West-German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 675. Photo: Magna Film / Deutsche London Film. Paul Henckels in Der Fröhliche Weinberg/The Grapes Are Ripe (Erich Engel, 1952).

German actor Paul Henckels (1885-1967) appeared in over 230 films, often as a supporting actor. He played in films by directors like Fritz Lang, Jacques Feyder, and G.W. Pabst. He also worked as a stage actor, a stage director, and as a theatre manager.

Paul Henckels was born in 1885 in Hürth, near Köln (Cologne), Germany. His father was the industrialist and painter Paul Abraham Henckels and his mother was the actress Cäcilia Warszawska. Paul studied from 1905 till 1907 at the Hochschule für Bühnenkunst at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He made his first stage appearance in Kotzebue’s Die deutschen Kleinstädter; and was a great success in the title role of Schneider Wibbel (1913), written by his school buddy Hans Müller-Schlösser. The great Max Reinhardt invited him in 1920 to come to Berlin. In 1921, Henckels was a co-founder and the artistic director of the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin. Here he appeared in 1922 as Molière’s Der Geizige/The Miser. He later would work for the Volksbühne, Deutschen Theater, and many other Berlin stages. From 1936 till 1945 he was engaged at the prestigious Preußischen Staatstheater in Berlin under intendant Gustaf Gründgens. In 1921 film star Henny Porten discovered him for the cinema. After a minor part as "O. Henckels" in Das Geheimnis der sechs Spielkarten, 5. Teil – Herz König (1921), Porten gave him the male lead as the evil antagonist Jasper in Das Geheimnis von Brinkenhof (Svend Gade, 1923).

Among his other silent films are INRI (Robert Wiene, 1923) with Porten, Staatsanwalt Jordan (Karl Gerhardt, 1926) with Hans Mierendorff, Thérèse Raquin (Jacques Feyder, 1928) starring Gina Manès, Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Fur (Erich Schönfelder, 1928) opposite La Jana, Die große Liebe (Revolutionshochzeit) (A.W. Sandberg, 1928) with Diomira Jacobini and Karina Bell, Ariadne in Hoppegarten (Robert Dinesen, 1928) with Maria Jacobini, Der Unüberwindliche (Max Obal, 1928) with Luciano Albertini, Geschlecht in Fesseln (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1928), § 173 St.G.B. Blutschande/Culpable Marriages (James Bauer, 1929), and the Henny Porten films Liebfraumlich (Carl Froehlich, 1928-29) and Mutterliebe (Georg Jacoby, 1929). When the sound film was near at hand he was enthusiastic about the idea of a talking picture. He worked at the ‘practice of the sound film actor’, and directed a short film, Paul Graets als Berliner Zeitungsjunge (1929). The early sound film offered him leading parts in such films as Skandal um Eva/Scandal Around Eva (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1930) starring Henny Porten, Er und sein Diener/He and His Servant (Steve Sekely, 1931), and Flachsmann als Erzieher/Flachsmann as Educator (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1930) opposite Charlotte Ander. He directed himself in Schneider Wibbel/Tailor Wibbel (Paul Henckels, 1931).

Typical for Paul Henckel's film characters is their accent and humour from the Rhineland region. He often played cranky and stubborn fellows. Among his films were Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/ The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933), Ein idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935) starring Brigitte Helm; Napoleon ist an allem Schuld/Napoleon is to Blame for Everything (Curt Goetz, 1938), Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (Erich Engel, 1938) and Zwei in einer großen Stadt/Two in a Big City (Volker von Collande, 1942). Unforgettable was his character Professor Bommel in Die Feuerzangenbowle (Helmut Weiss, 1944). This is the second film version of Heinrich Spoerl's novel about pupils playing various tricks and jokes on their teachers. The twist in the story is the leader of the pack, the major cause of the teachers' headaches: Johannes Pfeiffer (Heinz Rühmann) is not a real pupil at all. He is a successful playwright with a Ph.D. One evening at the pub his friends discover that he never went to a school but was educated privately. The stories of their boyhood years persuade him to see for himself and 'be a boy again'. The film was made in 1944, so it is a bit astonishing that the Nazi censors were prepared to pass a film with such an anti-authoritarian message. Die Feuerzangenbowle is very well made and today enjoys a cult status in Germany.

Paul Henckels’ first post-war film was Wozzeck (Georg C. Klaren, 1947), based on the famous play by Georg Büchner. In this early DEFA production he played a cold and cynically experimenting doctor. His later roles were more stereotypical characters. To his last films belong Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) starring Camilla Spira, Hollandmädel (J. A. Hübler-Kahla, 1953), Staatsanwältin Corda/Prosecutor Corda (Karl Ritter, 1954), Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/Cherries in the Neighbour’s Garden (Erich Engels, 1956), and Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) featuring Horst Buchholz. He focussed on his stage work and did recital tours, performing Wilhelm Busch and German classics. During the 1950s and 1960s he also appeared often on TV, like in Die fröhliche Weinrunde/The Cheerful Wine Bout with singer Margit Schramm, and in Nachsitzen für Erwachsene/Detention for Adults as a professor, who explained interesting phenomenons for a class with four adults (among them was film actor Hans Richter). In 1962 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold for his longtime and important contributions to the German cinema. Paul Henckels died in 1967 in Kettwig, now Essen. He was married with actress Thea Grodtzinsky. His first wife was Cecilia Brie, a former actress, with whom he had three children.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line.de), Wikipedia, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin. Photo: Käthe Dorsch, Lotte Reinecken and Emil Sondermann in the stage play 'Egon und seine Frauen' (Egon and his wives) at the Thalia-Theater, Berlin.

German actress Käthe Dorsch (1890-1957) was a famous stage actress in Vienna and Berlin. She also made several silent and sound films.

Katharina Dorsch was born in 1890, in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Germany. She was the daughter of a gingerbread baker from Nürnberg (Neurenberg). After commercial school she followed piano classes and as a fifteen year old she started singing in a chor in neurenberg, and subsequently in operettas in Hanau and Mannheim. Her career really started in 1908 as an operetta soubrette with a performance in Wiener Blut/Vienna Blood in Mainz, and in 1911 she moved to Berlin for an engagement at the Neue Operettentheater. More Berlin engagements followed in theatres like the Lessingtheater and the Deutschen Theater. In 1927 she started to work in Vienna and appeared there at the Volkstheater. From 1939 till her death she was a permanent member of the Burgtheater. From 1951 she also appeared again on the stages of Berlin.

As early as 1913 Käthe Dorsch had her first film role in the short, silent comedy Wenn die Taxe springt (Danny Kaden, 1913). In 1920 she married colleague film star Harry Liedtke, with whom she had appeared in the fairy tale Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (Paul Leni, 1917). They were a couple for eight years. She played in several films, including Der Blusenkönig/The King of Blouses (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917), Erborgtes Glück/Hided Happiness (Arthur Wellin, 1919) with Alexander Moissi, and the August Strindberg adaptation Fräulein Julie/Miss Julie (Felix Basch, 1921) with Asta Nielsen. Then followed a long interval till 1930, when she appeared in Die Lindenwirtin/The Linden Tree Landlady (Georg Jacoby, 1930) with Hans Heinz Bollmann. The sound film offered her more possibilities to express herself. She impersonated important women like Maria Theresia in Trenck, der Pandur/Trenck, the Pandur (Herbert Selpin, 1940) and Friederike Caroline Neuber in the melodrama Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941). Other popular films in which she appeared were Drei Tage Liebe/Three Days of Love (Heinz Hilpert, 1931) with Hans Albers, the murder mystery Savoy-Hotel 217 (Gustav Ucicky, 1936), the Oscar Wilde adaptation Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung/A Woman of No Importance (Hans Steinhoff, 1936), Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939), and Morgen werde ich verhaftet/Tomorrow I Will Be Arrested (Karl-Heinz Stroux, 1939) with Ferdinand Marian. During the war, she played a heroic role by saving colleagues in trouble. For this she used her friendship with Hermann Göring, whom she know from her childhood.

After the war, Käthe Dorsch devoted her self to the Burgtheater for which she played major parts in classic plays. Incidentally she appeared in films like Singende Engel/Singing Angels (Gustav Ucicky, 1947) with Hans Holt, Fahrt ins Glück/Journey Into Happiness (Erich Engel, 1948) with Rudolf Forster and Hildegard Knef, the melodrama Der Bagnosträfling/ The Bagno Convict (Gustav Fröhlich, 1949) with Paul Dahlke, Winnie Markus, and Paul Hörbiger, Das Kuckucksei/The Cuckoo’s Egg (Walter Firner, 1949) with Curd Jürgens, and Regine (1955) with Horst Buchholz. In 1956 she caused a media scandal, when she slapped Vienna theatre critic Hans Weigel in the face in broad daylight. In the following trial she was condemned to pay 500 Schilling. Käthe Dorsch died in 1957, in Vienna, Austria. She determined her heritage for a foundation to help poor artists. This foundation still exists today. In Vienna there is now a Käthe-Dorsch-Gasse, and in Berlin a street is called the Käthe-Dorsch-Ring.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Steffi-line.de (German), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto-Verlag, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 416. Photo: A. Grimm / Fanal / Panorama Film.

German actor Paul Henckels (1885-1967) appeared in over 230 films, often as a supporting actor. He played in films by directors like Fritz Lang, Jacques Feyder, and G.W. Pabst. He also worked as a stage actor, a stage director, and as a theatre manager.

Paul Henckels was born in 1885 in Hürth, near Köln (Cologne), Germany. His father was the industrialist and painter Paul Abraham Henckels and his mother was the actress Cäcilia Warszawska. Paul studied from 1905 till 1907 at the Hochschule für Bühnenkunst at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He made his first stage appearance in Kotzebue’s Die deutschen Kleinstädter; and was a great success in the title role of Schneider Wibbel (1913), written by his school buddy Hans Müller-Schlösser. The great Max Reinhardt invited him in 1920 to come to Berlin. In 1921, Henckels was a co-founder and the artistic director of the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin. Here he appeared in 1922 as Molière’s Der Geizige/The Miser. He later would work for the Volksbühne, Deutschen Theater and many other Berlin stages. From 1936 till 1945 he was engaged at the prestigious Preußischen Staatstheater in Berlin under intendant Gustaf Gründgens. In 1921 film star Henny Porten discovered him for the cinema. After a minor part as "O. Henckels" in Das Geheimnis der sechs Spielkarten, 5. Teil – Herz König (1921), Porten gave him the male lead as the evil antagonist Jasper in Das Geheimnis von Brinkenhof (Svend Gade, 1923).

Among his other silent films are INRI (Robert Wiene, 1923) with Porten, Staatsanwalt Jordan (Karl Gerhardt, 1926) with Hans Mierendorff, Thérèse Raquin (Jacques Feyder, 1928) starring Gina Manès, Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Fur (Erich Schönfelder, 1928) opposite La Jana, Die große Liebe (Revolutionshochzeit) (A.W. Sandberg, 1928) with Diomira Jacobini and Karina Bell, Ariadne in Hoppegarten (Robert Dinesen, 1928) with Maria Jacobini, Der Unüberwindliche (Max Obal, 1928) with Luciano Albertini, Geschlecht in Fesseln (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1928), § 173 St.G.B. Blutschande/Culpable Marriages (James Bauer, 1929), and the Henny Porten films Liebfraumlich (Carl Froehlich, 1928-29) and Mutterliebe (Georg Jacoby, 1929). When the sound film was near at hand he was enthusiastic about the idea of a talking picture. He worked at the ‘practice of the sound film actor’, and directed a short film, Paul Graets als Berliner Zeitungsjunge (1929). The early sound film offered him leading parts in such films as Skandal um Eva/Scandal Around Eva (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1930) starring Henny Porten, Er und sein Diener/He and His Servant (Steve Sekely, 1931), and Flachsmann als Erzieher/Flachsmann as Educator (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1930) opposite Charlotte Ander. He directed himself in Schneider Wibbel/Tailor Wibbel (Paul Henckels, 1931).

Typical for Paul Henckels film characters is their accent and humour from the Rhineland region. He often played cranky and stubborn fellows. Among his films were Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/ The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933), Ein idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935) starring Brigitte Helm; Napoleon ist an allem Schuld/Napoleon is to Blame for Everything (Curt Goetz, 1938), Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (Erich Engel, 1938) and Zwei in einer großen Stadt/Two in a Big City (Volker von Collande, 1942). Unforgettable was his character Professor Bommel in Die Feuerzangenbowle (Helmut Weiss, 1944). This is the second film version of Heinrich Spoerl's novel about pupils playing various tricks and jokes on their teachers. The twist in the story is the leader of the pack, the major cause of the teachers' headaches: Johannes Pfeiffer (Heinz Rühmann) is not a real pupil at all. He is a successful playwright with a PhD. One evening at the pub his friends discover that he never went to a school but was educated privately. Their stories of their boyhood years persuade him to see for himself and 'be a boy again'. The film was made in 1944, so it is a bit astonishing that the Nazi censors were prepared to pass a film with such an anti-authoritarian message. Die Feuerzangenbowle is very well made and today enjoys a cult status in Germany.

Paul Henckels’ first post-war film was Wozzeck (Georg C. Klaren, 1947), based on the famous play by Georg Büchner. In this early DEFA production he played a cold and cynically experimenting doctor. His later roles were more stereotypical characters. To his last films belong Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) starring Camilla Spira, Hollandmädel (J. A. Hübler-Kahla, 1953), Staatsanwältin Corda/Prosecutor Corda (Karl Ritter, 1954), Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/Cherries in the Neighbour’s Garden (Erich Engels, 1956), and Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) featuring Horst Buchholz. He focussed on his stage work and did recital tours, performing Wilhelm Busch and German classics. During the 1950s and 1960s he also appeared often on TV, like in Die fröhliche Weinrunde/The Cheerful Wine Bout with singer Margit Schramm, and in Nachsitzen für Erwachsene/Detention for Adults as a professor, who explained interesting phenomenons for a class with four adults (among them was film actor Hans Richter). In 1962 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold for his longtime and important contributions to the German cinema. Paul Henckels died in 1967 in Kettwig, now Essen. He was married with actress Thea Grodtzinsky. His first wife was Cecilia Brie, a former actress, with whom he had three children.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line.de), Wikipedia, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German collectors card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Sandau.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She was also the producer of many of her own films. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was actress and script-writer Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected with synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peepboxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrifying woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title characters in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, to doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers. The following year she achieved her long planned for project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved on emigration to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis, but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953 she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten had appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5561/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Elli Marcus, Berlin.

German actress Käthe Dorsch (1890-1957) was a famous stage actress in Vienna and Berlin. She also made several silent and sound films.

Katharina Dorsch was born in 1890, in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Germany. She was the daughter of a gingerbread baker from Nürnberg (Neurenberg). After commercial school she followed piano classes and as a fifteen year old she started singing in a chor in neurenberg, and subsequently in operettas in Hanau and Mannheim. Her career really started in 1908 as an operetta soubrette with a performance in Wiener Blut/Vienna Blood in Mainz, and in 1911 she moved to Berlin for an engagement at the Neue Operettentheater. More Berlin engagements followed in theatres like the Lessingtheater and the Deutschen Theater. In 1927 she started to work in Vienna and appeared there at the Volkstheater. From 1939 till her death she was a permanent member of the Burgtheater. From 1951 she also appeared again on the stages of Berlin.

As early as 1913 Käthe Dorsch had her first film role in the short, silent comedy Wenn die Taxe springt (Danny Kaden, 1913). In 1920 she married colleague film star Harry Liedtke, with whom she had appeared in the fairy tale Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (Paul Leni, 1917). They were a couple for eight years. She played in several films, including Der Blusenkönig/The King of Blouses (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917), Erborgtes Glück/Hided Happiness (Arthur Wellin, 1919) with Alexander Moissi, and the August Strindberg adaptation Fräulein Julie/Miss Julie (Felix Basch, 1921) with Asta Nielsen. Then followed a long interval till 1930, when she appeared in Die Lindenwirtin/The Linden Tree Landlady (Georg Jacoby, 1930) with Hans Heinz Bollmann. The sound film offered her more possibilities to express herself. She impersonated important women like Maria Theresia in Trenck, der Pandur/Trenck, the Pandur (Herbert Selpin, 1940) and Friederike Caroline Neuber in the melodrama Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941). Other popular films in which she appeared were Drei Tage Liebe/Three Days of Love (Heinz Hilpert, 1931) with Hans Albers, the murder mystery Savoy-Hotel 217 (Gustav Ucicky, 1936), the Oscar Wilde adaptation Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung/A Woman of No Importance (Hans Steinhoff, 1936), Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939), and Morgen werde ich verhaftet/Tomorrow I Will Be Arrested (Karl-Heinz Stroux, 1939) with Ferdinand Marian. During the war, she played a heroic role by saving colleagues in trouble. For this she used her friendship with Hermann Göring, whom she know from her childhood.

After the war, Käthe Dorsch devoted her self to the Burgtheater for which she played major parts in classic plays. Incidentally she appeared in films like Singende Engel/Singing Angels (Gustav Ucicky, 1947) with Hans Holt, Fahrt ins Glück/Journey Into Happiness (Erich Engel, 1948) with Rudolf Forster and Hildegard Knef, the melodrama Der Bagnosträfling/ The Bagno Convict (Gustav Fröhlich, 1949) with Paul Dahlke, Winnie Markus, and Paul Hörbiger, Das Kuckucksei/The Cuckoo’s Egg (Walter Firner, 1949) with Curd Jürgens, and Regine (1955) with Horst Buchholz. In 1956 she caused a media scandal, when she slapped Vienna theatre critic Hans Weigel in the face in broad daylight. In the following trial she was condemned to pay 500 Schilling. Käthe Dorsch died in 1957, in Vienna, Austria. She determined her heritage for a foundation to help poor artists. This foundation still exists today. In Vienna there is now a Käthe-Dorsch-Gasse, and in Berlin a street is called the Käthe-Dorsch-Ring.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Steffi-line.de (German), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Mutterliebe

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 126/4. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Nero-Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930).

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was the actress and script-writer Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected with synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peepboxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of a film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrificing woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title characters in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, to doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this, she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers.

The following year she achieved her long-planned project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved on emigration to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after the Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953 she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten had appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German collector card by Ross Verlag in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 145. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Nero-Porten-Film. Henny Porten in Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930).

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her films.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was the actress and scriptwriter Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peepboxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of a film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrificing woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title characters in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, to doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this, she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers. The following year she achieved her long-planned project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved on emigration to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after the Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953 she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten had appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1177/3, 1937-1938. Photo: Manassé-Ricoll / Mondial-Film.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930-?) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

Traudl Stark was born in 1930 as Gertraude Marianne Münzel to Siegfried Stark, a secretary of the Federal Chancellery, and Margarete Münzel. Her parents married after her birth. In 1934 little Traudl was discovered by Robert Reich on the Wiener Messe during a film exhibition and he asked her for commercials. She played her first film parts at the age of five in Die Fahrt in die Jugend/The Journey into Childhood (Carl Boese, 1935), the film operetta Im weißen Rößl/The White Horse Inn (Carl Lamac, 1935), and as the daughter of Fritz Rasp and Olga Tschechowa in the spy drama Lockspitzel Asew/Agent provocateur Asew (Phil Jutzi, 1935). One year later followed Seine Tochter ist der Peter/His Daughter Is Peter (Heinz Helbig, Willy Schmidt-Gentner, 1936) as Karl Ludwig Diehl's daughter, and Manja Valewska (Josef Rovenský, 1936) featuring Maria Andergast. The Berlin film company Siegel-Monopol tried to lure Traudl away from the Mondial studio in Vienna and there was even a court case. The next years she was seen in Liebling der Matrosen/The Darling of The Sailors (Hans Hinrig, 1937) with Wolf Albach-Retty, again as Peter in Peter im Schnee/Peter in the Snow (Carl Lamac, 1937), as Sissy in Prinzessin Sissy/Princess Sissy (Fritz Thiery, 1938) co-starring Paul Hörbiger, and in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) as Käthe Dorsch's daughter.

Because of the start of World War II, Traudl Stark never made an international career. Her last part was in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon/The Fox of Glenarvon (Max W. Kimmich, 1940) starring Olga Tschechova. This film represents the sad destiny of many German artists who didn't survive the war. Six of the actors were afflicted: Karl Dannemann (suicide in 1945), Friedrich Kayssler (homicide in 1945), Aribert Mog (killed in action in 1941), Horst Birr (executed in 1944 by the National Socialists), Paul Otto (suicide in 1943), and Hermann Braun (killed in action in 1945). After the war, Traudl had become a teenager, who wasn’t interested in the film business any longer. Between 1945 and 1947 she acted on stage in Vienna. In 1948 she married the American GI Jack Elliot and went with him to his hometown in Alabama, USA. At 18, Traudl Stark retired. Later she remarried and had children, but there's little information to be found on her life as an adult.

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

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9891/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Mondial-Film.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

Traudl Stark was born in 1930 as Gertraude Marianne Münzel to Siegfried Stark, a secretary of the Federal Chancellery, and Margarete Münzel. Her parents married after her birth. In 1934 little Traudl was discovered by Robert Reich on the Wiener Messe during a film exhibition and he asked her for commercials. She played her first film parts at the age of five in Die Fahrt in die Jugend/The Journey into Childhood (Carl Boese, 1935), the film operetta Im weißen Rößl/The White Horse Inn (Carl Lamac, 1935), and as the daughter of Fritz Rasp and Olga Tschechowa in the spy drama Lockspitzel Asew/Agent provocateur Asew (Phil Jutzi, 1935). One year later followed Seine Tochter ist der Peter/His Daughter Is Peter (Heinz Helbig, Willy Schmidt-Gentner, 1936) as Karl Ludwig Diehl's daughter, and Manja Valewska (Josef Rovenský, 1936) featuring Maria Andergast. The Berlin film company Siegel-Monopol tried to lure Traudl away from the Mondial studio in Vienna and there was even a court case. The next years she was seen in Liebling der Matrosen/The Darling of The Sailors (Hans Hinrig, 1937) with Wolf Albach-Retty, again as Peter in Peter im Schnee/Peter in the Snow (Carl Lamac, 1937), as Sissy in Prinzessin Sissy/Princess Sissy (Fritz Thiery, 1938) co-starring Paul Hörbiger, and in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) as Käthe Dorsch's daughter.

Because of the start of World War II, Traudl Stark never made an international career. Her last part was in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon/The Fox of Glenarvon (Max W. Kimmich, 1940) starring Olga Tschechova. This film represents the sad destiny of many German artists who didn't survive the war. Six of the actors were afflicted: Karl Dannemann (suicide in 1945), Friedrich Kayssler (homicide in 1945), Aribert Mog (killed in action in 1941), Horst Birr (executed in 1944 by the National Socialists), Paul Otto (suicide in 1943), and Hermann Braun (killed in action in 1945). After the war, Traudl had become a teenager, who wasn’t interested in the film business any longer. Between 1945 and 1947 she acted on stage in Vienna. In 1948 she married the American GI Jack Elliot and went with him to his hometown in Alabama, USA. At 18, Traudl Stark retired. Later she remarried and had children, but there's little information to be found on her life as an adult.

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

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 112/3. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film Produktion. Henny Porten in Mutterliebe/A Mother's Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929).

Plot: After a big delusion (she cannot have children), Maria Immermann leaves her husband (Gustav Diessl) and goes to Berlin. Under her maiden name, she becomes a nanny in the house of director Vogt (Ernst Stahl-Nachbauer). Soon she becomes the favorite of Vogt's daughter Mädi (Inge Landgut) and vice versa. Yet, Mrs. Vogt (Elisabeth Pinajeff), who cares little for her child, hates Maria and finds a ruse to get rid of her. Maria leaves but suffers from the separation of the child. One day, she meets her in a playground, and takes the child with her, surprised she is arrested for child theft. After she is acquitted, Vogt hires her back, as meanwhile, he has divorced his wife.

Mutterliebe was shot in June-July 1929, censured in August 1929, and premiered on 20 August 1929 at the Berlin Atrium, on the occasion of its reopening. Nero-Film distributed the film. The script was by Friedrich Raff and Julius Urgiss, after an idea by Henny Porten. Sets were by Gustav A. Knauer and Willy Sciller, and cinematography was by Karl Puth. Interiors were shot at Staaken, exteriors in Pommern.

Paul Marcus praised in the Neue Berliner Zeitung the genuine performance by Porten and Landgut and also thought the concept was realistic. He complained though that Jacoby and the scriptwriters should have reduced the theatricality of the film. Leo Hirsch in Berliner Tageblatt thought the same: the performances were genuine and realistic, especially the silent grandeur of Porten, but Jacoby's over-accentuation by close-ups of Porten's tears was unnecessary. A moderate size of tragedy would increase the feeling of tragedy, Hirsch concluded.

Sources: IMDB, Filmportal, Gero Gandert, Der Film der Weimarer Republik: 1929, I.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.

Austrian film and stage actor Gustav Diessl (1899-1948) was the hero of the first Mountain film, Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929). This film and others by prolific director G.W. Pabst made him at the time an unusual sex symbol: the mature, quiet, somewhat difficult man who attracts women almost against his will. Under the Nazi regime he was often cast as an exotic villain or a mysterious foreigner.

youtu.be/Ua8Td_PivfQ

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3597/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Bavaria Filmkunst. Siegfried Breuer in Anuschka (Helmut Käutner, 1942).

Austrian stage actor Siegfried Breuer (1906-1954) made his film debut at 33. In the next 15 years, he starred as a charming bon vivant in 50 films, including many Viennese comedies, some Nazi propaganda, and the classic The Third Man (1949). Breuer was also an occasional film director and screenwriter.

Siegfried Breuer was born in Vienna, Austria in 1906 – 1 February 1954, Weende, Göttingen). He was the son of the German actor and opera singer Hans Breuer. His godfather was Siegfried Wagner. So performing was in young Siegfried’s blood and in the early 1920s, he studied at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where he studied alongside Paula Wessely and Käthe Gold. In 1924, he made his stage debut at the Volkstheater in Vienna. He performed his first leading role in The Prince of Homburg under the direction of Max Reinhardt in Berlin. In 1935 he became a member of the ensemble cast of the prestigious Deutsches Theater. After some 15 years of stage acting the then 33 years old Siegfried Breuer made his screen debut in the short Eins zu Eins/One to One (Carl Prucker, 1939). He was immediately much in demand , and that same year, he added his Viennese charm to Unsterblicher Walzer/Immortal Waltz (E.W. Emo, 1939) with Paul Hörbiger as Johann Strauss, Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939), the comedy Anton, der Letzte/Anthony the Last (E.W. Emo, 1939) with Hans Moser, and the Anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film Leinen aus Irland/Linen for Ireland (Heinz Helbig, 1939). During the war years, Breuer played an elegant but sinister seducer in the Alexander Pushkin adaptation Der Postmeister/The postmaster (Gustav Ucicky, 1940) with Heinrich George and Hilde Krahl, and in the classic Romanze in Moll/Romance in Moll (Helmut Käutner, 1943) with Marianne Hoppe. But he also served the stereotype of the evil Jew in such anti-Semitic productions as Der Weg ins Freie/The way out (Rolf Hansen, 1941) starring Zarah Leander, and Venus vor Gericht/Venus in court (Hans H. Zerlett, 1941) with Hannes Stelzer.

Between 1939 and 1954, Siegfried Breuer would star in 50 films. After the war, he was seen in a supporting part in the film adaptation in colour of the operetta Die Fledermaus/The Bat (Géza von Bolváry, 1946) with Marte Harell and Johannes Heesters. The film was already shot in 1944, but the film material seemed lost after the bombings. In 1946, the material was found and finally edited. One of the most famous films in which Breuer appeared is the British Film Noir The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949), situated in allied-occupied Vienna. Breuer played Popescu, one of the Austrian black marketers and friends of the mysteriously killed Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Popescu was a small part but one which is integral to the development of the story. Another success was the come-back film of Zarah Leander, the musical drama Gabriela (Géza von Cziffra, 1950). Leander West German musical drama film directed by and co-starring Carl Raddatz, Vera Molnar, and Breuer. In 1943 when the Nazi leadership had demanded she take German citizenship, she had broken her contract with Ufa and returned to her native Sweden. In the immediate post-war era, she was banned from appearing in German films because of her previous association with the Nazi hierarchy. From 1949 she was able to make films once more. Gabriela was the third highest-grossing film at the West German box office in 1950. Breuer directed, wrote and starred in the film Der Schuß durchs Fenster/The shot through the window (Siegfried Breuer, 1950) in which he worked with Curd Jurgens. He also directed the comedies Seitensprünge im Schnee/Escapades in the Snow (Siegfried Breuer, 1950) with Doris Kirchner, and In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus/ In Munich stands a Hofbräuhaus (Siegfried Breuer, 1951) with Fita Benkhoff and Paul Kemp. Siegfried Breuer was a heavy smoker. He died in 1954 in Weende near Göttingen in the South of Germany. He was only 47. Breuer was married six times, among others with the actresses Maria Andergast, Eva-Maria Meineke and Lia Condrus. His sons Siegfried Breuer Jr and Pascal Breuer and his grandchildren Jacques Breuer and Pascal Breuer are also in the entertainment industry.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

Phot. Marks, Bay City, Michigan, USA, ca1895

German postcard by Ufa-Reklame, Berlin. Photo: Balázs, Berlin / HPF / Ufa. Henny Porten in Meine Tante deine Tante/My Aunt, Your Aunt (Carl Froelich, 1927).

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She was also the producer of many of her own films. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was the actress and script-writer Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected with synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peep boxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one-month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of the film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face, and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrificing woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title character in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this, she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers. The following year she achieved her long-planned project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved to emigrate to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after the Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953, she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press, her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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very old stuff, wanderlust, Fernweh

German cigarette card by Ross Verlag in the 'Künstler im Film' series for Zigarettenfabrik Monopol, Dresden, Serie 1, image 172 (of 200). Photo: Mondial-Film.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

Traudl Stark was born in 1930 as Gertraude Marianne Münzel to Siegfried Stark, a secretary of the Federal Chancellery, and Margarete Münzel. Her parents married after her birth. In 1934 little Traudl was discovered by Robert Reich on the Wiener Messe during a film exhibition and he asked her for commercials. She played her first film parts at the age of five in Die Fahrt in die Jugend/The Journey into Childhood (Carl Boese, 1935), the film operetta Im weißen Rößl/The White Horse Inn (Carl Lamac, 1935), and as the daughter of Fritz Rasp and Olga Tschechowa in the spy drama Lockspitzel Asew/Agent provocateur Asew (Phil Jutzi, 1935). One year later followed Seine Tochter ist der Peter/His Daughter Is Peter (Heinz Helbig, Willy Schmidt-Gentner, 1936) as Karl Ludwig Diehl's daughter, and Manja Valewska (Josef Rovenský, 1936) featuring Maria Andergast. The Berlin film company Siegel-Monopol tried to lure Traudl away from the Mondial studio in Vienna and there was even a court case. The next years she was seen in Liebling der Matrosen/The Darling of The Sailors (Hans Hinrig, 1937) with Wolf Albach-Retty, again as Peter in Peter im Schnee/Peter in the Snow (Carl Lamac, 1937), as Sissy in Prinzessin Sissy/Princess Sissy (Fritz Thiery, 1938) co-starring Paul Hörbiger, and in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) as Käthe Dorsch's daughter.

Because of the start of World War II, Traudl Stark never made an international career. Her last part was in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon/The Fox of Glenarvon (Max W. Kimmich, 1940) starring Olga Tschechova. This film represents the sad destiny of many German artists who didn't survive the war. Six of the actors were afflicted: Karl Dannemann (suicide in 1945), Friedrich Kayssler (homicide in 1945), Aribert Mog (killed in action in 1941), Horst Birr (executed in 1944 by the National Socialists), Paul Otto (suicide in 1943), and Hermann Braun (killed in action in 1945). After the war, Traudl had become a teenager, who wasn’t interested in the film business any longer. Between 1945 and 1947 she acted on stage in Vienna. In 1948 she married the American GI Jack Elliot and went with him to his hometown in Alabama, USA. At 18, Traudl Stark retired. Later she remarried and had children, but there's little information to be found on her life as an adult.

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

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2901/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Wien-Film / Ufa.

German actress Käthe Dorsch (1890-1957) was a famous stage actress in Vienna and Berlin. She also made several silent and sound films.

Katharina Dorsch was born in 1890, in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Germany. She was the daughter of a gingerbread baker from Nürnberg (Neurenberg). After commercial school she followed piano classes and as a fifteen year old she started singing in a chor in neurenberg, and subsequently in operettas in Hanau and Mannheim. Her career really started in 1908 as an operetta soubrette with a performance in Wiener Blut/Vienna Blood in Mainz, and in 1911 she moved to Berlin for an engagement at the Neue Operettentheater. More Berlin engagements followed in theatres like the Lessingtheater and the Deutschen Theater. In 1927 she started to work in Vienna and appeared there at the Volkstheater. From 1939 till her death she was a permanent member of the Burgtheater. From 1951 she also appeared again on the stages of Berlin.

As early as 1913 Käthe Dorsch had her first film role in the short, silent comedy Wenn die Taxe springt (Danny Kaden, 1913). In 1920 she married colleague film star Harry Liedtke, with whom she had appeared in the fairy tale Dornröschen/Sleeping Beauty (Paul Leni, 1917). They were a couple for eight years. She played in several films, including Der Blusenkönig/The King of Blouses (Ernst Lubitsch, 1917), Erborgtes Glück/Hided Happiness (Arthur Wellin, 1919) with Alexander Moissi, and the August Strindberg adaptation Fräulein Julie/Miss Julie (Felix Basch, 1921) with Asta Nielsen. Then followed a long interval till 1930, when she appeared in Die Lindenwirtin/The Linden Tree Landlady (Georg Jacoby, 1930) with Hans Heinz Bollmann. The sound film offered her more possibilities to express herself. She impersonated important women like Maria Theresia in Trenck, der Pandur/Trenck, the Pandur (Herbert Selpin, 1940) and Friederike Caroline Neuber in the melodrama Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941). Other popular films in which she appeared were Drei Tage Liebe/Three Days of Love (Heinz Hilpert, 1931) with Hans Albers, the murder mystery Savoy-Hotel 217 (Gustav Ucicky, 1936), the Oscar Wilde adaptation Eine Frau ohne Bedeutung/A Woman of No Importance (Hans Steinhoff, 1936), Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939), and Morgen werde ich verhaftet/Tomorrow I Will Be Arrested (Karl-Heinz Stroux, 1939) with Ferdinand Marian. During the war, she played a heroic role by saving colleagues in trouble. For this she used her friendship with Hermann Göring, whom she know from her childhood.

After the war, Käthe Dorsch devoted her self to the Burgtheater for which she played major parts in classic plays. Incidentally she appeared in films like Singende Engel/Singing Angels (Gustav Ucicky, 1947) with Hans Holt, Fahrt ins Glück/Journey Into Happiness (Erich Engel, 1948) with Rudolf Forster and Hildegard Knef, the melodrama Der Bagnosträfling/ The Bagno Convict (Gustav Fröhlich, 1949) with Paul Dahlke, Winnie Markus, and Paul Hörbiger, Das Kuckucksei/The Cuckoo’s Egg (Walter Firner, 1949) with Curd Jürgens, and Regine (1955) with Horst Buchholz. In 1956 she caused a media scandal, when she slapped Vienna theatre critic Hans Weigel in the face in broad daylight. In the following trial she was condemned to pay 500 Schilling. Käthe Dorsch died in 1957, in Vienna, Austria. She determined her heritage for a foundation to help poor artists. This foundation still exists today. In Vienna there is now a Käthe-Dorsch-Gasse, and in Berlin a street is called the Käthe-Dorsch-Ring.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Steffi-line.de (German), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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Schumannstraße/Herderstraße

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5684/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Harlip, Berlin.

German actor Paul Henckels (1885-1967) appeared in over 230 films, often as a supporting actor. He played in films by directors like Fritz Lang, Jacques Feyder, and G.W. Pabst. He also worked as a stage actor, a stage director, and as a theatre manager.

Paul Henckels was born in 1885 in Hürth, near Köln (Cologne), Germany. His father was the industrialist and painter Paul Abraham Henckels and his mother was the actress Cäcilia Warszawska. Paul studied from 1905 till 1907 at the Hochschule für Bühnenkunst at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He made his first stage appearance in Kotzebue’s Die deutschen Kleinstädter; and was a great success in the title role of Schneider Wibbel (1913), written by his school buddy Hans Müller-Schlösser. The great Max Reinhardt invited him in 1920 to come to Berlin. In 1921, Henckels was a co-founder and the artistic director of the Schlosspark-Theater in Berlin. Here he appeared in 1922 as Molière’s Der Geizige/The Miser. He later would work for the Volksbühne, Deutschen Theater, and many other Berlin stages. From 1936 till 1945 he was engaged at the prestigious Preußischen Staatstheater in Berlin under intendant Gustaf Gründgens. In 1921 film star Henny Porten discovered him for the cinema. After a minor part as "O. Henckels" in Das Geheimnis der sechs Spielkarten, 5. Teil – Herz König (1921), Porten gave him the male lead as the evil antagonist Jasper in Das Geheimnis von Brinkenhof (Svend Gade, 1923).

Among his other silent films are INRI (Robert Wiene, 1923) with Porten, Staatsanwalt Jordan (Karl Gerhardt, 1926) with Hans Mierendorff, Thérèse Raquin (Jacques Feyder, 1928) starring Gina Manès, Der Biberpelz/The Beaver Fur (Erich Schönfelder, 1928) opposite La Jana, Die große Liebe (Revolutionshochzeit) (A.W. Sandberg, 1928) with Diomira Jacobini and Karina Bell, Ariadne in Hoppegarten (Robert Dinesen, 1928) with Maria Jacobini, Der Unüberwindliche (Max Obal, 1928) with Luciano Albertini, Geschlecht in Fesseln (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1928), § 173 St.G.B. Blutschande/Culpable Marriages (James Bauer, 1929), and the Henny Porten films Liebfraumlich (Carl Froehlich, 1928-29) and Mutterliebe (Georg Jacoby, 1929). When the sound film was near at hand he was enthusiastic about the idea of a talking picture. He worked at the ‘practice of the sound film actor’, and directed a short film, Paul Graets als Berliner Zeitungsjunge (1929). The early sound film offered him leading parts in such films as Skandal um Eva/Scandal Around Eva (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1930) starring Henny Porten, Er und sein Diener/He and His Servant (Steve Sekely, 1931), and Flachsmann als Erzieher/Flachsmann as Educator (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1930) opposite Charlotte Ander. He directed himself in Schneider Wibbel/Tailor Wibbel (Paul Henckels, 1931).

Typical for Paul Henckels film characters is their accent and humour from the Rhineland region. He often played cranky and stubborn fellows. Among his films were Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse/ The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (Fritz Lang, 1933), Ein idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935) starring Brigitte Helm; Napoleon ist an allem Schuld/Napoleon is to Blame for Everything (Curt Goetz, 1938), Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (Erich Engel, 1938) and Zwei in einer großen Stadt/Two in a Big City (Volker von Collande, 1942). Unforgettable was his character Professor Bommel in Die Feuerzangenbowle (Helmut Weiss, 1944). This is the second film version of Heinrich Spoerl's novel about pupils playing various tricks and jokes on their teachers. The twist in the story is the leader of the pack, the major cause of the teachers' headaches: Johannes Pfeiffer (Heinz Rühmann) is not a real pupil at all. He is a successful playwright with a Ph.D. One evening at the pub his friends discover that he never went to a school but was educated privately. The stories of their boyhood years persuade him to see for himself and 'be a boy again'. The film was made in 1944, so it is a bit astonishing that the Nazi censors were prepared to pass a film with such an anti-authoritarian message. Die Feuerzangenbowle is very well made and today enjoys a cult status in Germany.

Paul Henckels’ first post-war film was Wozzeck (Georg C. Klaren, 1947), based on the famous play by Georg Büchner. In this early DEFA production he played a cold and cynically experimenting doctor. His later roles were more stereotypical characters. To his last films belong Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1952) starring Camilla Spira, Hollandmädel (J. A. Hübler-Kahla, 1953), Staatsanwältin Corda/Prosecutor Corda (Karl Ritter, 1954), Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/Cherries in the Neighbour’s Garden (Erich Engels, 1956), and Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) featuring Horst Buchholz. He focussed on his stage work and did recital tours, performing Wilhelm Busch and German classics. During the 1950s and 1960s he also appeared often on TV, like in Die fröhliche Weinrunde/The Cheerful Wine Bout with singer Margit Schramm, and in Nachsitzen für Erwachsene/Detention for Adults as a professor, who explained interesting phenomenons for a class with four adults (among them was film actor Hans Richter). In 1962 he was awarded the Filmband in Gold for his longtime and important contributions to the German cinema. Paul Henckels died in 1967 in Kettwig, now Essen. He was married with actress Thea Grodtzinsky. His first wife was Cecilia Brie, a former actress, with whom he had three children.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line.de), Wikipedia, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

just another victim I found on the side of the road in the bushes

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3094/1. Photo: Binz / Bavaria-Filmkunst.

Olly Holzmann (1916-1995) was an Austrian ice skater, dancer, and film actress. With her distinctive temper, her fizzy joy of life and Austrian charm, her dark hair, and her ordinary but nice face she was the typical Wiener Mädel in films of the 1930s and 1940s.

Olly Holzmann was born as Olga Holzmann in 1916 (according to IMDb: 1915), in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, now Austria. She made her film debut in a small part in the spy film Hotel Sacher (Erich Engel, 1939) next to Sybille Schmitz, Willy Birgel, and Wolf Albach-Retty. In her second film Frau im Strom/Woman in the Current (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1939) she played the part of the girl of a motor mechanic (Attila Hörbiger), who saves an unknown woman (Hertha Feiler) from the river and falls in love with her. In the melodrama Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) she portrayed the daughter of a poor widow (Käthe Dorsch), who offers everything to make her spoiled and difficult children into useful citizens. Her first bigger role was a parlour maid in Tipp auf Amalia/Tip On Amalia (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1940), who is suddenly connected to three other servants by an unexpected joint inheritance. Her most successful film commercially was the romance Wiener G’schichten/Vienna Tales (Géza von Bolváry, 1940), in which she played a supporting role next to Marte Harell, Paul Hörbiger, and Hans Moser. In the same year, she had her first leading part in the comedy Sieben Jahre Pech/Seven Years Hard Luck (Hubert Marischka, 1940). At the side of Hans Moser and Theo Lingen, she portrayed a young woman whose admirer (Wolf Albach-Retty) thinks he is pursued by misfortune and therefore doesn’t dare to make her a proposal. In the crime film Fünftausend Mark Belohnung/5000 Mark Reward (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1942) she played the wife of an amateur detective (Martin Urtel), who overambitiously drives her husband into all kind of troubles.

With her distinctive temper, her fizzy joy of life and Austrian charm, her dark hair, and her ordinary but nice face, Olly Holzmann was the typical Wiener Mädel (Vienna Girl), impersonated by many actresses in the 1930s and 1940s. Olly is best remembered for her leading role in the lavishly produced ice spectacle Der weiße Traum/The White Dream (Géza von Cziffra, 1943). It was the first time that the former ice dancer could show her skatings skills in a film. Her on-screen lover was again Wolf Albach-Retty, but her partner in the ice scenes was the world champion Karl Schäfer. Although her last three films were shot before the end of the war, they were only first shown after the war (Those films were nicknamed 'Überläufer' (defectors)). In the romantic comedy Erzieherin gesucht/Governess Wanted (Ulrich Erfurth,1945-1950) she played a mannequin, who fills in for a friend as a governess for a five-year-old boy and turns properly the heads of the kid’s three uncles (Ernst von Klipstein, Wolfgang Lukschy und Fritz Wagner). In the musical comedy Liebe nach Noten/Love After Notes (Géza von Cziffra, 1945-1947) she learns a composer ladykiller (Rudolf Prack) that women can compose too. Her last film was the romantic comedy Mit meinen Augen/With My Eyes (Hans H. Zerlett, 1945-1948) with Olga Tschechowa and Willy Birgel, in which she played a secondary part. Olly Holzmann was married twice. During the war, she was married shortly to a cameraman. Her second husband was the American officer Alexander Orley, a racecar driver and export merchant, who she had met in 1945 in bombed Berlin. With her husband, her daughter, and his son she went to live on a Caribbean island. After her husband’s death in 1975, she returned to her hometown, Vienna. Olly Holzmann died in 1995, in London, Great Britain.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1670/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Mondial-Film / Ufa.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930-?) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

Traudl Stark was born in 1930 as Gertraude Marianne Münzel to Siegfried Stark, a secretary of the Federal Chancellery, and Margarete Münzel. Her parents married after her birth. In 1934 little Traudl was discovered by Robert Reich on the Wiener Messe during a film exhibition and he asked her for commercials. She played her first film parts at the age of five in Die Fahrt in die Jugend/The Journey into Childhood (Carl Boese, 1935), the film operetta Im weißen Rößl/The White Horse Inn (Carl Lamac, 1935), and as the daughter of Fritz Rasp and Olga Tschechowa in the spy drama Lockspitzel Asew/Agent provocateur Asew (Phil Jutzi, 1935). One year later followed Seine Tochter ist der Peter/His Daughter Is Peter (Heinz Helbig, Willy Schmidt-Gentner, 1936) as Karl Ludwig Diehl's daughter, and Manja Valewska (Josef Rovenský, 1936) featuring Maria Andergast. The Berlin film company Siegel-Monopol tried to lure Traudl away from the Mondial studio in Vienna and there was even a court case. The next years she was seen in Liebling der Matrosen/The Darling of The Sailors (Hans Hinrig, 1937) with Wolf Albach-Retty, again as Peter in Peter im Schnee/Peter in the Snow (Carl Lamac, 1937), as Sissy in Prinzessin Sissy/Princess Sissy (Fritz Thiery, 1938) co-starring Paul Hörbiger, and in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) as Käthe Dorsch's daughter.

Because of the start of World War II, Traudl Stark never made an international career. Her last part was in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon/The Fox of Glenarvon (Max W. Kimmich, 1940) starring Olga Tschechova. This film represents the sad destiny of many German artists who didn't survive the war. Six of the actors were afflicted: Karl Dannemann (suicide in 1945), Friedrich Kayssler (homicide in 1945), Aribert Mog (killed in action in 1941), Horst Birr (executed in 1944 by the National Socialists), Paul Otto (suicide in 1943), and Hermann Braun (killed in action in 1945). After the war, Traudl had become a teenager, who wasn’t interested in the film business any longer. Between 1945 and 1947 she acted on stage in Vienna. In 1948 she married the American GI Jack Elliot and went with him to his hometown in Alabama, USA. At 18, Traudl Stark retired. Later she remarried and had children, but there's little information to be found on her life as an adult.

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

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard. Henny Porten-Film Produktion. Ross Verlag, No. 112/2. Henny Porten and Inge Landgut in Mutterliebe (A Mother's Love, Georg Jacoby, 1929). Photo Atelier Schmoll, Berlin.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.

Ein junges Schottisches Hochlandrind auf Langeoog kurz nach der Geburt

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 479/3, 1919-1924. Photo: HPF.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She was also the producer of many of her own films. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was actress and script-writer Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected with synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peepboxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrifying woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title characters in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, to doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers. The following year she achieved her long planned for project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved on emigration to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis, but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953 she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten had appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

© Alle Rechte vorbehalten

German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1276/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Manassé-Ricoll, Wien / Mondial.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

She was born as Gertraude Marianne Münzel to the secretary Siegfried Stark and Margarete Münzel. Her parents married later. In 1934 little Traudl was discovered by Robert Reich on the Wiener Messe during a film exhibition and he asked her for commercials. She played her first film parts at the age of five in Die Fahrt in die Jugend (1935, Carl Boese) and as the daughter of Fritz Rasp and Olga Tschechowa in the spy drama Lockspitzel Asew (1935, Phil Jutzi). One year leater followed Seine Tochter ist der Peter (1936, Heinz Helbig, Willy Schmidt-Gentner), in which she impersonated the title role, and Manja Valewska (1936, Josef Rovenský). The Berlin film company Siegel-Monopol tried to lure Traudl away from the Mondial studio in Vienna and there was even a court case.The next years she was seen in Liebling der Matrosen (1937, Hans Hinrig) with Wolf Albach-Retty, again as Peter in Peter im Schnee (1937, Carl Lamac), as Sissy in Prinzessin Sissy (1938, Fritz Thiery), and in Mutterliebe (1939, Gustav Ucicky).

Because of the start of WWII Traudl Stark never made an international career. Her last part was in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon (1940, Max W. Kimmich). The film represents the sad destiny of many artists who didn't survive the war. Six of the actors were afflicted like Karl Dannemann (suicide in 1945), Friedrich Kayssler (homicide in 1945), Aribert Mog (killed in action in 1941), Horst Birr (executed in 1944 by the National Socialists), Paul Otto (suicide 1943) und Hermann Braun (killed in action in 1945). After the war Traudl had become a teenager who wasn’t interested in film any longer. Between 1945 and 1947 she acted on stage in Vienna. In 1948 she married the American GI Jack Elliot and went with him to his hometown the Alabama. She retired and the pair has four children.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli, Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

East-German postcard by VEB Volkskunstverlag Reichenbach I.V., Berlin, no. G 566, 1955. Photo: DEFA / Neufeld. Henny Portern in Das Fräulein von Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955).

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She was also the producer of many of her own films. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was actress and script-writer Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected with synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peepboxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrifying woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title characters in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, to doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers. The following year she achieved her long planned for project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved on emigration to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis, but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953 she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten had appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard. Henny Porten-Film Produktion. Ross Verlag, No. 112/1. Henny Porten in Mutterliebe (A Mother's Love, Georg Jacoby, 1929). Photo Atelier Schmoll, Berlin.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.

Sculpture called "Mutterliebe"

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1109/1, 1927-1928. Caption: To be true and natural is the law for every creative artist, Henny Porten.

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She was also the producer of many of her own films. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted.

Frieda Ulricke 'Henny' Porten was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1890. She was the second daughter of Franz Porten, an opera baritone and actor-director at the Stadtheater of Magdeburg, and his wife Wincenzia, whose maiden name was Wybiral. Her older sister was the actress and script-writer Rosa Porten. In January 1906, Franz Porten was engaged by film pioneer Oskar Messter to direct six Biophon-Sound Pictures. These were short early sound films that were projected with synchronously playing gramophone records. So Henny made her film debut in Apachentanz/Apache Dance (Oskar Messter, 1906). This made her one of the earliest film actresses anywhere in the world. She went on to perform in numerous sound pictures mostly for the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, which included her work also in their Mutoskop-peep boxes. Her work involved singing in three different languages by moving her lips in a synchronised fashion to a gramophone record. Despite having no training in acting, this work allowed her to become a highly experienced actress. Five years later audiences were clamouring to know the name of the blonde (and blind) girl in Das Liebesgluck der Blinden/The joy of love of the blind (Heinrich Bolten Baeckers, Curt A. Stark, 1911), a melodrama written for her by her sister Rosa Porten. In 1912 she married Curt A. Stark, who would direct most of her films until his death in 1916. In 1912 Messter concluded a one-month contract with her, which had been repeatedly extended. After the success of Eva (Curt A. Stark, 1913), she started the Henny Porten Film Star Series, beginning with Der Feind im Land/The enemy in the country (Curt A. Stark, 1913).

Following the exodus in the film industry at the beginning of the First World War, Henny Porten initiated, as if personally, the renaissance of the German cinema with Das Ende vom Liede/The end of the Song (Rudolf Biebrach, 1915) with Ludwig Trautmann. Rudolf Biebrach, who in earlier films often played her father, now took on the job of the film director. The Porten films were at the peak of their success. Henny Porten embodied the ultimate Wilhelminian actress, with her long, blond hair, her innocent-looking face, and her rounds. Though she often performed as the tragic, self-sacrificing woman, tormented by class conflicts and evil men, like in Alexandra (Curt A. Stark, 1915), she also proved to be an able comedienne, like in Gräfin Küchenfee (Robert Wiene, 1918) with Ernst Hofmann. In 1916, her husband and director Curt Stark died on the Western Front.

Henny Porten reached a new height of her screen career under the gentle guidance of Ernst Lubitsch, who cast her as the title character in Anna Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920), a biopic on the ill-fated second wife of the English king Henry VIII (Emil Jannings), and the comedy Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Ernst Lubitsch, 1920) in which Porten played both Liesel the ugly daughter as well as her beautiful sister Gretel. The success of these films resulted in an invitation for Porten and her co-star Emil Jannings to come to Hollywood, but Henny remained in Germany. In March 1921, she established the company Henny Porten Films GmbH, and that year she also remarried, doctor Wilheim von Kauffman. After the box office hit Die Geierwally/Wally of the Vultures (Ewald André Dupont, 1921) with Wilhelm Dieterle, Porten produced the highly ambitious studio film Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Paul Leni, Leopold Jessner, 1921). While highly praised by critics, the film was financially unsuccessful. After three further years of rather unsuccessful films, Henny Porten's film company went bankrupt in 1923. In spite of this, she continued to have a longstanding and prolific acting career throughout the 1920s with films like Gräfin Donelli/Countess Donelli (Georg Wilhelm Pabst), 1924 and Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (1924) with Friedrich Kayssler, the first of a series of films directed and produced by her former director of photography, Carl Froelich.

Henny Porten seemed to pass from silent to sound cinema without any obstacles. She starred in such films as Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929) with Gustav Diessl, Die Herrin und ihr Knecht/The Boss and Her Servant (Richard Oswald, 1929) with Mary Kid, and a remake of Kohlhiesels Töchter/Kohlhiesel's Daughters (Hans Behrendt, 1930) opposite Fritz Kampers. The following year she achieved her long-planned project, the film Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens, which ultimately bankrupted her company in the summer of 1932. After this project, Porten was considered to be a risk within the film industry. With no film engagements coming, she sought refuge on stage. She achieved renewed film success in the autumn of 1933, with the sound film remake of Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Hans Steinhoff, 1933). She had become the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. There were years Henny Porten had done twelve films a year, but the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 brought her career to an almost standstill. Her refusal to divorce her Jewish husband Wilhelm von Kaufmann got her in trouble with propaganda minister Josef Goebbels. When she resolved to emigrate to join Ernst Lubitsch in Hollywood, he denied her an exit visa to prevent a negative impression. Goebbels tried to ban her from the film industry, but she made a few films after the Allied bombardment started, and her placid and reassuring persona helped calm audiences. In 1937 she was taken on by the Tobis company on a work for money basis but was never offered any work. Porten was permitted to work in such Austrian-made films as the comedy Der Optimist/The Optimist (E.W. Emo, 1938) with Viktor de Kowa and Theo Lingen, and the crime drama War es der im Dritten Stock/Was It Him on the Third Floor? (Carl Boese, 1938).

Henny Porten was hired by old friend G.W. Pabst to play the duchess in Komödianten/The Comedians (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1941) with Käthe Dorsch and Hilde Krahl, and she was reunited with Carl Froelich for the homey comedy Familie Buchholz/The Buchholz Family (Carl Froelich, 1944). In 1944, after an aerial mine destroyed their home, Porten and her husband were out on the streets, as it was forbidden to shelter a full Jew. After the war, offers remained poor. Henny Porten lived in Ratzeburg and performed in Lübeck and the Hamburg Theater in 1947. She was given a small role in the comedy Absender unbekannt/Sender unknown (Ákos Ráthonyi, 1950). So in 1953, she followed an invitation made by the DEFA studio to go east to the new DDR. There she played leading roles in Carola Lamberti - Eine vom Zirkus/Carola Lamberti - One From the Circus (Hans Müller, 1954) and the crime drama Das Fräulein von Scuderi/The Miss from Scuderi (Eugen York, 1955), which would prove to be her last film. In the Western press, her step was branded as that of a 'deserter'. When Porten and her husband returned to Ratzeburg in 1955, they were evicted by their landlord. Von Kaufmann lost his practice. Through the press, Porten unsuccessfully asked for work in film. They moved to Berlin in 1957, where Von Kaufmann died in 1959. In 1960, Henny Porten finally was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, but she died after suffering a severe illness a few months later. Between 1906 and 1955 Henny Porten appeared in over 170 films.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hans J. Wollstein (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

motherly love

ZOOM Erlebniswelt Gelsenkirchen

VIEW ON BLACK

Austrian postcard. Photos: Wien Film. Olly Holzmann in Der weiße Traum/The White Dream (Géza von Cziffra, 1943).

Olly Holzmann (1916-1995) was an Austrian ice skater, dancer, and film actress. With her distinctive temper, her fizzy joy of life and Austrian charm, her dark hair, and her ordinary but nice face she was the typical Wiener Mädel in films of the 1930s and 1940s.

Olly Holzmann was born as Olga Holzmann in 1916 (according to IMDb: 1915), in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, now Austria. She made her film debut in a small part in the spy film Hotel Sacher (Erich Engel, 1939) next to Sybille Schmitz, Willy Birgel, and Wolf Albach-Retty. In her second film Frau im Strom/Woman in the Current (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1939) she played the part of the girl of a motor mechanic (Attila Hörbiger), who saves an unknown woman (Hertha Feiler) from the river and falls in love with her. In the melodrama Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) she portrayed the daughter of a poor widow (Käthe Dorsch), who offers everything to make her spoiled and difficult children into useful citizens. Her first bigger role was a parlour maid in Tipp auf Amalia/Tip On Amalia (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1940), who is suddenly connected to three other servants by an unexpected joint inheritance. Her most successful film commercially was the romance Wiener G’schichten/Vienna Tales (Géza von Bolváry, 1940), in which she played a supporting role next to Marte Harell, Paul Hörbiger, and Hans Moser. In the same year, she had her first leading part in the comedy Sieben Jahre Pech/Seven Years Hard Luck (Hubert Marischka, 1940). At the side of Hans Moser and Theo Lingen, she portrayed a young woman whose admirer (Wolf Albach-Retty) thinks he is pursued by misfortune and therefore doesn’t dare to make her a proposal. In the crime film Fünftausend Mark Belohnung/5000 Mark Reward (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1942) she played the wife of an amateur detective (Martin Urtel), who overambitiously drives her husband into all kind of troubles.

With her distinctive temper, her fizzy joy of life and Austrian charm, her dark hair, and her ordinary but nice face, Olly Holzmann was the typical Wiener Mädel (Vienna Girl), impersonated by many actresses in the 1930s and 1940s. Olly is best remembered for her leading role in the lavishly produced ice spectacle Der weiße Traum/The White Dream (Géza von Cziffra, 1943). It was the first time that the former ice dancer could show her skatings skills in a film. Her on-screen lover was again Wolf Albach-Retty, but her partner in the ice scenes was the world champion Karl Schäfer. Although her last three films were shot before the end of the war, they were only first shown after the war (Those films were nicknamed 'Überläufer' (defectors)). In the romantic comedy Erzieherin gesucht/Governess Wanted (Ulrich Erfurth,1945-1950) she played a mannequin, who fills in for a friend as a governess for a five-year-old boy and turns properly the heads of the kid’s three uncles (Ernst von Klipstein, Wolfgang Lukschy und Fritz Wagner). In the musical comedy Liebe nach Noten/Love After Notes (Géza von Cziffra, 1945-1947) she learns a composer ladykiller (Rudolf Prack) that women can compose too. Her last film was the romantic comedy Mit meinen Augen/With My Eyes (Hans H. Zerlett, 1945-1948) with Olga Tschechowa and Willy Birgel, in which she played a secondary part. Olly Holzmann was married twice. During the war, she was married shortly to a cameraman. Her second husband was the American officer Alexander Orley, a racecar driver and export merchant, who she had met in 1945 in bombed Berlin. With her husband, her daughter, and his son she went to live on a Caribbean island. After her husband’s death in 1975, she returned to her hometown, Vienna. Olly Holzmann died in 1995, in London, Great Britain.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Skulptur auf den Friedhof Ohlsdorf

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3001. Photo: Vogelmann / Paula Wessely-Film / Columbia.

Bavarian-born actress Susi Nicoletti (1918–2005) was an eminent stage actress of the Burgtheater in Vienna. Today she is best remembered for her supporting roles in dozens of German film comedies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Susi Nicoletti was born as Susanne Emilie Luise Adele Habersack in Munich in 1918. Her parents were actress Consuella Nicoletti, and Ernst Habersack, boss of a shipping company. From 1921 to 1927, she lived with her parents in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Back in Munich, she made her stage debut at age 13 at the Kammerspiele in Munich and became solo dancer for the Munich Opera two years later. Around that time she joined the cabaret Die weißblaue Drehorgel. She also got acting training by Magda Lina. Between 1936 and 1940, she was engaged by the Nürnberg city theatre. In 1939, she was offered her first film role in the short Schwarz und Blond (Philipp von Zeska 1939) with O.W. Fischer. It was followed by a role in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939). In 1940 she moved to Vienna, where she became an ensemble member of the Burgtheater. She continued to appear in such German films as the comedy Oh, diese Männer/Oh, Those Men (Hubert Marischka, 1941) as the daughter of Georg Alexander and Grethe Weiser, the romantic drama Sommerliebe/Summer Love (1942) starring Winnie Markus, and Der zweite Schuß/The second shot (Martin Fric, 1943), in which she played the female lead.

After the war, Susi Nicoletti continued her stage and film career. In 1946 she also began to perform at the Salzburg Festival. Among the first films were Das singende Haus/The Singing House (Franz Antel, 1947) and Philine (Theo Lingen, 1949). She often played in comedies, such as Es schlägt 13/It strikes 13 (E.W. Emo, 1951) with Theo Lingen, Hallo Dienstmann/Hello Porter (Franz Antel, 1952) with Hans Moser and Paul Hörbiger, Mariandl (Werner Jacobs, 1961) with Conny Froboess, and the TV film Mein Freund Harvey (Kirt Wilhelm, 1970) opposite Heinz Rühmann. One of her best films was the Thomas Mann adaptation Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull/Confessions of Felix Krull (Kurt Hoffmann, 1957) starring Horst Buchholz. From the mid-1950s on, Susi Nicoletti taught acting and dance at the prestigious Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. Among her students were Senta Berger, Erika Pluhar, Ute Lemper, Heidelinde Weis, Pia Douwes and Albert Fortell. After her retirement at the Burgtheater in 1992 she continued her stage career at the Theater in der Josefstadt. In the late 1990s she stopped teaching at the Max Reinhardt seminar. Her final films were Comedian Harmonists (Joseph Vilsmaier, 1997), the story of the famous, Weimar male sextet, and Am anderen Ende der Brücke/On the Other Side of the Bridge (Mei Hu, 2002) starring Nina Proll. In 2005, Susi Nicoletti died in Vienna of complications after heart surgery, aged 86.She was twice married. Her first husband was film businessman Ludwig Ptack. Her second husband, Ernst Häussermann, who had passed away in 1984, was an and director of the Burgtheater and the Theater in der Josefstadt. Their son, daughter and grandchildren live in the United States. In 1977 she was awarded with the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1008/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Manassé-Ricoll.

Austrian child actress Traudl Stark (1930-?) was the Shirley Temple of the German cinema. Between 1935 and 1940 she made a dozen popular films in Austria.

Traudl Stark was born in 1930 as Gertraude Marianne Münzel to Siegfried Stark, a secretary of the Federal Chancellery, and Margarete Münzel. Her parents married after her birth. In 1934 little Traudl was discovered by Robert Reich on the Wiener Messe during a film exhibition and he asked her for commercials. She played her first film parts at the age of five in Die Fahrt in die Jugend/The Journey into Childhood (Carl Boese, 1935), the film operetta Im weißen Rößl/The White Horse Inn (Carl Lamac, 1935), and as the daughter of Fritz Rasp and Olga Tschechowa in the spy drama Lockspitzel Asew/Agent provocateur Asew (Phil Jutzi, 1935). One year later followed Seine Tochter ist der Peter/His Daughter Is Peter (Heinz Helbig, Willy Schmidt-Gentner, 1936) as Karl Ludwig Diehl's daughter, and Manja Valewska (Josef Rovenský, 1936) featuring Maria Andergast. The Berlin film company Siegel-Monopol tried to lure Traudl away from the Mondial studio in Vienna and there was even a court case. The next years she was seen in Liebling der Matrosen/The Darling of The Sailors (Hans Hinrig, 1937) with Wolf Albach-Retty, again as Peter in Peter im Schnee/Peter in the Snow (Carl Lamac, 1937), as Sissy in Prinzessin Sissy/Princess Sissy (Fritz Thiery, 1938) co-starring Paul Hörbiger, and in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) as Käthe Dorsch's daughter.

Because of the start of World War II, Traudl Stark never made an international career. Her last part was in Der Fuchs von Glenarvon/The Fox of Glenarvon (Max W. Kimmich, 1940) starring Olga Tschechova. This film represents the sad destiny of many German artists who didn't survive the war. Six of the actors were afflicted: Karl Dannemann (suicide in 1945), Friedrich Kayssler (homicide in 1945), Aribert Mog (killed in action in 1941), Horst Birr (executed in 1944 by the National Socialists), Paul Otto (suicide in 1943), and Hermann Braun (killed in action in 1945). After the war, Traudl had become a teenager, who wasn’t interested in the film business any longer. Between 1945 and 1947 she acted on stage in Vienna. In 1948 she married the American GI Jack Elliot and went with him to his hometown in Alabama, USA. At 18, Traudl Stark retired. Later she remarried and had children, but there's little information to be found on her life as an adult.

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

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German postcard printed by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 39. Photo: Bayer.

Winnie Markus (1921-2002) was in the 1950s and 1960s one of Germany’s most famous actresses.

At 16 she went to Vienna to be trained by Max Reinhardt and soon she made a name for herself on the Viennese stage. Her film debut was a small part in Mutterliebe (1939, Gustav Ucicky). During WW II she became a Ufa star with such films as Das alte Lied (1945, Fritz Peter Buch), based on a novel by Theodor Fontane and filmed in Amsterdam and The Hague. The Mozart biography Wenn die Götter lieben (1942, Karl Hartl), in which she played his wife Konstanze, was shelved, unfinished when the war began. After the war, producer Abrasha Haimson bought the rights, hired director Frank Wisbar and filmed new scenes to finish the picture. In 1948 he released it as a new film, The Mozart Story.

Despite her past as an Ufa star, Winnie Markus could go on playing in many stage plays and films after the war, even in such anti-Nazi films as In jenen Tagen (1947, Helmut Käutner), Zwischen gestern und morgen (1947, Harald Braun) and Morituri (1948, Eugen York). Her best known films are the crime thriller Teufel in Seide (1956, Rolf Hansen), Der Priester and das Mädchen (1958, Gustav Ucicky) and Was eine Frau in Frühling träumt (1959, Erik Ode, Arthur Maria Rabenalt). Her co-stars were actors like Curd Jürgens, O.W. Fischer and Paul Hubschmid. In 1961 she retreated, but when she made her come-back in 1980 she was still popular and in demand. She worked often for tv. In 1986 the German film world awarded her with the Filmband in Gold for her entire career and in 1988 she was awarded with the Bundesfilmkreuz.

Sources: AbsoluteFacts.nl, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Mutter Fuchs schleckt ihre Jungen bei jeder Gelegenheit.