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German postcard by ISV, Sort. 17/6.
Italian sex siren Rossana Podestà (1934) played in many European films of the 1950’s and 1960’s. She is best known as the stunningly beautiful leading lady of the international spectacle Helen of Troy (1956).
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
TF-ISV - Boeing 757-256 (w) - 26247/860 - Icelandair - Dublin International Airport - Sunday - 20-10-2019
West-German postcard by ISV, no. A 98. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
American singer and actor Fabian Forte (1943) a.k.a. Fabian is a former teen idol from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s who entertained audiences with his music, performances, and films. Eleven of his songs reached the Billboard Hot 100. 20th Century Fox had enjoyed success casting pop stars in films, such as Elvis Presley, and decided to do the same thing with Fabian. Until 1999, he starred in dozens of feature films, television movies, and series.
Fabiano Anthony Forte, stage name Fabian, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1943. He was the son of Josephine and Dominic Forte; his father was a Philadelphia police officer. Fabian was discovered in 1957 by Bob Marcucci and Peter DeAngelis, the owners of Chancellor Records. At the time, record producers were looking to the South Philadelphia neighborhoods in search of teenage talents with good looks. Frankie Avalon, also from South Philadelphia, tipped them off about Fabian. At 15, he won second prize as "The Promising Male Vocalist of 1958". His first local hit was Lilli Lou in 1958. This helped Fabian meet Dick Clark, who agreed to try Fabian at one of Clark's record hops, where singers would perform to teenage audiences. Fabian lip-synched to a song and Clark wrote "the little girls at the hop went wild. They started screaming and yelling for this guy who didn't do a thing but stand there. I've never seen anything like it." Clark told Marcucci "you got a hit, he's a star. Now all you have to do is teach him to sing." Clark eventually put the young singer on American Bandstand where he sang 'I'm in Love'. From then he had a series of successes in a short time with songs by composers Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, such as 'I'm a Man' (1958), 'Hound Dog Man' (1959), 'Turn Me Loose' (1959) and his biggest hit 'Tiger' (1959), which reached number 3 on the Billboard charts. A few years later, he already had a dozen hits, eight albums, and three gold records to his name. His singing career more or less came to an end at the age of eighteen when he bought out his contract with Marcucci. It happened in the wake of the Payola scandal between 1959 and 1962. Forte testified before Congress that his recordings had been doctored electronically to "significantly improve his voice. Nik Cohn later wrote that the record people had produced "a computer product" with Fabian: "He brought the basic requirements with him - an olive complexion, duck-tail hairdo and assembly-line face [...] They had him dressed up, had him learn how to talk real nice, had his voice trained. They made him really round and flawless like a billiard ball. There was only one catch: he couldn't sing ..."
Fabian signed a deal with 20th Century Fox. The studio had enjoyed success casting teen idol pop stars in films, such as Elvis Presley and Pat Boone. They decided to do the same thing with Fabian. He played his first role in the film drama Hound-Dog Man (Don Sigel, 1959), with Stuart Whitman and Carol Lynley. The film was not a success, but the title song, sung by Fabian, became a hit in 1959. The studio, however, tried again in two smaller roles, supporting a bigger star – the comedy High Time (Blake Edwards, 1959), with Bing Crosby, and the Western North to Alaska (Henry Hathaway, 1959), with John Wayne. Both films were popular especially the latter and in November 1960 his contract with the studio was amended with an increase in salary – it was now a seven-year deal with an option for two films a year. Controversial was his role as a psychopathic killer in the episode A Lion Walks Among Us (Robert Altman, 1961) of the TV programme Bus Stop. The episode was extremely violent, leading other parties to refuse to broadcast it, and the programme was even discussed in the US Senate. However, the series was good for Fabian's acting career and saw him regarded with more respect. He later said this was his best performance. Fabian appeared in Five Weeks in a Balloon (Irwin Allen, 1962) with Red Buttons and Barbara Eden. The film was loosely based on the 1863 novel of the same name by Jules Verne. He also played a suitor to James Stewart's daughter in the hit comedy Mr. Hobbs Takes a Holiday (Henry Koster, 1962) and a soldier in the star-studded war film The Longest Day (Andrew Marton, a.o., 1962).
Fabian had not become a film star but was in demand as an actor, appearing in episodes of series like The Virginian, Wagon Train, The Greatest Show on Earth, and The Eleventh Hour. In November 1965, he was contracted by American International Pictures. His first film for the company was alongside Beach Party stars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in the stock car racing film Fireball 500 (William Asher, 1966). AIP then sent him to Italy to play a role originally intended for Avalon in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (Mario Bava, 1966), supporting Vincent Price. Back in the United States, he made another stock car racing film for AIP, Thunder Alley (Richard Rush, 1967), opposite Funicello. His fourth movie for AIP was Maryjane (Maury Dexter, 1968), where Fabian played a school teacher fighting the evils of the marijuana trade. He returned to racing car dramas with The Wild Racers (Daniel Haller, 1968), partly financed by Roger Corman and shot in Europe. This was not a big hit on release but has developed a cult following. In his seventh and last film for AIP, A Bullet for Pretty Boy ( Larry Buchanan, 1970), he played gangster Charles Arthur Floyd opposite Jocelyn (Jackie) Lane. To raise his profile, he posed nude for Playgirl magazine. In 1973, he picked up singing again, only to quit temporarily in 1977 and return in 1981. He performed in the context of numerous revival shows, for example as a trio with Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell. However, he would not reach the popularity of his teenage years. Fabian has been married three times. His first marriage was to model Kathleen Regan in 1966. They had two children together, Christian and Julie, but divorced in 1979. He married Kate Netter in 1980; they divorced in 1990. In 1998 he married American beauty queen Andrea Patrick. In 2002, Fabian received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and German) and IMDb.
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West-German postcard by ISV, no. B 13. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Publicity still for Designing Woman (Vincente Minnelli, 1957).
American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).
Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged, and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.
With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.
Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.
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German postcard by ISV, no. B 26. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Green Mansions (Mel Ferrer, 1959) .
Tall and slim American actor Anthony 'Tony' Perkins (1932-1992) is best known for his boyish good looks and his nervous, sweet but often unbalanced characters. Perkins made his screen debut in The Actress (George Cukor, 1953) featuring Jean Simmons, and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his second film, the Civil War film Friendly Persuasion (William Wyler, 1956). Three years later, he appeared in what would be his most memorable role to date, Norman Bates in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and later in its three sequels. His other films include The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962), Pretty Poison (Noel Black, 1968), the British mystery film Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974) starring Albert Finney, and the Dutch film Twee vrouwen/Twice of woman (George Sluizer, 1979). In 1992, Anthony Perkins died in Hollywood, USA of pneumonia as a complication of AIDS. On 11 September 2001, his widow and mother of his two sons, Berry Berenson was one of the 58 victims on AA-11 out of Boston that terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
Big German card by ISV, no. PX 4.
Austrian born starlet Jackie Lane (1937) was a stunningly beautiful model and film actress of the 1950s and 1960s, who starred both in European films and in Hollywood pictures. She was married to Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.
German postcard by ISV, nr. H 24.
Beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist and made vegetarianism sexy.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, no. A 26. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Jean Simmons in Desiree (Henry Koster, 1954).
Demure, dark-haired English beauty Jean Simmons (1929 - 2010) was in the late 1940’s a box office attraction in films like Great Expectations and Hamlet. In 1950 she moved to Hollywood with her husband, Stewart Granger, and soon became a major Hollywood star who would be twice nominated for an Oscar.
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German postcard by ISV, no. D 16. Photo: Star Press.
Lana Turner (1921-1995) was one of the most glamorous superstars of Hollywood's golden era. One of her first lead roles was in Dancing Co-Ed (1939), a vehicle for bandleader Artie Shaw. The two married a year later. Dubbed 'the Sweater Girl' by the press, Turner became a popular pin-up, especially with American soldiers fighting overseas. In 1941 she starred opposite Clark Gable in Honky Tonk, her first major hit. Upon separating from Shaw, Turner married actor Stephen Crane, but when his earlier divorce was declared invalid, a media frenzy followed. Her most sultry and effective turn to date was the femme fatale in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). The film was a tremendous success, and it made Turner one of Hollywood's brightest stars. After a sabbatical, she returned with Peyton Place (Mark 1957). Turner's performance won an Academy Award nomination. The following year she made international headlines when her lover, gangster Johnny Stampanato, was stabbed to death by her teenage daughter, Cheryl Crane. Crane was eventually acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide, but Turner's reputation took a severe beating. Douglas Sirk's tearjerker Imitation of Life (1959) was Turner's last major hit. Her final film, Witches' Brew, a semi-comic remake of the 1944 horror classic Weird Woman, was shot in 1978 but not widely released until 1985. In 1982, she published an autobiography, Lana: The Lady, the Legend, the Truth, and also began a stint as a semi-regular on the TV soap opera Falcon Crest. After spending the majority of her final decade in retirement, Lana Turner died in 1995, at the age of 74.
Source: Jason Ankeny (AllMovie).
German postcard by ISV, Sort. 17/6.
British-Austrian actress Mara Lane (1930) was considered one of the most beautiful models in Great Britain during the early 1950’s. She appeared in more than 30 English and German language films of the 1950s and early 1960s, but seems completely forgotten now.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
West-German postcard by ISV, no. H 77.
During the late 1950s, American singer and actor Frankie Avalon (1940) was a teen idol with big hits like 'Venus' (1958) and 'Why' (1959). Avalon had an authentic music background to go with the pretty boy looks. During the 1960s, he starred in five beach party movies and other films. He made a come-back with Grease (1977).
Frankie Avalon was born Francis Thomas Avallone in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1940. His parents were Nicholas and Mary Avallone. Inspired by his father's trumpet playing, he started to get involved with music at an early age. At the CR Club in Philadelphia, where parents were offered the opportunity to let their children perform, Frankie presented his musical skills for the first time with trumpet solos. Performances in local talent shows followed and he won an amateur competition. The 12-years-old Frankie finally landed a spot on CBS's nationally syndicated 'The Jackie Gleason Show' in 1952. In 1954, he became a member of the dance band 'Rocco and the Saints', which participated in many local events and performed at youth clubs. One of the other members was drummer Robert Ridarelli, soon to call himself Bobby Rydell. In 1957, the record company Chancellor Records was founded in Philadelphia. One of the owners Bob Marcucci knew Frankie Avalon and helped him get a recording contract with the new company. Avalon and the Saints did a cameo in the rock and roll film Jamboree! (Roy Lockwood, 1957)) where they played 'Teacher's Pet'. Frankie's first single only attracted attention in his hometown, but 'De De Dinah' of his third Chancellor single, released in December 1957, became Avalon's national breakthrough. A piece of teen fluff, Avalon pinched his nose while singing the song to show how he felt about it. This nasal version was the one Chancellor released and Avalon performed the song on 'American Bandstand', a teen dance show hosted by Dick Clark. 'De De Dinah' soon sold a million copies. In the late 1950s, he became an idol for many teenage girls. In 1959, both his songs 'Venus' and Why reached the number 1 position in the Billboard Hot 100. By 1962, almost all of his singles were on the charts. In total, he reached the Hot 100 of the US music magazine Billboard 25 times. He also made foreign charts with 'Venus' and 'Why'. As a result of the British Invasion, interest in the now 23-year-old, whose music was always targeted at the teenage audience, waned. In 1963, Frankie Avalon changed record companies and moved to United Artists Records, a subsidiary of the film studio United Artists. However, he remained as unsuccessful as he did thereafter with a number of other companies. He only attracted attention on the record market again in 1976 with the disco version of Venus. His last single, 'You're the Miracle' (1983), was released on the CBS Bobcat label. After that, he successfully toured America with his old colleagues Bobby Rydell and Fabian as 'The Golden Boys of Bandstand'. The fifty-city tour was a huge success.
Frankie Avalon turned increasingly to the cinema in the 1960s. In the late 1950s, teen idols were often given roles in films, supporting older male stars in order to attract a younger audience. Alan Ladd's daughter was a Frankie Avalon fan, who recommended that he co-star with her father in the Western Guns of the Timberland (Robert D. Webb, 1960). Avalon sang two songs, 'The Faithful Kind' and 'Gee Whiz Whillikins Golly Gee'; both were released as singles. Frankie also had a supporting role in the John Wayne Western The Alamo (John Wayne, 1960), where he also sings 'Ballad of the Alamo'. He also appeared and sang the title song in the Sci-Fi adventure Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Irwin Allen, 1961). His first major film role was in an adventure film set in Africa, Drums of Africa (James B. Clark, 1963). In the early sixties, there was a nationwide surfing craze and Avalon and Annette Funicello were the leading stars in the wildly successful Beach Party (William Asher, 1963). It was the first of the five official American-International 'Beach Party' surfer movies, directed by William Asher and written by Lou Rusoff. Soon followed Bikini Beach (William Asher, 1964), Muscle Beach (William Asher, 1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (William Asher, 1965), and How to stuff a wild bikini (William Asher, 1965). Frankie also starred in Skidoo (Otto Preminger, 1968) and The Million Eyes of Sumuru (Lindsay Shonteff, 1967). Later he invested in the 1950s-themed stage musical 'Grease', which reportedly made him a millionaire. In the film version, Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, he took on a small role himself and performed the song 'Beauty School Dropout'. In 1986, Avalon and Funicello made another film, Back to the Beach (Lyndall Hobbs, 1987), a parody of their earlier beach movies. Avalon appeared in nearly two dozen TV episodes, including The Bing Crosby Show, The Patty Duke Show, and Full House, appearing often as himself. In 1990 he made a cameo as himself in the film Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995), starring Robert de Niro and Sharon Stone. He made further cameo appearances in the film Chicks (James Melkonian, 1994) and in the TV series Sabrina the teenage witch (2001). In the meantime, as the owner of the health and beauty care line Frankie Avalon Products, he made a considerable fortune. His most recent film is Papa (Dan Israely, 2018). Frankie Avalon lives in Thousand Oaks with his wife Kathryn Utices Deibel. The couple has eight children.
Sources: History of Rock, Biography.com, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
TF-ISV - Boeing 757-256 (w) - 26247/860 - Icelandair - Dublin International Airport - Sunday - 20-10-2019
German postcard by ISV, no. H 125.
American singer and actress Nancy Sinatra (1940) is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.
Nancy Sandra Sinatra was born the first child of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Barbato Sinatra in 1940 in Jersey City, New Jersey. She is the older sister of Tina Sinatra and Frank Sinatra Jr. She attended and graduated from University High School in West Hollywood, California. Her first television appearance was with her father and Elvis Presley in 1959. Her debut single was 'Cuff Links and a Tie Clip' (1961). She first appeared as a film actress in For Those Who Think Young (Leslie H. Martinson, 1964) with James Darren, and Get Yourself a College Girl (Sidney Miller, 1964). Without a hit in the US by 1965, she was on the verge of being dropped by her label Reprise. Her singing career received a boost with the help of songwriter/producer/arranger Lee Hazlewood. Bolstered by an image overhaul - including bleached-blonde hair, frosted lips, heavy eye make-up, and Carnaby Street fashions -, Sinatra made her mark on the global music scene in early 1966 with 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. She also recorded that year 'Sugar Town' (1966), and her cover of Cher's 'Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)' (1966), which features during the opening sequence of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (2003), starring Una Thurman.
In the cinema, Nancy Sinatra appeared alongside Peter Fonda in the biker picture The Wild Angels (Roger Corman, 1966) and with Elvis Presley in the musical comedy Speedway (Norman Taurog, 1968). She also had another United States chart-topper, a duet with her father called 'Somethin' Stupid' (1967). She also had a hit with the John Barry / Leslie Bricusse penned theme song to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert, 1967), starring Sean Connery. By the early 1970s, she was covering new ground by recording songs from other writers such as Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, Lynsey de Paul, and Roy Wood. In 1985, she wrote the book 'Frank Sinatra, My Father'. In 2004 she collaborated with former Los Angeles neighbour Morrissey to record a version of his song 'Let Me Kiss You', which was featured on her autumn release 'Nancy Sinatra'. She was married twice. Her first husband was pop star Tommy Sands (1960-1965) and her second husband was Hugh Lambert, with whom she was married from 1970 till his death in 1985. They had two children, A.J. Lambert, and photographer Amanda Lambert.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Melinda Cook, General Manager, South USA Commercial Business, Microsoft
Bronwyn Hastings, Head of Global ISV Partnerships and Channels, Google Cloud
Kevin Jones, CEO, Rackspace Technology
Vittorio Viarengo, Vice President, Cross-Cloud Services, VMware
Ken Young, CEO, Medecision
Big German card by ISV, no. HX 102.
Beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist.
Brigitte Bardot was 18 when she started her acting career in 1952, and after appearing in 17 films she became world-famous due to her role in controversial film Et Dieu créa la femme/And God Created Woman (1956), directed by her husband Roger Vadim. Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant (who at that time was married to French actress Stephane Audran) .Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.She appeared in light comedies like Une Parisienne/La Parisienne (1957, Michel Boisrond) which suited her acting skills best. Photographer Sam Levin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Levin's pictures show Brigitte from behind, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960 postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower. She divorced Vadim in 1957 and in 1959 married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre/Babette Goes to War (1959, Christian-Jaque). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career. Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée/Private Life (1960), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of autobiography in it. The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names, was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
On 18 June 1959 Brigite Bardot married actor Jacques Charrier, by whom she had her only child, a son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier Her other husbands were German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs and Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men including Sami Frey, her co-star in La Vérité/The Truth (1960, Henri-Georges Clouzot), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel.In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris/Contempt (1963, Jean-Luc Godard). She was featured along with such notable actors as Jean Gabin in En cas de malheur/In Case of Adversity (1958, Claude Autant-Lara), Alain Delon in Amours célèbres/Famous Love Affairs (1961, Michel Boisrond) and Histoires extraordinaires/Tales of Mystery (1968, Louis Malle), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (1965, Louis Malle), Sean Connery in Shalako (1968, Edward Dmytryk) and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses/Petroleum Girls (1971, Christian-Jaque). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960’s and 1970’s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including Harley Davidson, Le Soleil De Ma Vie (the cover of Stevie Wonder's You Are the Sunshine of My Life) and notorious Je t'aime... moi non plus.
In 1973 just before her fortieth birthday, Brigitte Bardot announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1986 she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and many personal belongings. During the 1990s she became also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal is a former adviser of the far right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for "inciting racial hatred". More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularizing bikini swimwear, in such early films such Manina/Woman without a Veil (1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the choucroute ("Sauerkraut") hairstyle (a sort of beehive hair style) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
This was an entry in the 2011 ISV Photo Competition.
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German postcard by ISV, no. B 17. Photo: publicity still for Gigi (Vincente Minnelli, 1958).
French film actress and dancer Leslie Caron (1931) was one of the most famous Hollywood stars in the 1950s. She is best known for the waif-like gamines in musical films like An American in Paris (1951), Lili (1953), and Gigi (1958) . Since the 1960s she’s also working in the European cinema.
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German postcard by ISV, Sort. 12/6.
Stunning Swiss sex symbol, starlet and jet-setter Ursula Andress (1936) will always be remembered as the first and quintessential Bond girl. In Dr. No (1962) she made film history when she spectacularly rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini. Though she won a Golden Globe Ursula's looks generally outweighed her acting talent and she never took her film career very seriously.
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German postcard by ISV, no. Sort 8/6.
In the late 1950’s blonde, German Elke Sommer (1940) was a European sex symbol before conquering Hollywood in the early 1960’s. With her trademark pouty lips, high cheek bones and sky-high bouffant hair-dos, Sommer made 99 film and television appearances between 1959 and 2005. The gorgeous film star was also one of the most popular pin-up girls of the sixties, and posed twice for Playboy magazine.
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German postcard by ISV, no. M 1. Photo: Europa-Film/List.
German actress and author Lilli Palmer (1914 –1986) appeared in French, British, American and German films. The charming and elegant film star won such prestigious awards as the Coppa Volpi in Italy, the Deutscher Filmpreis, and she was nominated twice for a Golden Globe Award.
Lilli Palmer was born Lilli Marie Peiser in Posen, Germany (now Poznań, Poland) in 1914. She was one of three daughters born to Dr. Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon, and Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish stage actress. Of her two sisters, older sister Irene Prador became an actress and singer in her own right. When Lilli was four her family moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg. In addition to her native German, she grew up becoming fluent in French and English as well. She studied drama from Ilka Grüning and Lucie Höflich in Berlin. There she made her stage debut at the Rose-Theater in 1932 and later appeared at the Hessischen Landestheater in Darmstadt, where she mainly played in comedies and as a soubrette in operettas. Her first film was the French-German Ufa-production Les riveaux de la piste/ Spoiling the Game (1932, Serge de Poligny) starring Albert Préjean, in which she played a bit part. After the Nazi takeover in 1933 her family fled to Paris. There Lilli and her sister Irene performed in cabarets as the singing and dancing duo Les Sœurs Viennoises. Lilli attracted the attention of British talent scouts and was offered a contract by the Gaumont Film Company. She took her surname Palmer from an English actress she admired. At Gaumont she started co-starring in the B-mystery drama Crime Unlimited (1935, Ralph Ince) opposite Esmond Knight and continued to appear in British films for the next decade. She played a supporting part as a maid in Alfred Hitchcock’s espionage comedy Secret Agent (1936) and she rose to stardom in Britain with the action film The Great Barrier (1937, Geoffrey Barkas, Milton Rosmer) about the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Another success was the war film Thunder Rock (1942, Roy Boulting), which starred Michael Redgrave as an anti-fascist journalist who retreats to Canada. Despite these film roles it was her stage career on which she concentrated during her British period.
In 1943, Lilli Palmer married actor Rex Harrison and the following year, their son was born, the later writer and director Carey Harrison. Palmer and Harrison starred together in the romantic drama The Rake's Progress (1945, Sidney Gilliat). That same year the family moved to Hollywood. Palmer signed with Warner Brothers and appeared in several films, starting with Cloak and Dagger (1946, Fritz Lang) opposite Gary Cooper. She also appeared in the classic boxing film Body and Soul (1947, Robert Rossen) starring John Garfield. During their marriage, Rex Harrison had many affairs, including one with starlet Carole Landis, who committed suicide in 1948 in the wake of their failed relationship. The scandal nearly caused the end of the film careers of both Palmer and her ’Sexy Rexy’, as Harrison was known in the tabloids. Palmer took the high road and came off the better for it in the public’s eye. She appeared in stage plays as well hosted her own television series, the (short-lived) The Lilli Palmer Show (1953). Together with Harrison she performed on Broadway where they had a hit with the play Bell, Book and Candle. Later they also starred together in the film version of The Four Poster (1952, Irving Reis), which was based on the award-winning Broadway play of the same name, written by Jan de Hartog. Palmer won the Coppa Volpi (Volpi Cup) for Best Actress in 1953 for The Four Poster. She eventually called it quits, however, with both Harrison and Hollywood. She divorced from Harrison in 1956.
Lilli Palmer returned to Germany in 1954. Her first role in a German film was the part of a ringmaster in Kurt Hoffmann's Feuerwerk/Fireworks (1954) with Romy Schneider. She often played in so-called ‘problem films’ and won the Deutscher Filmpreis for Best Actress for her performances in Teufel in Seide/Devil in Silk, (1955, Rolf Hansen) and in Anastasia, die letzte Zarentochter/Anastasia: The Czar's Last Daughter (1956, Falk Harnack). When Palmer filmed Zwischen Zeit und Ewigkeit/ Between Time and Eternity (1956, Arthur Maria Rabenalt) she fell in love with her co-star, Argentine matinee idol Carlos Thompson. They married a year later. During the following decades she continued to play both leading and supporting parts in Europe and the US. She starred opposite William Holden in The Counterfeit Traitor (1962, George Seaton), a spy thriller based on fact, and opposite Robert Taylor in another true World War II story, Disney's Miracle of the White Stallions (1963, Arthur Hiller). She also played roles in many television productions, including in episodes of such popular Krimi series as Der Kommissar (1971) and Derrick (1974). In 1974 she also starred with John Mills in the British series The Zoo Gang (1974, Sidney Hayers, John Hough), about a group of former underground freedom fighters from World War II. She enjoyed one of her last roles in the acclaimed miniseries Peter the Great (1986, Marvin J. Chomsky, Lawrence Schiller) starring Maximilian Schell. A talented writer, Palmer published a successful memoir, Dicke Lilli – gutes Kind (1974)/Change Lobsters and Dance (1975). She also wrote a full-length work of fiction presented as a novel rather than a memoir, Der rote Rabe (1977)/The Red Raven (1978). Four novels followed, while she also had success as a painter. She won the Filmband in Gold for her long-time, exceptional work in German cinema. Lilli Palmer was still married to Carlos Thompson when she died in Los Angeles from cancer in 1986. She was 71.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Filmportal.de, LilliPalmer.de, Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.
German postcard by ISV, no. B 28. Photo: MGM.
Italian actress and photojournalist Gina Lollobrigida (1927), was one of Europe’s most prominent film stars of the 1950s. ‘La Lollo’ was the first European sex symbol of the post war years and she paved the way into Hollywood for her younger colleagues Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, no. H 120. Photo: Philips France.
French France Gall (1947) rocketed to fame in the 1960's as a naive young singer performing songs written by Serge Gainsbourg. In 1965 she won the Eurovision Song Contest with his Poupée de cire, poupée de son. But, after meeting and marrying, French singer-songwriter Michel Berger, her career was completely turned around and she soon went on to make a name for herself as one of the top female artists on the French music scene.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
French postcard by Huit, Paris, no. B 3. Photo: ISV / 20th Century Fox. The card refers to Richard Widmark's role in The Last Wagon (Delmer Daves, 1956). Huit was probably the French licence holder of ISV.
Slight, blonde Richard Widmark (1914-2008) suddenly established himself as an icon of American cinema with his debut as a giggling psychopath in Kiss of Death (1947). He was one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood for a good three decades and appeared in 75 films.
Richard Weedt Widmark was born in Sunrise County, Minnesota, in 1914. His parents were Carl Henry Widmark, a Swedish immigrant and travelling salesman, and his wife Ethel Mae Barr. Widmark could already read before he went to school and studied law after graduation to become a lawyer. He also became enthusiastic about acting at an early age. In 1938 Widmark moved to New York with his future wife Jean Hazlewood, a screenwriter he had met as a colleague in Lake Forrest, and married her in 1942. Their only child, Anne Heath Widmark, was born in 1945. In 1943 Widmark made his Broadway debut in George Abbott's theatrical production of 'Kiss and Tell'. Widmark worked as a radio announcer for ten years before making his film acting debut. Widmark made his breakthrough with his debut role as Tommy Udo in the Film Noir Kiss of Death (Henry Hathaway, 1947) starring Victor Maure. Udo is a criminal who cold-heartedly pushes a paraplegic old woman down a flight of stairs in her wheelchair in the film's most famous scene. For this role, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Male Supporting Actor. Widmark received a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. After his successful debut, Widmark was initially confined to the role of the villain for years. He brought a new kind of deeply troubled or corrupt character to the screen: a hard-boiled type who does not actively court the sympathy of the audience. In the 1950s the actor managed to get away from this type and establish himself as a versatile leading man in all genres. Elia Kazan cast Widmark in his thriller Panick in the Streets (1950), not as the heavy but as the physician who tracks down Jack Palance, who has the plague, in tandem with detective Paul Douglas. He went on to play notable roles as the penny-ante hustler Harry Fabian in the Film Noir Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950) with Gene Tierney, and an airline pilot who pursues a babysitter in his hotel (Marilyn Monroe) and gradually realises she's dangerous in Don't Bother to Knock (Roy Ward Baker, 1952). He later played in the Western The Alamo (John Wayne, 1960), the drama Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) starring Spencer Tracy, and the epic Western How the West Was Won (John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, 1962).
During the 1970s and 1980s, Richard Widmark advanced over the years to become a sought-after character actor. He starred in such well-known films as the Agatha Christie adaptation Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974), the disaster thriller Rollercoaster (James Goldstone, 1977), the thriller Coma (Michael Crichton, 1978) starring Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas, and the Neo Noir Against All Odds (Taylor Hackford, 1984) with Jeff Bridges. In 1987 he appeared with Louis Gossett jr. in Volker Schlöndorff's film A Gathering of Old Men, based on the novel 'A Gathering of Old Men' by Ernest J. Gaines. In 1991 Richard Widmark appeared in front of the film camera for the last time in the political thriller True Colors (Herbert Ross, 1991) starring John Cusack. His last work was a voice-over for the television film Lincoln (Peter W. Kunhardt, James A. Edgar, 1992). Widmark spent his retirement in seclusion on his farm in Connecticut. Widmark was first married to Jean Hazlewood from 1952 until her death in 1997. A daughter was born to Hazlewood. He married Susan Blanchard, who had previously been married to Henry Fonda, in 1999 and remained with her until his death. In 2008, Richard Widmark died at home in Roxbury, Connecticut, at the age of 93. His death followed a fall in 2007, which he did not recover from.
Sources: Martin Lewison and Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and German) and IMDb.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, Sort. 14/6.
Mara Lane (1930) was considered one of the most beautiful models in Great Britain during the early 1950’s. She appeared in more than 30 English and German language films of the 1950’s and early 1960’s, but seems completely forgotten now.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, no. A 54. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Anastasia (Anatole Litvak, 1956).
Yul Brynner (Юлий Борисович Бринер, 1920–1985) was a Russian-born United States-based film and stage actor. He was best known for his portrayal of the King Mongkut of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I. He played the role 4,625 times on stage and won two Tony Awards. For the film version, The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956), he also won the Academy Award. He quickly gained superstar status with his roles as Rameses II in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956) and General Bounine in the historical drama Anastasia (Anatole Litvak, 1956) opposite Ingrid Bergman, and made the 'Top 10 Stars of the Year' list in both 1957 and 1958. Later roles include Chris Adams in the Western The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960) and a gunslinger robot in the Science fiction Western-thriller Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973). Brynner was noted for his distinctive voice and for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it in 1951 for his role in The King and I. Earlier, he was a model and television director, and later a photographer and the author of two books. Brynner married four times, and had a long affair with Marlene Dietrich.
Source: Wikipedia.
Big German card by ISV, no. HX 71. Publicity still for Voulez-vous danser avec moi?/Come dance with me (Michel Boisrond, 1959).
Beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
EC-ISV De Havilland Canada DHC-6-200 Twin Otter [205] (Skydive Empuriabrava) Empuriabrava~EC 13/07/2011. Used for para dropping.
German postcard by ISV, no. H 85.
Flamboyant singer and actor Johnny Hallyday (1943) is the father of French Rock and Roll. He was a European teen idol in the 1960’s with record-breaking crowds and mass hysteria, but he never became popular in the English-speaking market. In recent years he has concentrated on being an actor and appeared in more than 35 films.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
I bet some of you thought I had forgotten about LEGO. Well this proves you wrong. :P Spent about six hours building this over two days. I've really been wanting to build a nice spaceship after seeing all of the nice STG fighters. It's quite sturdy, and I've had some great swoosh sessions.
Also my entry for the Part Challenge.
Forward flare shamelessly stolen from Ochre Jelly.
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June 2014
German postcard by ISV, nr. D 5. Photo: I.N.F.
Italian actress and photojournalist Gina Lollobrigida (1927), was one of Europe’s most prominent film stars of the 1950’s. ‘La Lollo’ was the first European sex symbol of the post war years and she paved the way into Hollywood for her younger colleagues Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, nr. K 22, mailed in 1972. Photo: E. Schneider.
Danish singer, actress and icon Vivi Bach (1939) was nicknamed ‘the first Danish teenager of Denmark; and “the Danish Brigitte Bardot’. Although not a very talented actress she appeared in 48 films between 1958 and 1974.
Vivi Bach (or Vivienne Bach) was born as Vivi Bak in 1939 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She was the daughter of a baker and as a child she was already interested in singing and dancing. She started out as a hairstylist but ended it to pursue a model career, with great success. She followed singing and acting classes, and went on tour as the singer of a band. She was briefly known as ‘the first Danish teenager’. Later she performed small stage roles in Copenhagen. She made her film debut in Krudt og klunker (1958, Annelise Hovmand). Although she proved to be not the biggest talent as an actress, a handful Danish films followed like. Seksdagesløbet (1958, Jørgen Roos), Pigen og vandpytten (1958, Bent Christensen),and Pigen i søgelyset (1959, Bent Christensen, Anker Sørensen). These Danish films were all moderately succesful domestically, if making little impact beyond Scandinavia. From 1959 on she appeared also in German films like Gitarren klingen leise durch die Nacht (1959, Hans Deppe), Immer die Mädchen (1959, Fritz Rémond), and Die Abenteuer des Grafen Bobby (1961, Géza von Cziffra) with Peter Alexander. With her blonde hair and innocent looks, she was a natural for ‘good girl’ roles. She sang in many Schlagerfilms such as Schlagerparade (1960, Franz Marischka), Schlager-Raketen (1960, Erik Ode), and Schlagerparade 1961 (1961, Franz Marischka). She was also seen in international pictures, such as Death Drums Along the River (1963, Lawrence Huntington) and the historically important Spaghettiwestern Le Pistole non discutono/Bullets Don't Argue (1964, Mario Caiano). She generally played the slightly comic sidekick to the star - but she was always acquitted herself pretty well.
Vivi Bach started her singing career in Germany with a duet with Rex Gildo in 1960. She was contracted by Philips and recorded till 1964 eleven records with them. A big hit was her duet with Gerhard Wendland, Hey Vivi - Hey Gerhard (the German version of the US hit Hey Paula). She founded her own film company and produced Das Geheimnis der roten Quaste (1963, Hubert Frank), which did not become a success. But her leading Dietmar Schönherr would become her husband in 1965 Vivi Bach married three times. Her first husband was the Austrian Heinz Sebeck and the second the Danish singer and actor Otto Brandenburg. With Dietmar Schönherr she made films like Ein Ferienbett mit 100 PS (1965, Wolfgang Becker), Blonde Fracht für Sansibar/Mozambique (1965, Robert Lynn), and the Golden Globe nominated Ski Fever (1966, Curt Siodmak). Since her cinema career faded out in the late 1960’s, she’s kept herself busy as a television host. With the series Gala-Abend der Schallplatte and the game show Wünsch Dir Was she became a darling of the German public. Bach and Schönherr were also the co-hosts of a controversial ‘game for a laugh’ type programme notorious for nearly drowning an entire family in a staged car accident. She worked bot only as a host but as a tv producer too. In the 1970's she visited Denmark regularly to perform in films and record Danish records. In 1976 she made her last record, a duet with Dietmar Schönherr, the campy Molotow Cocktail Party, after which she retired. Since then she works as a painter, illustrator and author of children’s books and lives with her husband on Ibiza.
Sources: Matt Blake (The Wild Eye), Wikipedia, Dans Mon Café, and IMDb.
German postcard by ISV, no. E 27. Photo: Constantin. Pierre Brice in Winnetou - 1. Teil/Apache Gold (Harald Reinl, 1963).
Der Schatz im Silbersee/Treasure of Silver Lake (Harald Reinl, 1962) was the most successful German film of the 1962/1963 season. Director Harald Reinl and producer Horst Wendlandt then created a series of Eurowesterns, all based on the novels by Karl May. Their next film, Winnetou - 1. Teil/Apache Gold (Harald Reinl, 1963) was, in fact, a prequel to Der Schatz im Silbersee which introduced Apache chief Winnetou and told how he met Old Shatterhand.
The stars of Winnetou – 1. Teil were again Lex Barker as Old Shatterhand and Pierre Brice as Winnetou. They both came up with a fine performance and Brice became so popular that he would stay Winnetou throughout his whole life. First, he played the native American chief in several film sequels during the 1960s. After the period of the Karl May films was over, Brice continued to perform the role on several stages in Germany and also in TV series. The cast of Winnetou – 1. Teil also included French actress Marie Versini as Winnetou’s sister Nscho-tschi, Mario Adorf as Frederick Santer - the bad guy who shoots Ntscho-tschi, Chris Howland as the comic Lord Tuff-Tuff, Ralf Wolter as Sam Hawkens, Mavid Popovic as Intschu-tschuna - Winnetou's father, and Dunja Rajter as Belle. Christian Wolff was the German voice of Winnetou. The principal shooting took place in national park Paklenica karst river canyon, Yugoslavia now Croatia.
The storyline of every Karl May film is basically the same. The two friends Winnetou and Old Shatterhand try to solve the problems between red and white people and in the end they succeed, of course. According to Karl May's story, first-person narrator Old Shatterhand encounters Winnetou and after initial dramatic events, a true friendship between Old Shatterhand and the Apache arises. On many occasions, they give proof of great fighting skills but also of compassion for other human beings. It portrays a belief in an innate ‘goodness’ of mankind. Karl May was with about 200 million copies worldwide one of the best selling German writers of all time. In the books of Karl May Winnetou became the chief of the tribe of the Mescalero Apaches (and of the Apaches in general, with the Navaho included) after his father Intschu-tschuna and his sister Nscho-tschi were slain by the white bandit Santer. He rode a horse called Iltschi (Wind) and had a famous rifle called Silberbüchse (The Silver Gun, a double-barrel rifle whose stock and butt were decorated with silver studs). Old Shatterhand became the blood brother of Winnetou and rode the brother of Iltschi, called Hatatitla (Lightning). Karl May's Winnetou novels symbolize, to some extent, a romantic desire for a simpler life in close contact with nature. In fact, the popularity of the series is due in large part to the ability of the stories to tantalize fantasies many Europeans had and have for this more untamed environment.
"A thief, an impostor, a sexual pervert, a grotesque prophet of a sham Messiah!"..."The Third Reich is Karl May's ultimate triumph!" wrote Klaus Mann, son of Thomas Mann in 1940. To which Albert Einstein replied: "...even today he has been dear to me in many a desperate hour." Herman Hesse called his books "indispensable and eternal" and the writer and director Carl Zuckmayer even christened his daughter Winnetou in honor of May's great Apache chief. Yet, the English-speaking world is almost totally ignorant of May and his heroes Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, or Kara Ben Nemsi and his Arab friend Hadji Halef Omar who shared many an adventure in what is now called Kurdistan just over a hundred years ago. The reason is simple. Almost none of May's books have ever been translated into English.
Sources: Wikipedia, Julian Crandall Hollick (Karl May's Imaginary America), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, no. C 13. Photo: Constantin. Elke Sommer and Götz George in Unter Geiern / Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964).
In the late 1950’s blonde, German Elke Sommer (1940) was a European sex symbol before conquering Hollywood in the early 1960’s. With her trademark pouty lips, high cheek bones and sky-high bouffant hair-dos, Sommer made 99 film and television appearances between 1959 and 2005. The gorgeous film star was also one of the most popular pin-up girls of the sixties, and posed twice for Playboy.
German actor Götz George (1938) has been a popular film and theatre star for five decades now, but he gained international stardom on television in the Krimi series Tatort as the maverick police detective Horst Schimanski.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, no. K 1. Photo: Deutsche Cimex / Jack Draper. Rosita Quintana in Serenata en México/Serenade in Mexico (Chano Urueta, 1956).
Rosita Quintana (1925) is an Argentine-Mexican actress, singer, and songwriter. She was one of the top stars of the Golden Age of the Mexican cinema. Quintana starred in Luis Buñuel's Susana (1951) and musical films such as Serenata en México (1956) and Cuando México canta (1958). As a singer, she is remembered in notable tangos and boleros, such as 'Bendita mentira'.
Rosita Quintana was born as Trinidad Quintana Nuñez de Kogan on 16 July 1925 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her parents enrolled her in the conservatory of brothers Emilio and José De Caro, where she studied singing and acting. In 1942, she debuted as a tango vocalist at the Café Nacional in Buenos Aires. She performed in a revue by Carlos A. Petit and Rodolfo Sciammarella at the Teatro Casino, and in 1946, she began a tour of Chile and Bolivia. In Mexico, she signed a contract to perform for a month at El Patio, Mexico City's top nightclub. She stayed in Mexico and made her film debut in the Mexican comedy Ahí vienen los Mendoza/Here come the Mendozas (Ramón Peón, 1948). She made her first record, 'Bonita', in 1949. Her next film hits were the comedies Calabacitas tiernas/Tender Pumpkins (Gilberto Martínez Solares, 1949), and Soy charro de levita/Rough But Respectable (Gilberto Martínez Solares, 1949), both starring Germán Valdés. She was the star of the powerful melodrama Susana/The Devil and the Flesh (1951) directed by Luis Buñuel. She played a beautiful girl who escapes from a reformatory for wayward girls and ends up at a ranch where she disrupts the lifes of a frighteningly nice and decent well-to-do family. The film uses the power of eroticism to reveal the hypocrisies of modern society. The film was a big success in Mexico and contributed to establish definitely Buñuel as a commercially viable director. Her other films included the drama Mujeres que trabajan/Women Who Work (Julio Bracho La duda, 1953), the 3D film El valor de vivir/The Price of Living (Tito Davison, 1954) with Arturo de Córdova, ¡Cielito lindo!/Cute Cielito!(Miguel M. Delgado, 1957) with Luis Aguilar, and ¿Donde estás, corazón?/Where Are You Heart? (Rogelio A. González, 1961) with Lola Beltrán.
After Rosita Quintana had a serious accident in Mexico, her husband, Mexican film director and producer Sergio Kogan, took her to Buenos Aires in Argentina to recover. He gave her a theatre and the play 'My Fair Lady'. The production lasted for a year and a half with sold-out locations. Quintana ended the run because she longed to return to Mexico. In the following decades, she mostly worked for TV such as in the TV series La intrusa/The intrusive (1987), but also appeared in such films as the musical El hombre de la mandolina/The Mandolin Man (Gonzalo Martínez Ortega, 1985). Her final film was the comedy thriller Club eutanasia/Euthanasia Club (Agustín Tapia, 2005) in which she played the leading role, and her final TV series was Peregrina (2005). Her performances earned her acting awards from Mexico, Argentina, Russia, and Spain. In 2016, she received the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences' Golden Ariel Award for her career. Rosita Quintana has a son, Nicolás, and an adopted daughter, Paloma. She is a grandmother and great-grandmother.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, no. C 7. Photo: Constantin. Elke Sommer as Annie Dillman, Götz George as Martin Bauman Jr., and Stewart Granger as Old Surehand in Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964).
In the late 1950s, blonde, German Elke Sommer (1940) was a European sex symbol before conquering Hollywood in the early 1960s. With her trademark pouty lips, high cheekbones, and sky-high bouffant hair-dos, Sommer made 99 film and television appearances between 1959 and 2005. The gorgeous film star was also one of the most popular pin-up girls of the sixties and posed twice for Playboy magazine.
German actor Götz George (1938-2016) was a popular film and theatre star for five decades but he gained international stardom on television in the Krimi series Tatort as the maverick police detective Horst Schimanski.
English actor Stewart Granger (1913-1993) made over 60 films but is mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was quoted: “I've never done a film I'm proud of”. Tall, dark, dignified, and handsome, Granger became England's top box office star in the 1940s which attracted Hollywood's attention.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
West German postcard by ISV, no. A 89. Photo: Gene Korman / 20th Century Fox.
By 1953, Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars, with leading roles in three films: the Film Noir Niagara, which focused on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". Although she played a significant role in shaping her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed by being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, but returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, The Seven Year Itch (1955).
Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926 in Lemmon, South Dakota. She was the third child of Gladys Pearl Baker, née Monroe, who suffered from mental illness and later worked as a film cutter at RKO. Her mother abandoned Marilyn, and she spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage. Just after her 16th birthday, she married 21-year-old aircraft plant worker James 'Jim' Dougherty. In 1943, Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marine. He was initially stationed on Catalina Island, where she lived with him until he was shipped out to the Pacific in April 1944; he would remain there for most of the next two years. While working in a factory as part of the war effort in 1944, Marilyn met photographer David Conover and began a successful modelling career. She began to occasionally use the name Jean Norman when working and had her curly brunette hair straightened and dyed blond to make her more employable. As her figure was deemed more suitable for pin-up than fashion modelling, she was employed mostly for advertisements and men's magazines. By early 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S. Camera, Laff, and Peek. She divorced Dougherty in 1946. The work led to a screen test by 20th Century Fox executive and former film star Ben Lyon. Head executive Darryl F. Zanuck was unenthusiastic about it, but he was persuaded to give her a standard six-month contract to avoid her being signed by rival studio RKO Pictures. Monroe began her contract in August 1946, and together with Lyon selected the screen name of Marilyn Monroe. Among her first film parts were nine lines of dialogue as a waitress in the drama Dangerous Years (Arthur Pierson, 1947) and a one-line appearance in the comedy Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (F. Hugh Herbert, 1948). After a series of other minor film roles, she moved to Columbia. While at Fox, her role had been that of a 'girl next door', at Columbia, she was modelled after Rita Hayworth. Monroe's hairline was raised by electrolysis, and her hair was bleached even lighter to platinum blond. She also began working with the studio's head drama coach, Natasha Lytess, who would remain her mentor until 1955. Her only film at the studio was the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (Phil Karlson, 1948), in which she had her first starring role as a chorus girl who is courted by a wealthy man. After leaving Columbia in September 1948, Monroe became a protégée of Johnny Hyde, vice president of the William Morris Agency. Hyde began representing her, and their relationship soon became sexual, although she refused his proposals of marriage. To advance Monroe's career, he paid for a silicone prosthesis to be implanted in her jaw and arranged a bit part in the Marx Brothers' film Love Happy (David Miller, 1949). That year, she also made minor appearances in two critically acclaimed films: John Huston's crime film The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Joseph Mankiewicz's drama All About Eve (1950). Following Monroe's success in these roles, Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox in December 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel (Harmon Jones, 1951) and Monkey Business (Howard Hawks, 1952) with Cary Grant, and in the dramas Clash by Night (Fritz Lang, 1952) and Don't Bother to Knock (Roy Ward Baker, 1952) with Richard Widmark. Her popularity with audiences was growing: she received several thousand letters of fan mail a week. The second year of the Fox contract saw Monroe become a top-billed actress, with gossip columnist Florabel Muir naming her the year's 'it girl' and Hedda Hopper describing her as the 'cheesecake queen' turned 'box office smash'. She began a highly publicised romance with retired New York Yankee baseball legend Joe DiMaggio, one of the most famous sports personalities of the era. A month later, Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photos before becoming a star, but rather than damaging her career, the story increased interest in her films.
By 1953, Marilyn Monroe was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars with leading roles in three hits: the Film Noir Niagara, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire. In Niagara (Henry Hathaway, 1953), she played a femme fatale scheming to murder her husband, played by Joseph Cotten. While Niagara made Monroe a sex symbol, the satirical musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953) established her screen persona as a 'dumb blonde'. Based on Anita Loos' bestselling novel and its Broadway version, the film focuses on two 'gold-digging' showgirls, Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, played by Monroe and Jane Russell. It became one of the biggest box office successes of the year by grossing $5.3 million, more than double its production costs. Her next film, How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco, 1953), co-starred Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. It featured Monroe in the role of a naïve model who teams up with her friends to find rich husbands, repeating the successful formula of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Despite mixed reviews, the film was Monroe's biggest box office success so far, earning $8 million in worldwide rentals. Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project. The suspension was front-page news, and Monroe immediately began a publicity campaign to counter any negative press and to strengthen her position in the conflict. On 14 January, she and Joe DiMaggio were married at the San Francisco City Hall. They then travelled to Japan, combining a honeymoon with his business trip. From there, she travelled alone to Korea, where she performed songs from her films as part of a USO show for over 60,000 U.S. Marines over four days. She settled with Fox and returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder, 1955). Then followed the release of Otto Preminger's Western River of No Return (1955), in which Monroe appeared opposite Robert Mitchum. When the studio was still reluctant to change her contract, Monroe and photographer Milton Greene founded a film production company in late 1954, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP). She dedicated 1955 to building her company and began studying method acting at the Actors Studio. She grew close to the studio's director, Lee Strasberg and to his wife Paula, receiving private lessons at their home due to her shyness, and she soon became like a family member. In late 1955, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. Monroe did a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (Joshua Logan, 1956). She played Chérie, a saloon singer whose dreams of stardom are complicated by a naïve cowboy who falls in love with her. She received a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance. Then she acted opposite Laurence Olivier in the first independent production of MMP, The Prince and the Showgirl (Laurence Olivier, 1957), made in Great Britain. It was released in June 1957 to mixed reviews and proved unpopular with American audiences. The film was better received in Europe, where it won Crystal Star awards and was nominated for a BAFTA.
Then Marilyn Monroe acted opposite Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959). The film was an absolute smash hit, with Curtis and Lemmon pretending to be females in an all-girl band, so they could get work. This was to be Marilyn's only film for the year. She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role. Monroe took a hiatus until late 1959, when she returned to Hollywood to star in the musical comedy Let's Make Love (George Cukor, 1960), about an actress and a millionaire (Yves Montand) who fall in love when performing in a satirical play. Her affair with Montand was widely reported by the press and used in the film's publicity campaign. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (John Huston, 1961), which Arthur Miller had written to provide her with a dramatic role. She played a recently divorced woman who becomes friends with three ageing cowboys, played by Clark Gable, Eli Wallach, and Montgomery Clift. Monroe returned to the public eye in the spring of 1962: she received a 'World Film Favourite' Golden Globe award and began to shoot a new film for 20th Century-Fox, Something's Got to Give, a remake of My Favorite Wife (Garson Kanin, 1940). Days before filming began, Monroe caught sinusitis; despite medical advice to postpone the production, Fox began it as planned in late April. Monroe was too ill to work for the majority of the next six weeks, but despite confirmations by multiple doctors, the studio tried to put pressure on her by alleging publicly that she was faking it. On 19 May 1962, she took a break to sing 'Happy Birthday' on stage at President John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden in New York. She drew attention with her costume: a beige, skintight dress covered in rhinestones, which made her appear nude. Monroe next filmed a scene for Something's Got to Give in which she swam naked in a swimming pool. To generate advanced publicity, the press was invited to take photographs of the scene, which were later published in Life. It was the first time that a major star had posed nude while at the height of their career. When she was again on sick leave for several days, Fox decided that it could not afford to have another film running behind schedule when it was already struggling to cover the rising costs of Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963). The studio blamed Monroe for the film's demise and began spreading negative publicity about her, even alleging that she was mentally disturbed. Fox soon regretted its decision and reopened negotiations with Monroe later in June; a settlement about a new contract, including re-commencing Something's Got to Give and a starring role in the black comedy What a Way to Go! (J. Lee Thompson, 1964), was reached later that summer. To repair her public image, Monroe engaged in several publicity ventures, including interviews for Life and Cosmopolitan and her first photoshoot for Vogue. For Vogue, she and photographer Bert Stern collaborated for two series of photographs, one a standard fashion editorial and another of her posing nude, which were both later published posthumously with the title 'The Last Sitting'. In the last weeks of her life, she was also planning on starring in a biopic of Jean Harlow. Only 36, Marilyn Monroe died on 5 August 1962 from an overdose of barbiturates. She was discovered dead at her home at 12305 Fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood. She had a phone in one of her hands, and her body was completely nude and face down on her bed. During her life and also after her death, her troubled private life received much attention. She struggled with addiction, depression, and anxiety. She had two highly publicised marriages, to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, which both ended in divorce. Although the death was ruled a probable suicide, several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death. There are over 600 books written about her.
Sources: De Nieuwe Kerk, Marilyn Geek, IMDb and Wikipedia.
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German postcard by ISV, Sort. 12/6. Photo: E. Schneider.
Beautiful German starlet Dagmar Hank (1944) appeared in some films and TV series of the early 1960’s, mostly in supporting parts.
Dagmar Hank was born in Germany in 1944. As a teenager, she began her screen career in a 1958 episode of the long running German TV series Sie schreiben mit/You write with (1958–1970). In the early 1960’s she had supporting parts in light entertainment films as the comedy Die Post geht ab/The post goes out (1962, Helmuth M. Backhaus) starring Vivi Bach, Wochentags immer/Weekdays always (1963, Michael Burk) and Zwei blaue Vergissmeinnicht/Carnation Frank (1963, Helmuth M. Backhaus) starring Schlager idol Rex Gildo. Hank also had a small role in the interesting Erich Kästner adaptation Liebe will gelernt sein/Love must be learned (1963, Kurt Hoffmann) starring Martin Held and Barbara Rütting. She had a recurring role in the popular TV series Der Nachtkurier meldet.../ The Evening Courier reports ... (1964–1965). Her last parts were in the TV films Dr. Murkes gesammelte Nachrufe/ Dr. Murkes collected obituaries (1965, Rolf Hädrich) with Dieter Hildebrandt and Dieter Borsche, and Vor Nachbarn wird gewarnt/Is warned by neighbors (1965, Paul Verhoeven), a crime comedy with Ernst Stankovski. We could not find further information about Dagmar Hank at the internet. Do you have more information? Please share.
Sources: IMDb.
EC-ISV De Havilland Canada DHC-6-200 Twin Otter [205] (Skydive Empuriabrava) Empuriabrava~EC 13/07/2011. Used for para dropping.
This "Improvised Scanning Vehicle" is a former military low altitude scouting vehicle, repurposed by ill-equipped mining colonies for finding ores.
It can also be outfitted with wings to cover large distances more economically and to extend it's operating altitude.
This photo was taken on an ISV Adventure Tour in Costa Rica.
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German postcard by ISV, Sort. 13/6.
Exotic, raven-haired Yvonne Romain is a British film and television actress of the late 1950’s and 1960’s.The stunning beauty became one of the most popular Scream Queens of the Hammer Studio.
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German postcard by ISV, Sort 8/6.
German actress and media personality Birgit Bergen (1938) is well known in her homecountry for her performances in several sexfilms and as a 'Schickerialady' at Munich Events.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
German postcard by ISV, Sort. 16/6.
Curvaceous Austrian actress Marisa Mell (1939-1992) became a cult figure of 1960s Italian B-films. Her most famous role is criminal mastermind Eva Kant in Mario Bava’s Diabolik (1968).
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.