View allAll Photos Tagged divis
Waiuta (near Reefton), West Coast, South Island
Joseph Divis emigrated to New Zealand in 1909 from Bohemia. Already an experienced miner, he also took photographs to supplement his income.
Although living and working in different mining towns over the years, he eventually settled in the isolated goldmining town of Waiuta in 1930.
Many images taken by Divis can be identified because he appears in them: by using a shutter time release, he could set up the shot and then quickly get himself into position. Divis chronicled the town, the mine and important social events, capturing the essence of the hard life of a miner.
Joseph was injured in the Blackwater Mine in 1939 and never worked again. During WWII, he was interned as an enemy alien, and his health declined in captivity. When he returned to Waiuta in 1943, he was only able to move about on crutches.
After the Blackwater Mine closed in 1951, Divis was one of the few residents who decided to stay in Waiuta. Most of the houses were removed and, within a few years, Waiuta was a ghost town. The photographer/miner passed away in 1967, and his house gradually deteriorates...
Italian postcard in the Divi del Cinema Series by Vetta Traldi, Milano, no. 12. Sent by mail in 1955.
American film star Lizabeth Scott (1922-2015) starred as the bad girl - or the good girl gone bad - in hard-boiled Film Noirs like The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck, Dead Reckoning (1947) with Humphrey Bogart, and I Walk Alone (1948) opposite Burt Lancaster. With her blonde hair, smouldering eyes and her deep smoky voice, she was a sultry femme fatale in a world of crime, tough talk and dark secrets. Of her 22 feature films, she was the leading lady in all but one. In addition to stage and radio, she appeared on television from the late 1940s to the early 1970s.
Lizabeth Scott was born Emma Matzo in 1922, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where her parents, John Matzo and Mary (nee Pennock), had a grocery store. Despite her parents’ opposition to an acting career, she went to the Alviene Master School of the Theatre and Academy of Cultural Arts in New York in her late teens. Here she adopted the stage name of Elizabeth Scott. She landed a small role in a touring company of the hit stage comedy Hellzapoppin'. Back in New York, unable to get an acting job, she landed work as a fashion model with Harper’s Bazaar at $25 an hour. In 1942, she got a small part in the original Broadway production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. Scott also understudied Tallulah Bankhead, who played the lead role. The tempestuous Bankhead, who did not get along with Scott, stubbornly never missed a performance. In Boston Scott finally got to play the lead role, taking over from Miriam Hopkins. She decided to remove the 'E' from Elizabeth Scott to be more distinctive. It would be either this performance or a four-picture spread in an issue of Harper’s Bazaar (the sources differ about this) that led to a long-term Hollywood contract with Hal Wallis, who had his own producing organisation through Paramount Studios. Scott": It was off-season on Broadway and since I wasn’t able to find a job there, I thought it might be a good experience to come to Hollywood and find out what it was all about.” Wallis introduced his 22-year-old discovery as “beautiful, blonde, aloof and alluring”. Scott's film debut was the comedy-drama You Came Along (John Farrow, 1945) opposite Robert Cummings. In her second film, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946), she played a young woman wrongly jailed, opposite Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas and Van Heflin. She made more of an impression in Dead Reckoning (John Cromwell, 1947) as a gangster’s wife, almost luring Humphrey Bogart into her corruptive trap. Her mysterious character was shot in oblique angles and low-key lighting. Stylishly dressed by Edith Head, she played the good girl gone bad becoming good again in the melodrama Desert Fury (Lewis Allen, 1947). Billed as “the blonde with the brown voice”, Scott played a nightclub singer in I Walk Alone (Byron Haskin, 1948), also starring Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster. She was more decadent than ever in Too Late for Tears (Byron Haskin, 1949), having killed two husbands because she wanted “to move out of the ranks of the middle-class poor”. Scott was her own woman in the world of hard-boiled film crime. Ronald Bergan at The Observer: "Scott was strong and sultry, her heavy dark eyebrows contrasting with her blonde hair. Like [Lauren] Bacall, she had a low and husky voice, but she was far harder; in fact, she was able to suggest hidden depths of depravity – the ideal femme fatale of the 1940s."
In her films, Lizabeth Scott made some memorable quotes. In Pitfall (André De Toth, 1948), she described herself to Dick Powell as "a girl whose first engagement ring was bought by a man stupid enough to embezzle and stupid enough to get caught." In The Racket (John Cromwell, 1951), she asked Robert Mitchum: "Who said I was an honest citizen, and where would it get me if I was?" In another Film Noir, Dark City (William Dieterle, 1950), she is a nightclub singer again who drifts on the edges of a shadowy criminal world, though her love for a gambler (Charlton Heston in his Hollywood debut ) is uplifting. Heston and Scott were reunited for Bad for Each Other (Irving Rapper, 1953). She played several similar roles of a woman willing to change her louche ways but doomed to find a worthwhile man to love her only when she had already passed the point of redemption. After several years of making one Film Noir after another — sometimes at a pace of two or three in a year — Scott was ready for a change. She got it in the comedy Scared Stiff (George Marshall, 1953), starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. In September 1954, a front-page story in the magazine Confidential claimed that Scott was a lesbian and was linked to “the little black books kept by Hollywood prostitutes”. It was also said that on a trip to Paris, she had taken up with Frédérique 'Frédé' Baulé, manager of Carroll's, an upper-class, cabaret-type nightclub in Paris. One of the owners was Marlene Dietrich. Two months before the issue's printed publication, her lawyer had instituted a $ 2.5m suit against Confidential, accusing the magazine of “holding the plaintiff up to contempt and ridicule and implying in the eyes of every reader indecent, unnatural and illegal conduct in her private and public life”. Scott lost her suit on a technicality, however, and, given the witch-hunting atmosphere of the times, the case certainly harmed her. Compounding her plight was her rebellious nature, having never paid conventional homage to the film establishment and to gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. In 1955, Scott went to Great Britain to film The Weapon (Val Guest, 1957). As with other European films of the 1950s- 1970s period aimed at a US audience, Scott starred with another American actor, Steve Cochran, who played US Army CID officer Mark Andrews. Scott also played a publicity woman in the Elvis Presley vehicle Loving You (Hal Kanter, 1957). In 1957, she also released an album of torch songs and romantic ballads titled 'Lizabeth'. She had a few TV roles in the 1960s. Her last credited movie appearance was as a man-eating cougar in Pulp (Mike Hodges, 1972), a sendup of the Film Noir starring Michael Caine. One of her ex-husbands in the film is played by Mickey Rooney. Scott lived quietly in Hollywood, sometimes accepting invitations to attend film festivals and other events. In a 1996 interview with documentary filmmaker Carole Langer, Scott said she had liked the grittiness of Film Noir and didn't lament the fact that she wasn't cast in studio blockbusters: "The films that I had seen growing up were always, boy meets girl, the boy ends up marrying girl, they go off into the sunset," Scott said. After the war, films got more in touch with "the psychological, emotional things that people feel and people do. It was a new realm, and it was very exciting because suddenly you were coming closer and closer to reality." Lizabeth Scott died in 2015 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 92. The cause was congestive heart failure, said her long-time friend Mary Goodstein. Scott's survivors include her brother Gus Matzo and sister Justine Birdsall.
Sources David Colker (Los Angeles Times), Ronald Bergan (The Observer), Mike Barnes (Hollywood Reporter), Variety, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard in the Divi del Cinema series by Vetta Traldi, Milano, no. 102.
Gene Kelly (1912-1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likable characters that he played on screen. He starred in, choreographed, or co-directed some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s until they fell out of fashion in the late 1950s. Kelly is best known today for his performances in films such as Anchors Aweigh (1945), On the Town (1949), which was his directorial debut, An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Brigadoon (1954), and It's Always Fair Weather (1955).
Eugene Curran Kelly was born in 1912 in the East Liberty neighbourhood of Pittsburgh. He was the third son of James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman, and his wife, Harriet Catherine Curran. By the time he decided to dance, he was an accomplished sportsman and able to defend himself. He attended St. Raphael Elementary School in the Morningside neighbourhood of Pittsburgh and graduated from Peabody High School at age 16. He entered Pennsylvania State College as a journalism major, but after the 1929 crash, he left school and found work to help his family financially. He created dance routines with his younger brother Fred to earn prize money in local talent contests. They also performed in local nightclubs. In 1931, Kelly enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh to study economics. His family opened a dance studio in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh. In 1932, they renamed it the Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance and opened a second location in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1933. Kelly served as a teacher at the studio during his undergraduate and law student years at Pitt. Kelly eventually decided to pursue a career as a dance teacher and full-time entertainer, so he dropped out of law school after two months. In 1937, having successfully managed and developed the family's dance-school business, he finally moved to New York City in search of work as a choreographer. His first Broadway assignment, in 1938, was as a dancer in Cole Porter's 'Leave It to Me!' Kelly's first big breakthrough was in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 'The Time of Your Life' (1939), in which, for the first time on Broadway, he danced to his own choreography. In 1940, he got the lead role in Rodgers and Hart's 'Pal Joey', choreographed by Robert Alton. This role propelled him to stardom. Offers from Hollywood began to arrive.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in Hollywood when Gene Kelly arrived in town in 1941. There he made his film debut with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley, 1942). The film was a production of the Arthur Freed unit at MGM and it was one of the big hits of the year. The talent pool at MGM was especially large during World War II when Hollywood was a refuge for many musicians and others in the performing arts of Europe who were forced to flee the Nazis. Kelly's film debut was followed by Cole Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady (Roy Del Ruth, 1943) with Lucille Ball, the morale booster Thousands Cheer (George Sidney, 1943), Cover Girl (Charles Vidor, 1944) opposite Rita Harworth, and Anchors Aweigh (George Sidney, 1945) with Frank Sinatra. MGM gave him a free hand to devise a range of dance routines for the latter, including his duets with Sinatra and the celebrated animated dance with Jerry Mouse—the animation for which was supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Anchors Aweigh became one of the most successful films of 1945 and Kelly was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Kelly collaborated with Fred Astaire, for whom he had the greatest admiration, in 'The Babbitt and the Bromide' challenge dance routine. He co-starred with Judy Garland in The Pirate (1948) which gave full rein to Kelly's athleticism. It features Kelly's work with the Nicholas Brothers—the leading black dancers of their day—in a virtuoso dance routine. Now regarded as a classic, the film was ahead of its time but flopped at the box office. Kelly made his debut as a director with On the Town (1949), for Arthur Freed. Stanley Donen, brought to Hollywood by Kelly to be his assistant choreographer, received co-director credit for On the Town. A breakthrough in the musical film genre, it has been described as "the most inventive and effervescent musical thus far produced in Hollywood."
Two musicals secured Gene Kelly's reputation as a major figure in American musical film. First, he directed and starred in An American in Paris (1951) with Leslie Caron. The highlight of the film is the seventeen-minute ballet sequence set to the title song written by George Gershwin and choreographed by Kelly. The sequence cost a half-million dollars (U.S.) to make in 1951 dollars. Kelly's many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical, and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences. In 1952, he received an Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements, the same year An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Probably the most admired of all film musicals is his next film, Singin' in the Rain (1952). As co-director, lead star, and choreographer, Kelly was the central driving force and unforgettable is Kelly's celebrated and much-imitated solo dance routine to the title song. Kelly continued his string of classic Hollywood musicals with Brigadoon (1954) with Cyd Charisse, and It's Always Fair Weather (1955), co-directed with Donen. The latter was a musical satire on television and advertising and includes his roller-skate dance routine to I Like Myself, and a dance trio with Michael Kidd and Dan Dailey that Kelly used to experiment with the widescreen possibilities of Cinemascope. Next followed Kelly's last musical film for MGM, Les Girls (1957), in which he partnered with a trio of leading ladies, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg. It, too, sold a few movie tickets. Dale O'Connor at IMDb: "Kelly was in the same league as Fred Astaire, but instead of a top hat and tails Kelly wore work clothes that went with his masculine, athletic dance style." He finally made for MGM The Happy Road (1957), set in his beloved France, his first foray in a new role as producer-director-actor. After leaving MGM, Kelly returned to stage work.
After musicals got out of fashion, Gene Kelly starred in two films outside the musical genre: Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer, 1960) with Spencer Tracey and Fredric March, and What a Way to Go! (1964). In 1967, he appeared in the French musical comedy Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967) opposite Catherine Deneuve. It was a box-office success in France and was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music and Score of a Musical Picture. Kelly directed films without a collaborator, including the bedroom-farce comedy A Guide for the Married Man (1967) starring Walter Matthau, and the musical Hello, Dolly! (1969) starring Barbra Streisand and Matthau. The latter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He appeared as one of many special narrators in the surprise hit That's Entertainment! (Jack Haley Jr., 1974). The compilation film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The film turned the spotlight on MGM's legacy of musical films from the 1920s through the 1950s. Kelly subsequently directed and co-starred with his friend Fred Astaire in the sequel That's Entertainment, Part II (Gene Kelly, 1976). It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire—who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired—into performing a series of song-and-dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for the glory days of the American musical film. It was later followed by That's Dancing! (Jack Haley Jr., 1985), and That's Entertainment, Part III (Bud Friedgen, Michael J. Sheridan, 1994). Kelly received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors (1982) and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute. In 1999, the American Film Institute also ranked him as the 15th greatest male screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Gene Kelly passed away in 1996 at the age of 83 in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. His final film project was the animated film Cats Don't Dance, not released until 1997, on which Kelly acted as an uncredited choreographic consultant. It was dedicated to his memory. Gene Kelly was married three times: to actress Betsy Blair (1941-1957), Jeanne Coyne (1960- her death in 1973) , and Patricia Ward (1990- his death in 1996).
Sources: Dale O'Connor (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Italian postcard in the series Divi del Cinema by Vetta Traldi, Milano, no 232.
Voluptuous American actress Mamie Van Doren (1931) was a sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s. Van Doren starred in several exploitation films such as Untamed Youth (1957), loaded with rock 'n' roll and juvenile delinquency. Her onscreen wardrobe usually consisted of tight sweaters, low-cut blouses, form-fitting dresses, and daring swimsuits. Mamie and her colleague blonde bombshells Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield were known as 'The Three M's.'
Mamie Van Doren was born Joan Lucille Olander in Rowena, South Dakota, in 1931. She was the daughter of Warner Carl Olander and Lucille Harriet Bennett. In 1942 the family moved to Los Angeles. In early 1946, Van Doren began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered several beauty contests. She was married for a brief time at seventeen when Van Doren and her first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage was dissolved quickly, upon her discovery of his abusive nature. In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles Miss Eight Ball and Miss Palm Springs. Van Doren was discovered by producer Howard Hughes the night she was crowned Miss Palm Springs. The pair dated for five years. Hughes provided her with a bit role in Jet Pilot at RKO Radio Pictures. Her line of dialogue inconsisted of one word, "Look!". The following year, 1951, she posed for famous pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas, the painter of the glamorous Vargas Girls. His painting of Van Doren was on the July 1951 cover of Esquire magazine. Van Doren did a few more bit parts in RKO films, including His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951) starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. Van Doren then began working on the stage. She was a showgirl in New York in Monte Proser's nightclub version of Billion Dollar Baby. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh discovered her for his musicals, then decided she was too good for the chorus line and should have dramatic training. She studied with Ben Bard and Bliss-Hayden. While appearing in the role of Marie in a showcase production of Come Back, Little Sheba, Van Doren was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International. In 1953, Van Doren signed a contract with Universal Studios. They had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the same kind of success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe. Van Doren, whose signing day coincided with the inauguration of President Eisenhower, was given the first name Mamie for Ike's wife, Mamie Eisenhower. Universal first cast Van Doren in a minor role as a singer in Forbidden (Rudolph Maté, 1953), starring Tony Curtis. Interested in Van Doren's allure, Universal then cast her again opposite Curtis in The All American (Jesse Hibbs, 1953), playing her first major role as Susie Ward, a wayward girl who is the man-trap at a campus beer joint. In Yankee Pasha (Joseph Pevney, 1954), starring Jeff Chandler and Rhonda Fleming, she played a slave girl, Lilith. In 1955, she had a supporting role in the musical Ain't Misbehavin' (Edward Buzzell, 1955) and starred in the crime-drama, Running Wild (Abner Biberman, 1955). Soon thereafter, Van Doren turned down a Broadway role in the play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and was replaced by newcomer Jayne Mansfield. In 1956, Van Doren appeared in the Western Star in the Dust (Charles F. Haas, 1956). Though Van Doren garnered prominent billing alongside John Agar and Richard Boone, she appears rather briefly, as the daughter of a ranch owner. By this time, Van Doren had grown tired of Universal, which was only casting her in non-breakthrough roles. Therefore, Van Doren began accepting bigger roles in better movies from other studios, such as Teacher's Pet (George Seaton, 1958) with Doris Day and Clark Gable. She appeared in some of the first movies to feature rock 'n' roll music, such as Untamed Youth (Howard W. Koch, 1957). The film was originally condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, but that only served to enhance the curiosity factor, resulting in it being a big moneymaker for the studio. Van Doren became identified with this rebellious style, and made some rock records. She went to star in several bad girl movies that later became cult films. These include Born Reckless (Howard W. Koch, 1958), High School Confidential (Jack Arnold, 1958), and The Beat Generation (Charles F. Haas, 1959). After Universal Studios chose not to renew her contract in 1959, Van Doren was now a free agent and had to struggle to find work.
Mamie Van Doren became known for her provocative roles. She was in prison for Girls Town (Charles F. Haas, 1959), which provoked censors with a shower scene where audiences could see Van Doren's naked back. As Eve in The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (Mickey Rooney, Albert Zugsmith, 1960) she wore only fig leaves, and in other films, like Vice Raid (Edward L. Cahn, 1960) audiences were clued in as to the nature of the films from the titles. Many of these productions were low-budget B-movies which sometimes gained a cult following for their high camp value. An example is Sex Kittens Go to College (Albert Zugsmith, 1960), which co-starred Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot - Brigitte's sister. Mamie also appeared in foreign productions, such as the Italian crime comedy Le bellissime gambe di Sabrina/The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1959) with Antonio Cifariello, and the Argentine film Una americana en Buenos Aires/The Blonde from Buenos Aires (George Cahan, 1961) with Jean-Pierre Aumont. Van Doren took some time off from her career and came back to the screen in 1964. That year she played in the German Western musical Freddy und das Lied der Prärie/In the Wild West (Sobey Martin, 1964), starring Freddy Quinn and Rik Battaglia. Tommy Noonan convinced Van Doren to appear in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (Tommy Noonan, 1964). Van Doren had turned down Noonan's previous offer to star in Promises! Promises!, in which she would have to do nude scenes. She was replaced by Jayne Mansfield. In 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt, Mamie did a beer-bath scene, but is not seen nude. She posed for Playboy to promote the film. Van Doren next appeared in The Las Vegas Hillbillys (Arthur C. Pierce, 1966) which co-starred Jayne Mansfield. It was the only time two of 'The Three M's' appeared together in a film. A sequel was titled Hillbillys in a Haunted House, but Van Doren turned this role down, and was replaced by Joi Lansing. She appeared in You've Got to Be Smart (Ellis Kadison, 1967), and the sci-fi film, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), directed by the young Peter Bogdanovich (as Derek Thomas). In this film astronauts land on Venus and encounter dangerous creatures and meet sexy Venusian women who like to sun-bathe in hip-hugging skin-tight pants and seashell brassieres. In 1968, she was offered the role of a murder victim in the independent horror film The Ice House as a replacement for Mansfield, who died the previous year. She turned the offer down, however, and was replaced by Sabrina. During the Vietnam War, she did tours for U.S. troops in Vietnam for three months in 1968, and again in 1970. Van Doren also developed a nightclub act and did live theater. She performed in stage productions of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dames at Sea at the Drury Lane Theater, Chicago, and appeared in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and The Tender Trap at the Arlington Park Theater. In the 1970s, Van Doren performed a nightclub act in Las Vegas as well. Van Doren had a supporting role in the Western The Arizona Kid (Luciano B. Carlos, 1970). Since then, Van Doren has appeared only in cameo appearances in low-budgeted films. To this date Van Doren's last film appearance was a cameo role in the comedy Slackers (Dewey Nicks, 2002). Van Doren's guest appearances on television include Jukebox Jury, What's My Line, The Bob Cummings Show, The Jack Benny Show, Fantasy Island, Burke's Law, Vega$, and L.A. Law. Van Doren released her autobiography, Playing the Field, in 1987 which brought much new attention and proved to be her biggest media splash in over 25 years. Since the book's publication she has often been interviewed and profiled and has occasionally returned to acting. Van Doren has been married five times. Her first marriage was to sportswear manufacturer Jack Newman whom she married and divorced in 1950. Her second marriage was to bandleader, composer and actor Ray Anthony whom she married in 1955. They had one son, Perry Ray Anthony (1956). The couple later divorced in 1961. When Van Doren's early 1960s, highly publicized, on-again off-again engagement to baseball player Bo Belinsky ended in 1964, she married baseball player Lee Meyers in 1966. They were divorced in 1967. Her fourth marriage was to businessman Ross McClintock in 1972. They met while working on President Nixon's reelection campaign; the marriage was annulled in 1973. Since 1979 she has been married to Thomas Dixon, an actor and dentist.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
MSN 296
I've been trying to get this one for a couple of weeks now. Shown sitting outside Borek. She will be registered PJ-DVD upon delivery.
Thanks to Erik at: www.twinotterworld.com/twin-otter-news-blog/
Imperator Caesar Divi filius Augustus
Gaius Octavius Thurinus
(63 BC - 14 AD, emperor 27 BC - 14 AD)
Adopted son and heir of Julius Caesar. First Emperor of the Roman Empire
The Louvre
Paris, France
(DSC_3090)
Vowed on July 4, 13 BCE, and dedicated on January 30, 9 BCE, the Ara Pacis Augustae stood proudly in the Campus Martius in Rome (a level area between several of Rome’s hills and the Tiber River). It was adjacent to architectural complexes that cultivated and confidently displayed messages about the power, legitimacy, and suitability of their patron—the emperor Augustus. Now excavated, restored, and reassembled in a sleek modern pavilion designed by architect Richard Meier (2006), the Ara Pacis continues to inspire and challenge us as we think about ancient Rome.
Augustus himself discusses the Ara Pacis in his epigraphical memoir, Res Gestae Divi Augusti (“Deeds of the Divine Augustus”) that was promulgated upon his death in 14 C.E. Augustus states “When I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul, having successfully accomplished deeds in those provinces … the senate voted to consecrate the altar of August Peace in the Campus Martius … on which it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal virgins to offer annual sacrifices” (Aug. RG 12).
The Ara Pacis is, at its simplest, an open-air altar for blood sacrifice associated with the Roman state religion. The ritual slaughtering and offering of animals in Roman religion was routine, and such rites usually took place outdoors. The placement of the Ara Pacis in the Campus Martius (Field of Mars) along the Via Lata (now the Via del Corso) situated it close to other key Augustan monuments, notably the Horologium Augusti (a giant sundial) and the Mausoleum of Augustus.
The significance of the topographical placement would have been quite evident to ancient Romans. This complex of Augustan monuments made a clear statement about Augustus’ physical transformation of Rome’s urban landscape. The dedication to a rather abstract notion of peace (pax) is significant in that Augustus advertises the fact that he has restored peace to the Roman state after a long period of internal and external turmoil.
The altar (ara) itself sits within a monumental stone screen that has been elaborated with bas relief (low relief) sculpture, with the panels combining to form a programmatic mytho-historical narrative about Augustus and his administration, as well as about Rome’s deep roots. The altar enclosure is roughly square while the altar itself sits atop a raised podium that is accessible via a narrow stairway.
The best preserved external relief panel of the east wall of the Ara Pacis depicts a seated female figure who has been variously interpreted as Tellus (the Earth), Italia (Italy), Pax (Peace), as well as Venus. The panel depicts a scene of human fertility and natural abundance. Two babies sit on the lap of the seated female, tugging at her drapery. Surrounding the central female is the natural abundance of the lands and flanking her are the personifications of the land and sea breezes. In all, whether the goddess is taken as Tellus or Pax, the theme stressed is the harmony and abundance of Italy, a theme central to Augustus’ message of a restored peaceful state for the Roman people—the Pax Romana.
-- Excerpts of an essay by Dr. Jeffrey A. Becker, SmartHistory.com
THE DIVIS TRANSMITTER is the main high-power UHF and BBC National FM/DAB station that serves County Antrim and parts of County Down. Sited just outside Belfast, it is the primary UHF/FM main station in Northern Ireland and was originally the country's main BBC 405-line television transmitter, coming into operation in this capacity in July 1955. As such, it was the first permanent television transmitter to be established within Ireland. Although one of three UHF main stations in Northern Ireland, it is the only one to feature a stayed mast, the other stations at Brougher Mountain and Limavady both utilising smaller self-supporting towers. Stayed masts are however located at the UHF relay stations at Londonderry and Strabane (respectively former BBC and ITA 405-line relays) and at Black Mountain, the former ITA 405-line main station and current transmitter of 'Five' that is sited adjacent to Divis. The Divis station is located in a range of hills directly overlooking Belfast to the east, in an area which for many years was controlled by the Ministry of Defence, until it was sold in 2004 to the National Trust and subsequently opened to the public. It is sited between the peaks of Divis Mountain and Black Mountain and is ironically closer to the latter than the transmitter that is named after it. THE BLACK MOUNTAIN TRANSMITTER is the former ITA 405-line VHF main station for Northern Ireland and currently the carrier of multiple broadcast services to Belfast and the surrounding area. As a former 405-line main station, it is typically one of two adjacent transmission sites, the other being the UHF main transmitter at Divis. Sited near Hannahstown towards the west of Belfast, both the Black Mountain and Divis transmitters occupy ground within the range of hills that are now promoted for tourism purposes as 'Divis and The Black Mountain' in reference to the two main summits. The Divis transmitter is sited between these summits, whilst the Black Mountain transmitter is in a more detached position, being located on slightly lower ground along the outer edge of the hills. Of all the examples of adjacently-sited stations, Black Mountain and Divis are amongst the closest to each other, being just over a mile apart and probably only exceeded in proximity by Crystal Palace and Croydon in London. www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved...
Italian postcard in the Divi del Cinema Series, no. 31.
American actress Mona Freeman (1926-2014) was the perennially young bobbysoxer of post-war Paramount. She played teens long after she outgrew the roles, and it later stifled her adult career although she became a competent actress.
Monica Elizabeth Freeman was born in 1926 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Her father, Stuart Freeman, was a contractor. She worked as a professional model while still in high school. She was a teenage cover girl for John Robert Powers and was the first of the 'Miss Subway' girls of the New York City transit system in 1940. Freeman was signed to a film contract by Howard Hughes, who gave her a two-year contract after seeing one of her photographs on a magazine cover. Paramount wound up buying out her contract from Hughes, while she had never done a bit of work for the eccentric mogul. The 18-year-old's first role was as Barbara Stanwyck's teen stepdaughter in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944) but she photographed so young, she was replaced by Jean Heather. She still made her debut in the film, however, when she was instead handed a one-line bit part as Edward G. Robinson's secretary. She was also cast to play Elizabeth Taylor's older sister in National Velvet (Clarence Brown, 1944) but once again was replaced (by Angela Lansbury) because she did not look old enough. In truth, Mona was six years Taylor's senior. She became a popular teenage film star in such films as Junior Miss (George Seaton, 1945), That Brennan Girl (Alfred Santell, 1946) and Mother Wore Tights (Walter Lang, 1947) with Betty Grable as her mother. After a series of roles as a pretty, naive teenager she complained of being typecast.
As Mona Freeman worked her way out of the teenage ingénue role, however, she found that she had less success in adult roles, and instead of landing parts in A pictures she found herself relegated to B Westerns and somewhat tawdry crime dramas like Flesh and Fury (Joseph Pevney1952) with Tony Curtis and Jan Sterling, and the British production Before I Wake (Albert S. Rogell, 1955) with Jean Kent. An exception was her role in the Film Noir Angel Face (Otto Preminger, 1952), with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. She also co-starred in the hit comedy Jumping Jacks (Norman Taurog, 1952), with the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. She retired from film and toured with Edward G. Robinson in a 1958 production of Paddy Chayefsky's 'Middle of the Night' and over the next years appeared on television in such series as Wagon Train, Maverick, Wanted: Dead or Alive, and in multiple episodes of the United States Steel Hour and Perry Mason. Her final role was in the TV film Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (George McCowan, 1972) with Martin Landau. In later years she ran an art studio and gallery and became a portrait painter of note. Mona Freeman passed away in 2014 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. She was married twice. In 1945, she married Patrick Weldon Nerney, a wealthy Hollywood auto dealer. They had one child, actress Monie Ellis (1947), and divorced in 1953. Her second husband was Los Angeles businessman Jack Ellis, whom she married in 1961. He officially adopted Mona's daughter and the couple remained together till his death in 1992.
Sources: Bob Hufford (Find A Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
A morning walk up the highest of the Belfast hills at 480 metres. The upland heath and blanket bog habitats are a haven for wildlife. Without really looking we saw Ravens, a hunting Kestrel (sadly a rare site these days), a Skylark in its own little dust bath and a Green Fritillery Butterfly. A fabulous place to escape the hustle and bustle of the city below.
Ave imperator, morituri te salutant! - Sueton, Vita divi Claudii 21,6
My entry for Marchitecture 2019
When I saw the new jumper-arch pieces in last years Hogwarts set, I knew they would perfectly fit for the outer facade of the Colosseum and the new wand pieces were perfect for the pillars on that small scale.
I designed the whole model with stud.io and started with the complete amphitheatre, as it was opened in 80 AD.
I'm still working on that version, but I added the first and quick renders to give you an impression how the original Colosseum might have look like as Architecture set.
The model have a footprint of 36x28 studs and consists of 2149 parts.
Reference picture:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Colosseo_2008...
Related article:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum
____________________________________________________
Learn more about Public BRICKstory on our website!
Follow Public BRICKstory on Instagram & Twitter
Subscribe to History’s Bricks and Public BRICKstory’s monthly Newsletter to get the latest news on everything history & LEGO©. Will be send out on the last day of the month!
Last but not least a big thank you to Marshal Banana who was again kindly enough to deliver this delightful photo-edits!
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy (named Comune di Roma Capitale). Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2 (496.1 sq mi), it is also the country's most populated comune. It is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. The Vatican City (the smallest country in the world) is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states.
Rome's history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The city's early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans, and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded by some as the first ever metropolis. It was first called The Eternal City (Latin: Urbs Aeterna; Italian: La Città Eterna) by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the "Caput Mundi" (Capital of the World). After the fall of the Western Empire, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political control of the Papacy, and in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance, almost all the popes since Nicholas V (1447–1455) pursued over four hundred years a coherent architectural and urban programme aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city. In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic.
Rome has the status of a global city. In 2016, Rome ranked as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The famous Vatican Museums are among the world's most visited museums while the Colosseum was the most popular tourist attraction in world with 7.4 million visitors in 2018. Host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is the seat of several specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The city also hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) as well as the headquarters of many international business companies such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p.A., and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL. Its business district, called EUR, is the base of many companies involved in the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and financial services. Rome is also an important fashion and design centre thanks to renowned international brands centered in the city. Rome's Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus
Augustus (Latin: Imperator Caesar Divi filius Augustus; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) was a Roman statesman and military leader who was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, reigning from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. His status as the founder of the Roman Principate has consolidated an enduring legacy as one of the most effective and controversial leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries, despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the Empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.
Augustus was born Gaius Octavius Thurinus into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia. His maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesar's will as his adopted son and heir. Along with Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, he formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvirate was eventually torn apart by the competing ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian in 31 BC.
After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus restored the outward façade of the free Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, the executive magistrates, and the legislative assemblies. In reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and those of tribune and censor. It took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis ("First Citizen of the State"). The resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire.
Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, and completing the conquest of Hispania, but suffered a major setback in Germania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome, and rebuilt much of the city during his reign. Augustus died in AD 14 at the age of 75, probably from natural causes. However, there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as emperor by his adopted son (also stepson and former son-in-law) Tiberius.
Divis Mountains atopped with masts gives a great sense of isolation and the way in which we impose ourselves on nature.
PLEASE DO NOT COPY, SAVE, OR USE THIS PHOTO IN YOUR ADVERTISING, ON YOUR WEBSITE OR ON SOCIAL MEDIA. IF YOU WANT TO USE IT, YOU MUST OBTAIN PERMISSION.
This is "the" tree that you see in all the advertising for Aruba. Divi Divi's are actually shrubs that are contorted and shaped by the wind, sand and sea. I have been corrected in the correct species of the tree: it's a Fofoti, not a DiviDivi.
In the 1970s, during ‘The Troubles’, I spent a great deal of time in Northern Ireland. This is a group of kids in the Massereene Club, a community centre in the Divis Flats complex, West Belfast, on 4 January 1974: (l to r) Sean McKinley, Arder Nesbitt, Martin McGuinness and Patrick McKinley. It's hard to imagine these youngsters are now men in their 50s and beyond.
The Divis Flats were a sprawling, run-down development comprising 12 eight-story blocks of terraces and flats, plus a tower block of 96 flats. During the Troubles, the British Army was omnipresent, giving rise to enormous political and social tensions. The entire complex was regarded as a slum, not least by the tenants, and by the mid-1980s most of the flats had been demolished.