwhile, throughout the 1940s Robinson also demonstrated his knack for both Film-Noir and dramatic and comedic roles, including The Sea Wolf (Michael Curtiz, 1941), Manpower (Raoul Walsh, 1941) with Marlene Dietrich , Larceny, Inc. (Lloyd Bacon, 1942) with Jane Wyman and Broderick Crawford , Tales of Manhattan (Julien Duvivier, 1942), Flesh and Fantasy (Julien Duvivier, 1943) with Charles Boyer , Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944) and Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945), both with Joan Bennett, The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946), and Night Has a Thousand Eyes (John Farrow, 1948).
He appeared for director John Huston as gangster Johnny Rocco in Key Largo (1948), the last of five films he made with Humphrey Bogart and the only one in which Bogart did not play a supporting role. For his part in Joe Mankiewicz’s House of Strangers (1949), Robinson won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.

French postcard by Edition P.I., Paris, no. 280, 1950. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944).

Yugoslavian postcard by Sedmo Silo / IOM, Beograd.
Science-Fiction cult film
During the early 1950s, Edward G. Robinson was called to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Red Scare, but was cleared of any Communist involvement. However, in the aftermath his career noticeably suffered, as he was offered smaller roles and those less frequently. His finances suffered due to underemployment.
His career rehabilitation received a boost in 1954, when noted anti-communist director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the traitorous Dathan in The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956). The film was released in 1956, as was his psychological thriller Nightmare (Maxwell Shane, 1956).
In 1956 he returned to Broadway in Middle of the Night, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination in 1956 for best actor in a dramatic role. He also started to play an increasing number of television roles.
After a short absence from the cinema, Robinson's film career restarted for good in 1959, when he was second-billed after Frank Sinatra in A Hole in the Head (Frank Capra, 1959). Later films include the British adventure film Sammy Going South (Alexander Mackendrick, 1963), The Cincinnati Kid (Norman Jewison, 1965) starring Steve McQueen, the Italian crime drama Ad ogni costo/Grand Slam (Giuliano Montaldo, 1967) with Janet Leigh and Robert Hoffmann , and the Western Mackenna's Gold (J. Lee Thompson, 1969).
The last-ever scene Robinson filmed was a euthanasia sequence in the Science-Fiction cult film Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer, 1973). Wikipedia : “ it is sometimes claimed that he told friend and co-star Charlton Heston that he, Robinson, had in fact only weeks to live at best. As it turned out, Robinson died only twelve days later.”
Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar. He had been notified of the honour, but died two months before the award ceremony, so the award was accepted by his widow, Jane Robinson.
Edward G. Robinson died at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles of bladder cancer in 1973. He had married his first wife, stage actress Gladys Lloyd in 1927. The couple had one son, Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Robinson (1933–1974), known as an actor as Edward G. Robinson Jr., as well as a daughter from Gladys Robinson's first marriage. In 1956 he was divorced from his wife. In 1958 he married Jane Bodenheimer, a dress designer professionally known as Jane Arden. Thereafter he also maintained a home in Palm Springs, California.
Trailer Little Caesar (1931). Source: Warner Movies On Demand (YouTube).
Trailer The Sea Wolf (1941). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).
Trailer Soylent Green (1973). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).
Sources: (IMDb), TCM, Wikipedia and .
Published on March 12, 2017 23:00
March 11, 2017
Thijs Chanowski (1930-2017)
Last Tuesday, 7 March 2017, Dutch TV and film producer Thijs Chanowski has passed away in a hospital in Alkmaar, The Netherlands. Chanowski was a versatile television producer, responsible for such classic children's TV shows like De Fabeltjekrant (The Fables Newspaper, 1968) and Paulus de Boskabouter (Paulus the woodgnome, 1974). He received several awards for his TV and film work and was always looking for technical innovations. Chanowski was 86.
Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Europe, Breda, 1969. Photo: M.M. Chanowksi Productions. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Meneer de Uil (Mr. Owl) is a character from Chanowski's long-running Dutch puppetry TV series Fabeltjeskrant/The Fables Newspaper (Cock Andreoli, 1968-1992). Mr. Owl also appeared in the feature film Onkruidzaaiers in Fabeltjesland/Weedsowers in Fableland (Cock Andreoli, 1970).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam / Vita Nova, Schiedam. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Juffrouw Ooievaar (Miss Stork).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen, no. 05/1312. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions / Televideo Holland BV, Naarden. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974).
The Fables Newspaper
Thijs Chanowski was born in 1930 in Hamburg, Germany. His father was White-Russian, his mother Dutch. He started his career as a jazz bass player, and worked especially in France where he performed with soloists as saxophonist Don Byas and violinist Stéphane Grappelli.
Through control and production work in the music industry, he came increasingly into contact with engineers, graphic artists and set designers. In the early 1960s, he founded his own production company, which quickly showed a particular interest for new recording techniques.
In Amsterdam, Thijs Chanowski met two British puppet makers and this inspired him to make a TV series with puppets for children. In 1968, he began the production of the long-running Dutch puppet-animation TV series Fabeltjeskrant/The Fables Newspaper (Cock Andreoli, 1968-1992) with scripts by Leen Valkenier. Chanowski produced the first twelve episodes; the following 1600 episodes were produced by others.
De Fabeltjeskrant was a daily recurring short programme of 4-5 minutes. Each episode was based upon fables by Jean de La Fontaine, Aesop, Phaedrus and also by the series' scriptwriter Leen Valkenier. The main character, the owl Meneer de Uil (Mr. Owl) sitting upon a tree, introduces each episode by reading a story from The Fables Newspaper to the other characters. The scene is a forest inhabited by different anthropomorphic paper animals.
Over time, the series was broadcast on the Dutch channels NOS, RTL 4 and RTL 8 and on Belgian channel VRT. From 1973 to 1975 it was broadcast also in the United Kingdom, on ITV, with the title The Daily Fable. In Europe, it was also on TV in France as Le petit écho de la Forêt/The Little Echo of the Forest, in Hungary as Fabulácskahírek/The Fables Newspaper, in Italy as Il bosco dei perché/The Wood of the Questions, in Norway as Fablenes bok/The book of Fables, and Sweden as Fablernas värld/World of Fables.
Chanowksi also produced a feature film, Onkruidzaaiers in Fabeltjesland/Weedsowers in Fableland (Cock Andreoli, 1970). In 2005 Fabeltjeskrant was voted Best Children's Programme of All Times in the Netherlands.
Dutch postcard by Vita Nova, Hank (N.B.). Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Mr. Owl.
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. (Sparo), Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowksi Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Zoef the Dare.
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowksi Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Ed and Willem Beaver.
Dutch postcard by MUVA, Valkenburg. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Bor the Wolf.
Dutch postcard by MUVA, Valkenburg. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968).
Paulus the Woodgnome
Another popular puppetry TV series was Chanowksi's Paulus de boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974). It was based on a long-running Dutch newspaper comic strip, created by Jan van Oort (pseudonym Jean Dulieu), which ran between 1946 and 1984. Paulus was translated into German, English, Swedish and Japanese. The popularity of the comic strip inspired a series of children's novels, a radio series and two television puppet series.
Paulus is a nice, good natured wood gnome who is a friend of all nature and enjoys to smoke a pipe now and then. His friends are Oehoeboeroe (pronounced: "Oohoobooroo") the owl, Salomo the raven and Gregorius the badger. His archenemy is the witch Eucalypta and her assistant Krakras, a soup chicken.
From October 1967 till the end of December 1968, Paulus de boskabouter was made into a puppet series for VARA television. Jean Dulieu made all the puppets himself and also provided the voices. Fred Bosman was the director. The series was exported to the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. The British dub was narrated by Arthur Lowe and broadcast on ITV.
From the end of September 1974, until the end of May 1975, a new puppet TV series about Paulus, now produced by Thijs Chanowksi, was broadcasted. This time the puppets were made by the Brothers Slabbers and the voices were done by professional actors, such as Elsje Scherjon, Frans van Dusschoten and Ger Smit , who also worked for De Fabeltjeskrant. Leen Valkenier wrote the scripts.
Later Chanowksi produced some feature films, including two with the theatre collective Het Werktheater. These films were Toestanden [States] (Thijs Chanowski, 1976), which won the Prix Italia, the renowned Italian TV award, and the comedy Camping (Thijs Chanowski, 1978).
Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Spits BV, Blaricum.. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974) with Krakas, Robot Boeli and Eucalypta.
Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Spits BV, Blaricum. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974) with left Salomo and right Oehoeboeroe.
Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Spits BV, Blaricum. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974) with from left: Stien de goede fee ( the good fairy), Oehoeboeroe de wijze uil (the wise owl), and Salomon de raaf (the raven
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen, no. 05/1311. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions / Televideo Holland BV, Naarden. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen, no. 05/1313. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions / Televideo Holland BV, Naarden. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974).
Endowed professor
From an early age, Thijs Chanowski was interested in technology in which he saw infinite possibilities and he frequently experimented with technology in his TV and film productions.
After his TV work ended in the 1980s, he worked as an entrepreneur and researcher with technology companies such as Philips on the development of the laser disc and the chroma-key. Chroma-key compositing is a post-production technique for merging two images or video streams together based on color hues.
In 1990, Chanowksi founded his own multimedia lab, which focused on 'knowledge mining'. This company developed the Aqua-browser, an 'intuitive' search engine that works with word association instead of word matches. Chanowski remained director when the company was acquired by software company BSO as 'BSO Media Lab.' Later, he bought the company back.
From 1995 to 2000 Chanowski was endowed professor Multimedia Interaction at the University of Amsterdam. Later he worked on a project for young children in third world countries to learn a language (English), without having to use their own language.
Thijs Chanowski lived in Bergen, The Netherlands. On 7 March 2017, he died in a hospital in Alkmaar. He was 86.
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968) Caption: Mr. Owl.
Big Dutch postcard by M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969,presented by FINA benzine stations, no. 11. Photo: publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: the Hamster Sisters.
Big Dutch postcard by M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969,presented by FINA benzine stations, no. 12. Photo: publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Droes the Bear.
Big Dutch postcard by M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969,presented by FINA benzine stations, no. 13. Photo: publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Truus the Ant.
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Hektor and Mr. Raven.
Sources: Iñaki Oñorbe Genovesi (De Volkskrant - Dutch), De Telegraaf (Dutch), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Europe, Breda, 1969. Photo: M.M. Chanowksi Productions. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Meneer de Uil (Mr. Owl) is a character from Chanowski's long-running Dutch puppetry TV series Fabeltjeskrant/The Fables Newspaper (Cock Andreoli, 1968-1992). Mr. Owl also appeared in the feature film Onkruidzaaiers in Fabeltjesland/Weedsowers in Fableland (Cock Andreoli, 1970).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam / Vita Nova, Schiedam. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Juffrouw Ooievaar (Miss Stork).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen, no. 05/1312. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions / Televideo Holland BV, Naarden. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974).
The Fables Newspaper
Thijs Chanowski was born in 1930 in Hamburg, Germany. His father was White-Russian, his mother Dutch. He started his career as a jazz bass player, and worked especially in France where he performed with soloists as saxophonist Don Byas and violinist Stéphane Grappelli.
Through control and production work in the music industry, he came increasingly into contact with engineers, graphic artists and set designers. In the early 1960s, he founded his own production company, which quickly showed a particular interest for new recording techniques.
In Amsterdam, Thijs Chanowski met two British puppet makers and this inspired him to make a TV series with puppets for children. In 1968, he began the production of the long-running Dutch puppet-animation TV series Fabeltjeskrant/The Fables Newspaper (Cock Andreoli, 1968-1992) with scripts by Leen Valkenier. Chanowski produced the first twelve episodes; the following 1600 episodes were produced by others.
De Fabeltjeskrant was a daily recurring short programme of 4-5 minutes. Each episode was based upon fables by Jean de La Fontaine, Aesop, Phaedrus and also by the series' scriptwriter Leen Valkenier. The main character, the owl Meneer de Uil (Mr. Owl) sitting upon a tree, introduces each episode by reading a story from The Fables Newspaper to the other characters. The scene is a forest inhabited by different anthropomorphic paper animals.
Over time, the series was broadcast on the Dutch channels NOS, RTL 4 and RTL 8 and on Belgian channel VRT. From 1973 to 1975 it was broadcast also in the United Kingdom, on ITV, with the title The Daily Fable. In Europe, it was also on TV in France as Le petit écho de la Forêt/The Little Echo of the Forest, in Hungary as Fabulácskahírek/The Fables Newspaper, in Italy as Il bosco dei perché/The Wood of the Questions, in Norway as Fablenes bok/The book of Fables, and Sweden as Fablernas värld/World of Fables.
Chanowksi also produced a feature film, Onkruidzaaiers in Fabeltjesland/Weedsowers in Fableland (Cock Andreoli, 1970). In 2005 Fabeltjeskrant was voted Best Children's Programme of All Times in the Netherlands.

Dutch postcard by Vita Nova, Hank (N.B.). Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Mr. Owl.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. (Sparo), Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowksi Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Zoef the Dare.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowksi Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Ed and Willem Beaver.

Dutch postcard by MUVA, Valkenburg. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Bor the Wolf.

Dutch postcard by MUVA, Valkenburg. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968).
Paulus the Woodgnome
Another popular puppetry TV series was Chanowksi's Paulus de boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974). It was based on a long-running Dutch newspaper comic strip, created by Jan van Oort (pseudonym Jean Dulieu), which ran between 1946 and 1984. Paulus was translated into German, English, Swedish and Japanese. The popularity of the comic strip inspired a series of children's novels, a radio series and two television puppet series.
Paulus is a nice, good natured wood gnome who is a friend of all nature and enjoys to smoke a pipe now and then. His friends are Oehoeboeroe (pronounced: "Oohoobooroo") the owl, Salomo the raven and Gregorius the badger. His archenemy is the witch Eucalypta and her assistant Krakras, a soup chicken.
From October 1967 till the end of December 1968, Paulus de boskabouter was made into a puppet series for VARA television. Jean Dulieu made all the puppets himself and also provided the voices. Fred Bosman was the director. The series was exported to the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. The British dub was narrated by Arthur Lowe and broadcast on ITV.
From the end of September 1974, until the end of May 1975, a new puppet TV series about Paulus, now produced by Thijs Chanowksi, was broadcasted. This time the puppets were made by the Brothers Slabbers and the voices were done by professional actors, such as Elsje Scherjon, Frans van Dusschoten and Ger Smit , who also worked for De Fabeltjeskrant. Leen Valkenier wrote the scripts.
Later Chanowksi produced some feature films, including two with the theatre collective Het Werktheater. These films were Toestanden [States] (Thijs Chanowski, 1976), which won the Prix Italia, the renowned Italian TV award, and the comedy Camping (Thijs Chanowski, 1978).

Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Spits BV, Blaricum.. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974) with Krakas, Robot Boeli and Eucalypta.

Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Spits BV, Blaricum. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974) with left Salomo and right Oehoeboeroe.

Dutch postcard by Sales Promotion Spits BV, Blaricum. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974) with from left: Stien de goede fee ( the good fairy), Oehoeboeroe de wijze uil (the wise owl), and Salomon de raaf (the raven

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen, no. 05/1311. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions / Televideo Holland BV, Naarden. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg, Rotterdam / Antwerpen, no. 05/1313. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions / Televideo Holland BV, Naarden. Publicity still for the TV series Paulus de Boskabouter/Paulus the woodgnome (1974).
Endowed professor
From an early age, Thijs Chanowski was interested in technology in which he saw infinite possibilities and he frequently experimented with technology in his TV and film productions.
After his TV work ended in the 1980s, he worked as an entrepreneur and researcher with technology companies such as Philips on the development of the laser disc and the chroma-key. Chroma-key compositing is a post-production technique for merging two images or video streams together based on color hues.
In 1990, Chanowksi founded his own multimedia lab, which focused on 'knowledge mining'. This company developed the Aqua-browser, an 'intuitive' search engine that works with word association instead of word matches. Chanowski remained director when the company was acquired by software company BSO as 'BSO Media Lab.' Later, he bought the company back.
From 1995 to 2000 Chanowski was endowed professor Multimedia Interaction at the University of Amsterdam. Later he worked on a project for young children in third world countries to learn a language (English), without having to use their own language.
Thijs Chanowski lived in Bergen, The Netherlands. On 7 March 2017, he died in a hospital in Alkmaar. He was 86.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968) Caption: Mr. Owl.

Big Dutch postcard by M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969,presented by FINA benzine stations, no. 11. Photo: publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: the Hamster Sisters.

Big Dutch postcard by M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969,presented by FINA benzine stations, no. 12. Photo: publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Droes the Bear.

Big Dutch postcard by M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969,presented by FINA benzine stations, no. 13. Photo: publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Truus the Ant.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. Photo: M.M. Chanowski Productions, 1969. Publicity still for De Fabeltjekrant/The Fables Newspaper (1968). Caption: Hektor and Mr. Raven.
Sources: Iñaki Oñorbe Genovesi (De Volkskrant - Dutch), De Telegraaf (Dutch), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.
Published on March 11, 2017 22:00
March 10, 2017
Grete Lundt
Grete Lundt aka Grete Lund (1892-1926) was as an Austrian stage and screen actress, who played in Austrian and German silent films. Lundt’s career went down by lack of work and money, aggravated by a morphine addiction. She committed suicide in the Vienna-Berlin D-train, only 34 years old.
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 842. Photo: Imperial-Film.
Proto-expressionist film
Grete Lundt (sometimes written as Lund) was born Gisela Kovacs in 1892 in Temesvár, in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (now Romania). She originated from the people of the so-called Banater Schwaben (Banat Swabians, an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe).
She visited a commercial school and worked as an office worker from 1906 onwards. She then completed a singing and dancing training as well as private acting lessons in Berlin with Gertrud Arnold.
In 1914 she debuted on screen at Wiener Kunstfilm, and in the following years she received major and secondary roles in their Austrian productions. At Wiener Kunstfilm, Jakob and Luise Fleck directed her in such films as Der Traum eines österreichischen Reservisten (1915), Meineidbauer (1915), and Die Tragödie auf Schloss Rottersheim (1916).
In the late 1910s, she moved to the Austrian company Leyka-Film, where she had a lead in Frauenehre (Georg Kundert, 1918), in addition to minor parts in various other films at Leyka. ( Filmportal.de writes that Fauenehre is an Imperial-Film production, while IMDb says it was produced by Leyka-Film). In Frauenehre, Joseph Reithofer plays a man who must choose between saving his friend (Fritz Hofer) from an unjust accusation of murder and revealing his own affair with the judge’s wife (Lundt). The real murderer was played by Fritz Kortner .
With Kortner, Grete Lundt also played in Ohne Zeugen (Erwin Baron, Georg Kundert, 1919). That year, she played in some 6 films at the Austrian company Filmag with e.g. Kortner and Joseph Schildkraut, such as Das Auge des Buddha (Maurice Armand-Mondet, 1919), Die schwarze Fahne (Ludwig Stein [Paul L. Stein], 1919), and Der Diamant des Todes (Leo Stoll, 1919).
In 1919 she moved to Munich for a major part in Franz Seitz’s film Verlorenes Spiel (1919), produced by the local Transatlantic Film Co (Trafilco) with the Trafilco star Lili Dominici, and Fritz Kampers. Lundt’s last Austrian films were two films by Paul Czinner: the proto-expressionist film Inferno (1919), Czinner’s debut, and Homo immanis (1919), the latter with Ivan Petrovich, and the film Der verarmte Edelmann (Georg Kundert, 1920).
Fritz Kortner . German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 74/2, 1925-1935. Photo: Matador-Film. Publicity still for Das Leben des Beethoven/The Life of the Beethoven (Hans Otto, 1927). Collection: Didier Hanson.
Desperate for her constant lack of engagements and finance
In 1920 Grete Lundt returned to Berlin, where she first played in various films, such as Frauen… (William Kahn, Siegfried Dessauer, 1920) with Ludwig Trautmann , Der gelbe Diplomat (Fred Sauer 1920) with Friedrich Zelnik and Käthe Haack , and Der Mann mit den drei Frauen (Fred Sauer, 1920), again with Zelnik. The latter two films were Zelnik-Mara-Film productions.
After a part as the film diva named Nuja-Naja in the comedy Miss Rockefeller filmt (Erich Schönefelder, 1922), starring Georg Alexander and Stella Arbenina, Lundt’s last role was a minor part in Paul Czinner’s German production Nju (1924), starring Elisabeth Bergner , Emil Jannings and Conrad Veidt . Filmportal.de mentions a second German film of 1924, produced by Imperial-Film production, Wenn Männer schweigen (1924), but on basis of the credits this can be identified as a German rerelease of the 1918 Austrian production Frauenehre. So Imperial-Film may have been just distributor, or rather IMDb is wrong and has mixed up the two films.
In Germany Lundt concentrated more and more on her stage work. She appeared mainly at the theatres of Victor Barnowsky and the Meinhard Bernauer stages, after which she could be seen in Rosa Valetti's cabaret Die Rampe [The Ramp], which existed between late 1922 and 1925.
According to the Austrian paper Die neue Zeitung, Lundt had married film director Paul Czinner after his first wife died (Gilda Langer had died of the Spanish flu) but the two later on broke up. Perhaps Czinner’s affair with Bergner, which started during the production of Nju, had to do with it.
Lundt was befriended with Julius Barmat, the Jewish merchant who would be the center of the Barmat Scandal, which discredited the SDP because of the exposure of wide-spread corruption. It also raised anti-Semitism, and helped the right wing to win the 1925 elections. Barmat had helped Lundt financially, but when he was arrested on New Year’s Eve 1924 Lundt lost her maecenas.
Lundt’s career went down by lack of work and money, aggravated by a morphine addiction. In order to pay for the costs of a morphine addicts clinic, she had to sell her house and all her belongings. When a last attempt to get a job in Vienna failed, on New Year’s Eve 1926, desperate for her constant lack of engagements and finance, Grete Lundt committed suicide in the Vienna-Berlin D-train (other papers say Frankrfurt-Berlin), using an overdose of morphine. Grete Lundt died on 31 December 1926. She was only 34.
Elisabeth Bergner . German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1560/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Geiringer-Horovitz, Wien. Collection: Didier Hanson.
Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-Line - German), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and .

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 842. Photo: Imperial-Film.
Proto-expressionist film
Grete Lundt (sometimes written as Lund) was born Gisela Kovacs in 1892 in Temesvár, in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (now Romania). She originated from the people of the so-called Banater Schwaben (Banat Swabians, an ethnic German population in Southeast Europe).
She visited a commercial school and worked as an office worker from 1906 onwards. She then completed a singing and dancing training as well as private acting lessons in Berlin with Gertrud Arnold.
In 1914 she debuted on screen at Wiener Kunstfilm, and in the following years she received major and secondary roles in their Austrian productions. At Wiener Kunstfilm, Jakob and Luise Fleck directed her in such films as Der Traum eines österreichischen Reservisten (1915), Meineidbauer (1915), and Die Tragödie auf Schloss Rottersheim (1916).
In the late 1910s, she moved to the Austrian company Leyka-Film, where she had a lead in Frauenehre (Georg Kundert, 1918), in addition to minor parts in various other films at Leyka. ( Filmportal.de writes that Fauenehre is an Imperial-Film production, while IMDb says it was produced by Leyka-Film). In Frauenehre, Joseph Reithofer plays a man who must choose between saving his friend (Fritz Hofer) from an unjust accusation of murder and revealing his own affair with the judge’s wife (Lundt). The real murderer was played by Fritz Kortner .
With Kortner, Grete Lundt also played in Ohne Zeugen (Erwin Baron, Georg Kundert, 1919). That year, she played in some 6 films at the Austrian company Filmag with e.g. Kortner and Joseph Schildkraut, such as Das Auge des Buddha (Maurice Armand-Mondet, 1919), Die schwarze Fahne (Ludwig Stein [Paul L. Stein], 1919), and Der Diamant des Todes (Leo Stoll, 1919).
In 1919 she moved to Munich for a major part in Franz Seitz’s film Verlorenes Spiel (1919), produced by the local Transatlantic Film Co (Trafilco) with the Trafilco star Lili Dominici, and Fritz Kampers. Lundt’s last Austrian films were two films by Paul Czinner: the proto-expressionist film Inferno (1919), Czinner’s debut, and Homo immanis (1919), the latter with Ivan Petrovich, and the film Der verarmte Edelmann (Georg Kundert, 1920).

Fritz Kortner . German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 74/2, 1925-1935. Photo: Matador-Film. Publicity still for Das Leben des Beethoven/The Life of the Beethoven (Hans Otto, 1927). Collection: Didier Hanson.
Desperate for her constant lack of engagements and finance
In 1920 Grete Lundt returned to Berlin, where she first played in various films, such as Frauen… (William Kahn, Siegfried Dessauer, 1920) with Ludwig Trautmann , Der gelbe Diplomat (Fred Sauer 1920) with Friedrich Zelnik and Käthe Haack , and Der Mann mit den drei Frauen (Fred Sauer, 1920), again with Zelnik. The latter two films were Zelnik-Mara-Film productions.
After a part as the film diva named Nuja-Naja in the comedy Miss Rockefeller filmt (Erich Schönefelder, 1922), starring Georg Alexander and Stella Arbenina, Lundt’s last role was a minor part in Paul Czinner’s German production Nju (1924), starring Elisabeth Bergner , Emil Jannings and Conrad Veidt . Filmportal.de mentions a second German film of 1924, produced by Imperial-Film production, Wenn Männer schweigen (1924), but on basis of the credits this can be identified as a German rerelease of the 1918 Austrian production Frauenehre. So Imperial-Film may have been just distributor, or rather IMDb is wrong and has mixed up the two films.
In Germany Lundt concentrated more and more on her stage work. She appeared mainly at the theatres of Victor Barnowsky and the Meinhard Bernauer stages, after which she could be seen in Rosa Valetti's cabaret Die Rampe [The Ramp], which existed between late 1922 and 1925.
According to the Austrian paper Die neue Zeitung, Lundt had married film director Paul Czinner after his first wife died (Gilda Langer had died of the Spanish flu) but the two later on broke up. Perhaps Czinner’s affair with Bergner, which started during the production of Nju, had to do with it.
Lundt was befriended with Julius Barmat, the Jewish merchant who would be the center of the Barmat Scandal, which discredited the SDP because of the exposure of wide-spread corruption. It also raised anti-Semitism, and helped the right wing to win the 1925 elections. Barmat had helped Lundt financially, but when he was arrested on New Year’s Eve 1924 Lundt lost her maecenas.
Lundt’s career went down by lack of work and money, aggravated by a morphine addiction. In order to pay for the costs of a morphine addicts clinic, she had to sell her house and all her belongings. When a last attempt to get a job in Vienna failed, on New Year’s Eve 1926, desperate for her constant lack of engagements and finance, Grete Lundt committed suicide in the Vienna-Berlin D-train (other papers say Frankrfurt-Berlin), using an overdose of morphine. Grete Lundt died on 31 December 1926. She was only 34.

Elisabeth Bergner . German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1560/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Geiringer-Horovitz, Wien. Collection: Didier Hanson.
Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-Line - German), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and .
Published on March 10, 2017 22:00
March 9, 2017
Nina Hoss
German stage and film actress Nina Hoss (1975) often plays tragic, tormented heroines with somber attitude. She is a Nordic beauty, with a deep, sensual voice. Her close collaboration with director Christian Petzold has been extremely successful.
German autograph card. Photo: Ulrike Schamoni.
German autograph card. Photo: Christian Schoppe.
German autograph card. Photo: Mathias Bothor.
Controversial themes
Nina Hoss was born in Stuttgart, West Germany in 1975. Her father, Willi Hoss, was a German trade unionist and politician (member of the Bundestag in The Greens). Her mother, Heidemarie Rohweder, was an actress at Stuttgart National Theatre and later director of the Esslingen-based Württemberg State Playhouse (Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen).
Hoss acted in radio plays at the age of seven and appeared on stage for the first time at the age of 14. In 1997 she graduated from the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin.
Her first major success in the cinema was the title role Rosemarie Nitribitt in the period drama Das Mädchen Rosemarie/A Girl Called Rosemary (Bernd Eichinger, 1996) with Heiner Lauterbach and Mathieu Carrière. Based on an actual scandal in the 1950s the film looks back at the days of West Germany's postwar Wirtschaftswunder with a curdling cynicism. It was a remake of Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (Rolf Thiele, 1958) with Nadja Tiller in the title role.
In 2000 she was one of the Shooting Stars at the Berlinale. Her close collaboration with director Christian Petzold has been extremely successful: she won the 2003 Adolf Grimme Award for her role in his film Something to Remind Me and two years later the Adolf Grimme Award in Gold for Wolfsburg (Christian Petzold, 2003) with Benno Fürmann.
In Die weiße Massai/The White Masai (Hermine Huntgeburth, 2005) she played a woman falling in love in Kenya with Maasai Lemalian (Jacky Ido). The themes of the film were controversial. Ultimately, the film is about the clash of cultures and worldviews.
She appeared next with Moritz Bleibtreu and Franka Potente in Elementarteilchen/The Elementary Particles (Oskar Roehler, 2006), based on the controversial novel Les Particules élémentaires by Michel Houellebecq.
Then she worked again with Christian Petzold at the dramatic thriller Yella (2007), an unofficial remake of the American cult horror film Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962). Her performance of Yella, earned her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007 and the German Film Award in 2008.
Hoss and Petzold then made the drama Jerichow (Christian Petzold, 2008), loosely inspired by the American novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin/A Woman in Berlin (Max Färberböck, 2008), based on the memoir, Eine Frau in Berlin, published anonymously in 1959. The film premiered at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival and was praised for its portrayal of the waning days of World War II, a morally complex and brutal period.
German promotion card by Taurus Video. Photo: publicity still for Das Mädchen Rosemarie/A Girl Called Rosemary (Bernd Eichinger, 1996).
German autograph card.
German autograph card. Photo: Franziska Sinn.
A lesbian vampire
Nina Hoss played a lesbian vampire in the German horror film Wir sind die Nacht/We Are the Night (Dennis Gansel, 2010), co-starring Karoline Herfurth. Hoss played a doctor exiled to an East German provincial backwater in 1980 in Barbara (2012), another collaboration with Christian Petzold.
Nathan Southern at AllMovie : “The themes of this story are not particularly profound, but execution is everything. Thanks to expert scripting and direction, and an elegant central performance by Hoss, the shifts that we witness in Barbara Wolff are so delicate and subtle that they fly under our radar -- we feel that we're watching the credible growth of an actual person, not a character.”
Nina Hoss has been a member of the Juries of the Locarno International Film Festival in 2009, and the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011. She was an ensemble member at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin from 1998 to 2013, where she appeared as Medea and as Franziska in Minna von Barnhelm (2005). In 2012, she was appointed sole judge of the 2012 Alfred Kerr Acting Prize at the Berliner Theatertreffen. In 2013, she joined the ensemble of the Schaubühne theatre in Berlin.
She recorded a duet with the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers called Europa geht durch mich (Europe goes through me) for the 2014 album Futurology, produced by her partner Alex Silva. Hoss supports the Make Poverty History campaign and fights female genital mutilation. In continuation of the work of her father she is committed as a Goodwill Ambassador of the State of Pará in Brazil against the destruction of the rain forest and to improve the living conditions of the indigenous people living there.
On television she played in nine episodes of the popular series Homeland (2014-2015). Her recent films include the espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn, 2014), based on the novel by John le Carré and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the drama Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014), as a disfigured Holocaust survivor who sets out to determine if the man she loved betrayed her trust.
This year, Nina Hoss stars in the upcoming Rückkehr nach Montauk/Return to Montauk (Volker Schlöndorff, 2017) which has been selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
Trailer Barbara (2012). Source: Piffl Medien (YouTube).
Trailer Phoenix (2014). Source: Movieclips Film Festivals & Indie Film (YouTube).
Manic Street Preachers & Nina Hoss perform Europa Geht Durch Mich at Later... with Jools Holland. Source: BBC (YouTube).
Sources: Nathan Southern (AllMovie), Wikipedia and .

German autograph card. Photo: Ulrike Schamoni.

German autograph card. Photo: Christian Schoppe.

German autograph card. Photo: Mathias Bothor.
Controversial themes
Nina Hoss was born in Stuttgart, West Germany in 1975. Her father, Willi Hoss, was a German trade unionist and politician (member of the Bundestag in The Greens). Her mother, Heidemarie Rohweder, was an actress at Stuttgart National Theatre and later director of the Esslingen-based Württemberg State Playhouse (Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen).
Hoss acted in radio plays at the age of seven and appeared on stage for the first time at the age of 14. In 1997 she graduated from the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin.
Her first major success in the cinema was the title role Rosemarie Nitribitt in the period drama Das Mädchen Rosemarie/A Girl Called Rosemary (Bernd Eichinger, 1996) with Heiner Lauterbach and Mathieu Carrière. Based on an actual scandal in the 1950s the film looks back at the days of West Germany's postwar Wirtschaftswunder with a curdling cynicism. It was a remake of Das Mädchen Rosemarie/Rosemary (Rolf Thiele, 1958) with Nadja Tiller in the title role.
In 2000 she was one of the Shooting Stars at the Berlinale. Her close collaboration with director Christian Petzold has been extremely successful: she won the 2003 Adolf Grimme Award for her role in his film Something to Remind Me and two years later the Adolf Grimme Award in Gold for Wolfsburg (Christian Petzold, 2003) with Benno Fürmann.
In Die weiße Massai/The White Masai (Hermine Huntgeburth, 2005) she played a woman falling in love in Kenya with Maasai Lemalian (Jacky Ido). The themes of the film were controversial. Ultimately, the film is about the clash of cultures and worldviews.
She appeared next with Moritz Bleibtreu and Franka Potente in Elementarteilchen/The Elementary Particles (Oskar Roehler, 2006), based on the controversial novel Les Particules élémentaires by Michel Houellebecq.
Then she worked again with Christian Petzold at the dramatic thriller Yella (2007), an unofficial remake of the American cult horror film Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962). Her performance of Yella, earned her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007 and the German Film Award in 2008.
Hoss and Petzold then made the drama Jerichow (Christian Petzold, 2008), loosely inspired by the American novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin/A Woman in Berlin (Max Färberböck, 2008), based on the memoir, Eine Frau in Berlin, published anonymously in 1959. The film premiered at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival and was praised for its portrayal of the waning days of World War II, a morally complex and brutal period.

German promotion card by Taurus Video. Photo: publicity still for Das Mädchen Rosemarie/A Girl Called Rosemary (Bernd Eichinger, 1996).

German autograph card.

German autograph card. Photo: Franziska Sinn.
A lesbian vampire
Nina Hoss played a lesbian vampire in the German horror film Wir sind die Nacht/We Are the Night (Dennis Gansel, 2010), co-starring Karoline Herfurth. Hoss played a doctor exiled to an East German provincial backwater in 1980 in Barbara (2012), another collaboration with Christian Petzold.
Nathan Southern at AllMovie : “The themes of this story are not particularly profound, but execution is everything. Thanks to expert scripting and direction, and an elegant central performance by Hoss, the shifts that we witness in Barbara Wolff are so delicate and subtle that they fly under our radar -- we feel that we're watching the credible growth of an actual person, not a character.”
Nina Hoss has been a member of the Juries of the Locarno International Film Festival in 2009, and the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011. She was an ensemble member at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin from 1998 to 2013, where she appeared as Medea and as Franziska in Minna von Barnhelm (2005). In 2012, she was appointed sole judge of the 2012 Alfred Kerr Acting Prize at the Berliner Theatertreffen. In 2013, she joined the ensemble of the Schaubühne theatre in Berlin.
She recorded a duet with the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers called Europa geht durch mich (Europe goes through me) for the 2014 album Futurology, produced by her partner Alex Silva. Hoss supports the Make Poverty History campaign and fights female genital mutilation. In continuation of the work of her father she is committed as a Goodwill Ambassador of the State of Pará in Brazil against the destruction of the rain forest and to improve the living conditions of the indigenous people living there.
On television she played in nine episodes of the popular series Homeland (2014-2015). Her recent films include the espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn, 2014), based on the novel by John le Carré and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the drama Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014), as a disfigured Holocaust survivor who sets out to determine if the man she loved betrayed her trust.
This year, Nina Hoss stars in the upcoming Rückkehr nach Montauk/Return to Montauk (Volker Schlöndorff, 2017) which has been selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
Trailer Barbara (2012). Source: Piffl Medien (YouTube).
Trailer Phoenix (2014). Source: Movieclips Film Festivals & Indie Film (YouTube).
Manic Street Preachers & Nina Hoss perform Europa Geht Durch Mich at Later... with Jools Holland. Source: BBC (YouTube).
Sources: Nathan Southern (AllMovie), Wikipedia and .
Published on March 09, 2017 22:00
March 8, 2017
Spettri (1918)
The Italian silent film Spettri/Gli spettri (A.G. Caldiera, 1918) was based on Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts (Gengangere, 1881). Star of the film was Ermete Zacconi, a monstre sacré of the Italian theatre, who also appeared in several silent and sound films.
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Time told Helena this truly was 'The end of the dream'. Captain Alving, his wife Helene and their son Oswald ( Ermete Zacconi , Ines Cristina-Zacconi and Peppino Zacconi).
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: She grabbed the child from his father's arms. Helene Alving (Ines Cristina-Zacconi) and young Oswald (Peppino Zacconi), on the right captain Alving ( Ermete Zacconi ) and the maid, the mother of Regina.
Euthanising her own son
Ibsen's play Ghosts tells of widow Helene Alving, who is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in memory of her late husband, Captain Alving. Yet, she reveals to the vicar, Pastor Manders, that she has kept hidden Alving's immoral and unfaithful behaviour.
She was afraid her son may go the same road, so she built the orphanage to get rid of her husband's wealth. She followed Pastor Manders advise to stay with her husband and tolerate his misbehaviour, believing her love for her husband would eventually reform him, but it didn't work.
Helene stayed with him to protect her son's and her own reputation. When her son Oswald, sent away to avoid contamination of his father's corruption, returns after years, Helene discovers Oswald suffers from a syphilis inherited from his father. She also discovers Oswald has fallen in love with Regina Engstrand, Helen's maid.
This is a serious problem because Regina is the illegitimate daughter of Alving by another maid, and therefore Oswald is falling in love with his half-sister. When this is exposed, Regina leaves, and Oswald remains in a state of despair and anguish.
He asks his mother to help him die by an overdose of morphine in order to end his suffering from his disease, which could put him into a helpless vegetative state. She agrees, but only if it becomes necessary.
Ghosts concludes with Helene having to confront this decision: whether or not to euthanize her son in accordance with his wishes.
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Mama, do you believe that the faults of the fathers may fall again on their innocent sons? Helene Alving (Ines Cristina-Zacconi) and Oswald/Osvaldo ( Ermete Zacconi ).
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Mama, give me the sun!... Peppino Zacconi as young Oswald/Osvaldo.
Important representant of naturalism
Monstre sacré of the Italian stage Ermete Zacconi developed as an actor during the period when naturalism was established in the Western European theatre. He became one of its most important representants.
Following Emile Zola’s naturalism, this also included hat he studied psychopathology, theories on the effects of heredity, and related subjects, in order to understand the psychology of man, in particular the clinical symptoms of an unhealthy psyche, which he reproduced with perfection.
Zacconi’s most famous role was that of Oswald in Henrik Ibsen’s Spettri/Ghosts, reaching the maximum of realism with a shocking performance of the symptoms of the growing paralysis of the protagonist.
In 1918 he repeated his stage success on film. Here it is clear that not Helen but Oswald is the protagonist. Zacconi also played the father, captain Alving, while Helene was played by Zacconi's wife, Ines Cristina-Zacconi. Their son Giuseppe/Peppino Zacconi played young Oswald.
The script was written by Guglielmo Zorzi, cinematography was by Franco Antonio Martini, while director A.G. Caldiera himself did the sets. The Roman premiere of Spettri took place on 17 October 1918.
The film was heavily mutilated by Italian censorship. Yet, the Italian trade journal La vita cinematografica thought this was not the only reason the film had resulted in much less than the cinematic masterpiece it could have become, on basis of Ibsen's grand play about the degeneration of man.
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: I immediately forget what I have read. On he right Ermete Zacconi as Oswald/Osvaldo Halving. The man on the left could be Pastor Manders (Giovanni Grassi).
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Like before. Left Ines Cristina-Zacconi as Helene Alving, while Ermete Zacconi as Oswald embraces the maid Regina.
Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Mama, give me the sun! Ermete Zacconi as Oswald.
Source: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, 1918 - Italian), Wikipedia (Italian, English and Dutch), and IMDb.

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Time told Helena this truly was 'The end of the dream'. Captain Alving, his wife Helene and their son Oswald ( Ermete Zacconi , Ines Cristina-Zacconi and Peppino Zacconi).

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: She grabbed the child from his father's arms. Helene Alving (Ines Cristina-Zacconi) and young Oswald (Peppino Zacconi), on the right captain Alving ( Ermete Zacconi ) and the maid, the mother of Regina.
Euthanising her own son
Ibsen's play Ghosts tells of widow Helene Alving, who is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in memory of her late husband, Captain Alving. Yet, she reveals to the vicar, Pastor Manders, that she has kept hidden Alving's immoral and unfaithful behaviour.
She was afraid her son may go the same road, so she built the orphanage to get rid of her husband's wealth. She followed Pastor Manders advise to stay with her husband and tolerate his misbehaviour, believing her love for her husband would eventually reform him, but it didn't work.
Helene stayed with him to protect her son's and her own reputation. When her son Oswald, sent away to avoid contamination of his father's corruption, returns after years, Helene discovers Oswald suffers from a syphilis inherited from his father. She also discovers Oswald has fallen in love with Regina Engstrand, Helen's maid.
This is a serious problem because Regina is the illegitimate daughter of Alving by another maid, and therefore Oswald is falling in love with his half-sister. When this is exposed, Regina leaves, and Oswald remains in a state of despair and anguish.
He asks his mother to help him die by an overdose of morphine in order to end his suffering from his disease, which could put him into a helpless vegetative state. She agrees, but only if it becomes necessary.
Ghosts concludes with Helene having to confront this decision: whether or not to euthanize her son in accordance with his wishes.

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Mama, do you believe that the faults of the fathers may fall again on their innocent sons? Helene Alving (Ines Cristina-Zacconi) and Oswald/Osvaldo ( Ermete Zacconi ).

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Mama, give me the sun!... Peppino Zacconi as young Oswald/Osvaldo.
Important representant of naturalism
Monstre sacré of the Italian stage Ermete Zacconi developed as an actor during the period when naturalism was established in the Western European theatre. He became one of its most important representants.
Following Emile Zola’s naturalism, this also included hat he studied psychopathology, theories on the effects of heredity, and related subjects, in order to understand the psychology of man, in particular the clinical symptoms of an unhealthy psyche, which he reproduced with perfection.
Zacconi’s most famous role was that of Oswald in Henrik Ibsen’s Spettri/Ghosts, reaching the maximum of realism with a shocking performance of the symptoms of the growing paralysis of the protagonist.
In 1918 he repeated his stage success on film. Here it is clear that not Helen but Oswald is the protagonist. Zacconi also played the father, captain Alving, while Helene was played by Zacconi's wife, Ines Cristina-Zacconi. Their son Giuseppe/Peppino Zacconi played young Oswald.
The script was written by Guglielmo Zorzi, cinematography was by Franco Antonio Martini, while director A.G. Caldiera himself did the sets. The Roman premiere of Spettri took place on 17 October 1918.
The film was heavily mutilated by Italian censorship. Yet, the Italian trade journal La vita cinematografica thought this was not the only reason the film had resulted in much less than the cinematic masterpiece it could have become, on basis of Ibsen's grand play about the degeneration of man.

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: I immediately forget what I have read. On he right Ermete Zacconi as Oswald/Osvaldo Halving. The man on the left could be Pastor Manders (Giovanni Grassi).

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Like before. Left Ines Cristina-Zacconi as Helene Alving, while Ermete Zacconi as Oswald embraces the maid Regina.

Italian postcard. Photo: Milano Film. Publicity still for Spettri/Ghosts (A.G. Caldiera, 1918). Caption: Mama, give me the sun! Ermete Zacconi as Oswald.
Source: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, 1918 - Italian), Wikipedia (Italian, English and Dutch), and IMDb.
Published on March 08, 2017 22:00
March 7, 2017
Ingrid Andree
Actress Ingrid Andree (1931) was the young, waif-like star of many popular German films of the 1950s. From the 1960s on she mainly appeared in the theatre.
German postcard by WS-Druck, no. F 89. Photo: Klaus Collignon.
German postcard by Ufa, no. CK-77. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann.
German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 74. Photo: Ringpress.
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden (Westf.), no. F 42. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Ringpress / Stempka.
Young Girls
Ingrid Andree was born as Ingrid Tilly Unverhau in 1931 in Hamburg, Germany. She was the daughter of a coffee importer, and the niece of actor Joachim Gottschalk .
She followed acting classes from Eduard Marks at the School of Music and Performing Arts in Hamburg. In 1951 she made her stage debut in Ivan Turgenev's One Month in the Country at the Thalia Theater.
She made her film debut in a small supporting role in Professor Nachtfalter/Professor Moth (Rolf Meyer, 1950), starring Johannes Heesters . Her first leading part was in Primanerinnen/Sixth-formers (Rolf Thiele, 1951) with Walter Giller and Erich Ponto.
This film was her breakthrough and the following years she played many young girls in popular German comedies like Liebeserwachen/Love's Awakening (Hans Heinrich, 1953) with Winnie Markus , and Roman einer Siebzehnjährigen/Novel of a Seventeen Year Old (Paul Verhoeven, 1955) with Therese Giehse.
Her most important of the 1950s - and most popular film too - was the Thomas Mann adaptation Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957). She played Zouzou, Liselotte Pulver played Zaza and Horst Buchholz Felix Krull.
For television John Olden adapted in 1958 the stage play Blick zurück im Zorn/Look Back in Anger by John Osborne. She played the female leading part next to Horst Frank. Her last successes in the cinema were the humorist Krimi Peter Voss, der Millionendieb/Peter Voss, Thief of Millions (Wolfgang Becker, 1958) with O.W. Fischer as Peter Voss, and Der Rest ist Schweigen/The Rest Is Silence (Helmut Käutner, 1959), a Hamlet adaptation situated in the period after WW II, with Hardy Krüger and Peter van Eyck .
West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 1694. Photo: Alfred Greven / Schorcht. Publicity still for Du darfst nicht länger schweigen/You Can No Longer Remain Silent (Robert A. Stemmle, 1955).
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1218/459. Photo: Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof). This must be a publicity still for the comedy Schlag auf Schlag/Blow On Blow (Géza von Cziffra, 1959) which starred Peter Alexander , Wolfgang Wahl, Ralf Wolter , and Ingrid Andree.
German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4205. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Bavaria Film. Publicity still for Und nichts als die Wahrheit.
West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 916. Photo: Weidenbaum.
Krimis
From the 1960s on Ingrid Andree focused herself on the theatre. Among her last films were the Krimi Treibjagd auf ein Leben/Hunt for A Life (Ralph Lothar, 1961) with Dietmar Schönherr and Horst Frank, the William Shakespeare adaptation Was Ihr wollt/Twelfth Night (Franz Peter Wirth, 1962), Nachts ging das Telefon/The Phone Rings Every Night (Géza von Cziffra, 1962), and the thriller Polizeirevier Davidswache/Hamburg: City of Vice (Jürgen Roland, 1964).
Her TV performances were mainly theatre adaptations. Since 1969 she was seldom seen anymore on TV. Among her few later TV appearances were guest roles in the Krimi series Der Kommissar (1970) and Derrick (1985).
Andree mainly appeared on stage. From 1967 till 1970 she worked for the Münchner Kammerspielen and from 1971 till 1980 she was a member of the ensemble of the Thalia-Theater in Hamburg under the direction of Boy Gobert. Here she played in 1974 Queen Elisabeth in Maria Stuart under Gobert’s direction. In 1980 she moved on to the Schauspielhaus Köln (Cologne), but in 1985 she returned to the Thalia Theater.
In the early 1990s she switched again to the Schauspielhaus Köln. She also worked as a voice actor for radio and television. She was the German dubbbing voice of a.o. Olivia de Havilland in Die Erbin/The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949), and Ingrid Thulin in Der Ehekäfig/La Cage (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1975).
She played in Tár úr steini/Tears of Stone (Hilmar Oddsson, 1995), the story of Jon Leifs, Iceland's most celebrated composer, and was filmed in both Iceland and Germany.In 2010, she returned to the screen in Transfer (Damir Lukacevic, 2010). In a futuristic society where the wealthy get to live forever by swapping bodies with refugees, an elderly couple explores this opportunity with harsh consequences.
Ingrid Andree was married from 1959 till 1965 with the actor Hanns Lothar and she is the mother of actress Susanne Lothar. For her work on stage and in the cinema Andree was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz.
East-German postcard by Progress Film-Vetrieb, no. 1203. Photo: publicity still for Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) with Horst Buchholz .
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 215/374, 1957. Photo: Standard-Film. Publicity still for Drei vom Varieté/Three from Variety (Kurt Neumann, 1954).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 222, 1957. Photo: Standard-film, Wien. Publicity still for Drei vom Variété/Three from Variety (Kurt Neumann, 1954) with Erich Schellow and Franco Andrei.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1847. 1963. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: publicity still for Treibjagd auf ein Leben/Drive on a life (Ralph Lothar, 1961) with Dietmar Schönherr .
Trailer Transfer (Damir Lukacevic, 2010). Source: MovieworldsCOM (YouTube).
Sources: Wikipedia, Stephanie D'Heil (Steffi-line.de - German), and .

German postcard by WS-Druck, no. F 89. Photo: Klaus Collignon.

German postcard by Ufa, no. CK-77. Photo: Ringpress / Vogelmann.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 74. Photo: Ringpress.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden (Westf.), no. F 42. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Ringpress / Stempka.
Young Girls
Ingrid Andree was born as Ingrid Tilly Unverhau in 1931 in Hamburg, Germany. She was the daughter of a coffee importer, and the niece of actor Joachim Gottschalk .
She followed acting classes from Eduard Marks at the School of Music and Performing Arts in Hamburg. In 1951 she made her stage debut in Ivan Turgenev's One Month in the Country at the Thalia Theater.
She made her film debut in a small supporting role in Professor Nachtfalter/Professor Moth (Rolf Meyer, 1950), starring Johannes Heesters . Her first leading part was in Primanerinnen/Sixth-formers (Rolf Thiele, 1951) with Walter Giller and Erich Ponto.
This film was her breakthrough and the following years she played many young girls in popular German comedies like Liebeserwachen/Love's Awakening (Hans Heinrich, 1953) with Winnie Markus , and Roman einer Siebzehnjährigen/Novel of a Seventeen Year Old (Paul Verhoeven, 1955) with Therese Giehse.
Her most important of the 1950s - and most popular film too - was the Thomas Mann adaptation Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957). She played Zouzou, Liselotte Pulver played Zaza and Horst Buchholz Felix Krull.
For television John Olden adapted in 1958 the stage play Blick zurück im Zorn/Look Back in Anger by John Osborne. She played the female leading part next to Horst Frank. Her last successes in the cinema were the humorist Krimi Peter Voss, der Millionendieb/Peter Voss, Thief of Millions (Wolfgang Becker, 1958) with O.W. Fischer as Peter Voss, and Der Rest ist Schweigen/The Rest Is Silence (Helmut Käutner, 1959), a Hamlet adaptation situated in the period after WW II, with Hardy Krüger and Peter van Eyck .

West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 1694. Photo: Alfred Greven / Schorcht. Publicity still for Du darfst nicht länger schweigen/You Can No Longer Remain Silent (Robert A. Stemmle, 1955).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 1218/459. Photo: Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof). This must be a publicity still for the comedy Schlag auf Schlag/Blow On Blow (Géza von Cziffra, 1959) which starred Peter Alexander , Wolfgang Wahl, Ralf Wolter , and Ingrid Andree.

German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4205. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Bavaria Film. Publicity still for Und nichts als die Wahrheit.

West-German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 916. Photo: Weidenbaum.
Krimis
From the 1960s on Ingrid Andree focused herself on the theatre. Among her last films were the Krimi Treibjagd auf ein Leben/Hunt for A Life (Ralph Lothar, 1961) with Dietmar Schönherr and Horst Frank, the William Shakespeare adaptation Was Ihr wollt/Twelfth Night (Franz Peter Wirth, 1962), Nachts ging das Telefon/The Phone Rings Every Night (Géza von Cziffra, 1962), and the thriller Polizeirevier Davidswache/Hamburg: City of Vice (Jürgen Roland, 1964).
Her TV performances were mainly theatre adaptations. Since 1969 she was seldom seen anymore on TV. Among her few later TV appearances were guest roles in the Krimi series Der Kommissar (1970) and Derrick (1985).
Andree mainly appeared on stage. From 1967 till 1970 she worked for the Münchner Kammerspielen and from 1971 till 1980 she was a member of the ensemble of the Thalia-Theater in Hamburg under the direction of Boy Gobert. Here she played in 1974 Queen Elisabeth in Maria Stuart under Gobert’s direction. In 1980 she moved on to the Schauspielhaus Köln (Cologne), but in 1985 she returned to the Thalia Theater.
In the early 1990s she switched again to the Schauspielhaus Köln. She also worked as a voice actor for radio and television. She was the German dubbbing voice of a.o. Olivia de Havilland in Die Erbin/The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949), and Ingrid Thulin in Der Ehekäfig/La Cage (Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1975).
She played in Tár úr steini/Tears of Stone (Hilmar Oddsson, 1995), the story of Jon Leifs, Iceland's most celebrated composer, and was filmed in both Iceland and Germany.In 2010, she returned to the screen in Transfer (Damir Lukacevic, 2010). In a futuristic society where the wealthy get to live forever by swapping bodies with refugees, an elderly couple explores this opportunity with harsh consequences.
Ingrid Andree was married from 1959 till 1965 with the actor Hanns Lothar and she is the mother of actress Susanne Lothar. For her work on stage and in the cinema Andree was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz.

East-German postcard by Progress Film-Vetrieb, no. 1203. Photo: publicity still for Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) with Horst Buchholz .

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 215/374, 1957. Photo: Standard-Film. Publicity still for Drei vom Varieté/Three from Variety (Kurt Neumann, 1954).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 222, 1957. Photo: Standard-film, Wien. Publicity still for Drei vom Variété/Three from Variety (Kurt Neumann, 1954) with Erich Schellow and Franco Andrei.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1847. 1963. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: publicity still for Treibjagd auf ein Leben/Drive on a life (Ralph Lothar, 1961) with Dietmar Schönherr .
Trailer Transfer (Damir Lukacevic, 2010). Source: MovieworldsCOM (YouTube).
Sources: Wikipedia, Stephanie D'Heil (Steffi-line.de - German), and .
Published on March 07, 2017 22:00
March 6, 2017
Harriet Bosse
Dark, exotic-looking, petite Harriet Bosse (1878-1961) was a Norwegian-Swedish singer and actor. She starred in several of the plays by her first husband, August Strindberg. She also appeared in a classic of the Swedish silent cinema, Victor Sjöström's Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (1919).
Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1056. Photo: A.B. Svenska Biografteatern, Stockholm.
A strong, modern and independent woman with delicate looks
Harriet Sofie Bosse [Bå'sse] was born in 1878 in Christiania (Oslo), Norway, from a German father, the publisher Heinrich Bosse, and a Danish mother, Anne-Marie Lehmann. Two of Bosse's older sisters, Alma and Dagmar, were already successful performers when Harriet was a small child.
Inspired by these role models, Harriet studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm. In the spring of 1897, after three years of study, she graduated with special grades in singing. Bosse debuted in 1896 on stage in Romeo and Juliet at the Tivoli Theater in Christiania, in a setting by her sister Alma Bosse and under direction of the latter's husband Johan Fahlström.
Alma was Harriet's rather authoritarian acting teacher. Their harmonious and sisterly teacher–pupil relationship became strained when Alma discovered that her husband Johan and Harriet were having an affair. Both Bosse parents were now dead, and Harriet, ordered by Alma to leave, used a modest legacy from her father to finance studies in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and at the conservatory of the Comédie Française in Paris. Wikipedia : "The Paris stage—at that time in dynamic conflict between traditional and experimental production styles—was inspirational for Bosse and convinced her that the low-key realistic acting style in which she was training herself was the right choice."
In 1899, she was engaged at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Since she had difficulties with the Swedish language, she took lessons with a speech therapist to get rid of her Norwegian accent. At the Dramaten she played e.g. Hero in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1902) and Nennele in Giacosa’s Come le foglie (1903).
In these years she met the renowned playwright August Strindberg. He was 51, she 22. Strindberg fell hard for her combination of a strong, modern and independent woman with delicate looks. He wrote plays especially for her, such as Till Damaskus (To Damascus), Påsk (Easter), and Ett drömspel (A Dream Play).
She felt intimidated and not yet up to his heavy roles but accepted to play Elena in Easter, which was a big breakthrough for her in 1901. Harriet Bosse once told how her engagement with Strindberg began: "Strindberg put his hands on my shoulders and looked deeply and sincerely at me and asked: - Would you like to have a small child with me, Miss Bosse? I curtsied and answered quite hypnotic: Yes, thank you. And then we were engaged."
Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1057. Photo: A.B. Svenska Biografteatern, Stockholm.
A Baedeker for a virtual honeymoon
Harriet Bosse and August Strindberg would be married between 1901-1904 and had a daughter Anne-Marie (1902-2007). However, as modern as he was in his plays, as old-fashioned Strindberg was in his interior decoration, refusing to alter anything from his late 19th century style. Moreover, because of his agoraphobia he cancelled their honeymoon and gave her a Baedeker instead to do the virtual version. He was also an extremely jealous person, while she disliked her ‘imprisonment’. Not even the birth of their daughter in 1902 could save the marriage. As of 1902 they lived apart and they divorced in 1904.
In 1906 Harriet Bosse was engaged by Albert Ranft to the Swedish Theatre in Stockholm and became the theatre's big star in plays less conventional than at the Dramaten. She remarried with actor Gunnar Wingård in 1908 – with whom she had a son.
Though her marriage with Strindberg was over, Bosse played in 1907 in two Strindberg plays at the Svenska Teatern: Ett drömspel (A Dream Play) and Kronbruden (The Bridal Crown). With A Dream Play she wrote theatre history. She also kept up a relationship with Strindberg, leaving her daughter with him when on tour to e.g. Helsinki, until she remarried.
In addition she also acted in plays by e.g. Maxim Gorki (The Petty Bourgeois), Maurice Maeterlink (Pelléas et Mélisande), George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman), Hermann Sudermann (Johannes), W. Somerset Maugham (Mrs Dot), Selma Lagerlöf (Gösta Berlings saga), and others.
She was engaged again at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1911 with the promise of playing heavier roles. In 1911 she also divorced Wingård for his infidelity or his spendthrift (versions vary). In 1912 Bosse was confronted with a series of disasters: Strindberg died, her second ex-husband killed himself, her sister’s son drowned with the Titanic, and Strindberg’s daughter Greta was killed in a train crash. Fans of Wingård threatened Bosse for having caused his suicide.
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/2. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919). Caption: Brita from Bergskog.
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/8. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919). Caption: I have to do something or I won't find any rest in my soul.
A milestone in the Swedish naturalist cinema
In 1919 Victor Sjöström directed Harriet Bosse in what was thought to be her breakthrough in cinema, and what still goes as a milestone in the Swedish naturalist cinema: Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919).
It co-starred Victor Sjöström as a rich farmer’s son, Lill Ingmar [Little Ingmar], who because of his stern mother has caused his fiancee, the poor farmer woman Brita, trouble by postponing his marriage. So Brita gives birth to a baby out of wedlock, kills it out of despair and spends time in jail. In the end, after a discussion with the ghost of his forefather, Lill Ingmar repents, marries Brita and the two leave the bigot villagers. It was based on the first part of Sjöström’s adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf's novel Jerusalem, originally published 1901-1902.
In 1920 Sjöström would direct, and star in, the sequel Karin Ingmarsdotter, in which Bosse’s part in the previous film would only be referred to; instead the female lead was for Tora Teje .
Though Ingmarssönerna was hailed by critics, and afterwards director Ingmar Bergman confessed to have been deeply impressed by it, it didn’t mean a breakthrough in the cinema for Bosse, despite he fact she had been the star of the film. She only played in a forgotten German film, Kameraden/Comrades (Johannes Guter, 1919) with Alfred Abel .
Only 17 years after she would act in Bombi Bitt och jag/Bombi Bitt and I (1936), based on Fritiof Nilsson Piraten's popular first novel with the same title and directed by Gösta Rodin. Bombi Bitt was successful, but it was rather a lightweight production and with a smaller role for Bosse.
Bosse also played supporting parts in Anna Lans/The Sin of Anna Lans (Rune Carlsten, 1943), starring Viveca Lindfors as the title character, and Appassionata (Olof Molander 1944), again starring Lindfors.
In 1919-1921 Bosse played during the spring season at the Intimate theatre. In addition, she did guest performances in the provinces, as well as in Göteborg, Oslo and Helsingfors. In 1927 Bosse married for the third time, with popular actor and matinee idol Edvin Adolphson (until 1932). Her last ten years she acted at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (1933-1943). These she found it increasingly difficult to get interesting roles.
In May 1943, she went into retirement and in 1955 she moved to Norway, where her daughter lived with the family. She regretted her move though, dearly missing Stockholm. Harriet Bosse died in 1961 in Oslo.
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/10. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919). Caption: And now the prison chaplain urges her to write to Ingmar.
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/13. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919) with Victor Sjöström and Harriet Bosse. Caption:
Sources: Svensk Filmdatabas, Wikipedia (English and Swedish), and .

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1056. Photo: A.B. Svenska Biografteatern, Stockholm.
A strong, modern and independent woman with delicate looks
Harriet Sofie Bosse [Bå'sse] was born in 1878 in Christiania (Oslo), Norway, from a German father, the publisher Heinrich Bosse, and a Danish mother, Anne-Marie Lehmann. Two of Bosse's older sisters, Alma and Dagmar, were already successful performers when Harriet was a small child.
Inspired by these role models, Harriet studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm. In the spring of 1897, after three years of study, she graduated with special grades in singing. Bosse debuted in 1896 on stage in Romeo and Juliet at the Tivoli Theater in Christiania, in a setting by her sister Alma Bosse and under direction of the latter's husband Johan Fahlström.
Alma was Harriet's rather authoritarian acting teacher. Their harmonious and sisterly teacher–pupil relationship became strained when Alma discovered that her husband Johan and Harriet were having an affair. Both Bosse parents were now dead, and Harriet, ordered by Alma to leave, used a modest legacy from her father to finance studies in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and at the conservatory of the Comédie Française in Paris. Wikipedia : "The Paris stage—at that time in dynamic conflict between traditional and experimental production styles—was inspirational for Bosse and convinced her that the low-key realistic acting style in which she was training herself was the right choice."
In 1899, she was engaged at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Since she had difficulties with the Swedish language, she took lessons with a speech therapist to get rid of her Norwegian accent. At the Dramaten she played e.g. Hero in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1902) and Nennele in Giacosa’s Come le foglie (1903).
In these years she met the renowned playwright August Strindberg. He was 51, she 22. Strindberg fell hard for her combination of a strong, modern and independent woman with delicate looks. He wrote plays especially for her, such as Till Damaskus (To Damascus), Påsk (Easter), and Ett drömspel (A Dream Play).
She felt intimidated and not yet up to his heavy roles but accepted to play Elena in Easter, which was a big breakthrough for her in 1901. Harriet Bosse once told how her engagement with Strindberg began: "Strindberg put his hands on my shoulders and looked deeply and sincerely at me and asked: - Would you like to have a small child with me, Miss Bosse? I curtsied and answered quite hypnotic: Yes, thank you. And then we were engaged."

Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1057. Photo: A.B. Svenska Biografteatern, Stockholm.
A Baedeker for a virtual honeymoon
Harriet Bosse and August Strindberg would be married between 1901-1904 and had a daughter Anne-Marie (1902-2007). However, as modern as he was in his plays, as old-fashioned Strindberg was in his interior decoration, refusing to alter anything from his late 19th century style. Moreover, because of his agoraphobia he cancelled their honeymoon and gave her a Baedeker instead to do the virtual version. He was also an extremely jealous person, while she disliked her ‘imprisonment’. Not even the birth of their daughter in 1902 could save the marriage. As of 1902 they lived apart and they divorced in 1904.
In 1906 Harriet Bosse was engaged by Albert Ranft to the Swedish Theatre in Stockholm and became the theatre's big star in plays less conventional than at the Dramaten. She remarried with actor Gunnar Wingård in 1908 – with whom she had a son.
Though her marriage with Strindberg was over, Bosse played in 1907 in two Strindberg plays at the Svenska Teatern: Ett drömspel (A Dream Play) and Kronbruden (The Bridal Crown). With A Dream Play she wrote theatre history. She also kept up a relationship with Strindberg, leaving her daughter with him when on tour to e.g. Helsinki, until she remarried.
In addition she also acted in plays by e.g. Maxim Gorki (The Petty Bourgeois), Maurice Maeterlink (Pelléas et Mélisande), George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman), Hermann Sudermann (Johannes), W. Somerset Maugham (Mrs Dot), Selma Lagerlöf (Gösta Berlings saga), and others.
She was engaged again at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1911 with the promise of playing heavier roles. In 1911 she also divorced Wingård for his infidelity or his spendthrift (versions vary). In 1912 Bosse was confronted with a series of disasters: Strindberg died, her second ex-husband killed himself, her sister’s son drowned with the Titanic, and Strindberg’s daughter Greta was killed in a train crash. Fans of Wingård threatened Bosse for having caused his suicide.

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/2. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919). Caption: Brita from Bergskog.

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/8. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919). Caption: I have to do something or I won't find any rest in my soul.
A milestone in the Swedish naturalist cinema
In 1919 Victor Sjöström directed Harriet Bosse in what was thought to be her breakthrough in cinema, and what still goes as a milestone in the Swedish naturalist cinema: Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919).
It co-starred Victor Sjöström as a rich farmer’s son, Lill Ingmar [Little Ingmar], who because of his stern mother has caused his fiancee, the poor farmer woman Brita, trouble by postponing his marriage. So Brita gives birth to a baby out of wedlock, kills it out of despair and spends time in jail. In the end, after a discussion with the ghost of his forefather, Lill Ingmar repents, marries Brita and the two leave the bigot villagers. It was based on the first part of Sjöström’s adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf's novel Jerusalem, originally published 1901-1902.
In 1920 Sjöström would direct, and star in, the sequel Karin Ingmarsdotter, in which Bosse’s part in the previous film would only be referred to; instead the female lead was for Tora Teje .
Though Ingmarssönerna was hailed by critics, and afterwards director Ingmar Bergman confessed to have been deeply impressed by it, it didn’t mean a breakthrough in the cinema for Bosse, despite he fact she had been the star of the film. She only played in a forgotten German film, Kameraden/Comrades (Johannes Guter, 1919) with Alfred Abel .
Only 17 years after she would act in Bombi Bitt och jag/Bombi Bitt and I (1936), based on Fritiof Nilsson Piraten's popular first novel with the same title and directed by Gösta Rodin. Bombi Bitt was successful, but it was rather a lightweight production and with a smaller role for Bosse.
Bosse also played supporting parts in Anna Lans/The Sin of Anna Lans (Rune Carlsten, 1943), starring Viveca Lindfors as the title character, and Appassionata (Olof Molander 1944), again starring Lindfors.
In 1919-1921 Bosse played during the spring season at the Intimate theatre. In addition, she did guest performances in the provinces, as well as in Göteborg, Oslo and Helsingfors. In 1927 Bosse married for the third time, with popular actor and matinee idol Edvin Adolphson (until 1932). Her last ten years she acted at the Royal Dramatic Theatre (1933-1943). These she found it increasingly difficult to get interesting roles.
In May 1943, she went into retirement and in 1955 she moved to Norway, where her daughter lived with the family. She regretted her move though, dearly missing Stockholm. Harriet Bosse died in 1961 in Oslo.

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/10. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919). Caption: And now the prison chaplain urges her to write to Ingmar.

Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 958/13. Photo: publicity still for Ingmarssönerna/Sons of Ingmar (Victor Sjöström, 1919) with Victor Sjöström and Harriet Bosse. Caption:
Sources: Svensk Filmdatabas, Wikipedia (English and Swedish), and .
Published on March 06, 2017 22:00
March 5, 2017
Anne Heywood
British film actress Anne Heywood (1932) started her career as Miss Great Britain in 1950. In the mid-1950s, she began to play supporting roles as the ‘nice girl’ for Rank. Gradually she evolved into a leading lady, best known for her dramatic roles in the pioneer lesbian drama The Fox (1967) and the 'nunsploitation' La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969).
Italian postcard by Bromophoto, Milano, no. 1283. Photo: Rank Film. Publicity still for Dangerous Exile (1958).
Knockout Brunette
Anne Heywood was born as Violet Joan Pretty in Handsworth (now Birmingham), England in 1932. She was one of seven children. Her father, Harold Pretty, was a former orchestral violinist, turned factory worker. Her mother died when Violet was just 13.
Violet had to leave school at 14 to look after the younger members of her family. This frustrated her wish to go to art school. Instead she joined in 1947 the Highbury Little Theatre in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and stayed there for two years gaining stage experience.
At only 17, the knockout brunette won the National Bathing Beauty Contest in 1950, later renamed as the Miss Great Britain contest. Her prizes were £1000 and a silver rose bowl. The following year she made her film debut as a beauty contestant in the comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (Frank Launder, 1951) with Dennis Price .
That year she also became the personal assistant of Carroll Levis, a talent spotter on a radio show, which toured along the main theatres of Great Britain. She stayed at the show for four years and even appeared three times with the show on television. Heywood attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
While playing the principal boy in Aladdin at the Chelsea Palace, she was spotted by a talent scout for the Rank Organisation. In 1956, she signed a seven-year contract and her name was changed to Anne Heywood. According to Glamour Girls at the Silver Screen she later recalled: “I always hated my name. It sounded unreal.”
For Rank, she appeared in supporting roles as the 'nice girl'. Her films included the comedy Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) starring Dirk Bogarde , the crime drama Violent Playground (Basil Dearden, 1958) opposite Stanley Baker , and the adventure Dangerous Exile (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1958) starring Louis Jourdan . Gradually Heywood evolved into a leading lady.
British postcard in the Celebrity Autograph Series, London, no. 335. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1958).
Nunsploitation
Anne Heywood met producer Raymond Stross in 1959 at the set of A Terrible Beauty/The Night Fighters (Tay Garnett, 1960) starring Robert Mitchum. A year later they married in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 16 years her senior. Stross started to reshape her image with such sexy, offbeat dramas as The Very Edge (Cyril Frankel, 1963) with Richard Todd , and 90 Degrees in the Shade (Jiri Weiss, 1965). At the Berlin Film Festival, the latter won the International Critics' Prize.
Her breakthrough role was Ellen March in The Fox (Mark Rydell, 1967), co-starring Sandy Dennis. This film adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence novella caused controversy at the time due to its lesbian theme. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb on Heywood and Dennis: “the two were quite believable as an unhappy, isolated couple whose relationship is irreparably shattered by the appearance of a handsome stranger (Keir Dullea). At the height of the movie's publicity, Playboy magazine revealed a ‘pictorial essay’ just prior to its 1967 release with Anne in a nude and auto-erotic spread.”
Heywood was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. The Fox, a Canadian film, did win the Best Foreign Film Golden Globe. Heywood did not win. The Fox is now respected as a pioneer, ground-breaking lesbian film.
Heywood’s next film was La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (Eriprando Visconti, 1969) with Hardy Krüger . This controversial drama tells the tale of how a 17th-century Italian nun's long repressed sexual passion is awakened when a handsome nobleman rapes and impregnates her. Later she is captured and captured and given a horrible life sentence. This ‘true story’ of Sister Virginia, the nun of Monza, was shot in a fifteenth-century castle 27 miles north of Rome and in medieval churches in Lombardy, where the original story took place. This quite nasty and exploitative drama grossed more than $1,000,000 in its initial run in Italy and paid back its negative cost in three weeks. The box office success lead to an Italian sub-genre of ‘nunsploitation’ films in the 1970s.
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no 1498. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1958).
The Killer Is on the Phone
Anne Heywood and Raymond Stross moved from Switzerland to the US. Despite the Golden Globe nomination and the Playboy spread, Heywood never endeared herself to American filmgoers. Her Hollywood productions as the caper Midas Run (Alf Kjellin, 1969) with Fred Astaire, and the action drama The Chairman (J. Lee Thompson, 1969) with Gregory Peck were no successes.
She seemed drawn toward highly troubled, flawed characters, like in I Want What I Want (John Dexter, 1972) and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1979).
In the 1970s, she also appeared in several Italian films, including the Giallo L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (Alberto De Martino, 1972) with Telly Savalas and Willeke van Ammelrooy, the nunsploitation Le monache di Sant'Arcangelo/The Nun & The Devil (Domenico Paolella, 1973) with Ornella Muti , and the romantic drama La prima volta sull'erba/Love Under the Elms (Gianluigi Calderone, 1975).
Her career declined in the 1980s. Her final feature was What Waits Below (Don Sharp, 1985). Hal Erickson at AllMovie : “a goofy fantasy filmed on the cheap by the ever-canny Don Sharp. The story involves a team of anthropologists and military men who busy themselves exploring a serpentine system of subterranean caves. They discover of lost race of Albinos, which wreaks havoc upon the surface dwelling humans. The British actor Robert Powell and Timothy Bottoms star. According to some sources, Sharp and co. approached the production with extreme carelessness; thanks to an unfortunate accident, a large percentage of the cast and crew were almost fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide in the caves where the movie was filmed.”
Heywood's penultimate role was as Manon Brevard Marcel on the American TV series The Equalizer (1988), starring Edward Woodward. In 1988 her husband Raymond Stross died. The following year she was seen in a final television movie, Memories of Manon (Tony Wharmby, 1989) based on the character from The Equalizer.
After this role she retired. She remarried to George Danzig Druke, a former New York Assistant Attorney General. Anne Heywood Druke resides with her husband in Beverly Hills, USA. She has one son, Mark Stross (1963), with Raymond Stross.
Scene from The Fox (1967). Source: mrahole (YouTube).
Belgian journal item about La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969). Source: patsofilm (YouTube).
Trailer L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (1972). Source: CG Entertainment (YouTube).
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and .

Italian postcard by Bromophoto, Milano, no. 1283. Photo: Rank Film. Publicity still for Dangerous Exile (1958).
Knockout Brunette
Anne Heywood was born as Violet Joan Pretty in Handsworth (now Birmingham), England in 1932. She was one of seven children. Her father, Harold Pretty, was a former orchestral violinist, turned factory worker. Her mother died when Violet was just 13.
Violet had to leave school at 14 to look after the younger members of her family. This frustrated her wish to go to art school. Instead she joined in 1947 the Highbury Little Theatre in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham and stayed there for two years gaining stage experience.
At only 17, the knockout brunette won the National Bathing Beauty Contest in 1950, later renamed as the Miss Great Britain contest. Her prizes were £1000 and a silver rose bowl. The following year she made her film debut as a beauty contestant in the comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (Frank Launder, 1951) with Dennis Price .
That year she also became the personal assistant of Carroll Levis, a talent spotter on a radio show, which toured along the main theatres of Great Britain. She stayed at the show for four years and even appeared three times with the show on television. Heywood attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
While playing the principal boy in Aladdin at the Chelsea Palace, she was spotted by a talent scout for the Rank Organisation. In 1956, she signed a seven-year contract and her name was changed to Anne Heywood. According to Glamour Girls at the Silver Screen she later recalled: “I always hated my name. It sounded unreal.”
For Rank, she appeared in supporting roles as the 'nice girl'. Her films included the comedy Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) starring Dirk Bogarde , the crime drama Violent Playground (Basil Dearden, 1958) opposite Stanley Baker , and the adventure Dangerous Exile (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1958) starring Louis Jourdan . Gradually Heywood evolved into a leading lady.

British postcard in the Celebrity Autograph Series, London, no. 335. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1958).
Nunsploitation
Anne Heywood met producer Raymond Stross in 1959 at the set of A Terrible Beauty/The Night Fighters (Tay Garnett, 1960) starring Robert Mitchum. A year later they married in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 16 years her senior. Stross started to reshape her image with such sexy, offbeat dramas as The Very Edge (Cyril Frankel, 1963) with Richard Todd , and 90 Degrees in the Shade (Jiri Weiss, 1965). At the Berlin Film Festival, the latter won the International Critics' Prize.
Her breakthrough role was Ellen March in The Fox (Mark Rydell, 1967), co-starring Sandy Dennis. This film adaptation of a D. H. Lawrence novella caused controversy at the time due to its lesbian theme. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb on Heywood and Dennis: “the two were quite believable as an unhappy, isolated couple whose relationship is irreparably shattered by the appearance of a handsome stranger (Keir Dullea). At the height of the movie's publicity, Playboy magazine revealed a ‘pictorial essay’ just prior to its 1967 release with Anne in a nude and auto-erotic spread.”
Heywood was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. The Fox, a Canadian film, did win the Best Foreign Film Golden Globe. Heywood did not win. The Fox is now respected as a pioneer, ground-breaking lesbian film.
Heywood’s next film was La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (Eriprando Visconti, 1969) with Hardy Krüger . This controversial drama tells the tale of how a 17th-century Italian nun's long repressed sexual passion is awakened when a handsome nobleman rapes and impregnates her. Later she is captured and captured and given a horrible life sentence. This ‘true story’ of Sister Virginia, the nun of Monza, was shot in a fifteenth-century castle 27 miles north of Rome and in medieval churches in Lombardy, where the original story took place. This quite nasty and exploitative drama grossed more than $1,000,000 in its initial run in Italy and paid back its negative cost in three weeks. The box office success lead to an Italian sub-genre of ‘nunsploitation’ films in the 1970s.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no 1498. Photo: Rank. Publicity still for Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1958).
The Killer Is on the Phone
Anne Heywood and Raymond Stross moved from Switzerland to the US. Despite the Golden Globe nomination and the Playboy spread, Heywood never endeared herself to American filmgoers. Her Hollywood productions as the caper Midas Run (Alf Kjellin, 1969) with Fred Astaire, and the action drama The Chairman (J. Lee Thompson, 1969) with Gregory Peck were no successes.
She seemed drawn toward highly troubled, flawed characters, like in I Want What I Want (John Dexter, 1972) and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1979).
In the 1970s, she also appeared in several Italian films, including the Giallo L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (Alberto De Martino, 1972) with Telly Savalas and Willeke van Ammelrooy, the nunsploitation Le monache di Sant'Arcangelo/The Nun & The Devil (Domenico Paolella, 1973) with Ornella Muti , and the romantic drama La prima volta sull'erba/Love Under the Elms (Gianluigi Calderone, 1975).
Her career declined in the 1980s. Her final feature was What Waits Below (Don Sharp, 1985). Hal Erickson at AllMovie : “a goofy fantasy filmed on the cheap by the ever-canny Don Sharp. The story involves a team of anthropologists and military men who busy themselves exploring a serpentine system of subterranean caves. They discover of lost race of Albinos, which wreaks havoc upon the surface dwelling humans. The British actor Robert Powell and Timothy Bottoms star. According to some sources, Sharp and co. approached the production with extreme carelessness; thanks to an unfortunate accident, a large percentage of the cast and crew were almost fatally poisoned by carbon monoxide in the caves where the movie was filmed.”
Heywood's penultimate role was as Manon Brevard Marcel on the American TV series The Equalizer (1988), starring Edward Woodward. In 1988 her husband Raymond Stross died. The following year she was seen in a final television movie, Memories of Manon (Tony Wharmby, 1989) based on the character from The Equalizer.
After this role she retired. She remarried to George Danzig Druke, a former New York Assistant Attorney General. Anne Heywood Druke resides with her husband in Beverly Hills, USA. She has one son, Mark Stross (1963), with Raymond Stross.
Scene from The Fox (1967). Source: mrahole (YouTube).
Belgian journal item about La monaca di Monza/The Nun of Monza (1969). Source: patsofilm (YouTube).
Trailer L'assassino... è al telefono/The Killer Is on the Phone (1972). Source: CG Entertainment (YouTube).
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and .
Published on March 05, 2017 22:00
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