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Image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960's British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
An image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
See videos of Chantal and other "Absolutely Smashing" characters here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv55UM19WdGqjz_6nZGU-4FpW...
Image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960's British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Watch videos of Darla here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt3FiYKXI9s
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqduiIZDjfI
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdm5_6AFJ0o
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWEjfTX2gIM
French postcard by Mercury / Polygram. Photo: Laurent Seroussi. Caption: (à la légère). The album 'À la Légère' was released in 1998.
On 16 July 2023, British actress Jane Birkin (1946) was found dead in her Paris home by her nurse. In the Swinging Sixties, the shy, awkward-looking Birkin made a huge international splash as one of the nude models in Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). In France, she became the muse of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote several of her albums, plus their explicitly erotic duet 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'. Later she worked with such respected film directors as Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda, and Jacques Doillon, and won several acting awards. She was 76 years old.
Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London in 1946. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an English stage actress, and her father, David Birkin, was a Royal Navy lieutenant-commander, who had worked on clandestine operations as a navigator with the French Resistance. Her brother is the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin. She was educated at Upper Chine School, Isle of Wight, and then went to Kensington Academy in London. At 17, she first went on stage in Graham Greene's 1964 production 'Carving a Statue'. A year later, she was chosen to play in the musical comedy 'Passion Flower Hotel' with music by John Barry, the composer of the James Bond theme. They met and married shortly afterwards. Their daughter Kate Barry, now a photographer, was born in 1967. Jane emerged in the Swinging London scene of the 1960s. First, she appeared uncredited as a girl on a motorbike in the comedy The Knack …and How to Get It (Richard Lester, 1965) starring Rita Tushingham. Then she attracted attention with a brief scene as a nude, blonde model in Blowup (1966), Michelangelo Antonioni's scandalous masterpiece that received the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1968, Birkin played a fantasy-like model in the psychedelic picture Wonderwall (Joe Massot, 1968). That same year, she auditioned in France for the lead female role in Slogan (Pierre Grimblat, 1969) with pop star Serge Gainsbourg, who was still grieving after his break up with Brigitte Bardot. Jane barely spoke French, and Gainsbourg gave her a rough time. When she burst into tears, mixing private sadness about John Barry and the film part, he disapproved, but he recognised that she cried well in front of the camera. Jane got the part, and a mythical and passionate Paris love story began. Birkin performed with Gainsbourg on the film's theme song, 'La chanson de slogan' - the first of many collaborations between the two. They became inseparable and a living legend when they recorded the duet 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' (I love you... me neither), a song Gainsbourg originally had written for Brigitte Bardot. The song's fame is partly a result of its salacious lyrics, sung by Gainsbourg and Birkin to a background of passionate whispering and moaning from Birkin, concluding in her simulated orgasm. Censorship in several countries went wild, the Vatican condemned the immoral nature of the song, and in Great Britain, the BBC refused to play the original and did their own orchestral version. The record benefitted from all the free publicity and rocketed straight to the top of the charts, selling a million copies in a matter of months.
At the Côte d'Azur, Jane Birkin played in the thriller La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (Jacques Deray, 1969) in which she was seduced by Alain Delon. Then she went with Serge Gainsbourg to Yugoslavia to play in the adventure film Romansa konjokradice/Romance of a horse thief (Abraham Polonsky, 1971) starring Yul Brynner. In 1971, her daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg was born. Birkin took a break from acting, but returned as the lover of Brigitte Bardot (in her final film role) in Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme.../Don Juan 73 (Roger Vadim, 1973). Her first solo album, 'Di Doo Dah', was also released in 1973. The title song became another chart hit. In the cinema, Birkin played 'cute but stupid' roles in such box office hits as La moutarde me monte au nez/Lucky Pierre (Claude Zidi, 1974) and La course à l’échalotte/The Wild Goose Chase (Claude Zidi, 1975), two popular comedies starring Pierre Richard. She proved herself as a film actress in Le Mouton enragé/Love at the Top (Michel Deville, 1974) starring Romy Schneider, and the highly dramatic Sept morts sur ordonnance/Seven Deaths by Prescription (Jacques Rouffio, 1975) opposite Michel Piccoli. In 1975, she also appeared as an androgynous-looking teenager opposite Joe Dallesandro in Gainsbourg's daring directorial début Je t'aime... moi non plus (Serge Gainsbourg, 1976). The film created a stir for its frank examination of sexual ambiguity and controversial sex scenes. In the following year, she had a cameo as herself in the blockbuster L'Animal/Stuntwoman (Claude Zidi, 1977) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. In the meantime, her second album 'Lolita go home' (1975) came out, on which she sang Philippe Labro's lyrics set to Gainsbourg's music. Three years later, her 'Ex-fan des sixties' (1978) was released. Birkin appeared in a series of mainstream films such as the Agatha Christie films Death on the Nile (John Guillermin, 1978) and Evil Under the Sun (Guy Hamilton, 1982), with Peter Ustinov as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. In the arthouse production Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung/Egon Schiele: Excess and Punishment (Herbert Vesely, 1980), she appeared as the mistress of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, played by Mathieu Carrière.
Serge Gainsbourg had plunged into several major bouts of alcoholism and depression, resulting in all-night partying and scandals, and in 1980 Jane Birkin left him. The couple remained on good terms though. Birkin starred as Anne in La fille prodigue/The Prodigal Daughter (Jacques Doillon, 1981). Jacques Doillon proved to be her dream of a director, who imposed his own personal style of drama and brought out the very best of her. She went to live with him, and in 1982 she had her third daughter Lou Doillon. She also appeared as Alma opposite Maruschka Detmers in his film La pirate/The Pirate (Jacques Doillon, 1984), for which she was nominated for a César Award. This work led to an invitation from theatre director Patrice Chéreau to star on stage in 'La Fausse suivante' (The False Servant) by Pierre de Marivaux. Gainsbourg, suffering from the separation, wrote 'Baby alone in Babylone' for her. The record won the Charles Cross award and became a gold record. Jane Birkin began to appear frequently on stage in plays and concerts in France, Japan, the U.K., and then the U.S. In the cinema, she received another César Award nomination for her role in La femme de ma vie/The Woman of My Life (Régis Wargnier, 1986). Film director Jacques Rivette collaborated with her in L'amour par terre/Love on the Ground (Jacques Rivette, 1983) starring Geraldine Chaplin, and La Belle Noiseuse/The Beautiful Troublemaker (Jacques Rivette, 1991) with Michel Piccoli and Emmanuelle Béart. For the latter film, Birkin was nominated for the César for best supporting actress. She created a sensation as the star and screenwriter of director Agnès Varda's Kung Fu Master (1987), in which she played a 40-year-old woman carrying on a torrid affair with a 15-year-old boy, played by Mathieu Demy, Varda's son. The following year, Varda expressed her admiration for Birkin with the feature-length documentary Jane B. par Agnes V (Agnès Varda, 1988). Birkin’s work in Dust (Marion Hänsel, 1985) with Trevor Howard and Daddy Nostalgie (Bertrand Tavernier, 1990) opposite Dirk Bogarde also earned her the praise and respect of international critics. Additionally, she appeared in Merchant-Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (James Ivory, 1998) and Merci Docteur Rey (Andrew Litvack, 2002) with Dianne Wiest, while the end title song of Le Divorce (James Ivory, 2003) featured her singing 'L'Anamour', composed by Serge Gainsbourg. In 1990 Serge Gainsbourg dedicated a new album to her: 'Amours des feintes'. It was to be his last. He died in 1991. A year later Birkin won the Female Artist of the Year award at the 1992 Victoires de la Musique. In 1993 she separated from Jacques Doillon. In the following years, she devoted herself to her family and to her humanitarian work with Amnesty International on immigrant welfare and AIDS issues. Birkin visited Bosnia, Rwanda, and Palestine, often working with children. In 2001, she was awarded the OBE in Great Britain. She has also been awarded the French Ordre National du Mérite in 2004. Jane Birkin continues to make films, theatre, and music. She collaborated with such artists as Bryan Ferry, Manu Chao, Françoise Hardy, Rufus Wainwright, and Les Negresses Vertes on albums such as 'Rendez-Vous' (2004) and 'Fictions' (2006). The self-penned 'Enfants d'Hiver' arrived in 2008. In 2006, Birkin played the title role in 'Elektra', directed by Philippe Calvario in France. At the Cannes Film Festival 2007, she presented a film, both as a director and actor: Boxes (2007) with Michel Piccoli, Geraldine Chaplin, and her daughter Lou Doillon. She also appeared in Si tu meurs, je te tue/If you die, I’ll kill you (Hiner Saleem, 2011) with Jonathan Zaccaï, and La femme et le TGV/The Railroad Lady (2016), a short film directed by Swiss filmmaker Timo von Gunten. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. In a 2017 interview, Birkin stated that La femme et le TGV would be her final acting performance and that she had no plans to return to acting. In March 2017, Jane Birkin released 'Birkin/Gainsbourg: Le Symphonique', a collection of songs Serge Gainsbourg had written for her during and after their relationship, reworked with full orchestral arrangements. In 2021, she suffered a stroke. Her declining health forced her to cancel performances frequently. Birkin was found dead in her Paris home by her personal nurse on 16 July 2023. She was 76 years old. In January 2022, an intimate and touching documentary about her has been released in French cinemas Jane par Charlotte. It was directed by her daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), John Bush (AllMusic), RFI Musique (now defunct), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
An image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
An image of myself as one of the characters I played in my one-man showcase -- a production written, directed, produced, and edited entirely by me and in which I portray over 100 different characters in more than 50 scenes.
The showcase can be viewed in its entirety at:
or
Image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
See videos of Darla and other "Absolutely Smashing" characters here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv55UM19WdGqjz_6nZGU-4FpW...
From the original story by Paul Boudreau, screenwriter of "The Unseen" and it's prequel! (Click the link for the rest of the story.)
"It was November, 2017 and the sun shone brilliantly, as tourists and the like, enjoyed the views from one of the many Riverwalk bridges that spanned the San Antonio river. Antonella Fernandez was visiting from Tucson and marveled as a number of yellow-rumped warblers took to the sky. Somewhere close by, ‘Freeman in Paris’ by Joni Mitchell was playing. Billy-James Agnew and his newly-wed wife, Choo Su Wang hugged each other, reveling in their consummated union and anticipation of a life together. “Beautiful, isn’t it, Choo?” Her only reply was to squeeze his buttock. Margery Lewis noticed a peculiar odor in the air… it seemed to be wafting up from below the bridge. Its source was…UNSEEN!"
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Created for the Artistic Manipulation Group's MIXMASTER CHALLENGE #27.
CHEF pcgirl2005j (Lynn) challenges us to create a fictional film poster. Here are the ingredients:
➤ Your image must consist of a poster for an upcoming fictional film of your creation, complete with title, opening date, credits, and you as writer or producer.
➤ It must include at least one human face or full length human form.
➤ And at least one man-made structure (building, bridge, etc).
➤ Plus one and only one animal.
➤ NO FLOWERS.
Credits:
Dragon via pixabay.
Background scene thanks to Corey Leopold.
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto (Rotalcolor), Milano, no. 244.
Yesterday, on 17 April 2022, French actress and singer Catherine Spaak (1945) passed away. Who was this now-forgotten actress? She started as a Lolita-like vamp in Italian films of the early 1960s, made records and became a teenage star. She played in several classic Italian comedies and was a popular TV host. Spaak appeared in some 100 films.
Catherine Spaak was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, France in 1945. Her father was the Belgian critic and screenwriter Charles Spaak, her mother the actress Claudie Clèves and her sister is actress-photographer Agnès Spaak. As a teenager, Catherine started her career with small roles in French films like the short L’hiver/The winter (Jacques Gautier, 1959) and the thriller Le Trou/Nightwatch (Jacques Becker, 1960). hen she moved to Italy later that year, her father introduced her to film director Alberto Lattuada, who cast her in his film I dolci inganni/Sweet Deceptions (Alberto Lattuada, 1960). That coming-of-age film made her a star in Italy. She played a young Roman girl in love, who spends the day observing other lovers' behaviours and considering whether she is ready to jump. J.C. Mohsen at IMDb: “This film's unpredictability is refreshing. Whether written or filmed, coming-of-age stories often fail to surprise or intrigue the audience. In I Dolci Inganni, most characters seem at first to be crazily entertaining walking clichés, but they later astonish the audience by revealing their depth and their inner struggles.” From age 15 to 18, Spaak was the lead actress in a dozen films, including La voglia matta/Crazy Desire (Luciano Salce, 1961) opposite Ugo Tognazzi, the classic comedy Il sorpasso/The Easy Life (Dino Risi, 1962) with Vittorio Gassman, La parmigiana/The Girl from Parma (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1963) with Nino Manfredi, and the Alberto Moravia adaptation La noia/The Empty Canvas (Damiano Damiani, 1963) with Horst Buchholz and Bette Davis. For her performance in La noia she was awarded in 1964 the David di Donatello, the Italian Oscar. Spaak often played the Lolita type who seduced men, and the Italian scandal press wrote about herself in that way. In their articles, journalists always included that she was the niece of the Belgian prime minister, Paul-Henri Spaak.
Catherine Spaak’s screen success, combined with her love of singing and guitar playing, led to an offer from the Ricordi label in 1962. She recorded covers of Françoise Hardy's originals and songs in Hardy’s style. Ready steady girls!, the site on Europe’s fab female singers of the 1960s in their bio: “Perdono – written by Gino Paoli (who had worked with stars such as Mina) and arranged by Ennio Morricone – was issued as her debut single and swiftly made the Italian top 20. Vocally, Catherine drew comparisons with France’s newest star, Françoise Hardy, so Ricordi opted to have their young signing record a couple of Hardy songs for the Italian market. Issued in 1963, the bilingual Tous les garçons et les filles (Quelli della mia età) – backed with J’ai jeté mon coeur (Ho scherzato con il cuore) – gave Hardy’s original a run for its money, reaching number seven in September 1963 and confirming Catherine as a new star.” In 1964, she returned to France to appear in La Ronde (Roger Vadim, 1964) and the war drama Week-end à Zuydcoote/Weekend at Dunkirk (Henri Verneuil, 1964) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. Back in Italy she played in some more highlights of the Commedia all'Italiana such as L'armata Brancaleone/Brancaleone's Army (Mario Monicelli, 1965) featuring Vittorio Gassman, and Made in Italy (Nanni Loy, 1965). Other notable appearances include L'uomo dei cinque palloni/Break up (Marco Ferreri, 1965) starring Marcello Mastroianni, and La matriarca/The Libertine (Pasquale Festa Campanile, 1968) with Jean-Louis Trintignant. In 1967 she went to Hollywood to play Rod Taylor’s love interest in Hotel (Richard Quine, 1967), based on the novel by Arthur Hailey. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Once she came to Hollywood, however, Spaak was packaged and promoted as just another foreign starlet, interchangeable with Claudia Cardinale, Camilla Sparv, Elke Sommer and the rest of the batch.” The result was not a success and soon she was back in Italy. Two years later she did a cameo in another Hollywood production, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (Mel Stuart, 1969).
Seeking a new direction, Catherine Spaak joined fellow singer Johnny Dorelli in the operetta 'La vedova allegra' (The Merry Widow) in 1968. The pair went on to enjoy a lasting relationship, both personally and professionally. They enjoyed success as a duo with 'Song sung blue' (1972) and 'Una serata insieme a te' (1973). During the early 1970s, she continued to appear in many Italian films, but they became less interesting. She starred with Karl Malden and James Franciscus in the Giallo Il gatto a nove code/The Cat o' Nine Tails (Dario Argento, 1971). A reviewer at IMDb call ist "an entertaining and clever thriller that's well worth a look." In France she made the crime film Un meurtre est un meurtre/A Murder Is a Murder... Is a Murder (Étienne Périer, 1972) with Jean-Claude Brialy. In the American-Italian Western Take a Hard Ride (Antonio Margheriti, 1975), she co-starred with Jim Brown and Lee van Cleef. From then on, her film appearances became more incidental. In 1978, she had success on stage in the musical 'Cyrano', and would continue to play on stage. She hosted several Italian TV shows such as Forum (1985-1988) and Harem (1989-2002), and wrote articles for newspaper Il corriere della sera and Italian magazines. She also published six books in Italian, such as '26 Donne' (26 women, 1984), 'Un cuore perso' (A lost heart, 1996), 'Lui' (He, 2006) and 'L’amore blu'(Blue Love, 2011). Her later films include the sex comedy anthology Sunday Lovers (Bryan Forbes, Edouard Molinaro, Dino Risi, Gene Wilder, 1980) as Ugo Tognazzi’s psychoanalyst, Scandalo Segreto/Secret Scandal (Monica Vitti, 1989) and Tandem (Lucio Pellegrini, 2000) starring the comic duo Luca & Paolo. More recently she was seen in the film Alice (Oreste Crisostomi, 2009), the BBC mini-series Zen (John Alexander, Jon Jones, Christopher Menaul, 2011) starring Rufus Sewell as detective Aurelio Zen and Spaak as his Mamma, and the film I più' grandi di tutti/The greatest of all (Carlo Virzì, 2012). Catherine Spaak was married to actor and producer Fabrizio Capucci (1963-1971) and Italian singer-actor Johnny Dorelli (1972-1979). Her last husband was actor Orso Maria Guerrini. With Capucci, she had a daughter, stage actress Sabrina Capucci (1963), and with Dorelli a son, Gabriele Dorelli. Spaak died in 2022 at the age of 77, having previously suffered two brain haemorrhages.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), CatherineSpaak.eu, Ready Steady Girls!, Wikipedia (Italian, French, German and English) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
An image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960's French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Click the links to watch videos of Chantal:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N06W_3s5TZU
British postcard by De Reszke Cigarettes, no. 37. Photo: United Artists.
Eddie Cantor (1892-1964) was an American actor, screenwriter, producer and songwriter. After a rich Broadway career in the late 1910s and 1920s, he became a popular Hollywood star in pleasant and fast-paced musical film comedies in the early 1930s.
Eddie Cantor was born Edward Israel Iskowitz in 1892 in New York City, New York, USA. He was the son of amateur violinist Mechel Iskowitz (also Michael) and his wife Meta Kantrowitz Iskowitz (also Maite), a young Jewish couple from Russia. Both his parents died when he was still very young, and he was adopted and raised by his maternal grandmother, Esther Lazarowitz Kantrowitz. She called him Izzy and Itchik, both diminutives for Isidor. She supported herself and her grandson as a door-to-door peddler. The boy was educated in public schools. "Kantrowitz" was the name mistakenly assigned to the boy instead of his actual name, Iskowitz, by a public school registrar. It was shortened to Cantor. Eddie was the nickname given to him by his girlfriend, Ida Tobias, whom he later married. After winning $5 at a Bowery Theatre Amateur Night, the teenage Cantor knew where his destiny lay. One of his earliest paying jobs was a double position as a waiter and performer. He sang for tips at Carey Walsh's Coney Island saloon, where a young Jimmy Durante accompanied him on piano. He made his first public appearance in Vaudeville in 1907 at New York's Clinton Music Hall, then became a member of the Gus Edwards Gang, later touring Vaudeville with Al Lee as the team Cantor & Lee. His grandmother, Esther Kantrowitz, died on 29 January 1917, two days before he signed a long-term contract with Broadway's top producer Florenz Ziegfeld, to appear in his "Follies". Eddie starred in the Ziegfeld rooftop post-show Midnight Frolic (1917) and in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1927. He also made Broadway stage appearances in 'Broadway Brevities of 1920', 'Make It Snappy' (1922), 'Kid Boots' (1923), 'Whoopee' (1928) and 'Banjo Eyes' (1941). For several years, Cantor starred in an act with pioneering comedian Bert Williams, both in blackface. Cantor played Williams' son. Other co-stars with Cantor during his time in the Follies included Will Rogers, Marilyn Miller, Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields. The successful Broadway series of 'Banjo eyes' in 1941 was cut short when Cantor suffered a major heart attack, the first of several that would dominate his later years.
Eddie Cantor also made numerous film appearances. He had previously appeared in a number of short films in the 1920s, performing his Follies songs and comedy routines, and in two silent feature films, Kid Boots (Frank Tuttle, 1926) with Clara Bow and Special Delivery (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, 1927). He was offered the lead role in The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927) after it was turned down by George Jessel, but Cantor also turned down the role so it went to Al Jolson. His best Hollywood years were spent under contract to Samuel Goldwyn, where Eddie turned out one big-budget musical comedy per year between 1930 and 1936. Eddie became a leading Hollywood star with the film version of Whoopee! (Thornton Freeland, 1930), shot in two-colour Technicolour. He continued to make films for the next two decades, including such hits as Palmy Days (A. Edward Sutherland, 1931), The Kid from Spain (Leo McCarey, 1932), Roman Scandals (Frank Tuttle, 1933) with Gloria Stuart, Kid Millions (Roy Del Ruth, Willy Pogany, 1934) co-starring Ann Sothern and Ethel Merman, Strike Me Pink (Norman Taurog, 1936) and Ali Baba Goes to Town (David Butler, 1937). His last leading role was in If You Knew Susie (Gordon Douglas, 1948) with Joan Davis. In the Warner Bros. biopic The Eddie Cantor Story (Alfred E. Green, 1953) he did a cameo appearance. He was the President of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) from 1933-1935. Cantor turned to radio with The Chase and Sanborn Hour in 1931. Performing as a standup comedian, he used his vaudeville experience to outstanding effect and combined the expression of patriotism and personal values with humour; audiences responded enthusiastically. With changes of name, the show continued for 18 years on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) networks. He also served as host of The Eddie Cantor Variety Theater, a half-hour television variety show that was syndicated in 1955. Cantor also made many records. His theme song was 'One Hour With You'. His other popular-song compositions include 'Get a Little Fun Out of Life', 'It's Great to Be Alive' and 'The Old Stage Door'. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The offstage Cantor was not perfect, but most of the man's character flaws have been forgotten in the light of his inexhaustible work on behalf of dozens of charities, most prominently the March of Dimes. He also regularly put his career on the line through his union activities with Actors Equity, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio Artists, and flew in the face of bigotry and anti-Semitics through his work with the B'nai Brith and Jewish Relief." Eddie Cantor wrote the books 'Ziegfeld, the Great Glorifier' and 'As I Remember Them', and the autobiographies 'My Life Is In Your Hands' and 'Take My Life'. He received a Special Academy Award in 1956 for distinguished service to the film industry. Eddie Cantor died of a heart attack in 1964 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA. His wife Ida had passed away two years earlier. They had five daughters, Marilyn Cantor Baker, Marjorie Cantor, Natalie Cantor, Edna Cantor McHugh and Janet Cantor Gari. Eddie Cantor is interred in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Culver City, California.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Britannica, Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
An image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
See videos of Chantal and other "Absolutely Smashing" characters here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTv55UM19WdGqjz_6nZGU-4FpW...
Filmmaker, screenwriter, producer from the Hollywood Golden Age of cinema. At tiny Westwood Village Cemetery, Los Angeles.
An image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960's British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock advertisement with an image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock magazine cover with an image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock magazine cover from 1971 with an image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock magazine cover with an image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
“Marxism remains the philosophy of our times because we have not gone beyond the circumstances which created it.”
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (1905 - 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.
As an anti-colonialist, Sartre took a prominent role in the struggle against French rule in Algeria, and the use of torture and concentration camps by the French in Algeria. He became an eminent supporter of the FLN in the Algerian War and was one of the signatories of the Manifeste des 121. Consequently, Sartre became a domestic target of the paramilitary Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS), escaping two bomb attacks in the early '60s. (He had an Algerian mistress, Arlette Elkaïm, who became his adopted daughter in 1965.) The role of a public intellectual can lead to the individual placing himself in danger as he engages with disputed topics. In Sartre's case, this was witnessed in June 1961, when a plastic bomb exploded in the entrance of his apartment building. His public support of Algerian self-determination at the time had led Sartre to become a target of the campaign of terror that mounted as the colonists' position deteriorated. A similar occurrence took place the next year and he had begun to receive threatening letters from Oran, Algeria.
Sartre opposed U.S. war in Vietnam War and, along with Bertrand Russell and others, organized a tribunal intended to expose U.S. war crimes, which became known as the Russell Tribunal in 1967.
An image of myself as one of the characters I played in my one-man showcase -- a production written, directed, produced, and edited entirely by me and in which I portray over 100 different characters in more than 50 scenes.
The showcase can be viewed in its entirety at:
or
An image of myself as one of the characters I played in my one-man showcase -- a production written, directed, produced, and edited entirely by me and in which I portray over 100 different characters in more than 50 scenes.
The showcase can be viewed in its entirety at:
or
Mock advertisement with an image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
An image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
I can't resist taking photos of Cosmos flowers when I see them. They are so elegant, particularly while standing in the wind.
The word Cosmos in Greek means orderly, beautiful, and ornamental. The flower's fragrance and vibrant colors give it the attributes of peacefulness, wholeness, and modesty. The typical meaning of this flower is 'love flower'.
Taken at the Hong Kong Flower Show 2015
Macro Mondays theme for Jan 15, 2018:
"My Favourite Novel (Fiction)"
English titel:
The History of Bees
Author:
Maja Lunde is a Norwegian author and screenwriter. Lunde has written ten books for children and young adults. "The History of Bees" is her first novel for adults. She lives with her husband and three children in Oslo, Norway.
Summary:
England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him and his children honor and fame.
United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation.
China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him.
The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one gripping and thought provoking story that is just as much about the powerful relationships between children and parents as it is about our very relationship to nature and humanity.
French postcard. Photo: Catherine Faux. Caption: Jane Birkin - Jacques Doillon, Venice 1987.
On 16 July 2023, British actress Jane Birkin (1946) was found dead in her Paris home by her personal nurse. In the Swinging Sixties, the shy, awkward-looking Birkin made a huge international splash as one of the nude models in Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). In France, she became the muse of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote several of her albums, plus their explicitly erotic duet 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'. Later she worked with such respected film directors as Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda, and Jacques Doillon, and won several acting awards. She was 76 years old.
Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London in 1946. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an English stage actress, and her father, David Birkin, was a Royal Navy lieutenant-commander, who had worked on clandestine operations as a navigator with the French Resistance. Her brother is the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin. She was educated at Upper Chine School, Isle of Wight, and then went to Kensington Academy in London. At 17, she first went on stage in Graham Greene's 1964 production 'Carving a Statue'. A year later, she was chosen to play in the musical comedy 'Passion Flower Hotel' with music by John Barry, the composer of the James Bond theme. They met and married shortly afterwards. Their daughter Kate Barry, now a photographer, was born in 1967. Jane emerged in the Swinging London scene of the 1960s. First, she appeared uncredited as a girl on a motorbike in the comedy The Knack …and How to Get It (Richard Lester, 1965) starring Rita Tushingham. Then she attracted attention with a brief scene as a nude, blonde model in Blowup (1966), Michelangelo Antonioni's scandalous masterpiece that received the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1968, Birkin played a fantasy-like model in the psychedelic picture Wonderwall (Joe Massot, 1968). That same year, she auditioned in France for the lead female role in Slogan (Pierre Grimblat, 1969) with pop star Serge Gainsbourg, who was still grieving after his break up with Brigitte Bardot. Jane barely spoke French, and Gainsbourg gave her a rough time. When she burst into tears, mixing private sadness about John Barry and the film part, he disapproved, but he recognised that she cried well in front of the camera. Jane got the part, and a mythical and passionate Paris love story began. Birkin performed with Gainsbourg on the film's theme song, 'La chanson de slogan' - the first of many collaborations between the two. They became inseparable and a living legend when they recorded the duet 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' (I love you... me neither), a song Gainsbourg originally had written for Brigitte Bardot. The song's fame is partly a result of its salacious lyrics, sung by Gainsbourg and Birkin to a background of passionate whispering and moaning from Birkin, concluding in her simulated orgasm. Censorship in several countries went wild, the Vatican condemned the immoral nature of the song, and in Great Britain, the BBC refused to play the original and did their own orchestral version. The record benefitted from all the free publicity and rocketed straight to the top of the charts, selling a million copies in a matter of months.
At the Côte d'Azur, Jane Birkin played in the thriller La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (Jacques Deray, 1969) in which she was seduced by Alain Delon. Then she went with Serge Gainsbourg to Yugoslavia to play in the adventure film Romansa konjokradice/Romance of a horse thief (Abraham Polonsky, 1971) starring Yul Brynner. In 1971, her daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg was born. Birkin took a break from acting, but returned as the lover of Brigitte Bardot (in her final film role) in Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme.../Don Juan 73 (Roger Vadim, 1973). Her first solo album, 'Di Doo Dah', was also released in 1973. The title song became another chart hit. In the cinema, Birkin played 'cute but stupid' roles in such box office hits as La moutarde me monte au nez/Lucky Pierre (Claude Zidi, 1974) and La course à l’échalotte/The Wild Goose Chase (Claude Zidi, 1975), two popular comedies starring Pierre Richard. She proved herself as a film actress in Le Mouton enragé/Love at the Top (Michel Deville, 1974) starring Romy Schneider, and the highly dramatic Sept morts sur ordonnance/Seven Deaths by Prescription (Jacques Rouffio, 1975) opposite Michel Piccoli. In 1975, she also appeared as an androgynous-looking teenager opposite Joe Dallesandro in Gainsbourg's daring directorial début Je t'aime... moi non plus (Serge Gainsbourg, 1976). The film created a stir for its frank examination of sexual ambiguity and controversial sex scenes. In the following year, she had a cameo as herself in the blockbuster L'Animal/Stuntwoman (Claude Zidi, 1977) starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. In the meantime, her second album 'Lolita go home' (1975) came out, on which she sang Philippe Labro's lyrics set to Gainsbourg's music. Three years later, her 'Ex-fan des sixties' (1978) was released. Birkin appeared in a series of mainstream films such as the Agatha Christie films Death on the Nile (John Guillermin, 1978) and Evil Under the Sun (Guy Hamilton, 1982), with Peter Ustinov as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. In the arthouse production Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung/Egon Schiele: Excess and Punishment (Herbert Vesely, 1980), she appeared as the mistress of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, played by Mathieu Carrière.
Serge Gainsbourg had plunged into several major bouts of alcoholism and depression, resulting in all-night partying and scandals, and in 1980 Jane Birkin left him. The couple remained on good terms though. Birkin starred as Anne in La fille prodigue/The Prodigal Daughter (Jacques Doillon, 1981). Jacques Doillon proved to be her dream of a director, who imposed his own personal style of drama and brought out the very best of her. She went to live with him, and in 1982 she had her third daughter Lou Doillon. She also appeared as Alma opposite Maruschka Detmers in his film La pirate/The Pirate (Jacques Doillon, 1984), for which she was nominated for a César Award. This work led to an invitation from theatre director Patrice Chéreau to star on stage in 'La Fausse suivante' (The False Servant) by Pierre de Marivaux. Gainsbourg, suffering from the separation, wrote 'Baby alone in Babylone' for her. The record won the Charles Cross award and became a gold record. Jane Birkin began to appear frequently on stage in plays and concerts in France, Japan, the U.K., and then the U.S. In the cinema, she received another César Award nomination for her role in La femme de ma vie/The Woman of My Life (Régis Wargnier, 1986). Film director Jacques Rivette collaborated with her in L'amour par terre/Love on the Ground (Jacques Rivette, 1983) starring Geraldine Chaplin, and La Belle Noiseuse/The Beautiful Troublemaker (Jacques Rivette, 1991) with Michel Piccoli and Emmanuelle Béart. For the latter film, Birkin was nominated for the César for best supporting actress. She created a sensation as the star and screenwriter of director Agnès Varda's Kung Fu Master (1987), in which she played a 40-year-old woman carrying on a torrid affair with a 15-year-old boy, played by Mathieu Demy, Varda's son. The following year, Varda expressed her admiration for Birkin with the feature-length documentary Jane B. par Agnes V (Agnès Varda, 1988). Birkin’s work in Dust (Marion Hänsel, 1985) with Trevor Howard and Daddy Nostalgie (Bertrand Tavernier, 1990) opposite Dirk Bogarde also earned her the praise and respect of international critics. Additionally, she appeared in Merchant-Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (James Ivory, 1998) and Merci Docteur Rey (Andrew Litvack, 2002) with Dianne Wiest, while the end title song of Le Divorce (James Ivory, 2003) featured her singing 'L'Anamour', composed by Serge Gainsbourg. In 1990 Serge Gainsbourg dedicated a new album to her: 'Amours des feintes'. It was to be his last. He died in 1991. A year later Birkin won the Female Artist of the Year award at the 1992 Victoires de la Musique. In 1993 she separated from Jacques Doillon. In the following years, she devoted herself to her family and to her humanitarian work with Amnesty International on immigrant welfare and AIDS issues. Birkin visited Bosnia, Rwanda, and Palestine, often working with children. In 2001, she was awarded the OBE in Great Britain. She has also been awarded the French Ordre National du Mérite in 2004. Jane Birkin continues to make films, theatre, and music. She collaborated with such artists as Bryan Ferry, Manu Chao, Françoise Hardy, Rufus Wainwright, and Les Negresses Vertes on albums such as 'Rendez-Vous' (2004) and 'Fictions' (2006). The self-penned 'Enfants d'Hiver' arrived in 2008. In 2006, Birkin played the title role in 'Elektra', directed by Philippe Calvario in France. At the Cannes Film Festival 2007, she presented a film, both as a director and actor: Boxes (2007) with Michel Piccoli, Geraldine Chaplin, and her daughter Lou Doillon. She also appeared in Si tu meurs, je te tue/If you die, I’ll kill you (Hiner Saleem, 2011) with Jonathan Zaccaï, and La femme et le TGV/The Railroad Lady (2016), a short film directed by Swiss filmmaker Timo von Gunten. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. In a 2017 interview, Birkin stated that La femme et le TGV would be her final acting performance and that she had no plans to return to acting. In March 2017, Jane Birkin released 'Birkin/Gainsbourg: Le Symphonique', a collection of songs Serge Gainsbourg had written for her during and after their relationship, reworked with full orchestral arrangements. In 2021, she suffered a stroke. Her declining health forced her to cancel performances frequently. Birkin was found dead in her Paris home by her personal nurse on 16 July 2023. She was 76 years old. In January 2022, an intimate and touching documentary about her has been released in French cinemas Jane par Charlotte. It was directed by her daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), John Bush (AllMusic), RFI Musique (now defunct), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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German postcard by Schwules Museum, Berlin, for the exhibition Fabrik der Gefühle. Hommage an Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 2002. Photo: Maximilian Johannsmann / Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) was a German film director, screenwriter, film producer and actor. Fassbinder was part of the New German Cinema movement. Starting at age 21, Fassbinder made over forty films and TV dramas in fifteen years, along with directing numerous plays for the theatre. He also acted in nineteen of his own films as well as for other directors. Fassbinder died in 1982 at the age of 37 from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born in Bavaria in the small town of Bad Wörishofen in 1945. The aftermath of World War II deeply marked his childhood and the lives of his bourgeois family. He was the only child of Liselotte Pempeit, a translator and Helmut Fassbinder, a doctor who worked out of the couple's apartment in Sendlinger Strasse, near Munich's red light district. In 1951, his parents divorced. Helmut moved to Cologne while Liselotte raised her son as a single parent in Munich. In order to support herself and her child, Pempeit took in boarders and found employment as a German to English translator. When she was working, she often sent her son to the cinema in order to concentrate. Later in life, Fassbinder claimed that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. As he was often left alone, he became independent and uncontrollable. He clashed with his mother's younger lover Siggi, who lived with them when Fassbinder was around eight or nine years old. He had a similar difficult relationship with the much older journalist Wolff Eder, who became his stepfather in 1959. Early in his adolescence, Fassbinder identified as homosexual. As a teen, Fassbinder was sent to boarding school. His time there was marred by his repeated escape attempts and he eventually left school before any final examinations. At the age of 15, he moved to Cologne and stayed with his father for a couple of years while attending night school. To earn money, he worked small jobs and helped his father who rented shabby apartments to immigrant workers. Around this time, Fassbinder began writing short plays and stories and poems. In 1963, aged eighteen, Fassbinder returned to Munich with plans to attend night school with the idea to eventually study theatrical science. Following his mother's advice, he took acting lessons and from 1964 to 1966 attended the Fridl-Leonhard Studio for actors in Munich. There, he met Hanna Schygulla, who would become one of his most important actors. During this time, he made his first 8mm films and took on small acting roles, assistant director, and sound man. During this period, he also wrote the tragic-comic play: Drops on Hot Stones. To gain entry to the Berlin Film School, Fassbinder submitted a film version of his play Parallels. He also entered several 8 mm films including This Night (now considered lost) but he was turned down for admission, as were the later film directors Werner Schroeter and Rosa von Praunheim. He returned to Munich where he continued with his writing. He also made two short films, Der Stadtstreicher,/The City Tramp (1965) and Das Kleine Chaos/The Little Chaos (1966). Shot in black and white, they were financed by Fassbinder's lover, Christoph Roser, an aspiring actor, in exchange for leading roles. Fassbinder acted in both of these films which also featured Irm Hermann. In the latter, his mother – under the name of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many parts in her son's films.
In 1967 Rainer Werner Fassbinder joined the Munich Action-Theater, where he was active as an actor, director and script writer. After two months he became the company's leader. In April 1968 Fassbinder directed the premiere production of his play Katzelmacher, the story of a foreign worker from Greece who becomes the object of intense racial, sexual, and political hatred among a group of Bavarian slackers. A few weeks later, in May 1968, the Action-Theater was disbanded after its theatre was wrecked by one of its founders, jealous of Fassbinder's growing power within the group. It promptly reformed as the Anti-Theater under Fassbinder's direction. The troupe lived and performed together. This close-knit group of young actors included among them Fassbinder, Peer Raben, Harry Baer and Kurt Raab, who along with Hanna Schygulla and Irm Hermann became the most important members of his cinematic stock company. Working with the Anti-Theater, Fassbinder continued writing, directing and acting. In the space of eighteen months he directed twelve plays. Of these twelve plays, four were written by Fassbinder; he rewrote five others. The style of his stage directing closely resembled that of his early films, a mixture of choreographed movement and static poses, taking its cues not from the traditions of stage theatre, but from musicals, cabaret, films and the student protest movement. Fassbinder used his theatrical work as a springboard for making films. Shot in black and white with a shoestring budget in April 1969, Fassbinder's first feature-length film, Liebe ist kälter als der Tod/Love is Colder than Death (1969), was a deconstruction of the American gangster films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Fassbinder plays the lead role of Franz, a small-time pimp who is torn between his mistress Joanna, a prostitute (Hanna Schygulla), and his friend Bruno, a gangster sent after Franz by the syndicate that he has refused to join. His second film, Katzelmacher (1969), was received more positively, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. From then on, Fassbinder centered his efforts in his career as film director, but he maintained an intermittent foothold in the theatre until his death. Fassbinder’s first ten films (1969–1971) were an extension of his work in the theatre, shot usually with a static camera and with deliberately unnaturalistic dialogue. Wikipedia: “He was strongly influenced by Brecht's Verfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) and the French New Wave cinema, particularly the works of Jean-Luc Godard.” Fassbinder developed his rapid working methods early. Because he knew his actors and technicians so well, Fassbinder was able to complete as many as four or five films per year on extremely low budgets. This allowed him to compete successfully for the government grants needed to continue making films. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, who started out making films, Fassbinder's stage background was evident throughout his work.
In 1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder took an eight-month break from filmmaking. During this time, Fassbinder turned for a model to Hollywood melodrama, particularly the films German émigré Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood for Universal-International in the 1950s: All That Heaven Allows, Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life. Fassbinder was attracted to these films not only because of their entertainment value, but also for their depiction of various kinds of repression and exploitation. Fassbinder scored his first domestic commercial success with Händler der vier Jahreszeiten/The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971). Loneliness is a common theme in Fassbinder's work, together with the idea that power becomes a determining factor in all human relationships. His characters yearn for love, but seem condemned to exert an often violent control over those around them. A good example is Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant/The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) which was adapted by Fassbinder from his plays. Wildwechsel/Jailbait (1973 is a bleak story of teenage angst, set in industrial northern Germany during the 1950s. Like in many other of his films, Fassbinder analyses lower middle class life with characters who, unable to articulate their feelings, bury them in inane phrases and violent acts. Fassbinder first gained international success with Angst essen Seele auf/Fear Eats the Soul (1974). which won the International Critics Prize at Cannes and was acclaimed by critics everywhere as one of 1974's best films. Fear Eats the Soul was loosely inspired by Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955). It details the vicious response of family and community to a lonely aging white cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) who marries a muscular, much younger black Moroccan immigrant worker. In these films, Fassbinder explored how deep-rooted prejudices about race, sex, sexual orientation, politics and class are inherent in society, while also tackling his trademark subject of the everyday fascism of family life and friendship. He learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theatre management. This versatility surfaced in his films where he served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final films, from around 1977 until his death, were more varied, with international actors sometimes used and the stock company disbanded, although the casts of some films were still filled with Fassbinder regulars. Despair (1978) is based upon the 1936 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, adapted by Tom Stoppard and featuring Dirk Bogarde. It was made on a budget of 6,000,000 DEM, exceeding the total cost of Fassbinder's first fifteen films. In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden/In a Year of Thirteen Moons (1978) is Fassbinder most personal and bleakest work. The film follows the tragic life of Elvira, a transsexual formerly known as Erwin. In the last few days before her suicide, she decides to visit some of the important people and places in her life. Fassbinder became increasingly more idiosyncratic in terms of plot, form and subject matter in films like his greatest success Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Die Dritte Generation/The Third Generation (1979) and Querelle (1982). Returning to his explorations of German history, Fassbinder finally realized his dream of adapting Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). A television series running more than 13 hours, it was the culmination of the director's inter-related themes of love, life, and power. Fassbinder took on the Nazi period with Lili Marleen (1981), an international co production, shot in English and with a large budget. The script was vaguely based on the autobiography of World War II singer Lale Andersen, The Sky Has Many Colors. He articulated his themes in the bourgeois milieu with his trilogy about women in post-fascist Germany: Die Ehe der Maria Braun/The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Lola (1981) and Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss/Veronika Voss (1982), for which he won the Golden Bear at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival. Fassbinder did not live to see the premiere of his last film, Querelle (1982), based on Jean Genet's novel Querelle de Brest. The plot follows the title character, a handsome sailor (Brad Davis) who is a thief and hustler. Frustrated in a homoerotic relationship with his own brother, Querelle betrays those who love him and pays them even with murder.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder had sexual relationships with both men and women. He rarely kept his professional and personal life separate and was known to cast family, friends and lovers in his films. Early in his career, he had a lasting, but fractured relationship with Irm Hermann, a former secretary whom he forced to become an actress. Fassbinder usually cast her in unglamorous roles, most notably as the unfaithful wife in The Merchant of Four Seasons and the silent abused assistant in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. In 1969, while portraying the lead role in the T.V film Baal under the direction of Volker Schlöndorff, Fassbinder met Günther Kaufmann, a black Bavarian actor who had a minor role in the film. Despite the fact that Kaufmann was married and had two children, Fassbinder fell madly in love with him. The two began a turbulent affair which ultimately affected the production of Baal. Fassbinder tried to buy Kaufmann's love by casting him in major roles in his films and buying him expensive gifts. The relationship came to an end when Kaufmann became romantically involved with composer Peer Raben. After the end of their relationship, Fassbinder continued to cast Kaufmann in his films, albeit in minor roles. Kaufmann appeared in fourteen of Fassbinder's films, with the lead role in Whity (1971). Although he claimed to be opposed to matrimony as an institution, in 1970 Fassbinder married Ingrid Caven, an actress who regularly appeared in his films. Their wedding reception was recycled in the film he was making at that time, The American Soldier. Their relationship of mutual admiration survived the complete failure of their two-year marriage. In 1971, Fassbinder began a relationship with El Hedi ben Salem, a Moroccan Berber who had left his wife and five children the previous year, after meeting him at a gay bathhouse in Paris. Over the next three years, Salem appeared in several Fassbinder productions. His best known role was Ali in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). Their three-year relationship was punctuated with jealousy, violence and heavy drug and alcohol use. Fassbinder finally ended the relationship in 1974 due to Salem's chronic alcoholism and tendency to become violent when he drank. Shortly after the breakup, Salem went to France where he was arrested and imprisoned. He hanged himself while in custody in 1977. News of Salem's suicide was kept from Fassbinder for years. He eventually found out about his former lover's death shortly before his own death in 1982 and dedicated his last film, Querelle, to Salem. Fassbinder's next lover was Armin Meier. Meier was a near illiterate former butcher who had spent his early years in an orphanage. He also appeared in several Fassbinder films in this period. After Fassbinder ended the relationship in 1978, Meier deliberately consumed four bottles of sleeping pills and alcohol in the kitchen of the apartment he and Fassbinder had previously shared. His body was found a week later. In the last four years of his life, his companion was Juliane Lorenz), the editor of his films during the last years of his life. On the night of 10 June 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, an unfinished script for a film on Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. His death marked the end of New German Cinema.
Steve Cohn at IMDb: “Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence.”
Sources: Steve Cohn (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
An image of myself as Darla Chandler, a 1960s British pop singer/secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock advertisement with an image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock autographed glossy with an image of myself as Lola Parker, a 1940s Hollywood B-movie starlet from my drama screenplay "Till We Meet Again".
English postcard by Star-Graphics, no. S 140. Photo: Sylvester Stallone as Rocky.
Sylvester Stallone (1946) is an athletically built, dark-haired American actor/screenwriter/director. Film fans worldwide have been flocking to see Stallone's films for over 30 years, making "Sly" one of Hollywood's biggest-ever box office draws.
Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone was born in 1946, in New York's gritty Hell's Kitchen. His parents were Jackie Stallone (née Labofish), an astrologer, and Frank Stallone, an Italian immigrant who worked as a beautician, and hairdresser. After his parents divorced, he moved with his mother and her new husband, a pizza manufacturer, Anthony 'Tony' Filiti, to Philadelphia. His siblings are actor Frank Stallone, half-sister Toni D'Alto, and Dante Stallone. The young Stallone attended the American College of Switzerland and the University of Miami, eventually obtaining a B.A. degree. He was 23 years old when he got his first starring role in the softcore sex film The Party at Kitty and Stud's (Morton M. Lewis, 1970) in which he played the role of Stud 'The Italian Stallion'. He was paid $200 to play the sex-craved gigolo and appeared nude. In 1976, the film was re-released as The Italian Stallion after Sly's success with Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976). In between, he first struggled in small parts in films such as the thriller Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971) starring Jane Fonda, and the comedy Bananas (Woody Allen, 1971). He got a crucial career break alongside fellow young actors Henry Winkler and Perry King, sharing lead billing in the effectively written teen gang film The Lords of Flatbush (Martin Davidson, Stephen Verona, 1974). He also wrote the screenplay for the modestly successful film. Further film and television roles followed, most of them in uninspiring productions except for the opportunity to play a megalomaniac, bloodthirsty race driver named "Machine Gun Joe Viterbo" opposite David Carradine in the Roger Corman-produced Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel, 1975). However, Stallone was also keen to be recognised as a screenwriter, not just an actor, and, inspired by the 1975 Muhammad Ali-Chuck Wepner fight in Cleveland, Stallone wrote a film script about a nobody fighter given the "million to one opportunity" to challenge for the heavyweight title. Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976) became the stuff of cinematic legends, scoring ten Academy Award nominations, winning the Best Picture Award of 1976, and triggering one of the most financially successful film series in history. Whilst full credit is wholly deserved by Stallone, he was duly supported by tremendous acting from fellow cast members Talia Shire, Burgess Meredith, and Burt Young, and director John G. Avildsen gave the film an emotive, earthy appeal from start to finish. Stallone had truly arrived on his terms and offers poured in from various studios eager to secure Hollywood's hottest new star.
Sylvester Stallone followed Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976) with F.I.S.T (Norman Jewison, 1978), loosely based on the life of Teamsters boss "Jimmy Hoffa", and Paradise Alley (Sylvester Stallone, 1978) before pulling on the boxing gloves again to resurrect Rocky Balboa in the sequel Rocky II (Sylvester Stallone, 1979). The second outing for the "Italian Stallion" wasn't as powerful or successful as the first "Rocky", however, it still produced a strong box office. Subsequent films Nighthawks (Bruce Malmuth, 1981) with Rutger Hauer, and Escape to Victory (John Huston, 1981) with Michael Caine and Pelé failed to ignite with audiences, so Stallone was once again lured back to familiar territory with Rocky III (Sylvester Stallone, 1982) and a fearsome opponent in "Clubber Lang" played by muscular ex-bodyguard, Mr. T. The third "Rocky" installment far outperformed the first sequel in box office takings, but Stallone retired his prizefighter for a couple of years as another series was about to commence for the busy actor. The character of Green Beret "John Rambo" was the creation of Canadian-born writer David Morrell, and his novel was adapted to the screen with Stallone in the lead role in First Blood (Ted Kotcheff, 1982), also starring Richard Crenna and Brian Dennehy. The film was a surprise hit that polarised audiences because of its commentary about the Vietnam war, which was still relatively fresh in the American public's psyche. Political viewpoints aside, the film was a worldwide smash, and a sequel soon followed with Rambo: First Blood Part II (George P. Cosmatos, 1985), which drew even stronger criticism from several quarters owing to the film's plotline about American MIAs allegedly being held in Vietnam. But they say there is no such thing as bad publicity, and "John Rambo's" second adventure was a major money-spinner for Stallone and cemented him as one of the top male stars of the 1980s. In between, he did his own singing in Did all of his own singing in Rhinestone (Bob Clark, 1984) with Dolly Parton. Riding a wave of amazing popularity, Stallone called on old sparring partner Rocky Balboa to climb back into the ring to defend American pride against a Soviet threat in the form of a towering Russian boxer named "Ivan Drago" played by curt Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV (Sylvester Stallone, 1985). The fourth outing was somewhat controversial with "Rocky" fans, as violence levels seemed excessive compared to previous "Rocky" films, especially with the savage beating suffered by Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, at the hands of the unstoppable "Siberian Express".
Sylvester Stallone continued forward with a slew of macho character-themed films that met with a mixed reception from his fans. Cobra (George P. Cosmatos, 1986) with his wife Brigitte Nielsen was a clumsy mess, Over the Top (Menahem Golan, 1987) was equally mediocre, Rambo III (Peter MacDonald, 1988) saw Rambo take on the Russians in Afghanistan, and cop buddy film Tango & Cash (Andrey Konchalovskiy, 1989) just did not quite hit the mark, although it did feature a top-notch cast and there was chemistry between Stallone and co-star Kurt Russell. Philadelphia's favourite mythical boxer moved out of the shadows for his fifth screen outing in Rocky V (John G. Avildsen, 1990) tackling Tommy "Machine" Gunn played by real-life heavyweight fighter Tommy Morrison, the great-nephew of screen legend John Wayne. Sly quickly followed with the lukewarm comedy Oscar (John Landis, 1991) with Ornella Muti, the painfully unfunny Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (Roger Spottiswoode, 1992) with "Golden Girl" Estelle Getty, the futuristic action film Demolition Man (Marco Brambilla, 1993) with Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock, and the comic book-inspired Judge Dredd (Danny Cannon, 1995). Interestingly, Stallone then took a departure from the gung-ho steely characters he had been portraying to stack on a few extra pounds and tackle a more dramatically challenging role in the intriguing Cop Land (James Mangold, 1997), also starring Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, and Ray Liotta. It isn't a classic of the genre, but Cop Land (1997) certainly surprised many critics with Stallone's understated performance. He has been nominated a record 30 times for the Golden Raspberry Awards, usually in the "Worst Actor" category, and has won 10 times. The Golden Raspberry Award Foundation awarded him a special "Worst Actor of the Century" award in 2000.
Sylvester Stallone lent his voice to the animated adventure story Antz (Eric Darnell, Tim Johnson, 1998), reprised the role made famous by Michael Caine in a terrible remake of Get Carter (Stephen Kay, 2000), climbed back into a race car for Driven (Renny Harlin, 2001), and guest-starred as the "Toymaker" in the third chapter of the popular "Spy Kids" film series, Spy Kids 3: Game Over (Robert Rodriguez, 2003). in 2005 he published his book 'Sly Moves: My Proven Program to Lose Weight, Build Strength, Gain Will Power, and Live Your Dream'. Showing that age had not wearied his two most popular series, Sylvester Stallone brought back never-say-die boxer Rocky Balboa to star in Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone, 2006), and Vietnam veteran Rambo reappeared after a 20-year hiatus to once again right wrongs in the jungles of Thailand in Rambo (Sylvester Stallone, 2008). Another success was The Expendables (Sylvester Stallone, 2010), abound a band of highly skilled mercenaries played by Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and other 'dinosaurs' from the 1980's action film teamed up with each other. The action film opened at number one at the U.S. box office with a first weekend gross of $35 million. This makes Sylvester Stallone the only person in Hollywood history to have starred in films that have opened atop the box office charts over five consecutive decades. Soon followed the less successful sequels The Expendables 2 (Simon West, 2012) and The Expendables 3 (Patrick Hughes, 2014). In between, he also appeared with Schwarzenegger in Escape Plan (Mikael Håfström, 2013). Stallone got rave reviews, his first Golden Globe, and an Oscar nomination for his role in the sports film Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015) opposite Michael B. Jordan. Once again he played Rocky Balboa who serves as a trainer and mentor to Adonis Johnson, the son of his late friend and former rival Apollo Creed. In 2017, Stallone appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn, 2017) as Stakar Ogord / Starhawk, the leader of a Ravagers faction. Then followed Creed II (Steven Caple Jr., 2018) and Rambo: Last Blood (Adrian Grunberg, 2019). The latter film grossed $91 million worldwide against a production budget of $50 million. Sylvester Stallone married three times. His first wife was Sasha Czack (1974-1985) with whom he has two children: Sage and Seargeoh Stallone. Sage acted with Sylvester in Rocky V (1990) and Daylight (1996) and was found dead in 2012 in Los Angeles. From 1985 till 1987, Sly was married to Danish actress Brigitte Nielsen. Since 1997, he is married to Jennifer Flavin, with whom he has three children: Sophia Rose, Sistine Rose, and Scarlet Rose Stallone. Firehouse at IMDb: "Love him or loathe him, Sylvester Stallone has built an enviable and highly respected career in Hollywood, plus, he has considerably influenced modern popular culture through several of his iconic film characters."
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Mock advertisement with an image of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
Mock magazine cover from 1963 with an image of myself as Edith Taylor, a 1960s British aristocrat and mod fashion model from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
The guest bedroom of screenwriter Adam Herz’s Hollywood Hills home, decorated by Peter Dunham. Dunham designed the fabric for the vintage canopy bed and vintage love seat (the latter is upholstered in Fig Leaf from Hollywood at Home, hollywoodathome.com). The vintage bamboo chests are from Orange Furniture (orangefurniture.com); the ceramic lamps are also vintage. The ‘Gotham’ carpet is sold to the trade by Patterson, Flynn & Martin; the photograph of Elizabeth Taylor is by Yul Brynner, from Hollywood at Home.
Photo by Grey Crawford, Elle Décor, November 2008.
Costume and set designer, artistic director, screenwriter, producer, actress, fashion designer, but best known for her brief marriage to Rudolph Valentino from 1923-1925.
There was much more to Rambova than her relationship with Valentino. From Wikipedia:
Natacha Rambova (born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy; January 19, 1897 – June 5, 1966) was an American film costume designer, set designer, and occasional actress who was active in Hollywood in the 1920s. In her later life, she abandoned design to pursue other interests, specifically Egyptology, a subject on which she became a published scholar in the 1950s.
I keep talking about the new Israeli emigrants who fled Russia from the war
Anya, Ignatius and Daniel (behind the scenes his wife Lisa)
Anna is in pre-war life a journalist, screenwriter, editor
Ignatius is lifeguard
Daniil is sound engineer at the theater "CIM" (Center named after V. Meyerhold)
Anna and Ignatius arrived in Israel in July 2022. Anya received citizenship back in 2018, but due to family reasons, she immediately left, thinking of returning in a year.
The coronavirus epidemic began. It seemed wrong to go to Israel at this time. The coronavirus ended instantly, exactly with the outbreak of war on February 24, 2022.
They began to pack their bags and prepare documents after Ignatius and his colleagues were offered (so far on a voluntary basis) to work in Mariupol, which by that time was occupied by Russian troops.
For Ignatius, this was completely unacceptable.
The guys have not yet settled down in the country, there are many difficulties, but they are slowly adapting, although there are still more questions than answers.
They cannot work in their field. Ignatius sometimes teaches a course on behavior in emergency situations at trainings organized, among other things, by one of the foundations for supporting independent journalism.
It is clear that it is necessary to master new specialties and acquire some skills that are in demand in Israel, and this is what they are doing now.
Daniel is the eldest son of Ignat. He and his wife Lisa (now she is in Moscow, collecting documents to bring cats to their new homeland) arrived in Israel in March 2022. It took almost six months to obtain citizenship.
Now Daniil works with sound equipment (installs, adjusts), but he hopes that he will work in the theater in his specialty.
I went on a short trip with them the other day. It took a whole day, with a picnic on the side of the road, a walk around the mountain and various interesting talking. Ignatius told how people are rescued from helicopters in different countries. At the very moment when we passed along a narrow rocky path.
So many interesting, wonderful, smart, subtle and simply good people were squeezed out by a country that no longer needs them.
Images of myself as Chantal Thierry, a 1960s French secret agent from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
French postcard by BS, no. 31, 2005. French poster for Le Mépris/Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: Pierre Okley, 1963.
Jean-Luc Godard (1930) is a French film director and screenwriter. He is one of the most important members of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). Godard first received global acclaim for his feature À bout de souffle/Breathless (1959), helping to establish the New Wave movement. Godard's films have inspired many directors including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Wong Kar-wai. He has been married twice, to actresses Anna Karina and Anne Wiazemsky, both of whom starred in several of his films.
Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris in 1930. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. The family returned to Switzerland during World War II. In 1949 he started studying ethnology at the Sorbonne. During this period he got to know François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Éric Rohmer. In 1950 he started a film newspaper 'Gazette du cinéma' with Rivette and Rohmer and collaborated on their films. In January 1952 he started writing for the film magazine 'Les cahiers du cinéma', which had been founded the year before by André Bazin. In 1953 he worked as a construction worker at a dam in Switzerland. With the money he earned, he made his first film, Opération Béton/Operation Concrete, a short documentary film about the construction of the dam. In 1956 he returned to France and resumed his work at Cahiers. During that time he made several short comedies and tributes to Mack Sennett and Jean Cocteau. In 1959 he directed his first feature film, À bout de souffle/Breathless (1960), based on a screenplay by François Truffaut. This film played a key role in the birth of the Nouvelle Vague. It broke with many then prevailing conventions, with its references and influences from the American (gangster) film, the low budget, and the rough editing. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg starred and the film was a huge success with audiences and critics. Godard won the Silver Bear for this film at the Berlin Film Festival 1960. Jean Seberg was nominated for a BAFTA Award. That year Godard also married Anna Karina, who would appear in many of his films. In 1964 they formed a production company, Anouchka Films. They divorced in 1965.
In 1961 Jean-Luc Godard made his first colour film, the comedy Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (1961) starring Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, and Jean-Paul Belmondo. It is a tribute to American musical comedy, filmed in cinemascope. Godard proved to be very productive during those years. His first flop, the war film Les Carabiniers/The Carabineers (1963), was a tribute to Jean Vigo. That year he also made one of his greatest successes, Le Mépris/Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, and Fritz Lang. Then followed Bande à part/Band of Outsiders (1964) with Anna Karina and Sami Frey, Pierrot le fou/Crazy Pierrot (1965) with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, and the Science-Fiction film Alphaville/Alphaville: A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution (1965) with Eddie Constantine. The film won the Golden Bear award of the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965. Other films from those years were Masculin, feminin (1966) with Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Week-end (1967) with Mireille Darc. Around the student uprisings of 1968, Godard became interested in Maoism. At that time he started an experimental political phase, which lasted until 1980. In the summer of 1968, together with Jean-Pierre Gorin, among others, he founded the Dziga Vertov Group, which wanted to make "political films political". Some films from that time are Le Gai Savoir (1968), Pravda and One Plus One/Sympathy for the Devil (1968), the latter of which includes a unique recording of the studio build-up by the Rolling Stones of the classic Sympathy for the Devil. In 1972 he made Tout va bien (1972), with Jane Fonda and Yves Montand in the lead roles, followed by Letter to Jane, a film about a photograph of Jane Fonda, which Gorin and Godard discuss. In 1972 he also met Anne-Marie Miéville, his later wife, with whom he made many films. This phase ended in 1980.
After twelve years of low budget, militant left-wing, and otherwise experimental film and video projects outside of commercial distribution, Jean-Luc Godard's first film that was more mainstream and accessible again was the drama Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself (1980) with Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, and Nathalie Baye. His films after that time are more autobiographical. For example, in Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Every Man for Himself there was a character named Godard. In 1982 and 1983 he made three related films Passion (1982), Prénom Carmen (1983) and Je vous salue, Marie (1984). The latter film was dismissed as blasphemy by the Catholic Church. The film King Lear (1987), which he made with Norman Mailer, also caused controversy. It was a bizarre postmodern take on the Shakespeare play, with theatre director Peter Sellars as a descendant of Shakespeare, Burgess Meredith as the mobster Don Learo, Jean-Luc Godard as the professor, and Woody Allen as a character called Mr. Alien. Not entirely coincidentally, Mr. Alien was also nicknamed Jean-Luc Godard. From 1989 to 1998, he made the series Histoire(s) du Cinéma, about the twentieth century and the history of film. His most recent film is the avantgarde essay Le Livre d'image/The Image Book (2018).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56544. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne. Harold Lloyd in Hot Water (Sam Taylor, Fred Newmeyer, 1924) by Harold Lloyd Corporation and Pathé Exchange.
American actor, comedian, director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer Harold Lloyd (1893-1971) is best known for his silent comedies. He ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the three most popular and influential comedians of the silent film. Between 1914 and 1947, Lloyd made nearly 200 comedies, often as a bespectacled 'Glass' character, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s-era United States. His films frequently contained 'thrill sequences' of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats. A classic is Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in Safety Last! (1923).
Harold Clayton Lloyd was born in 1893 in Burchard, Nebraska, the son of James Darsie Lloyd and Sarah Elisabeth Fraser. In 1910, after his father had several business ventures fail, Lloyd's parents divorced and his father moved with his son to San Diego, California. Lloyd had acted in theatre since a child, and in San Diego he received his stage training at the School of Dramatic Art and began acting in one-reel film comedies around 1912. Lloyd worked with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and his first role was a bit part as a Yaqui Indian in The Old Monk's Tale (J. Searle Dawley, 1913). At the age of 20, Lloyd moved to Los Angeles and took up roles in several Keystone comedies. He was also hired by Universal Studios as an extra. Lloyd began collaborating with his friend Hal Roach who had formed his own studio in 1913. They created Will E. Work and then Lonesome Luke, variations of Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp character. In 1914, Lloyd hired Bebe Daniels as a supporting actress. The two were involved romantically and were known as The Boy and The Girl. In 1919, she left him after it became apparent he was unable to make a commitment, and she pursued her dramatic aspirations. Later that year, Lloyd replaced Daniels with Mildred Davis, whom he would marry in 1923. By 1918, Lloyd and Roach had begun to develop a new character beyond an imitation of his contemporaries. Harold Lloyd would move away from tragicomic personas and portray an everyman with unwavering confidence and optimism. The persona Lloyd referred to as his 'Glass' character was a much more mature comedy character with greater potential for sympathy and emotional depth, and was easy for audiences of the time to identify with. To create his new character Lloyd donned a pair of lensless horn-rimmed eyeglasses but wore normal clothing. Previously, he had worn a fake mustache and ill-fitting clothes as the Chaplinesque Lonesome Luke. In August 1919, while posing for some promotional still photographs in the Los Angeles Witzel Photography Studio, he was seriously injured holding a prop bomb thought merely to be a smoke pot. It exploded and mangled his right hand, causing him to lose a thumb and forefinger. The blast was severe enough that the cameraman and prop director nearby were also seriously injured. Lloyd was in the act of lighting a cigarette from the fuse of the bomb when it exploded, also badly burning his face and chest and injuring his eye. Despite the proximity of the blast to his face, he retained his sight.
Beginning in 1921, Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach moved from shorts to feature-length comedies. These included the acclaimed Grandma's Boy, which pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the highly popular Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1923), which cemented Lloyd's stardom, and Why Worry? (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1923). Lloyd and Roach parted ways in 1924, and Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films. These included his most accomplished mature features Girl Shy (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1924), The Freshman (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1923) - his highest-grossing silent feature, The Kid Brother (Ted Wilde, J.A. Howe, 1927), and Speedy (Ted Wilde, 1928), his final silent film. Welcome Danger (Clyde Bruckman, 1929) was originally a silent film but Lloyd decided late in the production to remake it with dialogue. All of these films were enormously successful and profitable, and Lloyd would eventually become the highest-paid film performer of the 1920s. Although Lloyd's individual films were not as commercially successful as Chaplin's on average, he was far more prolific (releasing 12 feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million). The huge financial success of Welcome Danger had proved that audiences were eager to hear Lloyd's voice on film. Lloyd's rate of film releases, which had been one or two a year in the 1920s, slowed to about one every two years until 1938. The films released during this period were: Feet First (Clyde Bruckman, 1930), with a similar scenario to Safety Last which found him clinging to a skyscraper at the climax; Movie Crazy (Clyde Bruckman, 1932) with Constance Cummings; The Cat's-Paw (Sam Taylor, 1934), which was a dark political comedy and a big departure for Lloyd; and The Milky Way (Leo McCarey, 1936), which was Lloyd's only attempt at the fashionable genre of the screwball comedy film. However, his go-getting screen character was out of touch with the Great Depression movie audiences of the 1930s. As the length of time between his film releases increased, his popularity declined, as did the fortunes of his production company. His final film of the decade, Professor Beware (Elliott Nugent, 1938), was made by the Paramount staff, with Lloyd functioning only as an actor and partial financier.
In 1937, Harold Lloyd sold the land of his studio, Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The location is now the site of the Los Angeles California Temple. Lloyd produced two comedies for RKO, A Girl, a Guy, and a Gob (Richard Wallace, 1941) with Lucille Ball, and a Kay Kyser vehicle, My Favorite Spy (Tay Garnett, 1942) which must have looked good on paper but went nowhere at the box office. He retired from the screen until an additional starring appearance in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (Preston Sturges, 1947), an ill-fated homage to Lloyd's career, financed by Howard Hughes. This film had the inspired idea of following Harold's Jazz Age, optimistic character from The Freshman into the Great Depression years. Diddlebock opened with footage from The Freshman (for which Lloyd was paid a royalty of $50,000, matching his actor's fee) and Lloyd was sufficiently youthful-looking to match the older scenes quite well. Lloyd and Sturges had different conceptions of the material and fought frequently during the shoot. The finished film was released briefly in 1947, then shelved by producer Hughes. Hughes issued a recut version of the film in 1951 through RKO under the title Mad Wednesday. Lloyd sued Howard Hughes, the California Corporation and RKO for damages to his reputation "as an outstanding motion picture star and personality", eventually accepting a $30,000 settlement. In October 1944, Lloyd emerged as the director and host of The Old Gold Comedy Theater, an NBC radio anthology series, after Preston Sturges, who had turned the job down, recommended him for it. The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, beginning with Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young and ending in June 1945 with an adaptation of Tom, Dick and Harry, featuring June Allyson. The show was not renewed for the following season.
Harold Lloyd remained involved in a number of other interests, including civic and charity work. He appeared as himself on several television shows during his retirement, such as Ed Sullivan's variety show Toast of the Town (1949 and 1958). He appeared as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? (1953), and twice on This Is Your Life: in 1954 for Mack Sennett, and again in 1955, on his own episode. In 1953, Lloyd received an Academy Honorary Award for being a "master comedian and good citizen". He studied colors and microscopy and was very involved with photography, including 3D photography and colour film experiments. He became known for his nude photographs of models, such as Bettie Page and stripper Dixie Evans, for a number of men's magazines. He also took photos of Marilyn Monroe lounging at his pool in a bathing suit, which were published after her death. In 2004, his granddaughter Suzanne produced a book of selections from his photographs, Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D! Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and particularly Jack Lemmon, whom Harold declared as his own choice to play him in a movie of his life and work. In the early 1960s, Lloyd produced two compilation films, featuring scenes from his old comedies, Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy (Harold Lloyd, 1962) and The Funny Side of Life (Harry Kerwin, 1963). The first film was premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, where Lloyd was fêted as a major rediscovery. The renewed interest in Lloyd helped restore his status among film historians. Lloyd and Mildred Davis had two children together: Gloria Lloyd (1923–2012) and Harold Clayton Lloyd Jr. (1931–1971). They also adopted Gloria Freeman (1924–1986) in 1930, whom they renamed Marjorie Elizabeth Lloyd but was known as Peggy for most of her life. Lloyd discouraged Davis from continuing her acting career. He later relented but by that time her career momentum was lost. Davis died from a heart attack in 1969, two years before Lloyd died at age 77 from prostate cancer, at his Greenacres home in Beverly Hills, California. He was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. In 1990, Kevin Brownlow and David Gill produced the documentary, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius. Composer Carl Davis wrote a new score for Safety Last! which he performed live during a showing of the film with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to great acclaim in 1993. The Brownlow and Gill documentary created a renewed interest in Lloyd's work in the United States, but the films were largely unavailable. Criterion Collection has since acquired the home video rights to the Lloyd library, and have released Safety Last!, The Freshman, and Speedy.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
An image of myself as Donatella Marcovicci, an Italian model from my "Absolutely Smashing" franchise.
French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris, no. CF 32. Photo: Pierre Zucca. François Truffaut and Nathalie Baye in La Nuit Américaine (François Truffaut, 1973).
François Truffaut (1932-1984) was one of the most popular and successful French filmmakers ever. The French film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic was one of the founders of the Nouvelle Vague, and his main themes were passion, women, childhood, and faithfulness. He created such classics as Les quatre cents coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Jules et Jim (1961) and La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night (1973). His life and films were mixed up, and one of his quotes is "Cinema is an improvement on life".
François Roland Truffaut was born in 1932 in Paris. He was the son of Jeanine de Montferrand. His mother's future husband, Roland Truffaut, accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. An only child, he saw little of his working parents during his childhood. François was raised by his maternal grandmother. His grandmother instilled in him her love of books and music. He lived with his grandmother until her death when Truffaut was eight years old, and he returned to his parents. He began to go to the cinema. Cinema offered Truffaut the greatest escape from an unsatisfying home life. He was also a great reader but not a good pupil. He frequently skipped school and sneaked into cinemas because he lacked the money for admission. As a teenager, he was involved in petty theft and incidences of violence. François left school at 14 and started teaching himself. Two of his academic goals were to watch three films a day and read three books a week. Truffaut frequented Henri Langlois's Cinémathèque Française, where he was exposed to countless foreign films. He became familiar with American cinema and directors such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Nicholas Ray. In 1947, aged 15, he founded a film club and met André Bazin, a French critic, who became his protector. Bazin helped Truffaut out of various financial and criminal situations. In 1950, he enlisted in the French army, hoping to be assigned to the film branch, but he was assigned first to Germany and then to Indochina as an artilleryman. He deserted the army and was put in jail. Again, Bazin came to the rescue and used his political contacts to get Truffaut released and set him up with a job at his new film magazine, Cahiers du cinéma. In 1953, Truffaut published his first film critiques in this magazine, and Truffaut became a defender of Bazin's 'auteur theory'. In 1954, Truffaut wrote an article in Cahiers du cinéma, 'Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français' (A Certain Trend of French Cinema), in which he attacked the state of French films, lambasting certain screenwriters and producers. His less positive film reviews could be quite brutal and unforgiving. Years later, when some of his reviews were published in book format, the director attempted to omit his more savage reviews. The article caused a storm of controversy and landed Truffaut an offer to write for the nationally circulated, more widely read cultural weekly Arts-Lettres-Spectacles. Truffaut wrote more than 500 film articles for that publication over the next four years. In 1954, Truffaut also directed his first short film, Une Visite/A Visit (1955). Then, he assisted Roberto Rossellini with some later abandoned projects. 1957 was an important year for him. He married Madeleine Morgenstern, the daughter of an important film distributor. He also founded his own production company, Les Films du Carrosse, named after Jean Renoir's Le carrosse d'or/The Golden Coach (1952). He directed the short film Les mistons/The Mischief Makers (1957), with Gérard Blain and Bernadette Lafont. It is considered the real first step of his cinematographic work. Another big year for him was 1959. It was the year that his first daughter, Laura Truffaut, was born. And his first full-length film was released, the tender, semi-autobiographical Les quatre cents coups/The 400 Blows (1959). The young Jean-Pierre Léaud played Antoine Donel, who gradually descends into petty crime. The film became a huge success, and Truffaut won the Best Director award at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival. Les quatre cents coups was one of the first highlights of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave). This movement gave directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette a wider audience. The New Wave dealt with a self-conscious rejection of traditional cinema structure.
François Truffaut followed Antoine Doinel, the lead character in Les quatre cents coups/The 400 Blows (1959), from boyhood to adulthood through five films, all starring Jean-Pierre Léaud. The second film was the short Antoine et Colette/Antoine Antoine and Colette (1962). It was made for the anthology film L'amour à 20 ans/Love at Twenty (1962), which also featured shorts from the renowned directors Shintarô Ishihara, Marcel Ophüls, Renzo Rossellini, and Andrzej Wajda. The third film in the series is the feature Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968). In this film, Antoine begins his relationship with Christine Darbon (Claude Jade), which is depicted further in the last two films in the series, Domicile conjugal/Bed & Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979). Truffaut had a disagreement with his family over the content of some of his films. His family felt that the more autobiographical details represented them in a negative and false light. Unfortunately, the tensions between them remained for the rest of Truffaut's life. Very popular and highly influential was Truffaut's third film, Jules and Jim (1962). Set around the time of World War I, it describes a tragic love triangle involving French Bohemian Jim (Henri Serre), his shy Austrian friend Jules (Oskar Werner), and Jules's girlfriend and later wife Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). Truffaut's other notable films of the 1960s include La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964), Truffaut's first non-French film Fahrenheit 451 (1966) with Julie Christie, and L'Enfant sauvage/The Wild Child (1970), which included Truffaut's acting debut in the lead role of 18th-century physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard. One of his best films is La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night (1973), starring Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, and Truffaut himself. It is the story of a film crew trying to finish a film while dealing with the personal and professional problems that accompany filmmaking. "La Nuit américaine" (American Night) is the French name for the filmmaking process whereby sequences filmed outdoors in daylight are shot with a filter over the camera lens. In English, the technique is called "day for night". The film earned Truffaut the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Later highlights include the historical drama L'Histoire d'Adèle H./The Story of Adèle H. (1975) with Isabelle Adjani, another historical drama Le Dernier Métro/The Last Metro (1980) which starred Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu and garnered 10 Césars, including Best Director, and La Femme d'à côté/The Woman Next Door (1981), the story of a fatal romance between a loving husband (Gérard Depardieu) and the attractive woman (Fanny Ardant) who moves in next door. François Truffaut died of a brain tumor in 1984 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, and is buried in the Montmartre cemetery in Paris, France. He was married to Madeleine Morgenstern from 1957 till their divorce in 1965. They had two children, Laura Truffaut (1959) and Eva Truffaut (1961). He had long-term relationships with the actresses Claude Jade and Fanny Ardant. With Ardant, he had a daughter, Josephine Truffaut (1982).
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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