Paul van Yperen's Blog, page 429
February 7, 2014
Varischi & Artico
Milanese photographers Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico portrayed many stars of the Italian silent cinema, like Lyda Borelli, Dina Galli and Mercedes Brignone.
Lyda Borelli . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano.
Daguerreotype Business
In 1900, Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico became the owners of the portrait studio and photo laboratory of Leone Ricci in Milano, Italy, where they had both been trained.
Ricci had started his daguerreotype business already before 1850 and thus was one of the earliest photographers in Milano. His studio had a long history of portraying the Milanese bourgeoisie and aristocracy and Varischi & Artico Company continued this tradition.
Giovanni Artico was born in Vittorio Veneto in 1868. After his studies in chemistry, he established himself in Milan.
Like many young contemporaries, he was interested in the upcoming business of photography. He choose to start working in the portrait studio of Leone Ricci.
There he met another employee, Arturo Varischi, and the two decided to take over Ricci's business.
The two photographers conveniently shared their business location (first Corso Vittorio Emanuele 110-111, later Corso Vittorio Emanuele 22) with Angelo Pettazzi, an established merchant and producer of photographic equipment and supplies.
Most of the photos of Varischi & Artico date from 1900-1920, while the company name was first spelled as Varischi, Artico & Co., later on as Varischi & Artico Co.
On postcards the credit reads: Fot. Varischi & Artico - Milano - as on the postcard above.
Armando Falconi and Tina Di Lorenzo. Italian postcard by NPC, no. 19. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co., Milano.
Mercedes Brignone . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co. Milano, no. 2052.
Lyda Borelli . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano.
Performers of the Scala
Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico soon gained a reputation for their infant portraits.
They were also known for their ability in attracting famous artists to their studio. Renowned opera performers from the Scala flocked to Varischi & Artico Co. for their publicity by use of souvenir photographs and picture postcards.
They also attracted famous musicians like Arturo Toscanini, stage actors and writers to their studio. Soon also the first film stars were portrayed by them.
One of their most popular subjects was the first diva of the silent Italian cinema, Lyda Borelli. Notable is also their series of colour portraits.
Arturo Varischi died prematurely. In 1923 Artico took over on his own and transformed the 19th century portrait studio into a modern business.
Giovanni Artico died in 1930, and his widow, Regina Trelancia, continued the activities till 1933. Later their son Carlo Artico also became a photographer and reopened a Studio Artico in Milan.
In the archive of Studio Artico there are about 70 original photos of famous personalities like author Giovanni Verga and actress Tina de Lorenzo, which were signed by the sitters. They show the artistry and craftsmanship of Artico. Many prints of his work can be found in archives all over Italy, especially in Milan.
Lyda Borelli . Italian postcard, no. 2015. Photo: Varischi Artico & Co., Milano.
Dina Galli . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co. Milano, no. 2148. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.
Lyda Borelli and Giannina Chiantoni in the play La figlia di Jorio by Gabriele D'Annunzio. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.
Iris Giulia. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co., Milano, no. 2140. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.
This is the fifth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi, German photographer Ernst Schneider and Dutch photo artist Godfried de Groot.
Sources: Giovanna Ginex (Varischi e Artico fotografi a Milano: i primi decenni del secolo), Silvia Paoli (Lo studio e laboratorio fotografico Artico, Rivista di storia e fotografia, no. 24, II, december 1996), Max Hochstetler (Luminous Lint), and Claudia Morgan (Commune di Trieste) (Italian).
Lyda Borelli . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano.
Daguerreotype Business
In 1900, Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico became the owners of the portrait studio and photo laboratory of Leone Ricci in Milano, Italy, where they had both been trained.
Ricci had started his daguerreotype business already before 1850 and thus was one of the earliest photographers in Milano. His studio had a long history of portraying the Milanese bourgeoisie and aristocracy and Varischi & Artico Company continued this tradition.
Giovanni Artico was born in Vittorio Veneto in 1868. After his studies in chemistry, he established himself in Milan.
Like many young contemporaries, he was interested in the upcoming business of photography. He choose to start working in the portrait studio of Leone Ricci.
There he met another employee, Arturo Varischi, and the two decided to take over Ricci's business.
The two photographers conveniently shared their business location (first Corso Vittorio Emanuele 110-111, later Corso Vittorio Emanuele 22) with Angelo Pettazzi, an established merchant and producer of photographic equipment and supplies.
Most of the photos of Varischi & Artico date from 1900-1920, while the company name was first spelled as Varischi, Artico & Co., later on as Varischi & Artico Co.
On postcards the credit reads: Fot. Varischi & Artico - Milano - as on the postcard above.
Armando Falconi and Tina Di Lorenzo. Italian postcard by NPC, no. 19. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co., Milano.
Mercedes Brignone . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co. Milano, no. 2052.
Lyda Borelli . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano.
Performers of the Scala
Arturo Varischi and Giovanni Artico soon gained a reputation for their infant portraits.
They were also known for their ability in attracting famous artists to their studio. Renowned opera performers from the Scala flocked to Varischi & Artico Co. for their publicity by use of souvenir photographs and picture postcards.
They also attracted famous musicians like Arturo Toscanini, stage actors and writers to their studio. Soon also the first film stars were portrayed by them.
One of their most popular subjects was the first diva of the silent Italian cinema, Lyda Borelli. Notable is also their series of colour portraits.
Arturo Varischi died prematurely. In 1923 Artico took over on his own and transformed the 19th century portrait studio into a modern business.
Giovanni Artico died in 1930, and his widow, Regina Trelancia, continued the activities till 1933. Later their son Carlo Artico also became a photographer and reopened a Studio Artico in Milan.
In the archive of Studio Artico there are about 70 original photos of famous personalities like author Giovanni Verga and actress Tina de Lorenzo, which were signed by the sitters. They show the artistry and craftsmanship of Artico. Many prints of his work can be found in archives all over Italy, especially in Milan.
Lyda Borelli . Italian postcard, no. 2015. Photo: Varischi Artico & Co., Milano.
Dina Galli . Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co. Milano, no. 2148. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.
Lyda Borelli and Giannina Chiantoni in the play La figlia di Jorio by Gabriele D'Annunzio. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi & Artico, Milano. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.
Iris Giulia. Italian postcard. Photo: Varischi, Artico & Co., Milano, no. 2140. Collection: Manuel Palomino Arjona.
This is the fifth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi, German photographer Ernst Schneider and Dutch photo artist Godfried de Groot.
Sources: Giovanna Ginex (Varischi e Artico fotografi a Milano: i primi decenni del secolo), Silvia Paoli (Lo studio e laboratorio fotografico Artico, Rivista di storia e fotografia, no. 24, II, december 1996), Max Hochstetler (Luminous Lint), and Claudia Morgan (Commune di Trieste) (Italian).
February 6, 2014
Jiří Vršťala
Jiří Vršťala (1920-1999) was a Czech actor and writer. He achieved fame in Eastern Europe as the clown Ferdinand.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 500/5/65, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: Bolinski.
Clown Ferdinand
Jiří Vršťala (or Jiri Vrstala) was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1920. After graduating from high school Vršťala worked as a casual labourer. During World War II he had to work as a forced labourer in Germany.
After 1945, Vršťala worked at the theatre in Liberec, although he had no acting training. He was awarded for his role as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then Vršťala got an engagement at the Realistic theatre in Prague.
In the 1950s he moved to the Prague City Theatre, and started to receive film offers for Czech films like Veliká prílezitost/The Great Opportunity (K.M. Walló, 1950) and the comedy Plavecký mariás/Swimming Maria (Václav Wasserman, 1953).
In 1955, Jiří Vršťala and Czech director Jindrich Polák developed together the character of the clown Ferdinand for the five-part TV series Sest estras Klaunem Ferdinandem/The Adventures of the Clown Ferdinand (1956-1957) of the Czech television station CST.
Here Vršťala embodied for the first time the figure that made him popular across the country's borders during the next decade. Several TV series for the Czech and East-German television followed.
He also appeared in public in this role, especially in children revues of the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin and in children cabarets. These stage appearances were always sold-out. As Clown Ferdinand, he also made records and a book.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 500/6, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: DEFA / Pathenheimer, no. 2.548. Publicity still for Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3140, 1968. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Schwarz. With Angelica Domröse .
DEFA Villains
Jiří Vršťala’s first major film role was in the Czech Crime film Páté oddělení/Fifth Department (Jindrich Polák, 1960).
Other interesting films were the Science Fiction film Ikarie XB 1 (Jindrich Polák, 1963) and the war drama Transport z raje/Transport from Paradise (Zbynek Brynych, 1963).
He also made films as Clown Ferdinand, like Klaun Ferdinand a raketa (Jindrich Polák, 1963) and Clown Ferdinand will schlafen/Clown Ferdinand Wants to Sleep (Jindrich Polák, 1965).
In 1966 he married East-German actress Angelica Domröse , with whom he had appeared in Chronik eines Mordes/The Story of a Murder (Joachim Hasler, 1965), and he moved to East Berlin.
In East-Germany he played character roles as villains in DEFA productions till 1975. These included the Western Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966) starring Gojko Mitic . He also played in more films and TV productions as Clown Ferdinand.
In 1975, he separated from Angelica Domröse and in 1983 Vršťala ended his acting career to devote himself to a literary career.
In 1987, he appeared again in two more Czech films, Mravenci nesou smrt/Ants carry the death (Zbynek Brynych, 1987) and Narozeniny reziséra Z.K./The birthday of director Z.K. (Jaroslav Balík, 1987). These were his final film appearances.
Jiří Vršťala later lived retired in the Pankow district of Berlin and in 1999, he died there of cancer shortly before his 79th birthday.
>
Clown Ferdinand. Source: rania elmadany (YouTube).
Sources: Wikipedia (German) and .
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 500/5/65, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: Bolinski.
Clown Ferdinand
Jiří Vršťala (or Jiri Vrstala) was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1920. After graduating from high school Vršťala worked as a casual labourer. During World War II he had to work as a forced labourer in Germany.
After 1945, Vršťala worked at the theatre in Liberec, although he had no acting training. He was awarded for his role as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then Vršťala got an engagement at the Realistic theatre in Prague.
In the 1950s he moved to the Prague City Theatre, and started to receive film offers for Czech films like Veliká prílezitost/The Great Opportunity (K.M. Walló, 1950) and the comedy Plavecký mariás/Swimming Maria (Václav Wasserman, 1953).
In 1955, Jiří Vršťala and Czech director Jindrich Polák developed together the character of the clown Ferdinand for the five-part TV series Sest estras Klaunem Ferdinandem/The Adventures of the Clown Ferdinand (1956-1957) of the Czech television station CST.
Here Vršťala embodied for the first time the figure that made him popular across the country's borders during the next decade. Several TV series for the Czech and East-German television followed.
He also appeared in public in this role, especially in children revues of the Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin and in children cabarets. These stage appearances were always sold-out. As Clown Ferdinand, he also made records and a book.
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 500/6, 1966. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: DEFA / Pathenheimer, no. 2.548. Publicity still for Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3140, 1968. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Schwarz. With Angelica Domröse .
DEFA Villains
Jiří Vršťala’s first major film role was in the Czech Crime film Páté oddělení/Fifth Department (Jindrich Polák, 1960).
Other interesting films were the Science Fiction film Ikarie XB 1 (Jindrich Polák, 1963) and the war drama Transport z raje/Transport from Paradise (Zbynek Brynych, 1963).
He also made films as Clown Ferdinand, like Klaun Ferdinand a raketa (Jindrich Polák, 1963) and Clown Ferdinand will schlafen/Clown Ferdinand Wants to Sleep (Jindrich Polák, 1965).
In 1966 he married East-German actress Angelica Domröse , with whom he had appeared in Chronik eines Mordes/The Story of a Murder (Joachim Hasler, 1965), and he moved to East Berlin.
In East-Germany he played character roles as villains in DEFA productions till 1975. These included the Western Die Söhne der großen Bärin/The Sons of Great Bear (Josef Mach, 1966) starring Gojko Mitic . He also played in more films and TV productions as Clown Ferdinand.
In 1975, he separated from Angelica Domröse and in 1983 Vršťala ended his acting career to devote himself to a literary career.
In 1987, he appeared again in two more Czech films, Mravenci nesou smrt/Ants carry the death (Zbynek Brynych, 1987) and Narozeniny reziséra Z.K./The birthday of director Z.K. (Jaroslav Balík, 1987). These were his final film appearances.
Jiří Vršťala later lived retired in the Pankow district of Berlin and in 1999, he died there of cancer shortly before his 79th birthday.
>
Clown Ferdinand. Source: rania elmadany (YouTube).
Sources: Wikipedia (German) and .
February 5, 2014
Mai Zetterling
Lovely Swedish actress Mai Zetterling (1925-1994) graced many European films in the 1940s and 1950s with her slim figure, green eyes, blonde hair and bewitchingly elfin features. She was also a talented and controversial director whose films focus on the role of women in society and show a fascination with outsiders, whether Eskimos, Gypsies or girl delinquents.
British postcard, no. F.S. 30. Publicity postcard for the film Quartet (1948), a Sydney Box production for Gainsborough Pictures.
Modest Sex Symbol Success
Mai Elizabeth Zetterling was born in Västerås, Sweden, in 1925. She lived from 1929 till 1932 in Australia with her mother and stepfather.
After working in a drug store and a mail-order company, she tried acting. She trained at the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater, where Alf Sjöberg became her mentor. At 16, she made her debut on both stage and screen.
Following her film debut in Lasse-Maja/Lasse Maja (Gunnar Olsson, 1941), she made quite an impact in the terminally dark Hets/Frenzy (1944), directed by her mentor Alf Sjöberg and written by Ingmar Bergman.
Glenn Collins in his obituary in the New York Times writes that "her sensitive portrayal of a simple girl victimized by a sadistic professor (...) created a sensation and is now considered a landmark of the Swedish cinema."
Bergman went on to direct her in his Musik i mörker/Music in the Dark (Ingmar Bergman, 1948). The international attention she received from Hets led her to England where she debuted on London's West End in a revival of Henrik Ibsen's Wild Duck.
Zetterling also played the title role of the film Frieda (Basil Dearden, 1947), about the problems of a RAF officer's German bride in dealing with postwar prejudice in his home town. This led to a successful British film career with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
For Rank she played decorative roles in a segment of Quartet (Ralph Smart, 1948) and The Romantic Age (Edmond T. Gréville, 1949).
Developing modest sex symbol success, she went on to co-star opposite a number of handsome leading men throughout the post-war years in primarily dramatic works, including Dennis Price in the flop The Bad Lord Byron (David MacDonald, 1949), Dirk Bogarde in Blackmailed (Marc Allégret, 1951), and Herbert Lom in Hell is Sold Out (Michael Anderson, 1951) and The Ringer (Guy Hamilton, 1952).
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W 446. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD.
Postcard. Collection: ART NAHPRO.
Hated Hollywood
Mai Zetterling accepted an offer to be Danny Kaye's leading lady in the American espionage spoof Knock on Wood (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1954). It was to be her only film in Hollywood, a place she reportedly hated.
In her autobiography All Those Tomorrows (1985), she wrote that she was always too serious about her craft ever to do jobs just for the money. "For that I had a reputation as a freak in Hollywood, but I can't say I ever regretted [never going back]."
She returned to England and starred on the stage in a production of A Doll's House. Later she appeared in two more American films, the crime caper A Prize of Gold (Mark Robson, 1955) with Richard Widmark, and opposite Tyrone Power in Seven Waves Away (Richard Sale, 1957), a variation on Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944).
Along the way she proved just as adaptable and sexy in a smart comedy when she came between husband and wife Peter Sellers and Virginia Maskell in Only Two Can Play (Sidney Gilliat, 1962), based on a satiric novel by Kingsley Amis.
Disheartened by the quality of most of the films she was being offered, she turned her back on acting after the routine action thriller The Bay of St. Michael (John Ainsworth, 1963).
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 535. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Dutch postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.
Vintage collectors card, no. A 68.
Directing Ventures
Mai Zetterling would become one of the few women who found regular work as a film director in the 1960s and 1970s.
She started her second career with four documentaries for the BBC. After she was divorced from Norwegian dancer Tutte (Samuel) Lemkow in 1953, she had married novelist David Hughes in 1958.
The couple co-wrote the screenplay of her first fiction short The War Game (1962), an anti-war film about two boys playing a game that turns nasty. The short film won the Golden Lion Prize at the 1963 Venice Film Festival.
Obviously influenced by Ingmar Bergman, her first feature film, the dark, sexy drama Älskande par/Loving Couples (1964), dealt with homosexual themes and featured nudity. Its poster won a prize in Vienna but it was banned in Cannes as obscene.
Her directing ventures were controversial seemed ahead of their time. Nattlek/Night Games (1966) was based on her own novel, and was even more of a cause celebre. Banned from the Venice Festival, it was censured by critics for scenes of sexuality, childbirth, and vomiting in detailing the story of a 35-year-old man's attempts to deal with childhood memories marked by depravity and perversity.
Flickorna/The Girls (1968), was a feminist rumination on Aristophanes' classical antiwar play Lysistrata, with Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom.
In Of Seals and Man (1978) she detailed the disappearing breed of Eskimo seal hunters.
In Great Britain she directed Scrubbers (1982) for HandMade Films about young female offenders sent to Borstal prison.
Vintage collectors card.
French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 591. Photo: Paramount, 1955.
The Witches
In the 1970s Mai Zetterling turned her attention to writing short stories and novels. In 1985 she published her frank autobiography, All Those Tomorrows.
Toward the end of her life, she returned to film acting. Best remembered is her wise grandmother in The Witches (Nicholas Roeg, 1990), the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's book. In this wonderful film fantasy she is forced to tangle with a particularly virulent ringleader, played by Anjelica Huston, to save her grandson from her coven of hags.
She was also excellent in Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (1990).
Her last film role was in the Swedish production Morfars resa/Grandpa's Journey (Stafan Lamm, 1993) with Max von Sydow.
Mai Zetterling died of cancer in London in 1994. She had two children from her first marriage, Louis Lemkow, who is a professor in Barcelona, Spain, and Etienne Lemkow. She was 68.
At the time of her death, she was directing the film The Woman Who Cleaned the World, which she also had written.
DVD Trailer of Hell is Sold Out (Michael Anderson, 1951) with Herbert Lom , David Attenborough and Mai Zetterling. Source: Richarde007 (YouTube).
First part of The War Game (Mai Zetterling, 1963). Source: Dogura Magura Tunes (YouTube).
Homemade trailer of The Witches (1990). Source: Billy Wool (YouTube).
Sources: Brian MacFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), Glenn Collins (The New York Times), (IMDb), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), John McCarty (FilmReference.com), Wikipedia and .
British postcard, no. F.S. 30. Publicity postcard for the film Quartet (1948), a Sydney Box production for Gainsborough Pictures.
Modest Sex Symbol Success
Mai Elizabeth Zetterling was born in Västerås, Sweden, in 1925. She lived from 1929 till 1932 in Australia with her mother and stepfather.
After working in a drug store and a mail-order company, she tried acting. She trained at the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater, where Alf Sjöberg became her mentor. At 16, she made her debut on both stage and screen.
Following her film debut in Lasse-Maja/Lasse Maja (Gunnar Olsson, 1941), she made quite an impact in the terminally dark Hets/Frenzy (1944), directed by her mentor Alf Sjöberg and written by Ingmar Bergman.
Glenn Collins in his obituary in the New York Times writes that "her sensitive portrayal of a simple girl victimized by a sadistic professor (...) created a sensation and is now considered a landmark of the Swedish cinema."
Bergman went on to direct her in his Musik i mörker/Music in the Dark (Ingmar Bergman, 1948). The international attention she received from Hets led her to England where she debuted on London's West End in a revival of Henrik Ibsen's Wild Duck.
Zetterling also played the title role of the film Frieda (Basil Dearden, 1947), about the problems of a RAF officer's German bride in dealing with postwar prejudice in his home town. This led to a successful British film career with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
For Rank she played decorative roles in a segment of Quartet (Ralph Smart, 1948) and The Romantic Age (Edmond T. Gréville, 1949).
Developing modest sex symbol success, she went on to co-star opposite a number of handsome leading men throughout the post-war years in primarily dramatic works, including Dennis Price in the flop The Bad Lord Byron (David MacDonald, 1949), Dirk Bogarde in Blackmailed (Marc Allégret, 1951), and Herbert Lom in Hell is Sold Out (Michael Anderson, 1951) and The Ringer (Guy Hamilton, 1952).
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W 446. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD.
Postcard. Collection: ART NAHPRO.
Hated Hollywood
Mai Zetterling accepted an offer to be Danny Kaye's leading lady in the American espionage spoof Knock on Wood (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1954). It was to be her only film in Hollywood, a place she reportedly hated.
In her autobiography All Those Tomorrows (1985), she wrote that she was always too serious about her craft ever to do jobs just for the money. "For that I had a reputation as a freak in Hollywood, but I can't say I ever regretted [never going back]."
She returned to England and starred on the stage in a production of A Doll's House. Later she appeared in two more American films, the crime caper A Prize of Gold (Mark Robson, 1955) with Richard Widmark, and opposite Tyrone Power in Seven Waves Away (Richard Sale, 1957), a variation on Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944).
Along the way she proved just as adaptable and sexy in a smart comedy when she came between husband and wife Peter Sellers and Virginia Maskell in Only Two Can Play (Sidney Gilliat, 1962), based on a satiric novel by Kingsley Amis.
Disheartened by the quality of most of the films she was being offered, she turned her back on acting after the routine action thriller The Bay of St. Michael (John Ainsworth, 1963).
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 535. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Dutch postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.
Vintage collectors card, no. A 68.
Directing Ventures
Mai Zetterling would become one of the few women who found regular work as a film director in the 1960s and 1970s.
She started her second career with four documentaries for the BBC. After she was divorced from Norwegian dancer Tutte (Samuel) Lemkow in 1953, she had married novelist David Hughes in 1958.
The couple co-wrote the screenplay of her first fiction short The War Game (1962), an anti-war film about two boys playing a game that turns nasty. The short film won the Golden Lion Prize at the 1963 Venice Film Festival.
Obviously influenced by Ingmar Bergman, her first feature film, the dark, sexy drama Älskande par/Loving Couples (1964), dealt with homosexual themes and featured nudity. Its poster won a prize in Vienna but it was banned in Cannes as obscene.
Her directing ventures were controversial seemed ahead of their time. Nattlek/Night Games (1966) was based on her own novel, and was even more of a cause celebre. Banned from the Venice Festival, it was censured by critics for scenes of sexuality, childbirth, and vomiting in detailing the story of a 35-year-old man's attempts to deal with childhood memories marked by depravity and perversity.
Flickorna/The Girls (1968), was a feminist rumination on Aristophanes' classical antiwar play Lysistrata, with Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson and Gunnel Lindblom.
In Of Seals and Man (1978) she detailed the disappearing breed of Eskimo seal hunters.
In Great Britain she directed Scrubbers (1982) for HandMade Films about young female offenders sent to Borstal prison.
Vintage collectors card.
French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 591. Photo: Paramount, 1955.
The Witches
In the 1970s Mai Zetterling turned her attention to writing short stories and novels. In 1985 she published her frank autobiography, All Those Tomorrows.
Toward the end of her life, she returned to film acting. Best remembered is her wise grandmother in The Witches (Nicholas Roeg, 1990), the film adaptation of Roald Dahl's book. In this wonderful film fantasy she is forced to tangle with a particularly virulent ringleader, played by Anjelica Huston, to save her grandson from her coven of hags.
She was also excellent in Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (1990).
Her last film role was in the Swedish production Morfars resa/Grandpa's Journey (Stafan Lamm, 1993) with Max von Sydow.
Mai Zetterling died of cancer in London in 1994. She had two children from her first marriage, Louis Lemkow, who is a professor in Barcelona, Spain, and Etienne Lemkow. She was 68.
At the time of her death, she was directing the film The Woman Who Cleaned the World, which she also had written.
DVD Trailer of Hell is Sold Out (Michael Anderson, 1951) with Herbert Lom , David Attenborough and Mai Zetterling. Source: Richarde007 (YouTube).
First part of The War Game (Mai Zetterling, 1963). Source: Dogura Magura Tunes (YouTube).
Homemade trailer of The Witches (1990). Source: Billy Wool (YouTube).
Sources: Brian MacFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), Glenn Collins (The New York Times), (IMDb), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), John McCarty (FilmReference.com), Wikipedia and .
February 4, 2014
Nathalie Lissenko
Russian film star Nathalie Lissenko, aka Natalya Lyssenko, Natalie Lissenko, and Natal’ya Lisenko, is most famous for the French silent films of the 1920s, in which is she was often paired with her husband Ivan Mozzhukin.
French postcard, no. 2.
Expressionist Film Ante Litteram
Natalia Andrianovna Lissenko was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia in 1886, according to IMDb and Filmportal.de (in Mikolaiv in 1884 according to Cinéartistes.com ).
During the First World War she started to perform in films of the Khanzonkov company and was enormously productive. First, she appeared in Katioucha Maslova/Katioucha Maslov (Pyotr Chardynin, 1915) and Leon Drey (Yevgenii Bauer, 1915).
In her third film, Nikolay Stavrogin (Yakov Protazanov, 1915), based on a story by Fyodor Dostojevsky, she already performed with Ivan Mozzhukin , her future husband.
In 1916 Lissenko was in a high number of films: Grekh/Sin (Yakov Protazanov, Georg Asagaroff, 1916) written by and starring Mozzhukin; Bez vinyvino vatye/Without Guilt (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916); Na Boykom Meste/The Busy Inn (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916) after a play by Ostrovsky, Nischaya (Yakov Protazanov, 1916) with Mozzhukin; Yastrebinoe gnedzo/The Cloven Tongue (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916) with Nicolas Rimsky , Kulisy ekrana/Behind the Screen (Georg Asagaroff, Alexandre Volkov, 1916), and Tanietz smerti/The Dance of Death (Alexandre Volkov, 1916).
In 1917 followed the Leonid Tolstoy adaptation Otets Sergiu/Father Sergius (Yakov Protazanov, Alexandre Volkov, 1917) starring Mozzhukin; Prokuror/The Public Prosecutor (Yakov Protazanov, 1917), and Satana likuyushchiy/Satan Triumphant (Yakov Protazanov, 1917).
Then followed: Malyutka Elli/Little Elli (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), Bogatyr dukha/A Hero of Mind (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), Cherna yastaya/The black herd (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), and Tayna korolevy/The Queen’s Secret (Yakov Protazanov, 1919).
Her last Russian films were Chlen parlamenta/The member of Parliament (Alexandre Volkov, 1920) and Morphine (Yakov Protazanov, 1920). At least half of these titles were with Ivan Mozzhukin in the lead.
The Italian film historian Vittorio Martinelli wrote: “Lissenko was extremely popular in pre-revolutionary Russia, performing psychological dramas or adaptations of famous novels and stage plays. Brunette Lissenko had a rather static and matron way of playing; her performance was marked, however, by the details in her face: the lifting of an eyebrow, a hardly noticeable tremble of the lips, fulminating eyes or a sweet smile.
Only after the Czarist cinema was rediscovered at the 1989 Pordenone Silent Film Festival, it was possible for Western eyes to appreciate Lissenko’s performance in e.g. Satan Triumphant, an expressionist film ante litteram (ahead of one's time), graciously directed by Protazanov. During the first part of the film, Lissenko does not strike us particularly, but when the amorous clash occurs, to the expressivity of the face the objective is made clear: the face lights up and from it a new, incomparable sentiment appears, her mimic play conquers and emotions the spectator.”
Lissenko’s popularity is also marked by Kulisy ekrana/Behind the Screen (Georg Asagaroff, Alexandre Volkov, 1916) in which Mozzhukin and she appear as themselves. Unfortunately only a fragment of the film remains.
French postcard by Cinémagazine Editions, no. 231. Photo: publicity still for Kean/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1665/2. Photo: De Westi Film. Publicity still for Kean/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924).
Albatros Films
At the outbreak of the revolution, Nathalie Lissenko and Ivan Mozzhukin followed the fate of producer Ermolieff and his troupe, including Nicolas Koline , Vera Orlova, Nicolai Panov, Nicolas Rimsky . They had moved to Yalta in 1918 and remained there until 1920. In 1920 they all expatriated.
During the trip through Constantinople to Marseille they produced the two films Chlen Parlamenta/Morphine (Yakov Protazanov, 1920) and L’angoissante aventure/Agonizing Adventure (Yakov Protazanov, 1920), which proved to be their business cards to the Paris film world.
In France, Lissenko continued to play with Ermolieff’s company, which later turned into Albatros Films, which had its studio in Montreuil.
The first film of Lissenko in Paris was a remake by Protazanov of his own Russian film Prokuror: Justice d’abord/Justice For All (Yakov Protazanov, 1921), the story of a judge who, torn between love and duty, does not hesitate to condemn his beloved suspected to be a spy. He kills himself after finding out she was innocent after all.
Mozzhukin and Lissenko often played together at the Ermolieff-Albatros studio, as in L’Enfant de carnaval/The Kids Carnival (1921), directed by Ivan Mozzhukin himself, and Tempêtes/Storms (Robert Boudrioz, 1922) with Charles Vanel in the lead and with exteriors shot in Nice.
Two other examples are Le brasier ardent/The Burning Brazier ( Ivan Mozzhukin , Alexandre Volkov, 1923), also with Nicolas Koline , and Kean ou désordre du génie/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924), the film to which the postcards above refer.
Kean ou désordre du génie was an adaptation of the play by Alexandre Dumas père on the famous early 19th century British stage player. While the exteriors were shot in Paris and Versailles, the interiors were done at the Joinville studio (for the set of Drury Lane theatre) and the Montreuil studio. While Ivan Mozzhukin played the title role, Lissenko was the Comtesse de Koefeld and Nicolas Koline was Solomon.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1085/1, 1927-1928. Photo: De Westi Film.
French postcard.
Côte d’Azur
Nathalie Lissenko also performed in several films without Ivan Mozzhukin , such as Nuit de carnaval/Carnival Night (Viktor Tourjansky, 1922) for which Mozzhukin wrote the script, the serial La fille sauvage/The Wild Girl (Henri Etievant, 1922) with Romuald Joubé in the lead, La riposte/The Riposte (Viktor Tourjansky, 1922) with Jean Angelo , Calvaire d’amour/Love Cavalcade (Viktor Tourjansky, 1923) with Charles Vanel, and Les ombres qui passent/Passing Shadows (Alexandre Volkov, 1924) for which Paul Poiret designed Lissenko’s costumes.
Next followed three films by Jean Epstein in which Lissenko was the star: Le lion des Mogols/The Lion of the Moguls (1924) with Mozzhukin, shot at the Côte d’Azur, in Paris, Montreuil, and the Montreuil studio; L’affiche/The Poster (1924) with Génica Missirio , shot in Paris, Bougival (exteriors), and the Montreuil studio; and Le double amour/Double Love (1925) with Jean Angelo, Lissenko’s last film for Albatros, partly shot at the Côte d’Azur.
Lissenko knew to show her artistic sensibility, not only in the films of the Russian migrants such as Le brasier ardent/The Burning Brazier (1923), a striking phantasy directed with great refinement by Mozzhukin himself, but also in the films by Jean Epstein, Alberto Cavalcanti and Marcel L’Herbier.
In the late 1920's though, Lissenko performed not only in French productions but even more in German films. Her first German film was Die selige Exzellenz/His Late Excellency (Wilhelm Thiele, Adolf Licho, 1926) and Kinderseelen klagen euch an/Souls of Children Accuse You (Kurt Bernhardt, 1926) with Albert Steinrück.
Then followed the French super-production Casanova/The Loves of Casanova (Alexandre Volkov, 1927) with Ivan Mozzhukin , Rina De Liguoro and Diana Karenne , and the French avant-garde film En rade/Sea Fever (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1928) with Pierre Batcheff and Catherine Hessling.
After that followed three German films in a row: Rasputins Liebesabenteuer/Rasputin, the Holy Devil (Martin Berger, 1928) with Nikolai Malikoff as Rasputin and Diana Karenne as the zarina, Hurrah! Ich lebe!/Hurray! I Live! (Wilhelm Thiele, 1928) where she played Koline’s wife, and Fünf bange Tage/Five Scared Days (1928, Gennaro Righelli) with Maria Jacobini , and set in Russia.
Finally. she appeared in the late French silent film Nuits de princes/Night of Princes (Marcel L’Herbier, 1929), starring Gina Manès and Jaque Catelain .
When sound film came in, however, Lissenko’s heavy Russian accent blocked her career. She only played in three small parts in sound films before retiring from the screen altogether: Ce cochon de Morin/This Pig of Morin (Georges Lacombe, 1932), a remake of a film by Viktor Tourjansky; La mille et deuxième nuit/The Two Thousand Nights (Alexandre Volkov, 1933) with Ivan Mozzhukin ; and finally Le veau gras/The Fat Calf (Serge de Poligny, 1938) with Elvire Popescu .
Nathalie Lissenko died in Paris in 1969.
French postcard, with names written in Russian. Photo: Nathalie Lissenko, Nicolas Koline and Nicolas Rimsky in the Albatros production Calvaire d’amour/Love Cavalcade (Viktor Tourjansky, 1923).
Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), François Albéra (Albatros. Des Russes à Paris 1919-1929), CineArtistes, Filmportal.de and .
French postcard, no. 2.
Expressionist Film Ante Litteram
Natalia Andrianovna Lissenko was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia in 1886, according to IMDb and Filmportal.de (in Mikolaiv in 1884 according to Cinéartistes.com ).
During the First World War she started to perform in films of the Khanzonkov company and was enormously productive. First, she appeared in Katioucha Maslova/Katioucha Maslov (Pyotr Chardynin, 1915) and Leon Drey (Yevgenii Bauer, 1915).
In her third film, Nikolay Stavrogin (Yakov Protazanov, 1915), based on a story by Fyodor Dostojevsky, she already performed with Ivan Mozzhukin , her future husband.
In 1916 Lissenko was in a high number of films: Grekh/Sin (Yakov Protazanov, Georg Asagaroff, 1916) written by and starring Mozzhukin; Bez vinyvino vatye/Without Guilt (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916); Na Boykom Meste/The Busy Inn (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916) after a play by Ostrovsky, Nischaya (Yakov Protazanov, 1916) with Mozzhukin; Yastrebinoe gnedzo/The Cloven Tongue (Cheslav Sabinsky, 1916) with Nicolas Rimsky , Kulisy ekrana/Behind the Screen (Georg Asagaroff, Alexandre Volkov, 1916), and Tanietz smerti/The Dance of Death (Alexandre Volkov, 1916).
In 1917 followed the Leonid Tolstoy adaptation Otets Sergiu/Father Sergius (Yakov Protazanov, Alexandre Volkov, 1917) starring Mozzhukin; Prokuror/The Public Prosecutor (Yakov Protazanov, 1917), and Satana likuyushchiy/Satan Triumphant (Yakov Protazanov, 1917).
Then followed: Malyutka Elli/Little Elli (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), Bogatyr dukha/A Hero of Mind (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), Cherna yastaya/The black herd (Yakov Protazanov, 1918), and Tayna korolevy/The Queen’s Secret (Yakov Protazanov, 1919).
Her last Russian films were Chlen parlamenta/The member of Parliament (Alexandre Volkov, 1920) and Morphine (Yakov Protazanov, 1920). At least half of these titles were with Ivan Mozzhukin in the lead.
The Italian film historian Vittorio Martinelli wrote: “Lissenko was extremely popular in pre-revolutionary Russia, performing psychological dramas or adaptations of famous novels and stage plays. Brunette Lissenko had a rather static and matron way of playing; her performance was marked, however, by the details in her face: the lifting of an eyebrow, a hardly noticeable tremble of the lips, fulminating eyes or a sweet smile.
Only after the Czarist cinema was rediscovered at the 1989 Pordenone Silent Film Festival, it was possible for Western eyes to appreciate Lissenko’s performance in e.g. Satan Triumphant, an expressionist film ante litteram (ahead of one's time), graciously directed by Protazanov. During the first part of the film, Lissenko does not strike us particularly, but when the amorous clash occurs, to the expressivity of the face the objective is made clear: the face lights up and from it a new, incomparable sentiment appears, her mimic play conquers and emotions the spectator.”
Lissenko’s popularity is also marked by Kulisy ekrana/Behind the Screen (Georg Asagaroff, Alexandre Volkov, 1916) in which Mozzhukin and she appear as themselves. Unfortunately only a fragment of the film remains.
French postcard by Cinémagazine Editions, no. 231. Photo: publicity still for Kean/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1665/2. Photo: De Westi Film. Publicity still for Kean/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924).
Albatros Films
At the outbreak of the revolution, Nathalie Lissenko and Ivan Mozzhukin followed the fate of producer Ermolieff and his troupe, including Nicolas Koline , Vera Orlova, Nicolai Panov, Nicolas Rimsky . They had moved to Yalta in 1918 and remained there until 1920. In 1920 they all expatriated.
During the trip through Constantinople to Marseille they produced the two films Chlen Parlamenta/Morphine (Yakov Protazanov, 1920) and L’angoissante aventure/Agonizing Adventure (Yakov Protazanov, 1920), which proved to be their business cards to the Paris film world.
In France, Lissenko continued to play with Ermolieff’s company, which later turned into Albatros Films, which had its studio in Montreuil.
The first film of Lissenko in Paris was a remake by Protazanov of his own Russian film Prokuror: Justice d’abord/Justice For All (Yakov Protazanov, 1921), the story of a judge who, torn between love and duty, does not hesitate to condemn his beloved suspected to be a spy. He kills himself after finding out she was innocent after all.
Mozzhukin and Lissenko often played together at the Ermolieff-Albatros studio, as in L’Enfant de carnaval/The Kids Carnival (1921), directed by Ivan Mozzhukin himself, and Tempêtes/Storms (Robert Boudrioz, 1922) with Charles Vanel in the lead and with exteriors shot in Nice.
Two other examples are Le brasier ardent/The Burning Brazier ( Ivan Mozzhukin , Alexandre Volkov, 1923), also with Nicolas Koline , and Kean ou désordre du génie/Edmund Kean (Alexandre Volkov, 1924), the film to which the postcards above refer.
Kean ou désordre du génie was an adaptation of the play by Alexandre Dumas père on the famous early 19th century British stage player. While the exteriors were shot in Paris and Versailles, the interiors were done at the Joinville studio (for the set of Drury Lane theatre) and the Montreuil studio. While Ivan Mozzhukin played the title role, Lissenko was the Comtesse de Koefeld and Nicolas Koline was Solomon.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1085/1, 1927-1928. Photo: De Westi Film.
French postcard.
Côte d’Azur
Nathalie Lissenko also performed in several films without Ivan Mozzhukin , such as Nuit de carnaval/Carnival Night (Viktor Tourjansky, 1922) for which Mozzhukin wrote the script, the serial La fille sauvage/The Wild Girl (Henri Etievant, 1922) with Romuald Joubé in the lead, La riposte/The Riposte (Viktor Tourjansky, 1922) with Jean Angelo , Calvaire d’amour/Love Cavalcade (Viktor Tourjansky, 1923) with Charles Vanel, and Les ombres qui passent/Passing Shadows (Alexandre Volkov, 1924) for which Paul Poiret designed Lissenko’s costumes.
Next followed three films by Jean Epstein in which Lissenko was the star: Le lion des Mogols/The Lion of the Moguls (1924) with Mozzhukin, shot at the Côte d’Azur, in Paris, Montreuil, and the Montreuil studio; L’affiche/The Poster (1924) with Génica Missirio , shot in Paris, Bougival (exteriors), and the Montreuil studio; and Le double amour/Double Love (1925) with Jean Angelo, Lissenko’s last film for Albatros, partly shot at the Côte d’Azur.
Lissenko knew to show her artistic sensibility, not only in the films of the Russian migrants such as Le brasier ardent/The Burning Brazier (1923), a striking phantasy directed with great refinement by Mozzhukin himself, but also in the films by Jean Epstein, Alberto Cavalcanti and Marcel L’Herbier.
In the late 1920's though, Lissenko performed not only in French productions but even more in German films. Her first German film was Die selige Exzellenz/His Late Excellency (Wilhelm Thiele, Adolf Licho, 1926) and Kinderseelen klagen euch an/Souls of Children Accuse You (Kurt Bernhardt, 1926) with Albert Steinrück.
Then followed the French super-production Casanova/The Loves of Casanova (Alexandre Volkov, 1927) with Ivan Mozzhukin , Rina De Liguoro and Diana Karenne , and the French avant-garde film En rade/Sea Fever (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1928) with Pierre Batcheff and Catherine Hessling.
After that followed three German films in a row: Rasputins Liebesabenteuer/Rasputin, the Holy Devil (Martin Berger, 1928) with Nikolai Malikoff as Rasputin and Diana Karenne as the zarina, Hurrah! Ich lebe!/Hurray! I Live! (Wilhelm Thiele, 1928) where she played Koline’s wife, and Fünf bange Tage/Five Scared Days (1928, Gennaro Righelli) with Maria Jacobini , and set in Russia.
Finally. she appeared in the late French silent film Nuits de princes/Night of Princes (Marcel L’Herbier, 1929), starring Gina Manès and Jaque Catelain .
When sound film came in, however, Lissenko’s heavy Russian accent blocked her career. She only played in three small parts in sound films before retiring from the screen altogether: Ce cochon de Morin/This Pig of Morin (Georges Lacombe, 1932), a remake of a film by Viktor Tourjansky; La mille et deuxième nuit/The Two Thousand Nights (Alexandre Volkov, 1933) with Ivan Mozzhukin ; and finally Le veau gras/The Fat Calf (Serge de Poligny, 1938) with Elvire Popescu .
Nathalie Lissenko died in Paris in 1969.
French postcard, with names written in Russian. Photo: Nathalie Lissenko, Nicolas Koline and Nicolas Rimsky in the Albatros production Calvaire d’amour/Love Cavalcade (Viktor Tourjansky, 1923).
Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), François Albéra (Albatros. Des Russes à Paris 1919-1929), CineArtistes, Filmportal.de and .
February 3, 2014
Trevor Howard
English film, stage and television actor Trevor Howard (1913-1988) is best known as the doctor in the classic romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945), in which Celia Johnson was his co-star. In the 1940s and 1950s he often played the slightly dry, slightly crusty but capable British military officer, and in the 1960s he became one of England's finest character actors.
Dutch postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W. 217. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
A Fabricated Hero
Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was born in Kent, England, to Arthur John Howard-Smith, a Ceylon representative for Lloyd's of London, and his Canadian wife, Mabel Grey Wallace. Until he was five Trevor lived in Colombo, Ceylon. When the time came for him to be educated he was sent back to England to board at Clifton College.
After school he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, acting on the London stage for several years before World War II. His first paid work was a walk-on part in the play Revolt in a Reformatory (1934), starring Alastair Sim before leaving RADA.
In 1935 he was spotted by a Paramount studio talent scout but turned down the offer of film work in favour of a career in theatre. This decision seemed justified when, in 1936, he was invited to join the Stratford Memorial Theatre and, in London, given the role of one of the students in French without Tears by Terence Rattigan, which ran for two years.
He returned to Stratford in 1939. In 1940, he was drafted into the army. He was invalided out in 1943 having seen no action, despite later publicity which implied distinguished service and a Military Cross. Files held in the Public Records Office reveal he had actually been discharged from the Army for mental instability and having a 'psychopathic personality'.
These stories of war heroism were originally fabricated, without his consent, for publicity purposes although Howard also recounted how he had parachuted into Nazi occupied Norway and fought in the Allied invasion of Sicily.
Howard moved back to the theatre in The Recruiting Officer (1943), where he met the actress Helen Cherry. They married in 1944 and remained together till his death.
Howard had a certain notoriety as a hell raiser, based on his drinking capacity. Under the influence of alcohol he could embark on celebrated exploits, one of which led to his arrest in Vienna, for impersonating an officer. Despite his drinking, however, he always remained reliable and professional, never allowing alcohol to affect his work. He was also unfaithful to Cherry on a serial basis.
Anonymous postcard, no country nor editor known.
With Ann Todd . Italian postcard by Edizione ELAH 'La casa delle Caramelle', Serie 100 'Artisti di Cinema'. Photo: Warner Bros.
The Roots of British Realism in Cinema
Trevor Howard had a short part in one of the best British war films, The Way Ahead (Carol Reed, 1944), which meant his springboard into cinema.
Another small part in The Way to the Stars (Anthony Asquith, 1945) led to his breakthrough role, the doctor in Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945), in which his co-star was Celia Johnson .
In a café at a railway station, housewife Laura Jesson meets doctor Alec Harvey. Although they are already married, they gradually fall in love with each other. They continue to meet every Thursday in the small café, although they know that their love is impossible. The film won an award at the Cannes Film Festival and considerable critical acclaim for Howard.
Next came two successful thrillers, I See a Dark Stranger (Frank Launder, 1945) and Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat, 1946), followed by They Made me a Fugitive (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947), in which the roots of British realism in cinema can be traced.
In 1947 he was invited by Laurence Olivier to play Petruchio in an Old Vic production of The Taming of the Shrew. Despite The Times declaring ‘We can remember no better Petruchio’ the opportunity of working again with David Lean, in The Passionate Friends (David Lean, 1948), drew Howard back to film and, although he had a solid reputation as a theatre actor, his dislike of long runs, and the attractions of travel afforded by film, made him concentrate on cinema from this point.
Howard's film reputation was secured in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). He played the character type with which he became most associated, the slightly dry, slightly crusty but capable British military officer.
He also starred in The Key (Carol Reed, 1958), based on a Jan de Hartog novel, for which he received the best actor award from the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and Sons and Lovers (Jack Cardiff, 1960), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Another notable film was The Heart of the Matter (George More O’Ferall, 1953), another Graham Greene story, in which he probably produced his best screen performance.
British postcard in the 'People' Series of Show Parade Picture Services, no. P 1118. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Dutch postcard, no. AX 289. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Traditional Englishman
After his time as a star ended, Trevor Howard easily shifted to being one of England's finest character actors, many times appearing in war and period pieces.
Howard's later works included such films as Mutiny on the Bounty (Lewis Milestone, 1962), Father Goose (Ralph Nelson, 1964), Morituri ( Bernhard Wicki , 1965), Von Ryan's Express (Mark Robson, 1965), Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969), Ryan's Daughter (David Lean, 1970), and Superman (Richard Donner, 1978).
On Television, Howard began to find more substantial roles. He played Lovborg in Hedda Gabler (Alex Segal, 1963) with Ingrid Bergman , and won an Emmy award as Disraeli in The Invincible Mr Disraeli (George Schaefer, 1963).
In the 1970s he was acclaimed for his playing of an abbot in Catholics (Jack Gold, 1973) and he received an Emmy nomination for his role as Abbé Faria in a television version of The Count of Monte Cristo (David Greene, 1975).
The decade ended with him reunited with Celia Johnson, giving a moving performance in the nostalgic Staying On (Silvio Narizzano, 1980).
The 1980s saw a resurgence of Howard as a film actor. The exhilarating role of a Cheyenne Indian in Windwalker (Kieth Merrill, 1980) revitalized his acting career. One of his strangest films, and one he took great delight in, was Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (Steve Roberts, 1980) in which he played the title role.
He continued with cameo roles, including Judge Broomfield in Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982).
His final films were White Mischief (Michael Radford, 1988) and The Dawning (Robert Knights, 1988).
Howard did not abandon the theatre altogether in 1947, returning to the stage on occasion, most notably as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (1954) and the captain in The Father (1964). His last appearance on the British stage was in Waltz of the Toreadors in 1974.
Trevor Howard made seventy-four films. He embodied the traditional Englishman: his tight-lipped features and quiet, well-bred speaking voice caught the mood of post-war Britain while, in later years, his craggy face and gravelly voice animated the crusty character roles he played. He lacked the looks and physique to be an archetypal male hero, and his tall frame suited military roles. Supporting some of the most notable names in the world of cinema, he often received the highest critical acclaim.
German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3591. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Columbia Film.
British postcard by Dixon-Lotus Production, no. L6/8700, 1969. Photo: Spitfire Productions Ltd. Publicity still for Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969).
Trailer of Brief Encounter (1945). Source: Criterion Trailers (YouTube).
Trailer of The Passionate Friends (1953). Source: k8nairne (YouTube).
Sources: David Absalom (British Pictures), Wikipedia, and .
Dutch postcard. Photo: Eagle Lion.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. W. 217. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
A Fabricated Hero
Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith was born in Kent, England, to Arthur John Howard-Smith, a Ceylon representative for Lloyd's of London, and his Canadian wife, Mabel Grey Wallace. Until he was five Trevor lived in Colombo, Ceylon. When the time came for him to be educated he was sent back to England to board at Clifton College.
After school he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, acting on the London stage for several years before World War II. His first paid work was a walk-on part in the play Revolt in a Reformatory (1934), starring Alastair Sim before leaving RADA.
In 1935 he was spotted by a Paramount studio talent scout but turned down the offer of film work in favour of a career in theatre. This decision seemed justified when, in 1936, he was invited to join the Stratford Memorial Theatre and, in London, given the role of one of the students in French without Tears by Terence Rattigan, which ran for two years.
He returned to Stratford in 1939. In 1940, he was drafted into the army. He was invalided out in 1943 having seen no action, despite later publicity which implied distinguished service and a Military Cross. Files held in the Public Records Office reveal he had actually been discharged from the Army for mental instability and having a 'psychopathic personality'.
These stories of war heroism were originally fabricated, without his consent, for publicity purposes although Howard also recounted how he had parachuted into Nazi occupied Norway and fought in the Allied invasion of Sicily.
Howard moved back to the theatre in The Recruiting Officer (1943), where he met the actress Helen Cherry. They married in 1944 and remained together till his death.
Howard had a certain notoriety as a hell raiser, based on his drinking capacity. Under the influence of alcohol he could embark on celebrated exploits, one of which led to his arrest in Vienna, for impersonating an officer. Despite his drinking, however, he always remained reliable and professional, never allowing alcohol to affect his work. He was also unfaithful to Cherry on a serial basis.
Anonymous postcard, no country nor editor known.
With Ann Todd . Italian postcard by Edizione ELAH 'La casa delle Caramelle', Serie 100 'Artisti di Cinema'. Photo: Warner Bros.
The Roots of British Realism in Cinema
Trevor Howard had a short part in one of the best British war films, The Way Ahead (Carol Reed, 1944), which meant his springboard into cinema.
Another small part in The Way to the Stars (Anthony Asquith, 1945) led to his breakthrough role, the doctor in Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945), in which his co-star was Celia Johnson .
In a café at a railway station, housewife Laura Jesson meets doctor Alec Harvey. Although they are already married, they gradually fall in love with each other. They continue to meet every Thursday in the small café, although they know that their love is impossible. The film won an award at the Cannes Film Festival and considerable critical acclaim for Howard.
Next came two successful thrillers, I See a Dark Stranger (Frank Launder, 1945) and Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat, 1946), followed by They Made me a Fugitive (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1947), in which the roots of British realism in cinema can be traced.
In 1947 he was invited by Laurence Olivier to play Petruchio in an Old Vic production of The Taming of the Shrew. Despite The Times declaring ‘We can remember no better Petruchio’ the opportunity of working again with David Lean, in The Passionate Friends (David Lean, 1948), drew Howard back to film and, although he had a solid reputation as a theatre actor, his dislike of long runs, and the attractions of travel afforded by film, made him concentrate on cinema from this point.
Howard's film reputation was secured in The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949). He played the character type with which he became most associated, the slightly dry, slightly crusty but capable British military officer.
He also starred in The Key (Carol Reed, 1958), based on a Jan de Hartog novel, for which he received the best actor award from the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and Sons and Lovers (Jack Cardiff, 1960), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.
Another notable film was The Heart of the Matter (George More O’Ferall, 1953), another Graham Greene story, in which he probably produced his best screen performance.
British postcard in the 'People' Series of Show Parade Picture Services, no. P 1118. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Dutch postcard, no. AX 289. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Traditional Englishman
After his time as a star ended, Trevor Howard easily shifted to being one of England's finest character actors, many times appearing in war and period pieces.
Howard's later works included such films as Mutiny on the Bounty (Lewis Milestone, 1962), Father Goose (Ralph Nelson, 1964), Morituri ( Bernhard Wicki , 1965), Von Ryan's Express (Mark Robson, 1965), Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969), Ryan's Daughter (David Lean, 1970), and Superman (Richard Donner, 1978).
On Television, Howard began to find more substantial roles. He played Lovborg in Hedda Gabler (Alex Segal, 1963) with Ingrid Bergman , and won an Emmy award as Disraeli in The Invincible Mr Disraeli (George Schaefer, 1963).
In the 1970s he was acclaimed for his playing of an abbot in Catholics (Jack Gold, 1973) and he received an Emmy nomination for his role as Abbé Faria in a television version of The Count of Monte Cristo (David Greene, 1975).
The decade ended with him reunited with Celia Johnson, giving a moving performance in the nostalgic Staying On (Silvio Narizzano, 1980).
The 1980s saw a resurgence of Howard as a film actor. The exhilarating role of a Cheyenne Indian in Windwalker (Kieth Merrill, 1980) revitalized his acting career. One of his strangest films, and one he took great delight in, was Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (Steve Roberts, 1980) in which he played the title role.
He continued with cameo roles, including Judge Broomfield in Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982).
His final films were White Mischief (Michael Radford, 1988) and The Dawning (Robert Knights, 1988).
Howard did not abandon the theatre altogether in 1947, returning to the stage on occasion, most notably as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard (1954) and the captain in The Father (1964). His last appearance on the British stage was in Waltz of the Toreadors in 1974.
Trevor Howard made seventy-four films. He embodied the traditional Englishman: his tight-lipped features and quiet, well-bred speaking voice caught the mood of post-war Britain while, in later years, his craggy face and gravelly voice animated the crusty character roles he played. He lacked the looks and physique to be an archetypal male hero, and his tall frame suited military roles. Supporting some of the most notable names in the world of cinema, he often received the highest critical acclaim.
German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3591. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Columbia Film.
British postcard by Dixon-Lotus Production, no. L6/8700, 1969. Photo: Spitfire Productions Ltd. Publicity still for Battle of Britain (Guy Hamilton, 1969).
Trailer of Brief Encounter (1945). Source: Criterion Trailers (YouTube).
Trailer of The Passionate Friends (1953). Source: k8nairne (YouTube).
Sources: David Absalom (British Pictures), Wikipedia, and .
February 2, 2014
Daniela Bianchi
Beautiful Daniela Bianchi (1942) is an Italian actress, whose best known part was luscious Soviet cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963). She played in several more Eurospy films during the 1960s.
British postcard by Klasik Kards, London, no. 1543. Photos: publicity stills for From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963) with Sean Connery and Martine Beswick.
1st Runner-up
Daniela Bianchi was born in Rome, Italy in 1942. She grew up the only child of an army Colonel. After graduating from high school Bianchi found a passion for ballet before launching into a modelling career.
Her film career began in 1958 with a bit part in En cas de malheur/Love Is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) starring Jean Gabin and Brigitte Bardot .
Bianchi was Miss Rome in 1960 and became the 1st runner-up in the 1960 Miss Universe contest, where she was also voted Miss Photogenic by the press.
More film parts followed in films like Les Démons de minuit/Midnight Follies (Marc Allégret, Charles Gérard, 1961) with Charles Boyer , the comedy Una domenica d'estate/Always on Sunday (Giulio Petroni, 1962) and the Peplum La Spada del Cid/ The Sword of El Cid (Miguel Iglesias, 1962).
Then she played the role of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (1963), the second James Bond film made by Eon Productions and the second to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young.
Following the success of the first 007 film, Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962), United Artists had approved a sequel and doubled the budget available for the producers. From Russia with Love is based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, James Bond is sent to assist in the defection of Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova in Turkey, where SPECTRE plans to avenge Bond's killing of Dr. No. In addition to filming on location in Turkey, the action scenes were shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and in Scotland.
At the age of 21, Bianchi was and would be the youngest actress to play a leading Bond girl ever. Bianchi started taking English classes for the role, but the producers ultimately chose to dub her voice over by Barbara Jefford. From Russia with Love was a critical and commercial success, taking over $78 million in worldwide box office receipts, more than its predecessor Dr. No.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966) with Jacques Bergerac.
Campy, Plodding, and Unintentionally Funny
After From Russia with Love, Daniela Bianchi made a number of French and Italian films. First she starred in the French thriller Le Tigre aime la chair fraîche/The Tiger Likes Fresh Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1964) opposite Roger Hanin as the secret agent LeTigre.
Her only role in an American production was in Rome Will Never Leave You (1964), three episodes filmed in Rome of the Dr. Kildare series with Richard Chamberlain.
Among her Italian films were the comedy Slalom (Luciano Salce, 1965) starring Vittorio Gassman , the comedy L'ombrellone/Weekend Wives (Dino Risi, 1965) and the Eurospy film Requiem per un agente segreto/Requiem for a Secret Agent (Sergio Sollima, 1966) starring Stewart Granger . The latter is the third and last Eurospy film of prolific director Sergio Sollima and the first he signed with his real name (in the two previous spy films he was credited as Simon Sterling).
One of Bianchi’s later films was Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (Alberto de Martino, 1967), a James Bond spoof filmed in English (Bianchi was again dubbed) and starring Sean Connery 's younger brother, Neil Connery. The overall plot of the film is that England’s best secret agent is not available, so his younger brother is brought in to defeat the evil crime syndicate THANATOS.
O.K. Connery is notable in that several actors from the James Bond series appear as similar characters. Besides Bianchi, the film also features Adolfo Celi, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Anthony Dawson. Dan Pavlides at AllMovie : “Campy, plodding, and unintentionally funny in places, the feature remains a curiosity item only because of the novelty of Sean Connery's brother being the hero.”
Her final film was the crime drama Scacco Internazionale/The Last Chance (Giuseppe Rosati, 1968) in which she co-starred with Tab Hunter. She retired from acting. In 1985, she married a Genoan president of a cargo shipping company, with whom she has a son named Filippo.
In 2012 Daniela Bianchi returned for once to the screen in the documentary Noi non siamo come James Bond/We're nothing like James Bond (Mario Balsamo, 2012).
Trailer From Russia with Love (1963). Source: Agelesstrailers (YouTube).
Trailer Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (1966). Source: Igotmobilephone (YouTube).
Trailer Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (1967). Source: Night of the Trailers (YouTube).
Sources: Dan Pavlides (AllMovie), M16, AllMovie, Wikipedia and .
British postcard by Klasik Kards, London, no. 1543. Photos: publicity stills for From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963) with Sean Connery and Martine Beswick.
1st Runner-up
Daniela Bianchi was born in Rome, Italy in 1942. She grew up the only child of an army Colonel. After graduating from high school Bianchi found a passion for ballet before launching into a modelling career.
Her film career began in 1958 with a bit part in En cas de malheur/Love Is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) starring Jean Gabin and Brigitte Bardot .
Bianchi was Miss Rome in 1960 and became the 1st runner-up in the 1960 Miss Universe contest, where she was also voted Miss Photogenic by the press.
More film parts followed in films like Les Démons de minuit/Midnight Follies (Marc Allégret, Charles Gérard, 1961) with Charles Boyer , the comedy Una domenica d'estate/Always on Sunday (Giulio Petroni, 1962) and the Peplum La Spada del Cid/ The Sword of El Cid (Miguel Iglesias, 1962).
Then she played the role of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (1963), the second James Bond film made by Eon Productions and the second to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young.
Following the success of the first 007 film, Dr. No (Terence Young, 1962), United Artists had approved a sequel and doubled the budget available for the producers. From Russia with Love is based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, James Bond is sent to assist in the defection of Soviet consulate clerk Tatiana Romanova in Turkey, where SPECTRE plans to avenge Bond's killing of Dr. No. In addition to filming on location in Turkey, the action scenes were shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and in Scotland.
At the age of 21, Bianchi was and would be the youngest actress to play a leading Bond girl ever. Bianchi started taking English classes for the role, but the producers ultimately chose to dub her voice over by Barbara Jefford. From Russia with Love was a critical and commercial success, taking over $78 million in worldwide box office receipts, more than its predecessor Dr. No.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Publicity still for Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (Alberto De Martino, Sergio Grieco, 1966) with Jacques Bergerac.
Campy, Plodding, and Unintentionally Funny
After From Russia with Love, Daniela Bianchi made a number of French and Italian films. First she starred in the French thriller Le Tigre aime la chair fraîche/The Tiger Likes Fresh Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1964) opposite Roger Hanin as the secret agent LeTigre.
Her only role in an American production was in Rome Will Never Leave You (1964), three episodes filmed in Rome of the Dr. Kildare series with Richard Chamberlain.
Among her Italian films were the comedy Slalom (Luciano Salce, 1965) starring Vittorio Gassman , the comedy L'ombrellone/Weekend Wives (Dino Risi, 1965) and the Eurospy film Requiem per un agente segreto/Requiem for a Secret Agent (Sergio Sollima, 1966) starring Stewart Granger . The latter is the third and last Eurospy film of prolific director Sergio Sollima and the first he signed with his real name (in the two previous spy films he was credited as Simon Sterling).
One of Bianchi’s later films was Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (Alberto de Martino, 1967), a James Bond spoof filmed in English (Bianchi was again dubbed) and starring Sean Connery 's younger brother, Neil Connery. The overall plot of the film is that England’s best secret agent is not available, so his younger brother is brought in to defeat the evil crime syndicate THANATOS.
O.K. Connery is notable in that several actors from the James Bond series appear as similar characters. Besides Bianchi, the film also features Adolfo Celi, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Anthony Dawson. Dan Pavlides at AllMovie : “Campy, plodding, and unintentionally funny in places, the feature remains a curiosity item only because of the novelty of Sean Connery's brother being the hero.”
Her final film was the crime drama Scacco Internazionale/The Last Chance (Giuseppe Rosati, 1968) in which she co-starred with Tab Hunter. She retired from acting. In 1985, she married a Genoan president of a cargo shipping company, with whom she has a son named Filippo.
In 2012 Daniela Bianchi returned for once to the screen in the documentary Noi non siamo come James Bond/We're nothing like James Bond (Mario Balsamo, 2012).
Trailer From Russia with Love (1963). Source: Agelesstrailers (YouTube).
Trailer Missione speciale Lady Chaplin/Operation Lady Chaplin (1966). Source: Igotmobilephone (YouTube).
Trailer Operation Kid Brother/OK Connery (1967). Source: Night of the Trailers (YouTube).
Sources: Dan Pavlides (AllMovie), M16, AllMovie, Wikipedia and .
February 1, 2014
Maximilian Schell (1930-2014)
Today, Austrian-born Swiss actor Maximilian Schell has died. Schell (1930-2014) won an Oscar for his role as a defence attorney in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Many international films and awards would follow. Schell is also a respected writer, director and producer of several films, including intimate portraits of Marlene Dietrich and of his sister Maria Schell.
German postcard by Friedr. W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Kolbri-Karte, no. 2005. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961).
Spanish card by Ediciones Raker, Barcelona, no. 194. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961).
An Accidental Hollywood Career
Maximilian Schell was born in Vienna, Austria in 1930. He was the son of Margarethe Schell née Noe von Nordberg, an actress who ran an acting school, and Hermann Ferdinand Schell, a Swiss poet, novelist, playwright, and owner of a pharmacy. Schell's late elder sister, Maria Schell , was also an actress; as are their two other siblings, Carl and Immy (Immaculata) Schell.
When Austria became part of Nazi-Germany after the ‘anschluss’ of 1938, the Schell family moved to Zurich, Switzerland. Maximilian's interest in acting began at early age. When 11, he appeared in a professional production of William Tell and in the same year he wrote a play which was produced by his school. Later he served in the Swiss Army, achieving the rank of corporal.
In 1952, he began acting at the Basel Theatre. He played a small role as a desperate deserter in the war film Kinder, Mütter und ein General/Children, Mother, and the General (László Benedek, 1955) starring Hilde Krahl . That year he also played parts in Der 20. Juli/The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (Falk Harnack, 1955), Reifende Jugend/Ripening Youth (Ulrich Erfurth, 1955) and Ein Mädchen aus Flandern/The Girl from Flanders (Helmut Käutner, 1956) with Nicole Berger.
His breakthrough in the cinema was the German crime film Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957). The film, which starred O.E. Hasse and Ulla Jacobsson , was entered into the 7th Berlin International Film Festival.
Schell made his Hollywood debut as a Nazi officer in the World War II film The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958) starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. According to Jon C. Hopwood at IMDb “quite by accident, as the producers had wanted to hire his sister Maria Schell , but lines of communication got crossed, and he was the one hired.”
Belgian postcard by Cox, no. 7.
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden-Westf., no. 2445. Photo: Arthur Grimm / CCC / Constantin. Publicity still for Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957).
Oscar
Maximilian Schell stayed in America and in 1959, he appeared as Hans Rolfe, an enigmatic defense attorney, in a live Playhouse 90 television production of Judgment at Nuremberg (George Roy Hill, 1959). In 1961, Schell reprised the role for the big screen remake Judgement at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) with an all star cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, and Marlene Dietrich .
As the first German speaking actor after World War II, Schell won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for the role.
In the following years, he starred in international productions like the Italian-French drama I sequestrati di Altona/The Condemned of Altona (Vittorio De Sica, 1962) opposite Sophia Loren , the heist film Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) with Melina Mercouri, the British drama Return from the Ashes (J. Lee Thompson, 1965) with Ingrid Thulin, and the British espionage–thriller The Deadly Affair (Sidney Lumet, 1966) based on John le Carré's first novel Call for the Dead.
In Hollywood, he was often top billed in Third Reich themed films, such as Counterpoint (Ralph Nelson, 1968), The Man in the Glass Booth (Arthur Hiller, 1975) – a role for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977), Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977) – for which he got another Oscar nomination, and A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977).
However, he also played in various films with different subjects, including the historical disaster film Krakatoa, East of Java (Bernard L. Kowalski, 1969), the science fiction film The Black Hole (Gary Nelson, 1979), and the crime comedy The Freshman (Andrew Bergman, 1990) starring Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick.
German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf., no. 1868. Photo: Gabriele / Real / Europa. Publicity still for Ein Herz kehrt heim/A Heart Goes Home (Eugen York, 1956).
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. V 128. Photo: CCC / Constantin / Arthur Grimm. Publicity still for Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957).
Marlene and Maria
Maximilian Schell has also served as a writer, producer and director for a variety of films. In 1968, Schell produced and starred in the adaptation of Kafka's novel Das Schloss/The Castle. Two years later, Erste Liebe/First Love (1970) - written, directed, produced, and starred in by Schell - was hailed by the critics.
His Der Fußgänger/The Pedestrian (1974), in which he also starred, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and won a Golden Globe.
His documentary on Marlene Dietrich , Marlene (1984) was based on the audio tape recordings of his 17-hours-long interview session with Dietrich. Using original footage, documentary material and interview passages, he managed to present an intimate portrait of her, which won also several awards.
18 years later, he made a documentary about his late sister Maria Schell , Meine Schwester Maria/My Sister Maria (2002). Connor McMadden at AllMovie : "Using excerpts of her feature films along with home movie footage, Schell explores the high points his sister's career throughout the 1950s, as well as the personal problems that cast her into obscurity only a decade later. The film offers quite a few emotional peaks, especially when an elderly Maria Schell goes before her brother's camera to speak candidly about her life, and a suicide attempt which she refers to as her 'first death.'"
In addition to his film career, Maximilian Schell has also been active as director, writer and actor in the European theatre. In 1958, he made his Broadway debut in Ira Levin’s Interlock. In 1965, he starred in John Osborne’s groundbreaking A Patriot for Me, first at London’s Royal Court Theatre and later on Broadway.
He has twice played Hamlet on stage, originally under the direction of the legendary Gustaf Grundgens and later under his own direction. In 1972 he starred in Peter Hall's German language première of Harold Pinter's Old Times at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 1977 he directed Tales from the Vienna Woods at the National Theatre in London.
In later life he also began directing operatic productions, starting with Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. This passion was triggered when he was performing in the play Jedermann (Everyman) in Salzburg, Austria from 1978-1982, and he came into contact with several musical conductors including Leonard Bernstein, James Levine and Claudio Abbado. In 2006 he appeared in Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues directed by Robert Altman at the Old Vic in London.
He also often appeared on television, such as in the miniseries Peter the Great (Marvin J. Chomsky, Lawrence Schiller, 1986), with Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier . He was twice been nominated for an Emmy for his TV work, and in 1993, he won a Golden Globe for his part as Vladimir Lenin in the HBO miniseries Stalin (Ivan Passer, 1992).
In 1990, he had refused to receive the Honorary German Film Award because he felt too young to be awarded with an award for lifetime achievement. For German television, he played in the television miniseries The Return of the Dancing Master (Urs Egger, 2004), which was based on Henning Mankell's crime novel.
Through the decades he continued to star in international film productions, such as The Rose Garden (Fons Rademakers, 1986), Left Luggage (Jeroen Krabbé, 1998), Deep Impact (Mimi Leder, 1998), Vampires (John Carpenter, 1998), and the American comedy The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson, 2008) with Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo.
At IMDb, Jon C. Hopwood writes: “with the exception of Maurice Chevalier and Marcello Mastroianni , Schell is undoubtedly the most successful non-Anglophone foreign actor in the history of American cinema.”
Maximilian Schell was married to actress Natalya Andreychenko (1985-2005). Their daughter is actress Nastassja Schell (born in 1989). He was also the godfather of actress Angelina Jolie. Recently, Maximilian Schell could be seen in two new films, Les brigands (Pol Cruchten, Frank Hoffmann, 2013) opposite Tchéky Karyo, and An Artist's Emblem (Michael J. Narvaez, 2013) with Harry Dean Stanton.
German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 241. Photo: Real-Film.
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf.no. 2275. Photo: Real / Europa / Gabriele. Publicity still for Ein Herz kehrt heim/A Heart returns home (Eugen York, 1956).
Sources: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), (IMDb), Connor McMadden (AllMovie), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and .
German postcard by Friedr. W. Sander-Verlag, Minden/Kolbri-Karte, no. 2005. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961).
Spanish card by Ediciones Raker, Barcelona, no. 194. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961).
An Accidental Hollywood Career
Maximilian Schell was born in Vienna, Austria in 1930. He was the son of Margarethe Schell née Noe von Nordberg, an actress who ran an acting school, and Hermann Ferdinand Schell, a Swiss poet, novelist, playwright, and owner of a pharmacy. Schell's late elder sister, Maria Schell , was also an actress; as are their two other siblings, Carl and Immy (Immaculata) Schell.
When Austria became part of Nazi-Germany after the ‘anschluss’ of 1938, the Schell family moved to Zurich, Switzerland. Maximilian's interest in acting began at early age. When 11, he appeared in a professional production of William Tell and in the same year he wrote a play which was produced by his school. Later he served in the Swiss Army, achieving the rank of corporal.
In 1952, he began acting at the Basel Theatre. He played a small role as a desperate deserter in the war film Kinder, Mütter und ein General/Children, Mother, and the General (László Benedek, 1955) starring Hilde Krahl . That year he also played parts in Der 20. Juli/The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (Falk Harnack, 1955), Reifende Jugend/Ripening Youth (Ulrich Erfurth, 1955) and Ein Mädchen aus Flandern/The Girl from Flanders (Helmut Käutner, 1956) with Nicole Berger.
His breakthrough in the cinema was the German crime film Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957). The film, which starred O.E. Hasse and Ulla Jacobsson , was entered into the 7th Berlin International Film Festival.
Schell made his Hollywood debut as a Nazi officer in the World War II film The Young Lions (Edward Dmytryk, 1958) starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. According to Jon C. Hopwood at IMDb “quite by accident, as the producers had wanted to hire his sister Maria Schell , but lines of communication got crossed, and he was the one hired.”
Belgian postcard by Cox, no. 7.
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden-Westf., no. 2445. Photo: Arthur Grimm / CCC / Constantin. Publicity still for Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957).
Oscar
Maximilian Schell stayed in America and in 1959, he appeared as Hans Rolfe, an enigmatic defense attorney, in a live Playhouse 90 television production of Judgment at Nuremberg (George Roy Hill, 1959). In 1961, Schell reprised the role for the big screen remake Judgement at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) with an all star cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, and Marlene Dietrich .
As the first German speaking actor after World War II, Schell won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He also won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for the role.
In the following years, he starred in international productions like the Italian-French drama I sequestrati di Altona/The Condemned of Altona (Vittorio De Sica, 1962) opposite Sophia Loren , the heist film Topkapi (Jules Dassin, 1964) with Melina Mercouri, the British drama Return from the Ashes (J. Lee Thompson, 1965) with Ingrid Thulin, and the British espionage–thriller The Deadly Affair (Sidney Lumet, 1966) based on John le Carré's first novel Call for the Dead.
In Hollywood, he was often top billed in Third Reich themed films, such as Counterpoint (Ralph Nelson, 1968), The Man in the Glass Booth (Arthur Hiller, 1975) – a role for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977), Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977) – for which he got another Oscar nomination, and A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977).
However, he also played in various films with different subjects, including the historical disaster film Krakatoa, East of Java (Bernard L. Kowalski, 1969), the science fiction film The Black Hole (Gary Nelson, 1979), and the crime comedy The Freshman (Andrew Bergman, 1990) starring Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick.
German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf., no. 1868. Photo: Gabriele / Real / Europa. Publicity still for Ein Herz kehrt heim/A Heart Goes Home (Eugen York, 1956).
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. V 128. Photo: CCC / Constantin / Arthur Grimm. Publicity still for Die Letzten werden die Ersten sein/The Last Ones Shall Be First (Rolf Hansen, 1957).
Marlene and Maria
Maximilian Schell has also served as a writer, producer and director for a variety of films. In 1968, Schell produced and starred in the adaptation of Kafka's novel Das Schloss/The Castle. Two years later, Erste Liebe/First Love (1970) - written, directed, produced, and starred in by Schell - was hailed by the critics.
His Der Fußgänger/The Pedestrian (1974), in which he also starred, was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and won a Golden Globe.
His documentary on Marlene Dietrich , Marlene (1984) was based on the audio tape recordings of his 17-hours-long interview session with Dietrich. Using original footage, documentary material and interview passages, he managed to present an intimate portrait of her, which won also several awards.
18 years later, he made a documentary about his late sister Maria Schell , Meine Schwester Maria/My Sister Maria (2002). Connor McMadden at AllMovie : "Using excerpts of her feature films along with home movie footage, Schell explores the high points his sister's career throughout the 1950s, as well as the personal problems that cast her into obscurity only a decade later. The film offers quite a few emotional peaks, especially when an elderly Maria Schell goes before her brother's camera to speak candidly about her life, and a suicide attempt which she refers to as her 'first death.'"
In addition to his film career, Maximilian Schell has also been active as director, writer and actor in the European theatre. In 1958, he made his Broadway debut in Ira Levin’s Interlock. In 1965, he starred in John Osborne’s groundbreaking A Patriot for Me, first at London’s Royal Court Theatre and later on Broadway.
He has twice played Hamlet on stage, originally under the direction of the legendary Gustaf Grundgens and later under his own direction. In 1972 he starred in Peter Hall's German language première of Harold Pinter's Old Times at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 1977 he directed Tales from the Vienna Woods at the National Theatre in London.
In later life he also began directing operatic productions, starting with Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. This passion was triggered when he was performing in the play Jedermann (Everyman) in Salzburg, Austria from 1978-1982, and he came into contact with several musical conductors including Leonard Bernstein, James Levine and Claudio Abbado. In 2006 he appeared in Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues directed by Robert Altman at the Old Vic in London.
He also often appeared on television, such as in the miniseries Peter the Great (Marvin J. Chomsky, Lawrence Schiller, 1986), with Vanessa Redgrave and Laurence Olivier . He was twice been nominated for an Emmy for his TV work, and in 1993, he won a Golden Globe for his part as Vladimir Lenin in the HBO miniseries Stalin (Ivan Passer, 1992).
In 1990, he had refused to receive the Honorary German Film Award because he felt too young to be awarded with an award for lifetime achievement. For German television, he played in the television miniseries The Return of the Dancing Master (Urs Egger, 2004), which was based on Henning Mankell's crime novel.
Through the decades he continued to star in international film productions, such as The Rose Garden (Fons Rademakers, 1986), Left Luggage (Jeroen Krabbé, 1998), Deep Impact (Mimi Leder, 1998), Vampires (John Carpenter, 1998), and the American comedy The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson, 2008) with Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo.
At IMDb, Jon C. Hopwood writes: “with the exception of Maurice Chevalier and Marcello Mastroianni , Schell is undoubtedly the most successful non-Anglophone foreign actor in the history of American cinema.”
Maximilian Schell was married to actress Natalya Andreychenko (1985-2005). Their daughter is actress Nastassja Schell (born in 1989). He was also the godfather of actress Angelina Jolie. Recently, Maximilian Schell could be seen in two new films, Les brigands (Pol Cruchten, Frank Hoffmann, 2013) opposite Tchéky Karyo, and An Artist's Emblem (Michael J. Narvaez, 2013) with Harry Dean Stanton.
German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 241. Photo: Real-Film.
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf.no. 2275. Photo: Real / Europa / Gabriele. Publicity still for Ein Herz kehrt heim/A Heart returns home (Eugen York, 1956).
Sources: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), (IMDb), Connor McMadden (AllMovie), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and .
January 31, 2014
Godfried de Groot
For forty years Godfried de Groot (1894-1963) was a prominent Amsterdam portrait photographer who had numerous celebrities for his lens. He was a skilled portraitist whose photos protruded far above average and appeared on many Dutch and German film star postcards. During his long career he hardly changed his flattering style of posing and lighting and while he was famous during his life, there was hardly any serious attention for him after his death.
Lizzi Waldmüller . Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam), no. 1215. Photo: Godfried de Groot.
Frits van Dongen a.k.a. Philip Dorn. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1759/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Aesthete
Godfried Cornelius (Frits) de Groot was born in Den Helder, The Netherlands in 1894. He was the second of the three children of the innkeeper Adrianus Cornelius de Groot and Johanna Geertruida Geurds.
Between 1906 and 1908 Godfried attended the Friary school in Goirle. Then he returned to Den Helder and was registered as a photographer. He was a student of the photographer S. Dijkstra, and later had apprenticeships in Den Bosch, and Bad Nauheim in Germany.
In 1916, he returned from Germany and settled in Amsterdam. Between 1917 and 1921 he worked as assistant to photographer Frits Geveke, who portrayed many actors and actresses. Reportedly, De Groot took several of these clients with him when he opened his first studio in Amsterdam at the Amstellaan (now Vrijheidslaan) around 1922.
In 1928, he established his studio in the prestigious Jan Luykenstraat 2a opposite the Rijksmuseum and also went to live there with his friend and attorney Piet Bakker.
De Groot was an aesthete. On many of his portrait photos the light falls on one or two shoulders, on the side (usually the left) of the face, on the ridge of the nose, the hair, sometimes on the ear. In the portraits of men, the white collar usually the lightest part of the picture, in women’s portraits the light often focuses on the necklace.
De Groot often photographed obliquely from the side, and the left head is generally rotate relatively to the fuselage. Portraits in profile are in the minority. The photographed rarely laughed or looked into the lens. The tint of the face, hair, and clothing often contrasts with that of the background. De Groot continuously varied combinations of these 'ingredients' so that no portrait is exactly the same.
From 1936 on, De Groot had Jan Wieling as an apprentice, with whom he also had a relationship. Until De Groot’s death in 1963, Wieling also took care of the business side of the company. De Groot and Wieling lived from circa 1940 in a villa in Naarden, although De Groot remained formally registered in Amsterdam.
Ery Bos. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Collection: Didier Hanson.
Truus van Aalten . Dutch postcard by Jospe, nr. 442. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
The Queen
Godfried de Groot’s photos are recognizable by the careful use of lighting and pose. His flattering, sometimes glamorous portraits are in the tradition of the Pictorialism: beautiful portraits executed with care.
The influence of film stars portraits of his work is unmistakable. His photographs show similarities with the German glamour photos that were published in large numbers on Ross postcards and in Dutch magazines like Cinema & Theater .
Hans Rooseboom at the Dutch photography site ScherpteDiepte (Depth of Field): “In the studio at the Jan Luykenstraat, Godfried de Groot went from daylight to artificial light on. As props, he used a pair of large rectangular blocks and a quarter circular increased by a few steps. By letting the people lean against a block or sit on it they could still move easily and be ‘rearranged’. Stiff, uncomfortable poses were thus prevented.
De Groot had the talent to make people at ease. He treated them all with respect and especially with women he was easy going. They fell often under his charm. He gave them compliments, and made them feel beautiful. No doubt he was a good actor, but his enthusiasm was often sincere. Godfried de Groot loved people and preferred to photographed them at their best.”
He focused on a wealthy clientele who could afford to have their portrait taken with special care at a corresponding price. He had many famous people before the lens throughout his career, including especially many actors, but also dancers, musicians, writers, the mayor of Amsterdam W. de Vlugt, and the director of the Rijksmuseum Dr. F. Schmidt-Degener.
In 1937 Godfried de Groot got his most prestigious commission when he was invited to portray Queen Wilhelmina. It proved to be a very lucrative commission. In addition to his portraits he also did some fashion and advertising photos. And he did a lot of nude photography, of which some pictures were sent to exhibitions.
Truus van Aalten . Dutch Postcard by Jospe, no. 462. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Renate Müller . German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 745. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Renate Müller . Dutch postcard by JosPe, no. 457. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
A Slur On His Name
On 16 July 1945, Godfried de Groot was arrested by the Political Investigation on suspicion of membership of the NSB (the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands) since February 1941.
He was interned for about a year, but on 8 June 1946 he was conditionally withdrawn from prosecution for unknown reasons. His studio was already reopened in September 1945.
After World War II, De Groot's method of photographing changed. He used the soft-focus lens only a few times and gave more attention to the distribution of large quantities of light and dark. His post-war pictures while not razor sharp but - seen from a distance – they seem sharp. He occasionally used projected shadows in the background and made little use of attributes.
While it was for a long time customary to depict actors in stage clothes, De Groot almost always made portraits of them. Therefore there is no essential difference between his portraits of famous and non-famous people.
Among his assistants through the years were Zus Ziegler and Eddy Postuma de Boer, and among the chief operators of the studio were Willy Schurman and Cor van Weele.
Around 1960 Godfried de Groot discovered that he was suffering from cancer. He was replaced by Theo Teuwen in 1961, but De Groot kept working as long as possible.
After a long illness, he died on 1963 in an Amsterdam hospital. Jan Wieling was his sole heir. The company was dissolved that same year, although s studio with his name continued to exist for some years.
His wartime past had cast a slur on his name. In his life Godfried de Groot had been famous in the Netherlands, but there was hardly any serious attention to him after his death in 1963. So several legends could be created around his person.
A large part of the archive of Godfried de Groot was demolished by the later owner of his studio. The remains are now housed at the Prentenkabinet in Leiden.
Betty van den Bosch. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Betty van den Bosch-Schmidt (1900-1972) was a Dutch opera and Lieder singer.
Herbert Joeks . Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Andrea Domburg. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
This is the fourth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi and the German photographer Ernst Schneider.
Sources: Hans Rooseboom (ScherpteDiepte) (Dutch).
Lizzi Waldmüller . Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam), no. 1215. Photo: Godfried de Groot.
Frits van Dongen a.k.a. Philip Dorn. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1759/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Aesthete
Godfried Cornelius (Frits) de Groot was born in Den Helder, The Netherlands in 1894. He was the second of the three children of the innkeeper Adrianus Cornelius de Groot and Johanna Geertruida Geurds.
Between 1906 and 1908 Godfried attended the Friary school in Goirle. Then he returned to Den Helder and was registered as a photographer. He was a student of the photographer S. Dijkstra, and later had apprenticeships in Den Bosch, and Bad Nauheim in Germany.
In 1916, he returned from Germany and settled in Amsterdam. Between 1917 and 1921 he worked as assistant to photographer Frits Geveke, who portrayed many actors and actresses. Reportedly, De Groot took several of these clients with him when he opened his first studio in Amsterdam at the Amstellaan (now Vrijheidslaan) around 1922.
In 1928, he established his studio in the prestigious Jan Luykenstraat 2a opposite the Rijksmuseum and also went to live there with his friend and attorney Piet Bakker.
De Groot was an aesthete. On many of his portrait photos the light falls on one or two shoulders, on the side (usually the left) of the face, on the ridge of the nose, the hair, sometimes on the ear. In the portraits of men, the white collar usually the lightest part of the picture, in women’s portraits the light often focuses on the necklace.
De Groot often photographed obliquely from the side, and the left head is generally rotate relatively to the fuselage. Portraits in profile are in the minority. The photographed rarely laughed or looked into the lens. The tint of the face, hair, and clothing often contrasts with that of the background. De Groot continuously varied combinations of these 'ingredients' so that no portrait is exactly the same.
From 1936 on, De Groot had Jan Wieling as an apprentice, with whom he also had a relationship. Until De Groot’s death in 1963, Wieling also took care of the business side of the company. De Groot and Wieling lived from circa 1940 in a villa in Naarden, although De Groot remained formally registered in Amsterdam.
Ery Bos. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Collection: Didier Hanson.
Truus van Aalten . Dutch postcard by Jospe, nr. 442. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
The Queen
Godfried de Groot’s photos are recognizable by the careful use of lighting and pose. His flattering, sometimes glamorous portraits are in the tradition of the Pictorialism: beautiful portraits executed with care.
The influence of film stars portraits of his work is unmistakable. His photographs show similarities with the German glamour photos that were published in large numbers on Ross postcards and in Dutch magazines like Cinema & Theater .
Hans Rooseboom at the Dutch photography site ScherpteDiepte (Depth of Field): “In the studio at the Jan Luykenstraat, Godfried de Groot went from daylight to artificial light on. As props, he used a pair of large rectangular blocks and a quarter circular increased by a few steps. By letting the people lean against a block or sit on it they could still move easily and be ‘rearranged’. Stiff, uncomfortable poses were thus prevented.
De Groot had the talent to make people at ease. He treated them all with respect and especially with women he was easy going. They fell often under his charm. He gave them compliments, and made them feel beautiful. No doubt he was a good actor, but his enthusiasm was often sincere. Godfried de Groot loved people and preferred to photographed them at their best.”
He focused on a wealthy clientele who could afford to have their portrait taken with special care at a corresponding price. He had many famous people before the lens throughout his career, including especially many actors, but also dancers, musicians, writers, the mayor of Amsterdam W. de Vlugt, and the director of the Rijksmuseum Dr. F. Schmidt-Degener.
In 1937 Godfried de Groot got his most prestigious commission when he was invited to portray Queen Wilhelmina. It proved to be a very lucrative commission. In addition to his portraits he also did some fashion and advertising photos. And he did a lot of nude photography, of which some pictures were sent to exhibitions.
Truus van Aalten . Dutch Postcard by Jospe, no. 462. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Renate Müller . German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 745. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Renate Müller . Dutch postcard by JosPe, no. 457. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
A Slur On His Name
On 16 July 1945, Godfried de Groot was arrested by the Political Investigation on suspicion of membership of the NSB (the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands) since February 1941.
He was interned for about a year, but on 8 June 1946 he was conditionally withdrawn from prosecution for unknown reasons. His studio was already reopened in September 1945.
After World War II, De Groot's method of photographing changed. He used the soft-focus lens only a few times and gave more attention to the distribution of large quantities of light and dark. His post-war pictures while not razor sharp but - seen from a distance – they seem sharp. He occasionally used projected shadows in the background and made little use of attributes.
While it was for a long time customary to depict actors in stage clothes, De Groot almost always made portraits of them. Therefore there is no essential difference between his portraits of famous and non-famous people.
Among his assistants through the years were Zus Ziegler and Eddy Postuma de Boer, and among the chief operators of the studio were Willy Schurman and Cor van Weele.
Around 1960 Godfried de Groot discovered that he was suffering from cancer. He was replaced by Theo Teuwen in 1961, but De Groot kept working as long as possible.
After a long illness, he died on 1963 in an Amsterdam hospital. Jan Wieling was his sole heir. The company was dissolved that same year, although s studio with his name continued to exist for some years.
His wartime past had cast a slur on his name. In his life Godfried de Groot had been famous in the Netherlands, but there was hardly any serious attention to him after his death in 1963. So several legends could be created around his person.
A large part of the archive of Godfried de Groot was demolished by the later owner of his studio. The remains are now housed at the Prentenkabinet in Leiden.
Betty van den Bosch. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam. Betty van den Bosch-Schmidt (1900-1972) was a Dutch opera and Lieder singer.
Herbert Joeks . Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
Andrea Domburg. Dutch postcard. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.
This is the fourth post in a series on film star photographers. Earlier posts were on the Reutlinger Studio in Paris, Italian star photographer Attilio Badodi and the German photographer Ernst Schneider.
Sources: Hans Rooseboom (ScherpteDiepte) (Dutch).
January 30, 2014
Aïché Nana (1940-2014)
On 29 January, Lebanese actress and former belly dancer Aïché Nana (1940-2014) died. In 1958, a 'striptease' by the then 18 years old Nana at a Roman party caused an international scandal. Subsequently she became one of the icons of ‘La Dolce Vita’, the liberated era of sex, drugs and rock & roll as documented by Federico Fellini. Aïché Nana appeared in 15 European films between 1956 and 1985.
Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, Milano (Milan), no. 238.
High-powered Publicity
Aïché Nana was born as Kiash Nanah in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1940.
She became a famous belly-dancer in Istanbul and soon also danced in Paris left-bank cabarets. She reportedly employed high-powered publicity to sell her act to European producers. In 1956 French newspapers reported her mysterious disappearance from a Paris cabaret after writing a single word on a paper in her dressing room: "Farewell”. After the French police was alerted and in the midst of all the publicity, she suddenly returned in good shape.
In 1958 the then 18 year old dancer caused a scandal that alerted the world to the luxurious and decadent lifestyle of the international jet-set in Rome that soon would become known as La Dolce Vita. Thanks to Cinecittà, the film production studios on the east side of the city, Rome had become a popular location for Hollywood films, and the foreign stars and writers began hanging out in the bars of Via Veneto.
On that historical November night, the Swedish actress Anita Ekberg danced barefoot at a party in the Rugantino, a trattoria in Trastevere before Aïché Nana stripped to her knickers. The public was a mix of playboys, film stars like Linda Christian and Elsa Martinelli , and aristocrats, who fled when the police arrived. To the police Aïcha claimed that merrymakers had ripped off her clothes.
The next day the striptease became a historical scandal when gossip columnist Victor Ciuffa (who later claimed to be the subject for the Marcello Mastroianni character in La Dolce Vita) published photo’s taken by Tazio Secchiaroli in his column in the newspaper, Corriere d'Informazione. The published photos gave lie to Aïché Nana’s story to the police. Italian authorities threatened her with a three year jail sentence and she quickly returned to Paris where striptease was permitted at the time.
The photos were published in magazines all over the world, including the famous American weekly Life. Later both Anita Ekberg and Aïché Nana’s striptease were immortalized in La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life (Federico Fellini, 1960). Tazio Secchiaroli, the original paparazzo, became the director’s privileged stills photographer.
Aïché Nana’s striptease in Rugantino. Photos: Tazio Secchiaroli. Source: Iconic Photos and Fondazione Italia.
Nunsploitation
Aïché Nana became something of a celebrity following her moment of infamy. Just 16, she had already appeared as a dancer in the French-Italian adventure film La châtelaine du Liban/The Lebanese Mission (Richard Pottier, 1956) starring Jean-Claude Pascal and Omar Sharif.
She stayed in Europe and danced ín the Frankie Howerd comedy A Touch of the Sun (Gordon Parry, 1956).
In the 1960s she stepped up to proper, secondary roles. The majority of her parts were in Euro-Westerns where her dark looks made her a natural at playing Mexicans. She appeared with bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay in the Spanish-Italian Western Lo sceriffo che non spara/The Sheriff Won’t Shoot (José Luis Monter, Renato Polselli, 1965).
Among her other spaghetti westerns were Thompson 1880 (Guido Zurli, 1966) with George Martin and Gordon Mitchell, Crisantemi per un branco di carogne/Chrysanthemums for a Bunch of Swine (Sergio Pastore, 1968) with Edmund Purdom , and Giurò... e li uccise ad uno ad uno/Gun Shy Piluk (Guido Celano, 1968) also starring Purdom as a coffin maker.
She also appeared in the thriller A... come assassin/A… Like Assassin (Angelo Dorigo, 1966) starring Alan Steel (aka the Italian actor Sergio Ciani) and was the leading lady of another Italian thriller Due occhi per uccidere/Two Eyes To Kill (Renato Borraccetti, 1968).
In the 1970s she appeared in Edipeon (Lorenzo Arato, 1970) with Magali Noël and Massimo Serato , the Oscar nominated comedy I nuovi mostri/The New Monsters (Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola, 1977) starring Vittorio Gassmann and Ornella Muti , and the Nunsploitation film Immagini di un convent/Images in a Convent (Joe D’Amato, 1979).
In the 1980s followed roles in two big budget productions. In Marco Ferreri’s Storia di Piera/The Story of Piera (1983) she supported a star cast including Isabelle Huppert , Hanna Schygulla and Marcello Mastroianni . Her final film was the British-American Bible epic King David (Bruce Beresford, 1985) starring Richard Gere as the King of Israel who took on Goliath.
Aïché Nana was married to director Sergio Pastore (1932-1987), who had directed her in Crisantemi per un branco di carogne (1968). Nana died because of complications caused by a long lasting illness.
German trailer for Thompson 1880 (1966). Don't glimpse or you'll miss Aïché. Source: koppschnicker33 (YouTube).
Sources: La Repubblica (Italian), Corriere della Sera (Italian), Matt Blake (The Wild Eye), Tom Kington (The Observer), Benito Carlo Jr. (The Inside Story via Modern Mechanix Blog), Life and .
Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, Milano (Milan), no. 238.
High-powered Publicity
Aïché Nana was born as Kiash Nanah in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1940.
She became a famous belly-dancer in Istanbul and soon also danced in Paris left-bank cabarets. She reportedly employed high-powered publicity to sell her act to European producers. In 1956 French newspapers reported her mysterious disappearance from a Paris cabaret after writing a single word on a paper in her dressing room: "Farewell”. After the French police was alerted and in the midst of all the publicity, she suddenly returned in good shape.
In 1958 the then 18 year old dancer caused a scandal that alerted the world to the luxurious and decadent lifestyle of the international jet-set in Rome that soon would become known as La Dolce Vita. Thanks to Cinecittà, the film production studios on the east side of the city, Rome had become a popular location for Hollywood films, and the foreign stars and writers began hanging out in the bars of Via Veneto.
On that historical November night, the Swedish actress Anita Ekberg danced barefoot at a party in the Rugantino, a trattoria in Trastevere before Aïché Nana stripped to her knickers. The public was a mix of playboys, film stars like Linda Christian and Elsa Martinelli , and aristocrats, who fled when the police arrived. To the police Aïcha claimed that merrymakers had ripped off her clothes.
The next day the striptease became a historical scandal when gossip columnist Victor Ciuffa (who later claimed to be the subject for the Marcello Mastroianni character in La Dolce Vita) published photo’s taken by Tazio Secchiaroli in his column in the newspaper, Corriere d'Informazione. The published photos gave lie to Aïché Nana’s story to the police. Italian authorities threatened her with a three year jail sentence and she quickly returned to Paris where striptease was permitted at the time.
The photos were published in magazines all over the world, including the famous American weekly Life. Later both Anita Ekberg and Aïché Nana’s striptease were immortalized in La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life (Federico Fellini, 1960). Tazio Secchiaroli, the original paparazzo, became the director’s privileged stills photographer.
Aïché Nana’s striptease in Rugantino. Photos: Tazio Secchiaroli. Source: Iconic Photos and Fondazione Italia.
Nunsploitation
Aïché Nana became something of a celebrity following her moment of infamy. Just 16, she had already appeared as a dancer in the French-Italian adventure film La châtelaine du Liban/The Lebanese Mission (Richard Pottier, 1956) starring Jean-Claude Pascal and Omar Sharif.
She stayed in Europe and danced ín the Frankie Howerd comedy A Touch of the Sun (Gordon Parry, 1956).
In the 1960s she stepped up to proper, secondary roles. The majority of her parts were in Euro-Westerns where her dark looks made her a natural at playing Mexicans. She appeared with bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay in the Spanish-Italian Western Lo sceriffo che non spara/The Sheriff Won’t Shoot (José Luis Monter, Renato Polselli, 1965).
Among her other spaghetti westerns were Thompson 1880 (Guido Zurli, 1966) with George Martin and Gordon Mitchell, Crisantemi per un branco di carogne/Chrysanthemums for a Bunch of Swine (Sergio Pastore, 1968) with Edmund Purdom , and Giurò... e li uccise ad uno ad uno/Gun Shy Piluk (Guido Celano, 1968) also starring Purdom as a coffin maker.
She also appeared in the thriller A... come assassin/A… Like Assassin (Angelo Dorigo, 1966) starring Alan Steel (aka the Italian actor Sergio Ciani) and was the leading lady of another Italian thriller Due occhi per uccidere/Two Eyes To Kill (Renato Borraccetti, 1968).
In the 1970s she appeared in Edipeon (Lorenzo Arato, 1970) with Magali Noël and Massimo Serato , the Oscar nominated comedy I nuovi mostri/The New Monsters (Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola, 1977) starring Vittorio Gassmann and Ornella Muti , and the Nunsploitation film Immagini di un convent/Images in a Convent (Joe D’Amato, 1979).
In the 1980s followed roles in two big budget productions. In Marco Ferreri’s Storia di Piera/The Story of Piera (1983) she supported a star cast including Isabelle Huppert , Hanna Schygulla and Marcello Mastroianni . Her final film was the British-American Bible epic King David (Bruce Beresford, 1985) starring Richard Gere as the King of Israel who took on Goliath.
Aïché Nana was married to director Sergio Pastore (1932-1987), who had directed her in Crisantemi per un branco di carogne (1968). Nana died because of complications caused by a long lasting illness.
German trailer for Thompson 1880 (1966). Don't glimpse or you'll miss Aïché. Source: koppschnicker33 (YouTube).
Sources: La Repubblica (Italian), Corriere della Sera (Italian), Matt Blake (The Wild Eye), Tom Kington (The Observer), Benito Carlo Jr. (The Inside Story via Modern Mechanix Blog), Life and .
January 29, 2014
Terence Stamp
Actor Terence Stamp (1939) is an icon of the 1960s. He dated Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and Jean Shrimpton, and worked with such directors as John Schlesinger, Ken Loach, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Joseph Losey. In 1995 he was chosen by Empire as #59 of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.
Vintage postcard.
Brooding Looks
Terence Stamp was born in Stepney, the 'Cockney' part of London, in 1939. He was the eldest of the five children of Ethel Esther (née Perrott) and Thomas Stamp, who was a tugboat captain. His younger brother, Christopher Stamp, would become a impresario and film producer for the pop group The Who.
On leaving school Stamp worked in a variety of advertising agencies in London, working his way up to a very respectable wage.
After appearing in several plays, he made his film debut as an angelic, ill-fated young seaman in the film adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov, 1962). His portrayal of the title character brought him an Oscar and a BAFTA nomination, a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, and international attention.
Roger Phillip Mellor notes in the Encyclopaedia of British Cinema : "Terence Stamp was one of a new generation of stars with fresh attitudes who found favour in the 1960s. And with his soulful, intense looks, ladies found him irresistible".
He then appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in Term of Trial (Peter Glenville, 1962). He won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival got his lead in William Wyler's adaptation of John Fowles' The Collector (1965) with Samantha Eggar.
His brooding looks made him ideal for portraying enigmatic, other-worldly characters, such as in Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey, 1966) with Monica Vitti .
He also starred in Ken Loach's first film Poor Cow (1967), and John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) starring Julie Christie . His romance with Julie Christie received extensive media coverage during London's 'swinging 60s'.
He and his next girlfriend, pre-supermodel Jean Shrimpton, were one of the most photographed couples of Mod London.
Vintage card. Photo: Coprensa.
Superman
In 1968, Terence Stamp journeyed to Italy to star in Federico Fellini's Toby Dammit, a 50-minute segment of the Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation Histoires extraordinaires/Spirits of the Dead (1968).
He lived in Italy for several years, during which time his film work included Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968) opposite Silvana Mangano , and Una Stagione all'inferno/A Season in Hell (Nelo Risi, 1970) as the poet Arthur Rimbaud opposite Jean-Claude Brialy in the role of Paul Verlaine.
He withdrew from mainstream films after his girlfriend Jean Shrimpton, left him, and he went on a 10-year sabbatical in India. He spent time in Pune at the ashram, meditating and studying the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
He returned home in the late 1970s to portray Kryptonian super-villain General Zod in Superman (Richard Donner, 1978). Stamp went on to reprise his role as General Zod in the sequel, Superman II (Richard Lester, 1980).
In 2003, Stamp returned to the Superman myths in a new role, by vocally playing Clark Kent's biological father, Jor-El, in the WB/CW television series Smallville (2001-2009).
A publicity shot for The Collector (William Wyler, 1965) showing Terence Stamp holding a chloroform pad was used for the cover of The Smiths single What Difference Does It Make. After some copies were printed, Stamp decided he didn't want his photo to be used, and the rest of the copies appeared with Morrissey in the exact same pose, looking very much like him but holding a glass of milk instead. Later, Stamp agreed and the photo was reinstated on the 12" single cover.
The Smiths: What Difference Does It Make? 12" British 45 single (1984) with credit: Cover Star: Terence Stamp (courtesy Colombia Pictures). Source: John Elsmlie@Flickr.
Transsexual Bernadette
Terence Stamp appeared as the Supergrass in Stephen Frears' The Hit (1984), as the transsexual Bernadette in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephen Elliot, 1994) and as a vengeful gangster in The Limey (1999), a role especially created for him by its director Steven Soderbergh.
Stamp, who has been wheat and dairy intolerant since the 1960s, launched The Stamp Collection range of organic wheat and dairy free products in 1994. He also co-wrote a cookbook with Elizabeth Buxton to provide alternative recipes for those who are wheat and dairy-intolerant.
He also wrote three autobiographies: Stamp Album (1987), Coming Attractions (1988), and Double Feature (1989).
In the cinema, Stamp could be seen in Hollywood blockbusters (and often megaflops) like Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) as Chancellor Finis Valorum, Bowfinger (Frank Oz, 1999) with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, Red Planet (Antony Hoffman, 2000) with Val Kilmer, My Boss's Daughter (David Zucker, 2003) with Ashton Kutcher, Disney's The Haunted Mansion (Rob Minkoff, 2003) opposite Eddie Murphy, Elektra (Rob Bowman, 2005) with Jennifer Garner, and Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) starring Tom Cruise.
He also appeared in European productions like Ma femme est une actrice/My Wife Is An Actress (Yvan Attal, 2001) with Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Dead Fish (Charley Stadler, 2004) with Robert Carlyle.
Terence Stamp has been married to Elizabeth O Rourke from 2002 till their divorce in 2008.
Recently, Stamp returned to Great Britain to star in the films Song for Marion (Paul Andrew Williams, 2012) and appeared in Canada in The Art of the Steal (Jonathan Sobol, 2013) with Jay Baruchel and Kurt Russell.
Scene from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Source: LiFers (YouTube)
Sources: Roger Phillip Mellor (Encyclopedia of British Cinema), (IMDb), and Wikipedia.
Vintage postcard.
Brooding Looks
Terence Stamp was born in Stepney, the 'Cockney' part of London, in 1939. He was the eldest of the five children of Ethel Esther (née Perrott) and Thomas Stamp, who was a tugboat captain. His younger brother, Christopher Stamp, would become a impresario and film producer for the pop group The Who.
On leaving school Stamp worked in a variety of advertising agencies in London, working his way up to a very respectable wage.
After appearing in several plays, he made his film debut as an angelic, ill-fated young seaman in the film adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov, 1962). His portrayal of the title character brought him an Oscar and a BAFTA nomination, a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, and international attention.
Roger Phillip Mellor notes in the Encyclopaedia of British Cinema : "Terence Stamp was one of a new generation of stars with fresh attitudes who found favour in the 1960s. And with his soulful, intense looks, ladies found him irresistible".
He then appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in Term of Trial (Peter Glenville, 1962). He won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival got his lead in William Wyler's adaptation of John Fowles' The Collector (1965) with Samantha Eggar.
His brooding looks made him ideal for portraying enigmatic, other-worldly characters, such as in Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey, 1966) with Monica Vitti .
He also starred in Ken Loach's first film Poor Cow (1967), and John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) starring Julie Christie . His romance with Julie Christie received extensive media coverage during London's 'swinging 60s'.
He and his next girlfriend, pre-supermodel Jean Shrimpton, were one of the most photographed couples of Mod London.
Vintage card. Photo: Coprensa.
Superman
In 1968, Terence Stamp journeyed to Italy to star in Federico Fellini's Toby Dammit, a 50-minute segment of the Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation Histoires extraordinaires/Spirits of the Dead (1968).
He lived in Italy for several years, during which time his film work included Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema (1968) opposite Silvana Mangano , and Una Stagione all'inferno/A Season in Hell (Nelo Risi, 1970) as the poet Arthur Rimbaud opposite Jean-Claude Brialy in the role of Paul Verlaine.
He withdrew from mainstream films after his girlfriend Jean Shrimpton, left him, and he went on a 10-year sabbatical in India. He spent time in Pune at the ashram, meditating and studying the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
He returned home in the late 1970s to portray Kryptonian super-villain General Zod in Superman (Richard Donner, 1978). Stamp went on to reprise his role as General Zod in the sequel, Superman II (Richard Lester, 1980).
In 2003, Stamp returned to the Superman myths in a new role, by vocally playing Clark Kent's biological father, Jor-El, in the WB/CW television series Smallville (2001-2009).
A publicity shot for The Collector (William Wyler, 1965) showing Terence Stamp holding a chloroform pad was used for the cover of The Smiths single What Difference Does It Make. After some copies were printed, Stamp decided he didn't want his photo to be used, and the rest of the copies appeared with Morrissey in the exact same pose, looking very much like him but holding a glass of milk instead. Later, Stamp agreed and the photo was reinstated on the 12" single cover.
The Smiths: What Difference Does It Make? 12" British 45 single (1984) with credit: Cover Star: Terence Stamp (courtesy Colombia Pictures). Source: John Elsmlie@Flickr.
Transsexual Bernadette
Terence Stamp appeared as the Supergrass in Stephen Frears' The Hit (1984), as the transsexual Bernadette in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephen Elliot, 1994) and as a vengeful gangster in The Limey (1999), a role especially created for him by its director Steven Soderbergh.
Stamp, who has been wheat and dairy intolerant since the 1960s, launched The Stamp Collection range of organic wheat and dairy free products in 1994. He also co-wrote a cookbook with Elizabeth Buxton to provide alternative recipes for those who are wheat and dairy-intolerant.
He also wrote three autobiographies: Stamp Album (1987), Coming Attractions (1988), and Double Feature (1989).
In the cinema, Stamp could be seen in Hollywood blockbusters (and often megaflops) like Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) as Chancellor Finis Valorum, Bowfinger (Frank Oz, 1999) with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, Red Planet (Antony Hoffman, 2000) with Val Kilmer, My Boss's Daughter (David Zucker, 2003) with Ashton Kutcher, Disney's The Haunted Mansion (Rob Minkoff, 2003) opposite Eddie Murphy, Elektra (Rob Bowman, 2005) with Jennifer Garner, and Valkyrie (Bryan Singer, 2008) starring Tom Cruise.
He also appeared in European productions like Ma femme est une actrice/My Wife Is An Actress (Yvan Attal, 2001) with Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Dead Fish (Charley Stadler, 2004) with Robert Carlyle.
Terence Stamp has been married to Elizabeth O Rourke from 2002 till their divorce in 2008.
Recently, Stamp returned to Great Britain to star in the films Song for Marion (Paul Andrew Williams, 2012) and appeared in Canada in The Art of the Steal (Jonathan Sobol, 2013) with Jay Baruchel and Kurt Russell.
Scene from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Source: LiFers (YouTube)
Sources: Roger Phillip Mellor (Encyclopedia of British Cinema), (IMDb), and Wikipedia.
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