This I presume is an older american ambulance ,owned here in Gotland Sweden by a guy named Kut or Kuten ??? not sure about that. Apparently he was a friend of the late film director Ingmar Bergman who is buried in his beloved Gotland not far from this place. One thing for sure is that if you ar ever in sweden here on the little island of Gotland come and eat at Kutens,and the name of the diner is Creperie Tati,best meal s ever.

Ernst Ingmar Bergman, born 14 juli 1918 in Uppsala, died 30 july 2007 in Fårö Gotland was a swedish film and theater director,playwriter,theaterchief, scriptwriter and author.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount.

 

Irish born Maureen O’Hara (1920-2015) was one of the icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The feisty and fearless actress starred in John Ford’s Oscar-winning drama How Green Was My Valley (1941), set in Wales, and Ford’s Irish-set The Quiet Man (1952) opposite John Wayne. The famously red-headed actress also worked successfully with Charles Laughton at Jamaica Inn (1939) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), starred in the perennial Christmas hit Miracle on 34th Street (1947), and appeared in the Disney children’s hit The Parent Trap (1961).

 

Maureen O’Hara was born Maureen FitzSimons in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh in 1920. Her mother, Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons, was an accomplished contralto. Her father, Charles FitzSimons, managed a business in Dublin and also owned part of the renowned Irish soccer team The Shamrock Rovers. From the age of 6 to 17, Maureen trained in drama, music, and dance, and at the age of 10, she joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and worked in amateur theatre in the evenings after her lessons. O'Hara's dream at this time was to be a stage actress. By age 14 she was accepted to the prestigious Abbey Theater and pursued her dream of classical theater and operatic singing. Her first screen test was for a British film called Kicking the Moon Around (Walter Forde, 1938) at Elstree Studios, It was arranged by American bandleader Harry Richman, who was then appearing in Dublin. The result was deemed unsatisfactory, but when Charles Laughton later saw it he was intrigued by her large and expressive eyes. He arranged for her to co-star with him in the British film Jamaica Inn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1939). Laughton was so pleased with O'Hara's performance that she was cast in the role of Esmeralda opposite him in the Hollywood production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (William Dieterle, 1939). The epic film was an extraordinary success and international audiences were now alerted to her natural beauty and talent. From there, she went on to enjoy a long and highly successful career in Hollywood. Director John Ford cast her as Angharad in How Green Was My Valley (1941), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. She starred in Swashbucklers such as The Black Swan (Henry King, 1942), opposite Tyrone Power, and Sinbad the Sailor (Richard Wallace, 1947), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., She also starred as Doris Walker and the mother of a young Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), which became a perennial Christmas classic.

 

Maureen O'Hara made a number of films with John Wayne. She met Wayne through director John Ford, and the two hit it right off. O'Hara: "I adored him, and he loved me. But we were never sweethearts. Never, ever.” Opposite Wayne, she played Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952), an iconic film that is still very much celebrated in Ireland and abroad. In total, they made five films together between 1948 and 1972, also including Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950), The Wings of Eagles (John Ford, 1957), McLintock! (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1963) and Big Jake (George Sherman, 1971). O’Hara most often played strong and willful women, but offscreen she was the same. In 1957 her career was threatened by scandal when the tabloid Confidential magazine claimed she and a man had engaged in 'the hottest show in town' in the back row of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. However, as she later told the Associated Press, at the time she “was making a movie in Spain, and I had the passport to prove it”. She testified against the magazine in a criminal libel trial and brought a lawsuit that was settled out of court. The magazine eventually went out of business.

 

Maureen O'Hara was married three times. In 1939, at the age of 19, O'Hara secretly married Englishman George H. Brown, a film producer, production assistant and occasional scriptwriter, who she had met on the set of Jamaica Inn. The marriage was annulled in 1941. Later that year, O'Hara married American film director William Houston Price (dialogue director in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), but the union ended in 1953, reportedly as a result of his alcohol abuse. They had one child, a daughter named Bronwyn FitzSimons Price (1944). In later life, Maureen O’Hara married her third husband, Brigadier General Charles Blair. The couple lived in the US Virgin Islands, where he operated an airline. He died in a plane crash in 1978 and O’Hara took over management of the airline, which she eventually sold. “Being married to Charlie Blair and traveling all over the world with him, believe me, was enough for any woman,” she said in 1995. “It was the best time of my life.” O'Hara remained retired from acting until 1991, when she starred in the film Only the Lonely (Chris Columbus, 1991), playing Rose Muldoon, the domineering mother of a Chicago cop played by John Candy. In the following years, she continued to work, starring in several made-for-TV films. Her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, was published in 2004 and was a New York Times Bestseller. She was never nominated for an Oscar, instead of being given an honorary award in 2014. After accepting her statuette from a wheelchair, the then 94-year-old star protested when her speech of thanks was cut short. Maureen O'Hara died in her sleep at home in Boise, Idaho, in 2015. She was 95 years old.

 

Sources: The Guardian, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

German press photo by K.P.A., Düsseldorf. The photo was used for a broadcasting by NDR/RB/SFB Fernsehen III at 27 and 28 December 1972.

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

The Postcard

 

A postcard that was published by Ad-Vision, 219, Citi Centre, Pato Plaza, Panjim, Goa.

 

The card was posted in Arambol, Goa on Monday the 29th. December 2003 to:

 

Auntie Mary, Uncle John Denyer,

176, Latimer Road,

Eastbourne,

East Sussex,

England,

U.K.

 

The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

 

"Arambol,

Goa.

26.12.03.

Hope you had a nice

Christmas. Thank you

very much for my presents.

I have just about recovered

from flu due to the place

choking me with its stench

and pollution. I had forgotten

how much India smells.

In Calcutta there is a big

Salvation Army, so I went to

the guest house.

We also went to see Mother

Theresa's tomb and took

part in a service there.

We were unable to fly to the

Andaman Islands due to a

cyclone?! But we'll fly there

on the 7th. Jan.

Hope you are well".

 

Bob Monkhouse

 

So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?

 

Well, the 29th. December 2003 was not a good day for Bob Monkhouse, because he died in Eggington, Bedfordshire on that day.

 

Robert Alan Monkhouse OBE, who was born on the 1st. June 1928, was an English entertainer and comedian. He was well known as a host of television game shows, including The Golden Shot, Celebrity Squares, Family Fortunes and Wipeout.

 

Bob Monkhouse - The Early Years

 

Bob Monkhouse was born at 168 Bromley Road, Beckenham, Kent, the son of chartered accountant Wilfred Adrian Monkhouse (1894–1957) and Dorothy Muriel Monkhouse née Hansard (1895–1971).

 

Bob had an elder brother, John, who was born in 1922. Monkhouse's grandfather John Monkhouse (1862–1938) was a prosperous Methodist businessman who co-founded Monk and Glass, which made custard powder and jelly. In a 2015 documentary, it was revealed that Monkhouse and his older brother suffered physical and verbal abuse from their mother.

 

Bob Monkhouse was educated at Goring Hall School in Worthing, Sussex. In 2015, detectives investigated claims by three former pupils relating to historic sex abuse which was alleged to have taken place at the school which closed in 1988. The site is now (2021) a hospital.

 

Bob then moved to Dulwich College in south London, from which he was expelled for climbing the clock tower.

 

While still at school, Monkhouse wrote for The Beano and The Dandy, and drew for other comics including Hotspur, Wizard and Adventure. He established a comics writing and art partnership with Dulwich schoolmate Denis Gifford, and the two formed their own publishing company in the early 1950's. Among other writing, Monkhouse wrote more than 100 Harlem Hotspots erotic novelettes.

 

Monkhouse completed his National Service with the Royal Air Force in 1948. He won a contract with the BBC after his unwitting RAF group captain signed a letter that Monkhouse had written telling the BBC he was a war hero and that the corporation should give him an audition.

 

Before establishing himself as a successful writer and comedian, Monkhouse appeared on stage in London, first as Aladdin and then in the first London production of the musical The Boys from Syracuse in 1963 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, alongside Ronnie Corbett.

 

Bob Monkhouse's Writing and Acting Success

 

Monkhouse's adult career began as a scriptwriter for radio comedy in partnership with Denis Goodwin, a fellow Old Alleynian with whom he also compèred Smash Hits on Radio Luxembourg.

 

Aside from performing as a double act, Monkhouse and Goodwin wrote for comedians such as Arthur Askey, Jimmy Edwards, Ted Ray and Max Miller. In addition, they were also gag writers for American comedians, including Bob Hope, when they wanted jokes for British tours. Indeed, when Goodwin broke up the partnership in 1962, it was to work for Bob Hope.

 

In 1956, Monkhouse was the host of Do You Trust Your Wife?, the British version of an American game show. He went on to host more than 30 different quiz shows on British television.

 

With his public profile growing, Monkhouse also began appearing in comedy films, including the first of the Carry On film series, Carry On Sergeant, in 1958. He starred in Dentist in the Chair (1960) and Dentist on the Job (1961), later regretting not choosing the Carry Ons over the dental comedies.

 

Other presenting jobs in the 1960's included hosting Candid Camera and compèring Sunday Night at the London Palladium. Around 1969 he was a partner, with Malcolm Mitchell, in the Mitchell Monkhouse Agency.

 

In 1979 he starred in a US sketch comedy television series called Bonkers! with the Hudson Brothers and Joan Rivers, a job he hated. In the early 1970's he appeared on BBC Radio in Mostly Monkhouse with Josephine Tewson and David Jason.

 

Stand-up Comedy

 

A respected stand-up comedian, Monkhouse was known for his talent at ad-libbing. He became much in demand as an after-dinner speaker, and wrote a book about the subject, 'Just Say a Few Words' (1988).

 

Bob also became a favourite with impressionists, and, as his comedy style fell out of favour in the 1980's, he was mocked for his slickness and accused of insincerity. He came back into fashion during the 1990's, and an appearance on Have I Got News for You helped to restore his popularity.

 

Monkhouse's final stand-up show was performed at the Albany Comedy Club in London on the 25th. August 2003, four months before his death. The show was broadcast by the BBC in 2016 and again in November 2019 and April 2020.

 

Among the audience were a number of British comedians who had been personally invited by Monkhouse, including Reece Shearsmith, Jon Culshaw, David Walliams, Fiona Allen and Mark Steel. The show also included a rare public appearance from Monkhouse's friend Mike Yarwood.

 

Game Shows

 

In his later years, Monkhouse was probably better known for hosting television quiz shows than for being a comedian. One of his biggest successes was The Golden Shot from July 1967 until January 1972, and again from July 1974 to April 1975. This was broadcast live for 52 weeks a year and drew up to 17 million viewers.

 

His tenure ended with allegations, which he denied, that he had taken bribes to include branded goods on the programme as advertisements. He returned in 1974 after subsequent presenters and comedians Norman Vaughan and Charlie Williams were found wanting.

 

The dozens of other shows Monkhouse presented included Celebrity Squares, Family Fortunes and Bob's Full House. Audiences regularly topped 15 million. In the late 1980's he hosted two series of the revival of the talent show Opportunity Knocks, which aired as Bob Says Opportunity Knocks.

 

He then moved to ITV to front two more game shows, Bob's Your Uncle and the $64,000 Question, neither of which were popular successes.

 

Between 1996 and 1998, Monkhouse presented The National Lottery Live show on Saturday evenings on BBC One, for which he created the catchphrase:

 

"I know I'm a sinner, but

make me a winner!"

 

The opening to each show would see him deliver several minutes of topical jokes and on one occasion, where his autocue failed, he improvised a new and topical routine. This talent was used in Bob Monkhouse on the Spot, a return to pure television comedy in which audience members suggested topics and Monkhouse came up with a routine.

 

He was also at the helm when infamously, on the 30th. November 1996, the lottery machine failed live on air, causing the draw to be delayed by 50 minutes until after that night's episode of Casualty aired.

 

Monkhouse then returned to quizzes, taking over hosting duties on Wipeout from Paul Daniels when its studio recordings moved from London to Manchester and the show moved from primetime to daytime. Monkhouse hosted Wipeout from 1998 until a few months before his death.

 

Bob Monkhouse as a Chat Show Host

 

After being a stalwart of chat shows, in the mid 1980's Bob presented his own for the BBC, The Bob Monkhouse Show. The show lasted three series and showcased comedians of every age.

 

Monkhouse was criticised for sycophancy towards his guests, but he said that they were all heroes of his, and that was how he really felt about them. Monkhouse was known as a keen supporter of new comedy, and used the show to introduce audiences to new comedians such as Kelly Monteith, Robin Williams and Jim Carrey.

 

The format of the interviews varied between "true" chat and analysis of comedy to scripted routines in which Monkhouse would willingly play the role of the guest's stooge, as he did with Bob Hope.

 

On one occasion the guest was the comedian Pamela Stephenson, who, after prior arrangement with the show's producer, appeared in a series of fake plaster casts, apparently the result of accidents whilst at home.

 

During the interview she produced a handgun and fired it on several occasions, destroying a plant pot on the set and a series of lights in the studio roof. She then presented a rocket launcher which she promptly "fired", destroying a camera.

 

The gun, launcher and camera were props. None of this was known to Monkhouse, who appeared genuinely frightened (although the production crew were aware).

 

Film and Television Archive

 

An expert on the history of silent cinema and a film collector, Monkhouse presented Mad Movies in 1966. He wrote, produced, financed and syndicated the show worldwide. The show featured clips from comic silent films, many from his own private collection, some of which he had helped to recover and restore.

 

Bob's film collection was the cause of a court case at the Old Bailey in 1979. Having lent Terry Wogan's son a film, Monkhouse was charged with attempting to defraud film distributors of royalties, but after two years the judge decided that there was no case to answer. Many of the films in his collection were seized and not returned to Monkhouse.

 

In 2008, the British Film Institute was contacted by Monkhouse's daughter, Abigail, who asked if they would like to view the collection and provide some advice as to the best way of preserving it.

 

Amongst the discoveries were many radio and TV shows long thought lost. Dick Fiddy, the archivist, said:

 

"It's a huge, unwieldy collection which

deals with a number of areas. It's not

just film and TV. Initially, we found half

a dozen TV shows that we knew to be

missing."

 

Amongst those shows rediscovered were many that feature Monkhouse himself, including The Flip Side, a 1966 play in which he starred as a television DJ with his own late night show, and the 1957–58 series of his comedy My Pal Bob, including an episode in which he is suspected of an extramarital affair. The archive consisted of 36,000 videotapes, going back to when Monkhouse first bought a home video recorder in 1966. His film archive began in the late 1950's.

 

The entire Monkhouse film and television archive is now held by Kaleidoscope, including all the material previously held by the National Film and Television Archive (NFTVA).

 

It was catalogued and restored to digital formats for a major event at British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) on the 24th. October 2009. Chris Perry of Kaleidoscope said:

 

"We are painstakingly transferring the

important contents of the video tapes

and restoring radio shows. There are

many incredible finds, and the event

is an exciting time for all concerned."

 

In his final years, Monkhouse hosted a show on BBC Radio 2 called The Monkhouse Archive in which he provided humorous links to clips of comedy acts spanning the previous 50 years.

 

Honours, Awards and Legacy

 

In 1993 Bob Monkhouse was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to entertainment.

 

In 1995 the British Comedy Awards gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award for Comedy, and eight years later, a few weeks before he died, the Television and Radio Industries Club awarded him a Special Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting.

 

He first appeared on This Is Your Life in 1982 and, unusually, received a second appearance on the show on the 23rd. April 2003, just months before his death.

 

In a poll of fellow comedians and comedy insiders to find the Comedians' Comedian in 2005, Monkhouse was voted among the best 50 comedy acts.

 

In a piece written several years after Monkhouse's death, critic and satirist Michael Deacon suggested that although Monkhouse had feared that his legacy as a comedian would be limited, as many people knew him only from his decades of work as a game show host, his style of writing and performing could be seen as influencing many contemporary British comedians. These include Jimmy Carr (whose book on comedy The Naked Jape quoted several Monkhouse jokes), Michael McIntyre, Peter Kay, John Bishop, Lee Mack and Tim Vine.

 

Bob Monkhouse's Personal Life

 

Bob Monkhouse was married twice, firstly to Elizabeth Thompson on the 5th. November 1949. The couple separated in 1967 and divorced in 1972. His second marriage, to Jacqueline Harding, lasted until his death. He had three children from his first marriage, but only his adopted daughter, Abigail, survived him.

 

His eldest son, Gary Alan, who had cerebral palsy, lived at Naish Farm House, a residential home for the disabled in New Milton Hampshire. He went to Saint Michael's School in Pinner, and died in Braintree, Essex, in 1992, aged 40. Monkhouse was an avid campaigner for the disabled.

 

His other son, Simon, a stand-up poet, from whom he had been estranged for 13 years, died aged 46 from a heroin overdose in a hotel in northern Thailand in April 2001.

 

Monkhouse lived in a house called "Claridges" in Eggington, near Leighton Buzzard, and had a flat in London as well as a holiday home in Barbados.

 

In his autobiography, Bob admitted to hundreds of sexual liaisons and affairs, but claimed that he only undertook this course of action because his first wife was unfaithful. His lovers before his second marriage included the actress Diana Dors, about whose parties he later commented after her death:

 

"The awkward part about an orgy

is that afterwards you're not too

sure who to thank."

 

Throughout his career Monkhouse had jotted down jokes, odd facts, one-liners, sketches and ideas in a series of leather-bound books, which he took with him to every television, radio, stage and nightclub appearance he made.

 

In July 1995 two were stolen, and Monkhouse offered a £15,000 reward. They were returned after 18 months, but the thief, although arrested, was never charged. On Monkhouse's death, the books were bequeathed to Colin Edmonds.

 

Monkhouse was a vocal supporter of the Conservative Party for some years. He later told his friend Colin Edmonds that this may have been a mistake, but that he wanted to be associated with a winner, and he knew Margaret Thatcher could not lose the 1987 general election.

 

Monkhouse was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September 2001, and he died from this illness at his home on the 29th. December 2003. His widow Jacqueline suffered a heart attack and died in Barbados on the 28th. March 2008.

 

The Posthumous Advertisement

 

On the 12th. June 2007, Bob Monkhouse posthumously appeared on British TV in an advertisement promoting awareness of prostate cancer for Male Cancer Awareness Week.

 

Using computer animation techniques and a sound-alike actor, Monkhouse was seen in a graveyard next to his own grave (though in reality he was cremated) talking about the disease seriously, interspersed with humorous asides to another camera ("What killed me kills one man per hour in Britain. That's even more than my wife's cooking.").

 

He ended by saying, "As a comedian, I've died many deaths. Prostate cancer, I don't recommend. I'd have paid good money to stay out of here. What's it worth to you?" before walking away from his grave and disappearing.

 

The advertisement was made with the support of Monkhouse's estate and supported by poster campaigns, including award-winning panels displayed in London Underground trains. Money raised went to the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation.

 

Bob Monkhouse - Notable Quotes

 

“My father only hit me once,

but he used a Volvo.”

 

“They all laughed when I said

I wanted to be a comedian.

Well, they’re not laughing now.”

 

“I’d like to die like my old dad,

peacefully in his sleep, not

screaming like his passengers.”

 

“When the inventor of the drawing

board messed things up, what did

he go back to?”

 

“My mother tried to kill me when I

was a baby. She denied it. She said

she thought the plastic bag would

keep me fresh.”

 

“If blind people wear sunglasses,

why don’t deaf people wear earmuffs?”

 

“Real happiness is when you marry a

girl for love and find out later she has

money.”

 

“I’d never be unfaithful to my wife

for the reason that I love my house

very much.”

 

“I’m not saying my wife’s a bad cook,

but she uses a smoke alarm as a timer.”

 

“It got up to 94 degrees today –

that’s pretty good at my age.”

 

“Dulwich College takes me back after

seventy years: My Mum must have

written one hell of a sick note!”

 

“Personally, I don’t think there’s intelligent

life on other planets. Why should other

planets be any different from this one?”

 

“A miniature village in Bournemouth

caught fire and the flames could be

seen nearly three feet away.”

 

“Growing old is compulsory –

growing up is optional.”

 

“I’ll never stop working. I want to die

in the saddle. A day is wasted for me

if I haven’t done something even mildly

creative.”

 

“Although I have always loved the noise

of laughter, I really can’t fear the coming

of quiet. As for funerals, I rather like them.

Such nice things are always said about

the deceased, I feel sad that they had to

miss hearing it all by just a few days.”

 

“I’m rather relaxed about death. From

quite an early age I’ve regarded it as

part of the deal, the unwritten guarantee

that comes with your birth certificate.”

British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: British Lion Films.

 

Last Sunday, 22 December 2019, British stage and screen actor Tony Britton died, aged 95. In a career spanning six decades, he went from being a leading juvenile at Stratford-upon-Avon, a film star with British Lion in the 1950s, to a West End star in the 1960s and then a TV sitcom favourite in the 1970s and 1980s. He was still touring into his mid-80s, playing Canon Chasuble in 'The Importance of Being Earnest' in 2007.

 

Anthony Edward Lowry Britton was born in 1924 in a room above the Trocadero pub in Temple Street, Birmingham, Doris Marguerite (née Jones) and Edward Leslie Britton. He attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, Birmingham and Thornbury Grammar School, Gloucestershire. He thought of doing nothing else except acting since childhood. On leaving school, he joined two amateur drama companies in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, while articled to an estate agent and then working in an aircraft factory. A professional debut followed in 1942 when he appeared in Esther McCracken’s 'Quiet Weekend' at the Knightstone Pavilion in the seaside town. He was called up and served during the Second World War with the Royal Artillery. While doing officer training, he formed a small drama group. After the war, he returned to the theatre, at first in the capacity of an assistant stage manager at the Manchester Library Theatre. While there he progressed to lead actor, then made his London debut in 'The Rising Wind' at the Embassy Theatre. His big break came in 1952 when he played the juvenile lead, the pharaoh Ramases, in Christopher Fry’s 'The Firstborn', about Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, at the Winter Garden in London in 1952. His second big leading role, at the Edinburgh festival of the same year, and on tour, was opposite Cathleen Nesbitt in 'The Player King' by Christopher Hassall, a lyricist for Ivor Novello’s musicals. This experience with the two leading verse dramatists of the day led to a two-year stint in Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon (1953-1954) as Bassanio in 'The Merchant of Venice', Lysander in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet' and Cassio to Anthony Quayle’s 'Othello'. He was now becoming established, and returned to the West End in Michael Burn’s The 'Night of the Ball' (1955) in a cast, directed by Joseph Losey, which included Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper; and in the Louis Jourdan role in Gigi (1956, before the film) with Leslie Caron, directed by Peter Hall.

 

Tony Britton's first two starring roles for British Lion – as a posh criminal in The Birthday Present (Pat Jackson, 1957) with Sylvia Syms, and as a surgeon covering for a fatal mishap in Behind the Mask (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1958) with Michael Redgrave – were virtually his last as the British film industry was transformed with the new wave of working-class subjects and actors. Britton’s polish and class were suddenly surplus to requirements. Something similar happened in the theatre, but Britton could adapt more easily there, playing Trigorin in The Seagull and Hotspur in Henry IV Part 1 at the Old Vic in 1961. As a slightly less irascible version of Rex Harrison, he toured for two years in 1964 as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. He repeated the role 10 years later in a touring revival by Cameron Mackintosh that was the first such commercial venture underpinned with money from the Arts Council. The show, in which Liz Robertson co-starred as Eliza Doolittle, settled at the Adelphi in the West End for a decent run. He was also the partner of Margaret Leighton in Abe Burrows’s Cactus Flower at the Lyric in 1967, and Margaret Lockwood in Somerset Maugham’s Lady Frederick at the Vaudeville in 1970.

 

Tony Britton appeared in a few, interesting films during the 1970s, including Sunday Bloody Sunday (John Schlesinger, 1971) with Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson, The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973) starring Edward Fox, and Agatha (Michael Apted, 1979) starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave. He reinvented himself as a television favourite, first in Arthur Hopcraft’s comic series on Westminster politics, The Nearly Man (1975). Britton won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 1975 for his role. Then, decisively, in Robin’s Nest (1977-1981), the first common-law marital sitcom. Britton starred as James Nicholls, business partner of Richard O’Sullivan’s aspirational chef, Robin Tripp whose “nest” was his Fulham bistro. Britton then consolidated his place in the sitcom firmament with Don’t Wait Up (1983-1990), about a tricky father-and-son relationship, with serious moral and political overtones, co-starring Nigel Havers. In the next decade, his pre-eminence on television was matched in three West End hits: starring with Cicely Courtneidge and Moira Lister in Ray Cooney and John Chapman’s mechanically ingenious farce of swapped apartments, Move Over Mrs Markham (1972); alongside Anna Neagle and Thora Hird in the musical No, No, Nanette at Drury Lane in 1973; and, in 1974, opposite a formidable Celia Johnson, as the invading Nazi commander on the Channel Islands in William Douglas Home’s The Dame of Sark at Wyndham’s. The Chichester Festival theatre was a natural habitat for him. In the 1987 season, he directed Wilde’s An Ideal Husband with Clive Francis and Joanna Lumley, and played Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, with Roy Kinnear as the Common Man. In 1994, he returned to Stratford as Chorus in Henry V and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. His last West End appearance, at the Haymarket, was in Jeffrey Archer’s The Accused (2000). His last film appearance was in the comedy Run for Your Wife (Ray Cooney, John Luton, 2012) with Danny Dyer. Tony Britton married Ruth Hawkins in 1948. They divorced, and in 1962 he married the Danish portrait sculptor Eva Birkefeldt; she died in 2008. Britton is survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Cherry, a scriptwriter, and Fern Britton, a TV presenter, and by a son, classical actor Jasper Britton, from his second marriage. His grandson is actor Peter Cant.

 

Sources: Michael Coveney (The Guardian), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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but everything to do with people; the failings of people and our people oriented systems. And I don't mean the jaunty angle of this coastal horizon. Where do we start? I appreciate finding a relevant voice for events last Friday is almost impossible given the foolish words uttered by so many (with scriptwriters) obliged to say something. I closed down posts for the past 10 days to find my voice... my privilege and given my own reaction to our world's leadership comments (i). It is a time for thought and taking stock of how far we have traveled in the past thousand years. The Paris trauma is nothing new. Lebanon attacks the day before. The Russian aircraft earlier in the month. Tunisia and right back into recent history. Atrocities in Palestine and Israel... Syria and Iraq provide the wallpaper of failures. Is this war? No... is this Islam? No. Given the energy inherent in the French motto "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" the first sublimation of sense arrived very quickly with the international plea for solidarity... humanity. Theological, philosophical and political leadership is washed up and washed out... bankrupt. Saying nothing... too silent and evidently just not fit for purpose. In truth this soft but essential infrastructure has probably never evolved beyond the acclaimed age of enlightenment and has yet to present in ways to influence and temper the presiding partisan narrative. I hear a report of something spoken by Archbishop Welby in the national news. Maybe reported incorrectly and out of context but I found facile, stupid and serving no value. I appreciate this is harsh but does he need to highlight the fact that faith leaders are capable of normal thoughts around ideology and interpretation of it. "Saturday morning, I was out and as I was walking I was praying and saying: 'God, why – why is this happening? Where are you in all of this?'" Welby said during an interview with the BBC's Songs of Praise."

People everywhere need to see and hear of compassion in its most robust and inclusive form. The atrocities are inspired entirely by a group of people exercising a wholly unpalatable ideology against society complicit in ideology Daesh find unpalatable. The patient tracking and timely capture and then trial of known people (from Osama binLadin to Emwazi) would have been far more constructive than the official default prospect... years of bombing sorties and missile strikes deliver only more misery. There are a number of ideologies that conduct a regime of fundamental... selective interpretation of teachings to maintain a context of intolerance to others and that demand eternal fearfulness, separateness, repression and hate from their followers, Wisdom and sense and not airplanes and bombs should have been working to win the day over the decade. Given the standing forces of 'professional' faith leaders, no corrupted ideology on the world stage should present any great challenge to demobilize the multitudes of lost and misguided minds and souls. Come on faith leaders begin to earn your crust... sprinkle dust to visible give form to sick ideologies.

22.11.2015. Sunday: J catches early morning train for Gib. Here cold with temperature sitting around 1 or 2C with a few showers and very few sunny spells. (overnight had some rain given the condition of one of my primed pluviometers. Visit to the coast with friends visiting from the Penines and then the Low Lights for warmth and comfort.

(i). Because the dandelion patch is intended as a daily contribution, I will record the images and some thoughts of those 10 days in reverse.

Jane Birkin, 1964. The photographs were taken by Jane Birkin’s brother, Andrew, a film scriptwriter and director, who had been photographing his sister since he first bought a cheap camera in his teens. All shots had been carefully filed away for half a century, and some he had never seen printed before. He met Gainsbourg almost as soon as his sister did, when he was working with Stanley Kubrick on the eventually aborted project for An Epic Film of Napoleon, and she wrote from the set of the film Slogan, begging him to come and keep her company and cheer her up from her daily encounters with ‘a horrible man’, who was mocking and teasing her. Gainsbourg was, and remains a giant in French cultural circles, but Birkin was already well known from film roles including a famous nude scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow Up

edited by Kevin Connolly & Jason Sherman. Toronto, Conman Productions, december 1985.

 

Meet The Presses – arguably the event that gave rise to the now-widespread phenomenon of the "small press fair" – was organized by Nicholas Power (of Gesture Press) & Stuart Ross (Proper Tales Press) as a small monthly gathering in Toronto, first occurring in november of 1984 at the Scadding Court Community Centre at Bathurst & Dundas Streets. Nick & Stuart were both associated with York University (Nick working in the bookstore & his Gesture later publishing a poetry anthology called Ten Tandem via York; Stuart was typesetter for the student newspaper Excalibur), as were Kevin & Jason, both students at the time. they (Kevin & Jason) would come out to the fairs, both of'em all excited by the frenzy of obscure activity that was going on at the time that the fairs made visible for a brief few hours once a month.

Kevin is a poet & critic, Jason a scriptwriter. they both subjected themselves to the dream of a "wider audience" for the kinds of things they were encountering at the fairs & began plotting what magazine, later (with issue 3) drafting in 4 "contributing editors" of varied proclivities in an attempt to cast their net further than the surround that York offered (Brian Dedora for the "established avantgarde", Douglas Freake for drama, Stuart Ross for more traditional younger writers & myself for the newer nonlinear crew). what's first issue was a "shortrun" of 5ooo copies but, with issue 2, they leapt to double that, 1o,ooo of these things getting baled up & dropped off for free distribution at various booksellers & restaurants & whatnot around town every 2 months, something of a leap from having a pile on their table when issue 1 was launched at Meet The Presses.

this "ART'N POLITICS" issue has the editors interviewing Fred Gaysek & Jim Smith on "Art and Politics" & Crad Kilodney "On Writing" (also including his Fish Story). the "featured writer" (1o poems) is George Swede, introduced by jwcurry. 2 poems by Steven Now-Ross Smith & a prose work by Richard Truhlar constitute the rest of the "creative content" of the issue. the rest is commentary by Dan (not "Don", as R.D.Macpherson's cover has it) Bouzek (i believe the "Dan" of This Ain't The Rosedale Library backwhen) & book & theatre reviews by the editors. there're also some ads – a fun one for Gesture Press on the rear cover – & Macpherson's front cover comic.

as what evolved, it gained a letters (& responses) column, readings reviews (mainly by Nick Power) & sundry other attachments as it tried to be representative of more & more of "the literary scene" in its scant tabloid format (this one's 3 sheets/12 pages). ultimately, its aspirations outgrew its workability & the editors squabbled, the tabloid format was dropped, it became a standard saddlestapled 8-1/2 x 11 literary rag for but a handful of issues, then simply failed to show up at parties anymore. Connolly has continued his identity as a minor Canadian poet (& editor, critic & teacher); Sherman became a semi-celebrated playwright but proclaimed his apartness from it all in 2oo7 & now writes only for television.

according to some, what "was considered highly influential"; i can't imagine by whom. while it was "somewhat feisty", its trajectory was at a relatively acute angle away from sabotaging mainstream sensibilities toward accommodating them. this 2nd issue already has them embracing the "topical", subjugating art to the service of ideology (only 3 of its 12 pages carrying any of its above-noted "creative content").

what could've been a fun project: certainly the copies that were stacked around Toronto disappeared & were read (though i'd be willing to bet few were retained) but what of this supposed "influence" on what amounts to "club culture"? swiffed into the void that takes the place of content at the bottom of the birdcage, no doubt.

as a bookseller, i've been offering these things for free & for sale since it began & rarely does anyone ever pick up on them. for that matter, i find that rarely has anyone even heard of the thing, despite its continued presence in various lists & studies (not only mine). of course, this can partly be blamed on yr typical literatum's ignorance of what goes on beyond the magazine rack of the moment but it's not as though my comments in print or speech have been ascerbic warnings-away; i've repeatedly tried to encourage people to check it out & still have hundreds of them carefully stored to trade for an occasional 2buck token.

but i'll tell ya something: i personally only need one copy of each issue to keep & occasionally read parts of. this particular issue i've probably still some 75 copies of. when i run outta scrap newspaper & need to drain some french fries, it's often one of these i'll reach for. this is expressly not the purpose for which i select & acquire cultural artefacts as the conscience behind Room 3o2 Books. nevertheless, faced with such a conspicuous (yet seemingly invisible) production, what exactly is the difference between 1 or 5 fewer copies outta the 75 outta the 1o,ooo in a culture that couldn't give a shit & doesn't want it in the first place?

as someone who'd been involved with what – as contributor from issue 1 on, contributing editor for 1o issues, reviewer, advertiser, distributor, bibliographer, & performer at some of what's events – i've a lot of leftover ire that's worth a good burn but i've a lot to thank them for, too: it was unquestionably an entertainable part of the cultural continuum of the time rather than a mere entertainment apart from it; despite its somewhat convoluted agendæ, it carried a higher-end representative sampling of what was going on that was inclusive of the more esoteric zones of writing as just part of their range of content, rather than ghettoïzing it all into "special issue"s.

so this burner isn't soaked in starchy lard or otherwise unsaleable; it's a nice, clean, almost flat copy set free as memorial offering in order for at least this one artefactual example to have achieved greater meaning than waiting in a box for an attention that'll never come.

Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with its sister project Sport Relief.

A prominent biennial event in British popular culture, Comic Relief is one of the two high-profile telethon events held in the United Kingdom, the other being Children in Need, held annually in November. At the end of the 2015 Red Nose Day telethon on 14 March it was announced that in the 30-year history of Comic Relief the Red Nose Day and Sport Relief appeals had raised in excess of £1 billion.

 

Today is Red Nose Day - Comic Relief

Dutch postcard by Art Unlimted, Amsterdam, no. B 1614. Photo: Nat Finkelstein, 1966.

 

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was the 'Father of Pop Art' with his silk-screened pictures of Campbell's Soup cans and distorted images of Marilyn Monroe. He started directing films and most of his early work simply consisted of pointing the camera at something (a man asleep, the Empire State Building) and leaving it running, sometimes for hours. His films gradually grew more sophisticated, with scripts and soundtracks. They were generally performed by members of the Warhol "factory". In 1968, after a near-fatal shooting by an unstable fan, Warhol retired from direct involvement in filmmaking, and under former assistant Paul Morrissey, the Warhol films became increasingly commercial. Warhol spent the 1970s and 1980s as a major pop culture figure, constantly attending parties and providing patronage to younger artists.

 

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in 1928 in Pittsburgh, USA. His parents were Ondrej (Andrew) Varhola and Julia Zavackyová Varholová, ethnic Lemko immigrants from the village of Miková in the Austria-Hungary Empire (now Slovakia). Ondrej, whose surname was originally written as Varhola, changed the spelling to Warhola when he emigrated to the US. He worked as a construction worker and later as a coal miner. His father, who travelled much on business trips, died when Warhol was 13. During his teenage years, Andy suffered from several nervous breakdowns. He showed artistic talent early on and went to study applied art in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University. There, he stood out by drawing two self-portraits showing him picking his nose (Upper Torso Boy Picking Nose and Full Figure Boy Picking Nose). In 1949, Andy graduated and dropped the letter 'a' from his last name. Warhol moved to New York, where he met Tina Fredericks, the art editor of Glamour Magazine. Warhol's early jobs were doing drawings for Glamour, such as the Success is a Job in New York and women's shoes. He also drew advertising for various magazines, including Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar, book jackets, and holiday greeting cards. In 1952, his first solo exhibition was held at the Hugo Gallery in New York, of drawings to illustrate stories by Truman Capote. He started illustrating books, beginning with Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette. In 1956, he was included in his first group exhibition, Recent Drawings USA, held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. By 1959, he was a successful advertising designer with an average annual income of $65000 and almost annual medals and other professional awards. In 1960, Warhol began to make his first paintings. They were based on comic strips in the likes of Dick Tracy, Popeye, and Superman. In the following years, Warhol started painting famous American products like Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles in large formats. He managed to interest the influential gallery owner and art collector Leo Castelli in his work. He started using the silk-screen technique, not merely to create art using everyday commercial mass-produced items as his motif but to create even his own art as mass-produced items. Warhol preferred to become an emotionless machine. He set himself up as chief of a team of art workers who were engaged in making screen prints, films, books and magazines. This team operated in a studio near Union Square in New York. The studio was called the Factory because it actually housed a production line of paintings. The original Factory was located in an old cap factory at 231 East 47th street (fourth floor). This studio grew into a meeting place for artists, gays, transvestites, junkies and photographic models. Anyone with any artistic pretensions was welcome there.

 

After a few years, Andy Warhol moved his entourage to an office building across the street; 33 Union street West (sixth floor). This second Factory was called the Office by Warhol himself because it housed not only a studio but also the editorial office of Interview magazine, founded by Warhol. Warhol became known worldwide during the Factory years with his screen prints. He made screen prints of any subject that lent itself to it. Warhol's oeuvre largely draws on American popular culture. He painted and drew banknotes, cartoon images, food, women's shoes, celebrities and everyday objects. For him, these motifs represented American cultural values. Paul Morrisey managed to persuade Warhol to become the manager of a rock band. It would be a commercial success if Warhol combined his talent for generating media attention with a sensational rock group. Warhol was not immediately enthusiastic but after Morrisey's insistence, he relented. Morrisey had seen the Velvet Underground perform at cafe bizarre. After Warhol went to see, he was immediately excited. He saw a group standing with good looks who, while tourists sat drinking, sang about Heroine and SM. Warhol made the Velvet Underground part of his multimedia show Exploding Plastic Inevatible. He also produced The Velvet Underground's first album with Nico. He essentially lent his name to their work and observed them in the recording studio, while Lou Reed and later Tom Wilson mostly called the shots. The cover of the band's first album was Warhol's design: a banana with a peel that was actually a peelable sticker. On 3 June 1968, Valerie Solanas, a radical feminist author who hung around the Factory from time to time, turned up at the studio and shot Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya. Solanas had been rejected earlier that day at the Factory after she had requested the return of a script she had given Warhol for inspection. The script had apparently gone missing. Warhol was badly injured in the shooting and was even declared clinically dead in the hospital. He suffered the physical effects of the attack for the rest of his life and had to wear a corset to support his lower abdomen. The shooting had a major after-effect on Warhol's life and his art. The Factory became more tightly shielded and for many, this event marked the end of the Factory's wild years. That same day, Solanas turned herself in to the police and was arrested. Her explanation for this crime was that Warhol had become too much of an influence on her life. his incident is the subject of the film, I Shot Andy Warhol (Mary Harron, 1996).

 

Between 1963 and 1968, Andy Warhol was a prolific filmmaker. He made more than one hundred and sixty films, 60 of which are accessible. The films share similarities with his paintings, which also feature many repetitions and subtle variations of images. In the 1970s, Warhol banned the distribution of his films, but in the 1980s, after much insistence, he gave permission to restore the films. In many of his films, the usual projection speed was reduced from 24 frames to 16 frames per second. This is slightly different from usual slow-motion, where the film is actually shot at a higher speed and played back at normal speed. Warhol's technique gives the individual images more emphasis. One of his most famous films, and also his first, Sleep (1963), shows for eight hours a sleeping man, John Giorno, with whom he had a relationship. Warhol filmed for about three hours each time until the sun rose at five in the morning. Filming took a month. The film Kiss (1963) shows close-ups of kissing couples for 55 minutes. Blow Job (1963) is a continuous close-up of the face of a man (DeVeren Bookwalter) being orally satisfied off-screen. According to Warhol's later assistant, Gerard Malanga, the invisible role featured poet and filmmaker Willard Maas, although Warhol gave a different reading on this in his memoir 'Popism'. Warhol met Malanga in 1964, and they made Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of (1964). That year, Warhol also made a 99-minute portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's famous curator Henry Geldzahler. During the filming, Warhol simply walked away. The film clearly shows how Geldzahler was bored and uncomfortable by the camera. By the end of the film, he collapsed completely. Also from 1964 is the film Eat, featuring Warhol's colleague and friend Robert Indiana, who is eating a mushroom very sedately and in a close-up. Another film, Empire (1964), consists of an eight-hour shot of the Empire State Building in New York at dusk. Warhol's role-playing film Vinyl is an adaptation of the dystopian Anthony Burgess novel 'A Clockwork Orange'. Further films depict impromptu encounters with Factory hustlers such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico and Jackie Curtis. In the film Camp, legendary artist Jack Smith appears within the subculture. Many famous visitors to the Factory were put in front of the camera between 1963 and 1966, and filmed for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, the length of the standard roll of film. Usually, these were static portraits. By running the films more slowly, the expressions of the faces are greatly magnified. These shots resulted in about 500 films, called Screentests by Warhol. Among those portrayed are film star Dennis Hopper and pop star Lou Reed. The films were edited in various compositions and shown at Warhol exhibitions and in movie houses. Warhol's unorthodox approach is exemplified by Kitchen (1965). The actors do not know their roles by heart, but the screenplay is hidden in various places on the set. The scriptwriter whispers lines of dialogue from outside the frame. Snapshots are taken during filming. The set designer appears on the screen. Dialogue is drowned out by the sound of a mixer. There are long periods when nothing happens. There are two pairs of characters with the same names. Warhol was not interested in auctorial control but shifted the burden from the director to the actors and the shooting crew. He showed little interest in story intrigue, which he considered old-fashioned, or technical aspects of filmmaking. Warhol wanted to explore the borders between feigned action and the more authentic behaviour of non-actors, which is why he kept the camera running constantly: he didn't want to miss anything. In the summer of 1965, Andy Warhol met Paul Morrissey, who became his advisor and collaborator. Warhol's most successful film was Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was innovative as it consisted of two simultaneously projected 16-mm rolls of film with divergent narratives. From the projection booth, the sound level for one film was raised to clarify that story while it was lowered for the other, after which the reels were reversed. Chelsea Girls became the first underground film to be shown at a commercial theatre. Warhol also used this method of doubling the image in his screen prints of the early 1960s. The influence of film with multiple simultaneous layers and stories is noticeable in modern productions like Mike Figgis's Timecode and, indirectly, the first seasons of 24. Other important films include My Hustler (1965) and Lonesome Cowboys (1968), a homoerotic pseudo-Western. Blue Movie, a film in which Warhol's 'superstar' Viva has sex with a man for 33 minutes, was Warhol's last film of his own. After the film caused a scandal because of its liberal approach to sexuality, Viva managed to block its public screening for a long time. The film was not shown again in New York until 2005, for the first time in 30 years.

 

Compared to Andy Warhol's provocative work in the 1960s, the 1970s were artistically less productive, although Warhol became much more businesslike. He retired as a film director and left filmmaking to Paul Morrissey. The latter steered the approach to Warhol films more and more in the direction of ordinary B-movies with a clear narrative, for example, Flesh, Trash and Heat. These films, as well as the later films Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein, were much more normal than anything Warhol had ever made himself as a director. The star of these films was Joe Dallesandro, who was actually a Morrissey star rather than a true Andy Warhol superstar. Another film that caused a lot of furore as a Warhol film was Bad. starring Carroll Baker and Perry King. This film was actually directed by Jed Johnson. To increase the success of the later films, all of Warhol's earlier avant-garde films were withdrawn from circulation around 1972. Warhol founded Interview magazine in 1969. He resumed painting in 1972, although it was primarily celebrity portraits. According to his assistant during his later years, Bob Colacello, Warhol mainly sought out wealthy people from whom he could secure portrait commissions, such as Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot and Michael Jackson, as well as lesser-known bank executives and collectors. In 1975 published his book 'The Philosophy of Andy Warhol', in which he explained his down-to-earth ideas about art and life. Incidentally, he appeared in films and TV shows. When guesting on The Love Boat (1977), he was nervous about the experience and turned to his castmate Marion Ross, who calmed him down and offered some advice on how to act. In 1976, Warhol began a daily routine. Every morning at 9 am, he would call Pat Hackett, whom he had hired to keep track of his expenses. What was initially supposed to be just a morning bookkeeping session soon turned into an extremely intimate exchange of private experiences between the two of them. Warhol, who was "addicted to the phone anyway", told Hackett about the rather delicate details of the New York scene and celebrities, a subject that had interested him since childhood. Like his time capsules, the conversations were for capturing a picture of the times. After his death, Hackett released some of these notes in the book 'The Andy Warhol Diaries'. In 2022, this book was made into a Netflix documentary. Andy Warhol worked for several years with Jean-Michel Basquiat a young artist in whom he recognised much of himself. The collaboration was equal, Warhol was past his prime and Basquiat had already established his name. This equality allowed them to collaborate on some 140 works, some of which were exhibited in a duo exhibition at the New York gallery Tony Shafrazi in 1985. The ensuing New York Times review made Basquiat Warhol's mascot after which their collaboration and also their friendship cooled. Warhol died in 1987 at the age of 58 in New York. He was recovering from a routine operation on his gallbladder when he died of cardiac arrest in his sleep. Hospital staff had administered sleeping pills to him after the operation and had not sufficiently monitored his well-being. Consequently, lawyers for Warhol's next of kin sued the hospital for negligence. Warhol constantly delayed medical treatment because he was afraid of hospitals and disliked doctors. Warhol was buried at St John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, south of Pittsburgh. Yoko Ono was among those who gave a farewell address at his funeral. International auction house Sotheby's took nine days to auction off Warhol's immense collection of art and 'knickknacks'. The gross proceeds of this auction were about US$20 million. In 1990, Lou Reed and John Cale made a CD album called 'Songs for Drella' as a tribute to Warhol with 15 songs about Warhol's life.

 

Sources: Herman Hou (IMDb), Michael Brooke (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

 

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

Coronation Street (informally known as Corrie) is a British soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960.

 

The programme centres on Coronation Street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner city Salford, its terraced houses, café, corner shop, newsagents, building yard, taxicab office, salon, restaurant, textile factory and the Rovers Return pub. In the show's fictional history, the street was built in the early 1900s and named in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII.

 

The show typically airs five times a week; Monday and Friday 7.30–8 pm & 8.30–9 pm and Wednesday 7.30–8 pm, however this occasionally varies due to sport or around Christmas and New Year. From late 2017 the show will air six times a week.

 

The programme was conceived in 1960 by scriptwriter Tony Warren at Granada Televisionin Manchester.

 

Warren's initial kitchen sink drama proposal was rejected by the station's founder Sidney Bernstein, but he was persuaded by producer Harry Elton to produce the programme for 13 pilot episodes. Within six months of the show's first broadcast, it had become the most-watched programme on British television, and is now a significant part of British culture.

 

The show has been one of the most lucrative programmes on British commercial television, underpinning the success of Granada Television and ITV.

 

Coronation Street is made by Granada Television at MediaCity Manchester and shown in all ITV regions, as well as internationally. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running TV soap opera in production.

 

On 23 September 2015, Coronation Street was broadcast live to mark ITV's 60th anniversary.

 

Coronation Street is noted for its depiction of a down-to-earth working class community combined with light-hearted humour, and strong characters.

Vintage postcard. Photo: Columbia. Orson Welles in The Lady From Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947).

 

American actor, director, writer and producer Orson Welles (1915-1985) worked in theatre, radio and film, both in the US and in Europe. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three media, most notably Caesar (1937), a groundbreaking Broadway adaptation of Julius Caesar and the debut of the Mercury Theatre; The War of the Worlds (1938), one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio; and Citizen Kane (1941), ranked as one of the all-time greatest films. His other films include The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Touch of Evil (1958) and Le Procès/The Trial (1962).

 

George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1915. He was the second son of Beatrice (née Ives) and Richard Hodgdon Head Welles. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. His brother ‘Dickie’ was institutionalized at an early age because he had learning difficulties. Welles's mother, a beautiful concert pianist, had to support her son and herself. In 1924, Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital, just after Welles's ninth birthday. He was taken in by Dudley Crafts Watson. At the age of ten Orson ran away from home with Watson's third daughter, Marjorie. They were found a week later, singing and dancing for money on a street corner in Milwaukee. Welles' father died when Orson was 15. Maurice Bernstein, a physician from Chicago, became his guardian. His school teacher Roger Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to perform and stage theatrical experiments and productions. Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University, but he chose instead to travel to Europe. In Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of Gate, Hilton Edwards, was impressed by his brashness and an impassioned quality in his audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate in 1931, appearing in Jew Suss as the Duke. He acted to great acclaim, word of which reached the United States. On returning to the United States he wrote the immensely successful Everybody's Shakespeare. In 1933, he toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company, including two roles in Romeo and Juliet. In 1934, he shot his first film, an eight-minute short titled The Hearts of Age, and he married Chicago actress Virginia Nicholson. By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theatre as a radio actor, working with many actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre.

 

In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theatre performers and employees to work. Orson Welles was hired by John Houseman and assigned to direct a play for the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Theatre Unit. His production of Macbeth was set in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe, with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters. The play was received rapturously and later toured the nation. At 20, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. A few minutes of Welles’ ‘Voodoo Macbeth’ was recorded on film in the documentary We Work Again (1937). Welles rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's political operetta, The Cradle Will Rock, but because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was cancelled. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, twenty blocks away. Some cast, crew and audience members walked the distance on foot. Lacking the participation of the union members, The Cradle Will Rock began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received and played at the Venice for two more weeks. Welles and Houseman then formed the Mercury Theatre, of which Welles became executive producer and whose repertory company eventually included the actors Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Río, Everett Sloane, and Erskine Sanford. The first Mercury Theatre production was William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar, set in a contemporary frame of fascist Italy. The production was widely acclaimed. In the second year of the Mercury Theater, Welles shifted his interests to radio. He adapted, directed and played Hamlet for CBS and Les Misérables for Mutual with great success. CBS gave the Mercury Theatre a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. In 1938, their adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners from the rival more popular Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy program was later reported in the media to have created widespread confusion. Wikipedia: “Panic was reportedly spread among listeners who believed the news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech some months later. The 1975 docudrama The Night That Panicked America was based on events centering on the production of, and events that resulted from the program.”

 

Orson Welles's growing fame drew Hollywood offers, lures that the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered him complete artistic control and signed Welles in a two-picture deal, although Welles had a budget limit for his projects. In Hollywood, Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project. RKO rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, but agreed on the third offer, Citizen Kane (1941), for which Welles co-wrote, produced, directed and performed the lead role. Co-scriptwriter Joseph Mankiewicz based the original outline on an exposé of the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially and came to hate, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Kane's megalomania was modelled loosely on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes and Joseph Pulitzer as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. On Welles's instruction, John Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of The March of Time newsreels. Autobiographical allusions to Welles were worked in, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood and particularly, regarding his guardianship. Once the script was complete, Welles attracted cinematographer Gregg Toland, and actors from his Mercury Theatre. After gossip columnist Hedda Hopper saw a preview screening of Citizen Kane, the attempted suppression of Citizen Kane started. Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film. They exerted enormous pressure on Hollywood, but RKO gave the film a limited release. The film was well-received critically, and garnered nine Academy Award nominations. Welles was nominated as a producer, director, writer and actor, but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared with Mankiewicz. Today, the film is considered by most film critics and historians to be one of the classics in film history.

 

Orson Welles's second film for RKO was The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. At RKO's request, Welles worked also on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, Journey into Fear (Norman Foster, 1943), co-written with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was the producer. Changes throughout RKO caused re-evaluations of both projects. RKO took control of The Magnificent Ambersons, and ordered to edit the film into a ‘commercial’ format. They removed fifty minutes of Welles's footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and added a happy ending. It resulted in an expensive flop for RKO, although The Magnificent Ambersons received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead. Welles found no studios interested in him as a director after the disaster of The Magnificent Ambersons and worked on radio. In 1943, he married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other films. He starred in the film adaptation of Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1944), trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He had a cameo in the wartime salute Follow the Boys (A. Edward Sutherland, 1944), in which he performed his magic act ‘sawing’ Marlene Dietrich in half. In 1946, Sam Spiegel produced The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946), starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles. The film follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in the United States. Although disputes occurred during editing between Spiegel and Welles, the film was a box office success and it helped his standing with the studios. He then filmed The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947) for Columbia Pictures, in which his then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-starred. Cohn disliked Welles's rough-cut, and ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. Approximately one hour of Welles's first cut was removed, including much of a climactic confrontation scene in an amusement park funhouse. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release, though the closing shootout in a hall of mirrors has since become a touchstone of film noir. Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of Macbeth (Orson Welles, 1948). Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents and held up general release for almost a year after early negative press reaction. In the late 1970s, a fully restored version of Macbeth was released that followed Welles's original vision.

 

Orson Welles left Hollywood for Europe. In Italy he starred as Cagliostro in Black Magic (Gregory Ratoff, 1948) with Akim Tamiroff. His co-star impressed Welles so much that Tamiroff would appear in four of Welles's later productions. Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949), alongside Joseph Cotten. The film was an international smash hit. Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the Italian film Prince of Foxes (Henry King, 1949), and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in The Black Rose (Henry Hathaway, 1950), both with Tyrone Power. Welles was channelling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play Othello. From 1949 to 1951, Welles filmed Othello (1952) on location in Europe and Morocco. Suzanne Cloutier co-starred as Desdemona. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but the film did not receive a general release in the United States until 1955. Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith, restored Othello in 1992 for a wide re-release. Welles played the murdered victim in Trent's Last Case (Herbert Wilcox, 1952) and the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of Three Cases of Murder (George More O'Ferrall, 1954). Herbert Wilcox cast Welles as the antagonist in Trouble in the Glen (1954) opposite Margaret Lockwood, and John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in Moby-Dick (1956), starring Gregory Peck. Welles's next turn as director was Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles, 1955), filmed in France, Germany, Spain and Italy on a very limited budget. Welles played a billionaire who hires a man (Robert Arden) to delve into the secrets of his past. The film co-starred Welles's third wife, Paola Mori. Frustrated by his slow progress in the editing room, producer Louis Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished the film without him as Confidential Report. In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood and guest-starred on radio and television shows. His next film role was in Man in the Shadow (Jack Arnold, 1957) for Universal Pictures, starring Jeff Chandler. Around this time period, Welles began to suffer from weight problems that would eventually cause a deterioration in his health. Welles stayed on at Universal to co-star with Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958). Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal at the insistence of Heston. He reunited with many actors and technicians with whom he had worked in the 1940s including Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich and Akim Tamiroff. Filming proceeded smoothly, but after the end of production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. In 1978, a longer preview version of the film was discovered and released. Next, Welles filmed his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project. Welles continued acting, notably in The Long, Hot Summer (Marin Ritt, 1958) and Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959), but soon he returned to Europe.

 

In Italy, Orson Welles directed his own scenes as King Saul in David e Golia/David and Goliath (Ferdinando Baldi, Richard Pottier, 1959). In Hong Kong he co-starred with Curt Jürgens in Ferry to Hong Kong (Lewis Gilbert, 1959). In Paris he co-starred in Crack in the Mirror (Richard Fleischer, 1960). In Yugoslavia he starred in I tartari/The Tartars (Richard Thorpe, 1962) and Bitka na Neretvi/Battle of Neretva (Veljko Bulajić, 1969). In 1962, Welles directed Le Procès/The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962), based on the novel by Franz Kafka and starring Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider. The film failed at the box-office, but during the filming, he met Oja Kodar, who became his muse, star and mistress for the rest of his life. Welles played a film director in La Ricotta (1963)—Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the anthology film Ro.Go.Pa.G. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming Campanadas a medianoche/Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1966). Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff (Welles) and his relationship with Prince Hal (Keith Baxter). Then followed Histoire immortelle/The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968) with Jeanne Moreau, which had a successful run in French theatres. He appeared as Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) for which he won considerable acclaim. Welles began directing The Deep, based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Oja Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1969, Welles played a supporting role in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter. Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles moved back to America in 1970.

 

In Hollywood, Orson Welles continued to self-finance his own film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on television talk shows. His primary focus during his final years was The Other Side of the Wind, an unfinished project that was filmed intermittently between 1970 and 1976. Written by Welles, it is the story of an aging film director (John Huston) looking for funds to complete his final film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed, and disputes still prevent its release. Welles portrayed Louis XVIII of France in Waterloo (Sergey Bondarchuk, 1970), and narrated the historical comedy Start the Revolution Without Me (Bud Yorkin, 1970). He appeared in La décade prodigieuse/Ten Days' Wonder (Claude Chabrol, 1971), co-starring with Anthony Perkins. Wikipedia: “That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary award "For superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures". Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles, even while they refused to give Welles any work.” Welles played Long John Silver in Treasure Island (John Hough, 1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. He completed F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1973) , a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving, and his documentary Filming Othello (Orson Welles, 1979). During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as The Dreamers, based on two stories by Isak Dinesen. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's Someone to Love (1987), released after his death. Welles had three daughters: Chris Welles Feder (1938), with Virginia Nicholson; Rebecca Welles Manning (1944–2004), with Rita Hayworth; and Beatrice Welles (1955), with Paola Mori. His only known son, British director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (1940), is from Welles's affair with Irish actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, then the wife of Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 4th baronet. On 10 October 1985, Orson Welles appeared on his final interview on The Merv Griffin Show. He died several hours later of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles. His estranged wife Paola Mori refused to allow most of Welles's friends to attend the funeral, limiting the mourners to just nine: herself, Welles's three daughters, Roger Hill, and three of Welles's friends, as well as the doctor who had signed Welles's death certificate. Welles's companion for the last 20 years, Oja Kodar, was not invited, nor were either of his ex-wives. Welles's ashes were taken to Ronda, Spain, where they were buried in an old well covered by flowers, within the rural property of a long-time friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez.

 

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

A chap paused to tell us about this house that is reputed to have the best views on the Isle of Wight - he nearly brought one of the 6 flats - if you want a peek inside google as one might be on the market....

 

Tea leafed from a pdf for one of the flats that was for sale "Historical note - Brook Hill House was built in the early 20th Century for Sir Charles Seely by Sir Aston Webb - the architect of Buckingham Palace’s frontage, Admiralty Arch and Britannia Naval College Dartmouth. Seely had been informed that he should live at higher altitudes as the air would be better for his chest. Sadly he died in 1915 just after the house was completed. The Seelys were coalfield owners from Nottinghamshire. Sir Charles was a landowner, noted philanthropist and Liberal M.P. He was one of the richest men in the country – his Will being the second largest published in the Times in the year of his death. His son Gen JEB Seely was Secretary of State for War and fought in WW1 (with his famous charger Warrior), and was a close friend of Winston Churchill.

 

Brook Hill House was subsequently sold by the Seelys and was occupied by Sir Hanson Rowbotham who was a great agriculturalist – improving many Island farms and famous for his beautiful chestnut-coloured Suffolk Punch carthorses. In the 1950s it was rented by JB Priestley the famous novelist, playwright, scriptwriter, social commentator, broadcaster and 'champagne socialist'. His working day at Brook Hill would start with a huge breakfast, after which he would retire to his study until lunchtime, to re-emerge for fierce tennis, tea on the terrace, cocktails, and a late dinner. At night he would challenge his guests that they could look at the lights of Bournemouth and 'thank God you're not there.' Priestley entertained many famous people at Brook Hill including Iris Murdoch, Julian Huxley, Mortimer Wheeler, Compton Mackenzie, Dilys Powell, and historian A J P Taylor. "

British postcard by London Postcard Company, no YS 5314 (Series 2 set of 9). Photo: Subafilms Ltd. Film image of The Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, 1968). Caption: Up on the hill.

 

Yellow Submarine (1968) is an animated full-length film based on the music of The Beatles. It is also the title of the film's album of music, which is part of the Beatles' musical oeuvre. The film was directed by Canadian-born animation producer George Dunning, and produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. With over 200 employees, chief designer Heinz Edelmann and director Charles Dunning worked on the film for eleven months. The animators came from England, but also from the USA and other countries in Europe. The real Beatles themselves do not appear until the final scene of the film.

 

In 1963, the American film studio United Artists approached The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein for a contract to make a number of films around the group. Epstein saw the deal as a good way to promote The Beatles and sell their music. United Artists was particularly interested in the money that would come in from selling the music albums. The Beatles were under contract to Capitol Records in the US, but that agreement excluded music albums. The studio knew that album sales would always make money even if the film flopped, so they saw the film deal with The Beatles as one in which they could not lose. On the other hand, the deal United Artists made with Epstein was not very favourable to The Beatles. Epstein was not a good negotiator and was an amateur in many financial matters. Admittedly, The Beatles were not at their peak of popularity at the time (certainly not in the US), but even in that context it was a disappointing contract. He had no idea of the normal profit percentages that could be negotiated, so he proposed a 7.5 % share. The United Artists studio bosses couldn't believe their luck; they had been afraid of tough negotiations and perhaps a higher percentage than 25%, and now Epstein came up with the ludicrous 7.5%. They immediately made a deal for three films. Not long after, the Beatles' popularity shot through the roof (also in the US), and Richard Lester made the first Beatles film A Hard Day's Night one of the most successful films of all time. This did not only deprive The Beatles of millions in earnings. They were also stuck with a financially disappointing film contract that would hang around their necks like a millstone.

 

The second film that The Beatles made for United Artists was Help, also directed by Lester. Although the film was as successful as its predecessor, the Beatles were not very enthusiastic about the end result. They were afraid of getting stuck in the format of "the happy adventures of the Beatles". But Brian Epstein had signed a contract with United Artists in 1963, and the film production company demanded a third film. All sorts of ideas were floated, such as a film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings with Ringo as Frodo and John as Gandalf, but the third film did not materialise. In 1967, the four Beatles thought they could direct themselves and made the television production "Magical Mystery Tour". The TV movie was broadcast by the BBC in black and white and was received by viewers and critics with dismay. After this, The Beatles' interest in films dropped to a low point. Their manager Brian Epstein came up with the solution. He was approached by Al Brodax, the head of King Features Syndicate, with the idea of making a full-length animated film based on a number of Beatles songs. The idea was based on the animated series about The Beatles that had been broadcast since 1965. TVC produced this series, in which an animated adventure was always made around a Beatles song. The Beatles were excited because they did not have to contribute to the film. But for this very reason, United Artists rejected Yellow Submarine as the third film. It was only with the documentary Let it Be that the Beatles fulfilled their contractual obligations. However, Yellow Submarine was a hit in cinemas and the critics were also enthusiastic. They especially praised the innovations in animation. The drawn appearance of The Beatles was based on the appearance of the real Beatles at the time of the recording of the film that accompanied the single Strawberry Fields Forever. Only, Paul McCartney's moustache had disappeared from his alter ego in the film. The Beatles themselves, who had expected some kind of Disney film, were pleasantly surprised by the result of Yellow Submarine and decided to appear in the final scene themselves.

 

The starting point for the film was the song "Yellow Submarine". Paul McCartney wrote it as one of the songs that drummer Ringo Starr could sing with his limited singing voice. It was intended as a children's song with simple lyrics and melody. Subsequent accusations that "yellow submarines" were a code name for yellow pills, namely Nembutol capsules, so-called "downers" (hence "submarine": submarine) were dismissed by McCartney. Producer Lee Minoff based himself on the idea of a children's song and wrote the first draft of the story. Soon, several scriptwriters were working on the scenario. It was decided to include a number of recent Beatles songs alongside 'Yellow Submarine'. Some of these songs were taken from the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This Beatles album, released in 1967, caused a sensation in the music world. The idea behind the album was that The Beatles were transformed into the fictional pop group Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. On the cover, they can be seen in satin military uniforms in bright colours. This was the impetus for the idea of including in the film a Sgt. Pepper who lives in Pepperland with his band. At one point, there were about twenty versions of the screenplay circulating. One of the writers was Roger McCough, a poet from Liverpool, who contributed much to the dialogues with their typical ambiguities, expressions from Liverpool, and private jokes from The Beatles. McCough received 500 pounds for his contribution, but no mention in the credits. Mention was made of Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal. Mendelsohn had worked on the Beatles' animated series, but Segal was unfamiliar with the film business in 1967. He was working at Yale as an assistant to the professor of Classics. He was brought to London by Brodax to put together a coherent script from the large amount of material, some of which consisted only of fragments. Segal worked on the script continuously for several weeks under the threat of a deadline. He was barely allowed to leave his hotel room to jog. However, Segal was able to take advantage of a brilliant suggestion by lead designer Heinz Edelmann. During a production meeting, the collaborators came to a disturbing conclusion: the screenplay lacked an enemy. Pepperland was a paradise without a snake. Edelmann came up with the concept of the Blue Meanies and their attack on everything that smelt of music. (Incidentally, the meanies were originally red, entirely in keeping with the Cold War. An error by Edelmann's assistant caused the colours to be switched and the meanies became blue). Despite all the creative contributions, Yellow Submarine's screenplay also suffered from the fact that the music overshadowed the story and the story was adapted to the songs. It did result in a modern fairy tale about the 1967 hippy generation.

 

Source: Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

 

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

Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1938. Photo: A.P.P.I.A. Caterina Boratto in Vivere!/To Live (Guido Brignone, 1936).

 

Caterina Boratto (1915-2010) was an Italian film actress, who appeared in 50 films between 1936 and 1993.

 

Born in Turin, Boratto studied at the Musical Lyceum in her hometown with the purpose of becoming a singer; noted by Guido Brignone, she made her debut in Vivere/ To Live, alongside Tito Schipa, who fell in love with her. Thanks to the film's success, she immediately became a star in the telefoni bianchi genre, e.g. in Gennaro Righelli's comedy Hanno rapito un uomo/ They've Kidnapped a Man (1938), in which she played a Russian grandduchess opposite Vittorio De Sica as a film actor. She also got the offer of a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She moved to Hollywood to become a second Jeannette McDonald, but tired of waiting to start her first film she returned to Italy just when World War II broke out. During the war she fell in love with a war hero, count Guidi di Romena, who was killed in an air fight, against the background of Turin being bombed.

 

Boratto returned to film making in Rome: first the melodrama Il romanzo di un giovane povero (Brignone, 1942) with the heartthrob of those years: Amedeo Nazzari, followed by the Shakespeare adaptation Dente per dente/Measure for Measure (Marco Elter, 1943). Next she played in the tragicomedy Campo de' fiori/The Peddler and the Lady (Mario Bonnard, 1943). The film deals with a fishmonger Peppino (Aldo Fabrizi), who pretends to be a womanizer, mocked by greengrocer Elide (Anna Magnani), who yet loves him. He instead is smitten with a young elegant lady, Elsa (Boratto), who deposits her lively little son with him. She proves to be a married woman who eventually returns to her husband, with her son, leaving Peppino only with a lesson about life. So he marries the honest, working class Elide. While Boratto often played austere, classy ladies, she was much less so in real life.

 

In 1943 Boratto lost two brothers, the partisan Renato and the soldier Filiberto, killed in the massacre of the Acqui Division in Cefalonia. In 1944, she married a doctor, Armando Ceratto, owner of a clinic and connected to the Resistance, with whom she had two children: Marina and Paolo. Except for one film in 1951, she basically retired from show business for twenty years before accepting to play two key roles in Otto e mezzo/ 8½ (1963) and Giulietta degli spiriti/ Juliet of the Spirits (1965) by Federico Fellini, who had been one of the scriptwriters of Campo de' fiori. In 8 1/2 she is an elegant lady at the spa, while in Juliet of the Spirits she is Giulietta's proud, vain mother, who is only interested in Giulietta for bettering her looks.

 

Starting from the second half of the 1960s, Boratto reprised appearing in films with some regularity, as in Io, io, io... e gli altri/Me, Me, Me... and the Others (1965) by Alessandro Blasetti with Franca Valeri, Ardenne '44, un inferno/Castle Keep (1969) by Sydney Pollack, and Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma/Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) by Pier Paolo Pasolini. From the late 1970s Boratto also became very active on television, being cast in dozens of TV series such as Anna Karenina (1974), Un amore di Dostoevskij (1978), Morte a passo di valzer (179), Bel Ami (1979), and Villa Arzilla (1990-1991). Caterina Boratto died in Rome in 2010 at the high age of 95 years.

 

Sources: Italian and English Wikipedia, IMDB.

Vintage Italian postcard. Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, No. 13. Photo by Fontana.

 

Lucio D'Ambra, pseudonym of Renato Eduardo Manganella (Rome, 1 September 1880 - Rome, 31 December 1939), was an Italian writer, director and film producer. According to some sources, his full name was Renato Tommaso Anacleto Manganella, while the date of birth is uncertain. D'Ambra was also a journalist, literary and theatre critic, playwright and artistic director of theatre companies (Ettore Petrolini reduced his play Ambasciatori to one of his shows) as well as a screenwriter for the cinema. An academic of Italy and author of novels (among others, I due modi di avere vent'anni, published by Arnoldo Mondadori in 1934), he had the writer and poet Tullio Colsalvatico as his secretary and was in contact with the philosopher and critic Adriano Tilgher, with whom he polemised at length. D'Ambra was also the animator of a literary salon that allowed him to come into contact with literary figures and personalities from the world of art (he was friends with the writer Arturo Olivieri Sangiacomo, the playwright Tito Marrone and the founder of the Bagutta Prize Marino Parenti, among others). In 1923, he founded the company called Teatro degli Italiani at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome, together with Mario Fumagalli and Santi Severino (which had little luck, however), whose aim was to promote Italian dramaturgy.

 

While occasionally already writing the script for the 1913 film Il bacio di Cirano by Carmine Gallone and starring Soava Gallone, in 1916 D'Ambra steadily started his film career as screenwriter for the company Medusa Film, first for the delicious Lubitsch-like comedy La signorina Ciclone (Augusto Genina, 1916) with Suzanne Armelle as a dynamic New Yorkese heiress who keeps all of her seven admirers on a leash like dogs but in the end prefers a European who possesses all seven sins the admirers represent individually. D'Ambra also wrote scripts for star vehicles, such as Effetti di luce (Ugo Falena, 1916) with Stacia Napierkowska and La chiamavano 'Cosetta' (Eugenio Perego, 1917) with Soava Gallone, La storia dei tredici (Carmine Gallone, 1917) and Carnevalesca (Amleto Palermi, 1918) both with Lyda Borelli, and so on. D'Ambra also scripted for Medusa Il re, le torri, gli alfieri (Ivo Illuminati, 1920), a now lost film which seems to have had affinities with Italian Futurism. It was based on D'Ambra's own novel. The story was a kind of dramatisation of a chess game, where the characters were dressed as the various pieces and moved around on a chessboard floor. For the company Do-Re-Mi D'Ambra directed in 1918-19 a series of films starring Mary Corwyn/ Maria Corvin: Napoleoncina (1918), Ballerine (1918), La commedia dal mio palco (1918), Passa il dramma a Lilliput (1919), and La valse bleue (1919), in which the actress often was paired with Romano Calò.

 

In 1919, in collaboration with the Piedmontese entrepreneur Alfredo Fasola, Lucio D'Ambra founded his own production company, D'Ambra-Film, with which directors Carmine Gallone, Augusto Genina and others collaborated, e.g. for Nemesis (Carmine Gallone, 1920) and La peccatrice senza peccato (Augusto Genina, 1922), both starring Soava Gallone. Yet, many films were directed by D'Ambra himself, such as Il girotondo degli undici lancieri (1919) with Mary Corwyn and Romano Calò, and the witty short comedy L'illustre attrice Cicala Formica (1920), with Lia Formia as a wannabe actress who to the frustration of her family pursues with all means to become a diva, but utterly fails. The film clearly mocked the Italian diva and epic films, amateurism in the film world, but also the Italian family. Yet, D'Ambra also directed serious drama, such as the Ugo Foscolo adaptation Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1921), on a man's despair about his inability to obtain the woman of his dreams. Until 1922 D'Ambra continued to direct and script various films at his company, often with Lia Formia in the lead, the last one being Tragedia su tre carte (1922). Together with the collapse of the Italian film industry, D'Ambra's film adventures collapsed. From the late 1930s he returned but only as screenwriter, and only for a small amount of films.

 

On D'Ambra's film career, Italian scholar Gianni Rondolino wrote in the Enciclopedia Treccani: "A largely independent author and director, he was able to deal with themes and topics, situations and characters from the high society, but also from everyday life, with great fluency, in a style that took into account the linguistic peculiarities of cinema, skillfully using close-ups and camera movements, scenic effects and daring narrative solutions. His films, considered forerunners of those of Ernst Lubitsch for the lightness of touch and the environments described, constitute a not inconsiderable chapter in the history of Italian silent films, for their formal innovation, after the more conventional splendour of the previous years, among historical reconstructions, novels of appendices, melodramas and farces."

 

Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDb, Enciclopedia Treccani.

Shanghai Ballet: Echoes of Eternity

 

Shanghai Ballet presents 'Echoes of Eternity ' at the London Coliseum, choreographed by Patrick de Bana and inspired by the ancient Chinese poem ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow. 7-21 August 2016.

 

Choreographer: Patrick de Bana

Set designer: Jaya Ibrahim

Costume designer: Agnes Letestu

Light designer: James Angot

Scriptwriter: Jean Francois Vazelle

Literature Consultant: Sifu TANG

 

Dancers:

Emperor: WU Husheng

Lady Yang: QI Bingxue

Moon Fairy: ZHAO Hanbing

Gao Lishi: ZHANG Yao

Chen Xuanli: WU Bin

An Lushan: ZHANG Wenjun

 

see www.dancetabs.com

photo - © Foteini Christofilopoulou | All rights reserved | For all usage/licensing enquiries please contact www.foteini.com

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 411. Catherine Hessling as the title character in Nana (Jean Renoir, 1926), based on the homonymous novel (1880) by Emile Zola.

 

Catherine Hessling, born on June 22, 1900, in Moronvilliers, Marne, France as Andrée Heuschling. Hessling was an attractive brunette with bee-stung lips, who started as a model for the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1917-19) in the Provence. She married his son Jean in 1920 and they had a son Alain in 1921. Hessling adored American cinema and imitated favorite stars such as Gloria Swanson, Mae Murray, and Mary Pickford, leading to her Americanized name Catherine Hessling. From 1924 Hessling acted in Renoir's first films, first in Catherine/ Une vie sans joie (1924, re-edited by Albert Dieudonné in 1927), about an orphan girl who is a victim of the jealousy of women and the greed of men. Hessling had the lead right away, acting opposite acclaimed actors Albert Dieudonné and Eugénie Nau, and newcomer Pierre Lestringuez (Renoir's close collaborator, also as scriptwriter). Hessling got extreme make-up by Renoir while her acting style was not unlike that of Charles Chaplin - she became known as the 'female Charlot'.

 

In her second film, La fille de l'eau/The Whirlpool of Fate (1925), Hessling is the daughter of a pole man, whose father drowns and whose uncle tries to rape and rob her. She hides with friendly gypsies, but when they steal too much, peasants suspect them of a fire and burn their wagon. A young estate owner will save her. Renoir's next production Nana (1926) was prestigious and costly (Renoir sold several of his father's canvases for it). It was filmed at the Bavaria Studios in Munich, and had a star cast including Jean Angelo and Werner Krauss. Yet, the film remained rather theatrical apart from some remarkable cinematic moments. Though the publicity campaign was big, audiences did not flock 'en masse' to the film. But Hessling and Renoir became household names.

 

In 1927 Hessling shot with Alberto Cavalcanti the short melodrama La Ptite Lili' and and with Renoir Sur un air de charleston. She acted in two films by Cavalcanti in 1928: Yvette and En rade, while in the same year she returned to Renoir for La Petite Marchande d'allumettes. After brief appearances in Renoir's late silent film Tire-au-flanc (1930), and two more collaborations with Cavalcanti, Le Petit Chaperon rouge (1930) and the short Vous verrez la semaine prochaine (1931), Hessling went to Germany to act in Die Jagd nach dem Glück by Renoir's friends Rochus Gliese, Carl Koch, and Lotte Reiniger, but the film flopped in Germany and was not released in France. After that, Hessling separated from Renoir in 1931 (their official divorce was in 1943), while she still had three small parts in French films of the 1930s before calling it a day and quitting film acting altogether. In his memories, Renoir claimed that he only started film directing because he hoped to turn his wife into a star.

 

Catherine Hessling died on September 28, 1979, in La-Celle-Saint-Cloud, Yvelines, France.

 

Sources: IMDB, French Wikipedia.

Sissy fiction tg caption the scriptwriter

sissy.silicone-breast.com/2016/07/29/sissy-fiction-tg-cap...

imgur.com/l6mNVEM.jpg?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss

 

During his study as scriptwriter, Gerard got the advice to use situations and

topics that are familiar to him in his stories to give them an air of authenticity.

Then Gerard faced a challenge, as he had to write a story with around a female

head character. So Gerard used a whishing coin to

 

German press photo by Goepfert Arthur, Tessin, Barbengo / Films du Carrosse / Valoria Films, Paris / Fida Cinematografica, Rome. Jean-Pierre Léaud in Domicile Conjugal (François Truffaut, 1970).

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

Spanish collector's card. Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, No. 6. French actress Fabienne Fabrèges and Didaco Chellini in the Italian silent film Spasimi (Giuseppe Giusti, Corona Films 1916). The Spanish release title of the film was Espasmos. The cards series consisted of six cards, all of which have been found and uploaded here. As far as known, no copy of the film exists.

 

Plot: Fabienne is orphan, alone and ruined. At the auction of her palace, Marquis Chabrol asks Fabienne to become the piano teacher of his daughter Renée. She is overcome by the wealth of the marquis's mansion, while Henri, the son of the marquis, falls in love with her. His father chases him and he goes for easy pleasures. Fabienne takes care of the ill marquis, which is rewarded by the marquis' gratitude but also the envy of his daughter. During a nightly garden party by the Count of St. Privat, Fabienne is the toast of the evening. The count whispers sweet words to her. She confesses him her only mistake in life but he forgives her and asks her in marriage. Jealous Renée plots to ruin Fabienne's happiness by telling her brother Henri how fond their father is of Fabienne and asking him to return immediately. Henri returns after the wedding and is vexed Fabienne didn't choose him. The count, remembering Fabienne's confusion she once had another man, takes her on a honeymoon to far away places. Henri pursues them, though. he confronts Fabienne, who declares she despises him and loves her husband, but she thinks he will kill her husband, so she agrees to a secret rendezvous. The count finds the letter and suspects his wife of adultery. Armed with a revolver, Fabienne goes to Henri's house to defend her husband, followed by the Count. But entering the house, she finds the corpse of Henri, who has killed himself and holds in his hands a letter exonerating Fabienne. From that day, the happiness for the couple returns. (plot taken from the backside of the cards)

 

Just like in Signori giurati, one of the few remaining Italian films with Fabrèges, and produced almost at the same time, we can conclude that Didaco Chellini plays the male lead of the film, the Count. If the same cast of Signori giurati collaborated, then Bonaventura Ibanez may have played the old Marquis, Attilio de Virgiliis young Henri, and Valeria Creti Renée. NB Vittorio Martinelli, in his reference work Il cinema muto italiano (1916, part II), doesn't list any of the other actors, and only gives a vague plot. The film premiered in Rome on 12 June 1917. While the Italian press thought the plot unimpressive, it praised Fabrèges' performance as "gracious, without the grand gestures and poses of the worst style", probably referring to the Italian divas or rather their epigones (Giuseppe Lega in Cine-Gazzetto, Rome, 9-6-2017). The film apparently was a public success.

 

Sources: IMDB, Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano 1916, I, the collector's cards themselves.

 

Fabienne Fabrèges (1889-?) was a French actress, but also scriptwriter and director of the silent film. She had a rich career at Gaumont, and afterward in Italian silent film.

 

Fabienne Fabrèges is part of a generation of "modern" young women who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, were able to overcome the roles of women who were forced upon them in Western society when pursuing their careers. Fabienne Fabrèges began as a young actress at the age of 15 in "Cousin Bette" by Honoré de Balzac. In 1911, her talent as a performer was already receiving favorable reviews. Then she was part of the troupe of the company of Charles Baret, performing in Strasbourg and various French cities. Fabrèges also played in theatrical performances abroad, notably on the stages of Saint-Petersburg, Berlin, London, and Madrid.

Fabrèges's film career (1910-1923) can be divided into three phases. Between 1910 and 1916, she worked in France for the Société des Établissements Gaumont where she joined Léonce Perret's troupe, director of the company with Louis Feuillade. At Gaumont she acted in some forty films, mostly directed by Perret, and from 1913 also by Feuillade, including the third episode of Fantomas (1913). During the First World War, in 1916, she moved to Italy, where she was immediately recognized as a leading actress by the Italian film industry, and, between 1916 and 1923, played in over twenty films. Fabrèges first acted at the Turin based company Corona Films, e.g. in Signora giurati (Giuseppe Giusti, 1916), of which a tinted print was found at the Dutch EYE Filmmuseum. Fabrèges here plays the owner of an opium den, who falls in love with one of her victims (Bonaventura Ibáñez). Fabrèges also scripted the film. Indeed, for several of these Italian films, Fabrèges is also credited as screenwriter. In 1917 she also acted at other companies, such as Gladiator Film and Latino Ars. In 1918 she reached the apex of her career, when moving to De Giglio films. Producer Alfonso De Giglio was so impressed by her that he not only gave her several leads, but also let her found her own company, the Fabrèges Film Company. It operated under the aegis of De Giglio and produced four films in 1919: Il cuore di Musette, L’altalena della vita, Sua Maestà il Denaro, and Sua Maestà l’Amore. Fabrèges scripted all four and played the lead, while for L'altalena della vita she also functioned as director. Yet, despite praise for her direction and performance, critics condemned her script of the latter film. This may have meant the end of her own company (of which very few details are known), though Fabrèges still acted in two films by De Giglio in 1920, while a third had a late release in 1923. Finally, somewhere in 1920-1921, she left the stage and the screen in Italy and moved to Britain, where she continued to perform on stage in theaters, and starred in one film, The Pennyless Millionnaire (Einar Bruun 1921), with Stewart Rome in the lead, and Gregory Scott and Cameron Carr as co-stars. There, her career seems to have ended after 1923, following a breakup in love. She retired to Scotland and no longer showed herself in public.

It is unknown when and where Fabienne Fabrèges died. She is sometimes mentioned as Fabrège or Fabrege.

 

Sources: Elena Nepoti on the Woman Film Pioneer Project, French Wikipedia, IMDB. See wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/fabienne-fabreges/

   

Italian postcard. Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1940. Photo by Luxardo.

 

Caterina Boratto (1915-2010) was an Italian film actress, who appeared in 50 films between 1936 and 1993.

 

Born in Turin, Boratto studied at the Musical Lyceum in her hometown with the purpose of becoming a singer; noted by Guido Brignone, she made her debut in Vivere/ To Live, alongside Tito Schipa, who fell in love with her. Thanks to the film's success, she immediately became a star in the telefoni bianchi genre, e.g. in Gennaro Righelli's comedy Hanno rapito un uomo/ They've Kidnapped a Man (1938), in which she played a Russian grand duchess opposite Vittorio De Sica as a film actor. She also got the offer of a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She moved to Hollywood to become a second Jeanette MacDonald, but tired of waiting to start the first film she returned to Italy just when World War II broke out. During the war, she fell in love with a war hero, count Guidi di Romena, who was killed in an air fight, against the background of Turin being bombed.

 

Boratto returned to film making in Rome: first the melodrama Il romanzo di un giovane povero (Brignone, 1942) with the heartthrob of those years: Amedeo Nazzari, followed by the Shakespeare adaptation Dente per dente/Measure for Measure (Marco Elter, 1943). Next she played in the tragicomedy Campo de' fiori/The Peddler and the Lady (Mario Bonnard, 1943). The film deals with a fishmonger Peppino (Aldo Fabrizi), who pretends to be a womanizer, mocked by greengrocer Elide (Anna Magnani), who yet loves him. He instead is smitten with a young elegant lady, Elsa (Boratto), who deposits her lively little son with him. She proves to be a married woman who eventually returns to her husband, with her son, leaving Peppino only with a lesson about life. So he marries the honest, working class Elide. While Boratto often played austere, classy ladies, she was much less so in real life.

 

In 1943 Boratto lost two brothers, the partisan Renato and the soldier Filiberto, killed in the massacre of the Acqui Division in Cefalonia. In 1944, she married a doctor, Armando Ceratto, owner of a clinic and connected to the Resistance, with whom she had two children: Marina and Paolo. Except for one film in 1951, she basically retired from show business for twenty years before accepting to play two key roles in Otto e mezzo/ 8½ (1963) and Giulietta degli spiriti/ Juliet of the Spirits (1965) by Federico Fellini, who had been one of the scriptwriters of Campo de' fiori. In 8 1/2 she is an elegant lady at the spa, while in Juliet of the Spirits she is Giulietta's proud, vain mother, who is only interested in Giulietta for bettering her looks.

 

Starting from the second half of the 1960s, Boratto reprised appearing in films with some regularity, as in Io, io, io... e gli altri/Me, Me, Me... and the Others (1965) by Alessandro Blasetti with Franca Valeri, Ardenne '44, un inferno/Castle Keep (1969) by Sydney Pollack, and Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma/Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) by Pier Paolo Pasolini. From the late 1970s Boratto also became very active on television, being cast in dozens of TV series such as Anna Karenina (1974), Un amore di Dostoevskij (1978), Morte a passo di valzer (179), Bel Ami (1979), and Villa Arzilla (1990-1991). Caterina Boratto died in Rome in 2010 at the high age of 95 years.

 

Sources: Italian and English Wikipedia, IMDB.

French postcard by St. Anne, Marseille. Photo: Sam Lévin.

 

Legendary film star Jeanne Moreau (1928) is the personification of French womanhood and sensuality. She had a diverse career as a magnificent stage and film actress, a producer, screenwriter and film director, a successful singer with a substantial recording career, and a theatre and opera director. She combined off-kilter beauty with strong character in Nouveau Vague (New Wave) classics as Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958) and Les Amants (1959). Her role as the flamboyant, free-spirited Catherine with her devil-may-care sensuality, in Jules et Jim (1962) is one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema. Throughout her long career with more than 130 films, Moreau continued to work with some of the most notable film directors.

 

Jeanne Moreau was born in 1928, Paris, France. Her father, Anatole-Désiré Moreau, owned a restaurant in Monmartre, Paris. Her mother, Katherine (née Buckley), was an English dancer who had come to the Folies Bergère with the Tiller Girls. She grew up living part of the time in Paris, and part of the time in Mazirat, her father s native village. During WW II Katherine and Jeanne were forced to stay in Paris; classified as alien enemies. She attended the Lycee Edgar Quinet in Paris, and began to discover her love of literature and the theatre. When her parents divorced in the late 1940’s and her mother returned to England, she remained with her father in Montmartre. Opposing her father's wishes, she decided to become an actress. She trained for the stage at the Paris Conservatoire, and made her theatrical debut in 1947 at the Avignon Festival. In 1948, when she was only 20 years old, she became the youngest full-time member in the history of the Comédie-Française, France's most prestigious theatrical company. Her first play was Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country, directed by Jean Meyer. She soon was one of the leading actresses of the troupe and was recognized as the prime stage actress of her generation. She left in 1951, finding it too restrictive and authoritarian, and joined the more experimental Théâtre Nationale Populaire.She began playing small roles in films like Dernier amour/Last Love (1949, Jean Stelli) and appeared during the 1950’s in several mainstream films like the superb thriller Touchez pas au grisbi/Grisbi (1953, Jacques Becker) with Jean Gabin and the colourful drama La reine Margot/Queen Margot (1954, Jean Dréville).

 

Jeanne Moreau was almost 30 before her film career took off thanks to her work with first-time director Louis Malle. His murder mystery Ascenseur pour l'échafaud seemed to be in the same thriller genre as her earlier films, but after seeing the first week of dailies for Ascenseur the technicians at the film lab went to the producer and said: “You must not let Malle destroy Jeanne Moreau”. Louis Malle later explained: “She was lit only by the windows of the Champs Elysées. That had never been done. Cameramen would have forced her to wear a lot of make-up and they would put a lot of light on her, because, supposedly, her face was not photogenic”. This lack of artifice revealed Moreau's ‘essential qualities’: she could be almost ugly and then ten seconds later she would turn her face and would be incredibly attractive. But she would be herself.” Ascenseur pour l'échafaud/Elevator to the Gallows (1958, Louis Malle) was immediately followed by the controversial Les amants/The Lovers (1958, Louis Malle). Moreau starred as a provincial wife who abandons her family for a man she has just met. Her earthy, intelligent and subtle portrayal of the adulteress caused a scandal in France. The erotic scenes also caused censorship problems all over the world. The American gossip columnists tagged her as 'The New Bardot' and Moreau instantly became an international sex symbol. Malle and his star separated privately, but they would make several more films together, including the excellent Le feu follet/The Fire Within (1963).

 

Jeanne Moreau went on to work with many of the best known Nouveau Vague and avant-garde directors. Her most enduring role is the flamboyant and magnetic Catherine in Truffaut's explosive Jules et Jim/Jules and Jim (1962, François Truffaut). She co-produced Jules et Jim herself and also co-produced La baie des anges/Bay of Angels (1963, Jacques Demy) and Peau de banane/Banana Peel (1963, Marcel Ophüls). Her teaming with Brigitte Bardot in Viva Maria! (1965, Louis Malle) was one of the major media events of 1965. Thanks to the on-screen chemistry between the two top French female stars of the period, the film became an international hit. Five years after Jules et Jim, she worked again with François Truffaut, starring as an icy murderess in the popular Hitchcock homage La mariée était en noir/The Bride Wore Black (1967). She also worked with such notable directors as Michelangelo Antonioni (La notte/The Night, 1961, and Beyond the Clouds, 1995), Orson Welles (Le procès/The Trial, 1962; Campanadas a medianoche/Chimes at Midnight, 1965; L’histoire immortelle/The Immortal Story, 1968; and the unfinished The Deep, 1970), Joseph Losey (Eva, 1962; Mr. Klein, 1976), Luis Buñuel (Le journal d'une femme de chambre/Diary of a Chambermaid, 1964), Elia Kazan (The Last Tycoon, 1976), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Querelle, 1982), and Wim Wenders (Bis ans Ende der Welt/Until the End of the World, 1991). Her stage hits include Anna Bonacci's L'heure éblouissante/The Dazzling Hour (1953), Jean Cocteau's La machine infernale (1954, as the Sphinx), George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1955, as Eliza Doolittle), Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1956, as Maggie), Frank Wedekind's Lulu/Loulou (1976, title role) , and The Night of the Iguana (1985, as Hannah Jelkes). She won the Best Actress Molière Award (the French equivalent of the Tony) in 1988 for her acclaimed performance in Hermann Broch's Le récit de la servante Zerline, a huge theatrical success which toured 11 countries. Moreau has also enjoyed success as a vocalist. She has released several albums and once performed with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall. Her name has been often associated, both socially and professionally, to that of writer-director Marguerite Duras; apart from their close friendship, Moreau starred in two films based on Duras' novels, Moderato cantabile/Seven Days ... Seven Nights (1960, Peter Brooks) and /The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967, Tony Richardson), was directed by Duras in Nathalie Granger (1972), was the narrator in another Duras screen adaptation, L'amant (1992, Jean-Jacques Annaud) and even went on to portray Duras in the biopic Cet amour-là (2001, Josée Dayan). Other major literary figures among her close friends were Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Henry Miller, and Anaïs Nin. Today Jeanne Moreau is still the president of Equinoxe, an organization which supports new European scriptwriters.

 

Jeanne Moreau is still active in the international cinema. As her leading-lady days began to wane, she made a graceful transition to character parts. She has used her standing in the French industry to foster the careers of young directors such as Bertrand Blier, in whose 1974 feature Les valseuses/Going Places, she gave a cryptic but memorable performance, and Andre Techine. In 1975 she made her debut as a director in Lumière/Light (1975), the story of several generations of actresses. She also wrote the script and played Sarah, an actress the same age as Moreau. She also helmed L'Adolescente (1978), a semi-autobiographical tale of a girl sent to live with her grandmother in 1939, and Lillian Gish (1984), an homage to the silent screen heroine. She is the only actress who has presided twice over the jury of the Cannes Film Festival (in 1975 and 1995) and was President of the jury at the Berlin Film Festival in 1983. She was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#76) in 1995. She has won a number of honours, including two BAFTA Awards, three Cesars (the French Oscar), a Golden Lion for career achievement at the 1991 Venice Film Festival and a 1997 European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1998 the American Academy of Motion Pictures presented her a life tribute. She also was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film culture.In 2000 she made her debut as a stage director with a Geneva and Paris production of Margaret Edson's Wit. The following year she was the first woman to enter the Academie des Beaux-Arts of Paris. In 2001 she also made her debut as an opera director with an Opera National de Paris production of Giuseppe Verdi's Attila. Among her most recent films are Le temps qui reste/Time to Leave (2005, François Ozon), Go West (2005, Ahmed Imamovic), Disengagement (2007, Amos Gitai) and Visage/Face (2009, Ming-liang Tsai). Jeanne Moreau has been romantically involved with Louis Malle, Francois Truffaut, Lee Marvin, and fashion designer Pierre Cardin. Vanessa Redgrave named Moreau as co-respondent in her 1967 divorce from director Tony Richardson on grounds of adultery. Richardson and Moreau never married. Jeanne Moreau married - and divorced - three times: to actor-director Jean-Louis Richard (1949-1951), to Greek actor Teodoro Rubanis (1966-1967), and to Excorcist director William Friedkin(1977-1980). She has a son with Richard, Jérôme Richard (1950) who is a successful painter. She was quoted saying: "Making films is no longer a way of acting, it is a way of life."

 

Sources: Jeff Galipeaux (Salon.com), Rebecca Flint Marx (All Movie Guide), Filmreference.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Coronation Street (informally known as Corrie) is a British soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960.

 

The programme centres on Coronation Street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner city Salford, its terraced houses, café, corner shop, newsagents, building yard, taxicab office, salon, restaurant, textile factory and the Rovers Return pub. In the show's fictional history, the street was built in the early 1900s and named in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII.

 

The show typically airs five times a week; Monday and Friday 7.30–8 pm & 8.30–9 pm and Wednesday 7.30–8 pm, however this occasionally varies due to sport or around Christmas and New Year. From late 2017 the show will air six times a week.

 

The programme was conceived in 1960 by scriptwriter Tony Warren at Granada Televisionin Manchester.

 

Warren's initial kitchen sink drama proposal was rejected by the station's founder Sidney Bernstein, but he was persuaded by producer Harry Elton to produce the programme for 13 pilot episodes. Within six months of the show's first broadcast, it had become the most-watched programme on British television, and is now a significant part of British culture.

 

The show has been one of the most lucrative programmes on British commercial television, underpinning the success of Granada Television and ITV.

 

Coronation Street is made by Granada Television at MediaCity Manchester and shown in all ITV regions, as well as internationally. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running TV soap opera in production.

 

On 23 September 2015, Coronation Street was broadcast live to mark ITV's 60th anniversary.

 

Coronation Street is noted for its depiction of a down-to-earth working class community combined with light-hearted humour, and strong characters.

Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 78.

 

Was Austrian-born Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957) a Hollywood movie star or a European film star? (Who cares!) As the sadistic, monocled Prussian officer in both American and French films, he became ‘The Man You Love to Hate’. But maybe he is best known as one of the greatest and influential directors of the silent era, known for his extravaganza and the uncompromising accuracy of detail in his monumental films.

 

Erich von Stroheim's most recent biographers, such as Richard Koszarski, say that he was born in Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1885 as Erich Oswald Stroheim. He was the son of Benno Stroheim, a middle-class hat-maker, and Johanna Bondy, both of whom were practicing Jews. Stroheim emigrated to America at the end of 1909. On arrival at Ellis Island, he claimed to be Count Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim und Nordenwall, the son of Austrian nobility like the characters he later played in his films. However, both Billy Wilder and Stroheim's agent Paul Kohner claimed that he spoke with a decidedly lower-class Austrian accent. In 1912 while working at a tavern he met his first wife, Margaret Knox, and moved in with her. Knox acted as a sort of mentor to von Stroheim, teaching him language and literature and encouraging him to write. Under Knox's tutelage, he wrote a novella entitled In the Morning, with themes that anticipated his films: corrupt aristocracy and innocence debased. The couple married in 1913, but money woes drove von Stroheim to deep depressions and terrible temper tantrums, and in 1914 Knox filed for divorce. By then he was working in Hollywood. He began his cinema career in bit-parts and as a consultant on German culture and fashion. His first film was The Country Boy (Frederick A. Thomson, 1915) in which he was an uncredited diner in a restaurant. His first credited role came in Old Heidelberg (John Emerson, 1915) starring Wallace Reed and Dorothy Gish. He began working with D. W. Griffith, taking uncredited roles in Intolerance (1916). Additionally, Von Stroheim acted as one of the many assistant directors on Intolerance, a film remembered in part for its huge cast of extras. Later, he played the sneering German with the short Prussian military hairstyle in such films as Sylvia of the Secret Service (George Fitzmaurice, 1917) and The Hun Within (Chester Whitey, 1918) with Dorothy Gish. In the war drama The Heart of Humanity (Allen Holuba, 1918), he tore the buttons from a nurse's uniform with his teeth, and when disturbed by a crying baby, threw it out of a window. Following the end of World War I, Von Stroheim turned to writing.

 

In 1919, Erich von Stroheim directed his own script for Blind Husbands (1919), and also starred in the film. As a director, Stroheim was known to be dictatorial and demanding, often antagonizing his actors. He is considered one of the greatest directors of the silent era, with both cynical and romantic views of human nature. His next directorial efforts were the lost film The Devil's Pass Key (1919) and Foolish Wives (1922), in which he also starred. Studio publicity for Foolish Wives claimed that it was the first film to cost one million dollars. ‘Von’ translated sexual subjects in a witty and ostentatious manner, and his first films for Universal are among the most acclaimed sophisticated films of the silent era. In 1923, Stroheim began work on Merry-Go-Round. He cast the American actor Norman Kerry in a part written for himself 'Count Franz Maximilian Von Hohenegg' and newcomer Mary Philbin in the lead actress role. However, studio executive Irving Thalberg fired Von Stroheim during filming and replaced him with director Rupert Julian. He left Universal for Goldwyn Films to make Greed (1924). This monumental film is now one of Stroheim's best-remembered works as a director. It is a detailed film of Frank Norris’ novel McTeague, about the power of money to corrupt. The original print ran for an astonishing 10 hours. Knowing this version was far too long, Stroheim cut out almost half the footage, reducing it to a six-hour version to be shown over two nights. It was still deemed too long, so Stroheim and director Rex Ingram edited it into a four-hour version that could be shown in two parts. However, in the midst of filming, Goldwyn was bought by Marcus Loew and merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After rejecting Stroheim's attempts to cut it to less than three hours, MGM removed Greed from his control and gave it to head scriptwriter June Mathis, with orders to cut it down to a manageable length. Mathis gave the print to a routine cutter, who reduced it to 2.5 hours. In what is considered one of the greatest losses in cinema history, a janitor destroyed the cut footage. The shortened release version was a box-office failure and was angrily disowned by Von Stroheim. He followed with his most commercially successful film The Merry Widow (1925), the more personal The Wedding March (1928) and the now-lost The Honeymoon. Stroheim's unwillingness or inability to modify his artistic principles for the commercial cinema, his extreme attention to detail, his insistence on near-total artistic freedom, and the resulting costs of his films led to fights with the studios. As time went on he received fewer directing opportunities. In 1929, Stroheim was dismissed as the director of the film Queen Kelly after disagreements with star Gloria Swanson and producer and financier Joseph P. Kennedy over the mounting costs of the film and Stroheim's introduction of indecent subject matter into the film's scenario. It was followed by Walking Down Broadway, another project from which Stroheim was dismissed.

 

After the introduction of sound film, Erich von Stroheim returned to working principally as an actor, in both American and French films. One of his most famous roles is the prison-camp commandant Von Rauffenstein in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion/Grand Illusion (1937) with Jean Gabin. It is a classic anti-war film about friendship, comradeship, and human relations. Working in France on the eve of World War II, Stroheim was prepared to direct the film La dame blanche from his own story and screenplay. Jean Renoir wrote the dialogue, Jacques Becker was to be assistant director, and Stroheim himself, Louis Jouvet, and Jean-Louis Barrault were to be the featured actors. The production was prevented by the outbreak of the war on 1 September 1939, and Stroheim returned to the United States. There he appeared in Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder, 1943). He is perhaps best known as an actor for his role as Max von Mayerling in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950), co-starring Gloria Swanson. For this role, Von Stroheim was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His character states in the film that he used to be one of the three great directors of the silent era, along with D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, and he and Swanson watch excerpts from Queen Kelly in the film. Their characters in Sunset Boulevard thus had an autobiographical basis and reflected the humiliations Von Stroheim suffered through his career. Erich von Stroheim was married three times. His second wife was Mae Jones. Their son Erich Jr. became an assistant director. With his third wife, actress Valerie Germonprez, he had another son, Joseph Erich von Stroheim, who eventually became a sound editor. From 1939 until his death, he lived with actress Denise Vernac. She had worked for him as his secretary since 1938 and starred with him in several films. Von Stroheim spent the last part of his life in France where his silent film work was much admired by artists in the French film industry. In France, he acted in films, wrote several novels that were published in French, and worked on various unrealized film projects. Erich von Stroheim was awarded the French Légion d'honneur shortly before his death in 1957 in Maurepas, France at the age of 71.

 

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Esta es Cameron Movie, la excéntrica directora, productora y guionista. Nos colamos en el rodaje de su última película, cuyo título aún se desconoce. "Mucha gente piensa que el hecho de que mi cabeza tenga forma de cámara de cine me ha influido para elegir mi profesión, pero lo cierto es que no ha sido así. Hubiera sido cineasta igualmente aunque mi cabeza tuviera la forma de una puñetera flor".

 

❤

 

This is Cameron Movie, the eccentric director, producer and scriptwriter. We slip in the set of her last film, which title is still unkown. "Many people think that the fact that my head is film camera shaped has influenced the choice of my career, but it´s not true. I would have been a film maker even if my head had the shape of a bloody flower".

 

Italian postcard by Rizzoli & C., Milano, 1940. Photo:Venturini.

 

Milena Penovich (1915-?) was an Italian actress of the 1930s and early 1940s. Born in Trieste, she moved to Rome, where in 1939 she as chosen to be the protagonist Frida of the film comedy Equatore (Gino Valori). Next, in Mario Camerini's Grandi magazzini (1939), starring Vittorio De Sica and Assia Noris, Penovich was the arrogant Anna, part of the gang of department store robbers, led by the staff manager, Bertini (Enrico Glori). After that, Penovich acted in a string of films directed by her husband Piero Ballerini. When the couple also made films in the film studio Cinevillaggio in Venice during the German Occupation and the Repubblica di Salò, they were marginalized after the war, and Penovich left the film world. Ballerini would continue to direct some films after the war and was active as scriptwriter as well.

 

Sources: IMDB, Italian Wikipedia.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 870. Photo: Studio Vauclair, Paris.

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

German collector card by Ross Verlag in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 146, group 44. Photo: Nero-Porten-Film. Henny Porten and Gustaf Gründgens in Luise, Königin von Preußen/Luise, Queen of Prussia (Carl Froelich, 1931).

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

For more cards of this series, check out our album Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst.

Excerpt from www.mississauga.ca/arts-and-culture/arts/public-art/perma...:

 

It Takes a Community to Build the Story by Jay Havens is one of over 35 public artworks on display across the City of Mississauga.

 

Jay Havens, 2022

Digital Illustration, back printed on glass

Meadowvale Theatre

 

In conversation with community members and theatre users, artist Jay Havens created this dynamic storyboard artwork, which spans 50 feet across the bulkhead in the newly renovated Meadowvale Theatre lobby.

 

The artwork celebrates how community comes together to create performance events. Different aspects of theatre production are highlighted across the artwork – from performers doing a curtain call, a group of scriptwriters, directors, and dramaturges, to a carpenter, technician, and a stitcher.

 

The artwork speaks strongly to the local area and Indigenous culture, providing a Territory Acknowledgement at one end, visible right when you walk into the theatre, and views of the Credit River and Lake Ontario in the background of the artwork throughout the piece.

Vintage Italian postcard. 1920s. Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, No. 61.

 

Gennaro Righelli (12 December 1886 – 6 January 1949) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, who directed over 110 films in Italy and Germany between 1910 and 1947. In 1930, he directed the first Italian sound film, La canzone dell'amore (The Song of Love). He was married to the film star Maria Jacobini, whom he frequently cast in his films.

 

Salvatore Gennaro Righelli, born in Salerno, was the son of the Neapolitan dialect actor Angelo and the Bolognese Maria Galassi. He took up the theatrical activity in 1902 in a dialect company following the footsteps of his father. His daughter Lea was the mother of directors Luciano and Sergio Martino.

 

Righelli started to work in cinema in 1910, when he made his acting debut for the Roman company Cines in a handful of short films such as Amore di schiava (Enrique Santos, 1910) and Anore di torero (Santos, 1910), often acting together with his first wife, Maria Righelli, née Maria Mauro. IMDB and Aldo Bernardini give contrasting information about Righelli's film directions. IMDb claims it was for Andreuccio da Perugia, after Boccaccio, in 1910, but Bernardini doesn't list a director for this film. IMDb lists the film Sperduta with Righelli first playing opposite Maria Jacobini but Bernardini indicates the films as 1911 and with Maria Righelli instead. Indeed, it seems that IMDb erroneously conflates Maria Righelli with Maria Jacobini (Gennaro Righelli and Maria Jacobini would only work professionally from the late 1910s onward and would marry eventually in 1925).

 

In 1911 Gennaro and Maria Righelli continued at Cines, alternating historical and modern dramas. While it seems that Righelli co-directed with Mario Caserini La fidanzata di Messina and Giovanna la pallida, his first independent directing must have been that of La vita di una chanteuse/ Povera Dora!. In May 1911 Righelli and his wife moved to Vesuvio Films in Naples, where he was actor-director of some 9 films until early 1913, and also manager of the studio. He made his first feature films there, including an adaptation of Boccaccio's Decamerone (1912), the Napoleonic Der Tugenbund (1912), and L'eroica fanciulla di Derna (1912), set during the Italo-Turkish war. In 1913 work at Vesuvio halted and Maria Righelli stopped acting for several years, probably due to a marital crisis, Bernardini suggests. In 1914 Gennaro Righelli encountered misfortune with the companies Victoria Film and Parioli Film, so he returned to Cines in 1915, where he shot the short propaganda comedy Il sogno patriottico di Cinessino and launched Diomira Jacobini, Maria Jacobini's younger sister, in the comedy Diomira si diverte (1915). For Milano Films he did the heavy drama La macchia nel blasone (1915).

 

Yet, more substantial was Righelli's career at the Roman company Tiber Film, between 1916 and 1920. In 1916 Righelli directed Primo e ultimo bacio, Alla capitale, Febbre di gloria, and Nella città eterna, often with the couple André Habay and Matilde Di Marzio in the lead. In 1917 Righelli continued at Tiber Film with the Giacosa adaptation Come le foglie, with Maria Jacobini in the lead - probably their first professional collaboration on the film sets. Until 1920, Righelli turned out several films per year at Tiber Film, again with the couple Habay-Di Marzio but in particular 9 films with Diomira Jacobini: L'ombra che passa (1917), Demonietto (1917), Quando il sole tramonta (1917), Camere separate (1917), Duecento all'ora (1918), L'autunno dell'amore (1918), Il veleno del piacere (1918), Mademoiselle Pas-Chic (1918), and Le avventure di Doloretta (1919). Righelli also directed Polidor (Il nipote di America, 1917, Venti giorni all'ombra, 1918, also with Diomira Jacobini); Vittoria Lepanto, Diana Karenne (La peccatrice casta, 1919), Italia Almirante Manzini (L'innamorata, 1919); and last but not least, Diomira's sister Maria Jacobini (L'articolo IV, 1918, La regina del carbone, 1919, La vergine folle, 1921). In 1918-19 he co-directed with Polidor also shot a long serial, La canaglia di Parigi, which had trouble with the censor.

 

From 1920, Righelli worked for the Turinese company Fert, where he was a prolific author varying between literary inspiration (Il viaggio, 1921, after PIrandello) and melodrama with an evocative setting (Cainà, l'isola e il continente, 1922). It was here that he did various acclaimed dramas with Maria Jacobini, who became his girlfriend and finally, in 1925, his wife. Together they did, in addition to Il viaggio and Cainà, also La casa di vetro (1920) with Amleto Novelli, Amore rosso (1921) set in Spain, Il richiamo (1921) with Lido Manetti, and L'incognita (1922). Single collaborations at Fert Righelli had once more with Diomira Jacobini and Italia Almirante Manzini. For the small company EDA, Righelli and Jacobini did the fascinating film La casa sotto la neve (1922), with a thrilling Kammerspiel-like climax when Jacobini's character and her daughter are menaced by the mother's evil suitor (Alberto Capozzi), within a house that is snowed-in.

 

In 1923, following the crisis that hit Italian cinema, Righelli joined the ranks of Italian directors, from Mario Almirante to Mario Bonnard, from Guido Brignone to Amleto Palermi, who decided to move to Germany. Once in Berlin, the director was hired by producer Jakob Karol and, together with Maria Jacobini, they founded the film company Maria Jacobini-Film GmbH, from which the film entitled Bohème - Künstlerliebe was released. Afterward, they collaborated with several companies such as Trianon and Phoebus. In 1925 Righelli married Jacobini, who starred in his German films Steuerlos (1924), the exotic film Orient - Die Tochter der Wüste (1924) also with the German heartthrob Harry Liedtke, Die Puppenkönigin (1925), and Der Bastard/ Il transatlantico (1925) which includes a spectacular shipwreck scene and of which a nicely tinted & toned version has been found and restored.

 

In the later 1920s, Righelli maintained his productivity of three to four films a year in Germany, but with other stars in the lead such as Fred Solm (Der Meister der Welt, 1927), Paul Wegener (Svengali, 1927), Mady Christians (Heimweh, 1927), Claire Rommer (Frauenraub in Marokko, 1928), Ivan Mozzhukhin (Der Präsident, 1928; Der geheime Kurier, 1928), Paul Richter (Sensation im Wintergarten, 1928), and Fritz Kortner (Die Nacht des Schreckens, 1929), while Jacobini still starred in Righelli's Fünf bange Tage (1928).

 

In 1930, when sound film had set in, Righelli returned to Italy to shoot the first Italian sound film, La canzone dell'amore. It starred Dria Paola as young woman who takes care of her mother's baby, causing a break with fiancé (Elio Steiner), a singer who is about to have his breakthrough. Isa Pola is the girlfriend who tries to drive a wedge between the couple. Righelli also directed the French alternative version of the film, La dernière berceuse, with Dolly Davis in the lead. The film, produced by Cines-Pittaluga, was the start of Righelli's new, prolific career in sound film.

 

During the 1930s, Righelli directed several comedies, some of which starred Sicilian actor Angelo Musco, in titles such as L'aria del continente (1935), Pensaci, Giacomino! (1936), Lo smemorato (1936), and Gatta ci cova (1937). He also directed Jacobini once more opposite Armando Falconi in the comedy Patatrac (1931). Although Righelli directed several Italian sound films in the 1930s and early 1940s, many were average fare comedies and dramas that didn't make history, and none were die-hard propaganda films. They starred the stars of those years, such as Gino Cervi, Germana Paolieri, and Nino Besozzi, although he often directed former stars of the silent era too, in supporting parts. In the immediate post-war period, Righelli directed Anna Magnani in two films that were a great success with the public: Abbasso la miseria! (1945) and Abbasso la ricchezza! (1946), the latter starring the great Roman actress alongside Vittorio De Sica.

 

Sources: Aldo Bernardini, Cinema muto italiano protagonisti, Aldo Bernardini/ Vittorio Martinelli, il cinema muto italiano, Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.

French promotion card by Barclay, no. 80 280. Photo: Sam Lévin.

 

On 28 May 2020, French actor, scriptwriter, stand-up comedian, and singer Guy Bedos (1934-2020) passed away. As an actor, he is best known for the films Un éléphant ça trompe énormément/Pardon Mon Affaire (Yves Robert, 1976) and the sequel Nous irons tous au paradis/We Will All Meet in Paradise (Yves Robert, 1977). On TV, he was popular for his satirical political sketches in Music-Hall. One of his wives was Sophie Daumier, with whom he appeared in several films and made several records.

 

Guy Bedos was born in 1934 in Algiers, France (now Algeria). He identified with the ethnic group Pied-Noir, having been born in Algeria. His parents were Alfred Bedos, health visitor, and Hildeberte Verdier, daughter of the headmaster of the high school Bugeaud, where he was raised. His parents separated, and he was tossed around. At the age of thirteen, he enrolled in a Catholic high school in Bone. According to his autobiography ‘Memories d’outre-mere’, his bad relationship with his mother and step-father made his life very difficult. His step-father beat his mother, who beat her son. He also wrote that his step-father was racist and antisemitic, but that his mother gave him his human political consciousness. He also revealed that during that period of time he had obsessive-compulsive disorders. In 1949, he arrived in Paris with his parents and his two twin half-sisters. In 1950, he left the family home of Rueil-Malmaison, and sold books, going door to door. At seventeen, he entered the Rue Blanche school, learned classical theatre, and signed his first production: 'Marivaux Arlequin poli par l’amour'. He played in theatres, but also cabarets, as La Fontaine des Quarte-Saisons. He was engaged by Francois Billetdoux, when Jacques Prevert, who found him writing, encouraged him to write sketches. He performed his first sketch, signed by Jacques Chazot, 'La Galerie 55'. In 1954, he made his first appearance in the cinema in Futures Vedettes by Marc Allégret. In order for him to fulfill his military service during the Algerian War, he went on a hunger strike and succeeded in being reformed for mental illness.

 

Guy Bedos met actress Sophie Daumier on stage in 'Cyrano de Bergerac' and again on the set of the film musical Dragées au poivre/Sweet and Sour (Jacques Baratier, 1963). They teamed up again in the film Aimez-vous les femmes/A Taste for Women (Jean Léon, 1964). The couple married in 1965, and through the 1960s and 1970s, they often paired together on stage and in films, and also had several hit records together. In 1965, Bedos appeared with Barbara in the music hall Bobino. Gradually, there were problems with Daumier, writes Bob Hufford at Find A Grave: “Always a bit ‘zany’, Sophie now became impossible either to work or to live with. Unable or unwilling to take stage direction, she was violent and destructive at home, leading to divorce in 1977.” Bedos started his solo career, as an actor in film and television movies. He is known for his recurring role as Simon, a doctor suffocated by his very possessive Jewish-foot-black mother, in Un éléphant ça trompe énormément/Pardon Mon Affaire (Yves Robert, 1976) and the sequel Nous irons tous au paradis/We Will All Meet in Paradise (Yves Robert, 1977). Since then, he has directed and performed many shows, including one with Michel Boujenah and Smaïn entitled 'Coup de soleil' at the Olympia, and one in duet with Muriel Robin in 1992. Sophie Daumier was diagnosed with Huntington's chorea, a hereditary, progressive, and fatal neuromuscular disorder. Stating that he would never have left her had he known the reason for her problems, Bedos, who had remarried in 1978, assumed the financial responsibility of Sophie's care till her death in 2004 as she became semi-vegetative. Bedos performed in plays such as 'La Résistible Ascension' by Bertolt Brecht. He also contributed regularly to the satirical weekly, Siné Hebdo, created by Siné. He had taken the defense of Siné when he had been accused of anti-Semitism by the director of Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val. His final film was the French-German comedy Et si on vivait tous ensemble?/All Together (Stéphane Robelin, 2011), starring Jane Fonda and Geraldine Chaplin as participants of an alternate living experiment, that is observed by a graduate student played by Daniel Brühl. Guy Bedos was married three times, to Karen Blanguernon (1956-?), Sophie Daumier (1965-1977), and Joëlle Bercot (1978 - his death). He had four children, Leslie (1957; with Karen Blanguernon), Mélanie (1977, with Sophie Daumier), Nicolas (1980), and Victoria (1984; both with Joëlle Bercot). Guy Bedos passed away on 28 May 2020 at age 85. His death was confirmed by his son, Nicolas Bedos.

 

Sources: Bob Hufford (Find A Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Swedish postcard. Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stocholm, No. 1094/12. Lars Hanson and Karin Molander in the Swedish silent film Fiskebyn (Chains/The Fishing Village, Mauritz Stiller, Svenska 1920).

 

Swedish actress Karin Molander (1889–1978) was a star of the silent Scandinavian cinema. In the films of Mauritz Stiller, she became a symbol of the modern, young and emancipated women of the 1910s. Lars Hanson (1886-1965) was a highly successful Swedish film and stage actor mostly remembered for his motion picture roles during the silent film era, both in Scandinavia and Hollywood.

 

Plot: A small, rugged fishing village on the west coast, is permeated by the Puritan spirit and Schartauanism. The local priest (Nils Arehn) is a tough man who controls his congregation boys with an iron hand. Jakob Vindås (Egil Eide), a widower, lives with his daughter and mother (Hildur Carlberg), the latter being even more unbearable than the priest himself. In the village also the school teacher Rilke (Carl Helleman) lives, whose son Thomas (Lars Hanson) for three years studied at university, and Martina (Karin Molander), an orphan girl, whose hand Jacob has asked. Jacob wants to marry Martina and the priest gives him permission, but his mother denies harshly. Meanwhile, Martina and Thomas have already fallen in love with each other. They meet in a crowded place on the island and bath together there, completely naked but in all chastity. They do not even kiss each other. Yet, someone has seen them without clothes, and the gossip goes like a rush through society. The priest orders the school teacher to immediately send Thomas away or look after another job.

 

Thomas wanders out, but one day he is back again. Martina is now married to Jacob and assures him that their past is dead and forgotten. Calmly, Jakob goes on a fishing trip, which will last for 14 days. Only the night before Jacob is expected back, Thomas and Martina meet again after their long divorce. Thomas now knows that the priest forced Martina to marry Jacob. "But now it's all too late," says Martina. Thomas goes resigned, but at the door, he kisses Martina in parting. The door opens and Mother Vindås is on the doorstep. She rushes out and returns immediately with the priest. A bold appearance follows as the priest concludes with the words: "Tomorrow the whole village will know your shame!"

 

The next day, on Sunday, the whole village is gathered in the church, including Martina, Thomas, and his father. From the pulpit, the priest holds a sulfurous punishment over the traitor Thomas and the unfaithful wife Martina. Then he wants to chase them out of the church and the community. But they do not have to go alone. Thomas's father joins them and Jacob's little daughter (Käthe Schnitzer) also runs out after Martina. Meanwhile, Jacob has come home, and by his mother, he is told what has happened. Thomas and Martina have resorted to the school teacher's house, outside which now the villagers gathered and throw stones at the house. But when Jacob gets there, he does not what everyone is waiting for. He instead drives away the people, then goes in and asks Martina forgiveness: "You're free to follow him. It should never have been otherwise. I am too old, my hands too rough for you."

 

Fiskebyn premiered on March 15, 1920. The shooting took place at the Svenska Biografteatern studio at Lidingö with exterior scenes shot at Fiskebäckskil, Gåsö and several locations in Bohuslän. Henrik Jaenzon took care of the cinematography. The film was based on Georg Engel's play Im Hafen, published in Berlin in 1905. During and after the shooting, scriptwriter Bertil Malmberg revised the manuscript into a novel of the same name, published just before Christmas 1919. In the film, there is a bath in the nude that did not raise any major upheaval despite the fact that the film was exported to a number of Catholic countries. On the other hand, the role of the priest was changed to the chairman of the village council and all the shots with churches were cut out.

 

Sources: IMDB, Swedish Wikipedia, www.svenskfilmdatabas.se/sv/item/?type=film&itemid=34...

Vintage Italian postcard. Mario Guaita - Ausonia on crutches in Il principino saltimbanco (Giovanni Enrico Vidali, Società Italiana Eclair 1914). 'Grandioso Dramma in cinque parti' (Grand Drama in five parts). The man right of Ausonia is director Giovanni Enrico Vidali himself who also acted in the film, while the the two on the left could be Emilia Vidali and Carlo Vidali.

 

Plot: A louche aristocrat forces the widowed princess De Filard into mariage by abducting her son and hides him with farmers. The farmers sell the boy to a wandering acrobat and so the boy's nomadic life starts. He is forces to perform as athlete together with the acrobat's little daughter, who dances. Years go by, the children grow up and fall in love with each other. In the end the young man is reunited with his mother, who has never stopped looking for him. The found mother blesses the matrimony of the two young lovers.

 

Il principino saltimbanco was shot in 1914 and premiered in January 1915. The main actors in addition to Ausonia were Enrico Vidali, Maria Gandini, Emilia Vidali and Carlo Vidali. The film was clearly a popular success. The Turinese film journal La Vita cinematografica recognized this, but criticized the illogic plot and the audience's tears over the melodrama. Yet, the journal praised the performance of (Enrico) Vidali, Gandini, and Ausonia. About the latter the critic wrote that even if he was perhaps not a real film actor, his restraint and naturalness should be the envy of many other actors.

 

Athletic muscleman Mario Guaita aka Ausonia (1881-1956) was an Italian actor, director, producer and scriptwriter in the silent era. He had his international breakthrough with Spartaco (Enrico Vidali 1913) and became a major actor in the Italian forzuto genre. In the early 1920s he moved to Marseille, made a few films there such as Mes p'tits and La course à l'amour, and ran a cinema.

Vintage Italian postcard. Fotocelere, Torino.

 

Lucio D'Ambra, pseudonym of Renato Eduardo Manganella (Rome, 1 September 1880 - Rome, 31 December 1939), was an Italian writer, director and film producer. According to some sources, his full name was Renato Tommaso Anacleto Manganella, while the date of birth is uncertain. D'Ambra was also a journalist, literary and theatre critic, playwright and artistic director of theatre companies (Ettore Petrolini reduced his play Ambasciatori to one of his shows) as well as a screenwriter for the cinema. An academic of Italy and author of novels (among others, I due modi di avere vent'anni, published by Arnoldo Mondadori in 1934), he had the writer and poet Tullio Colsalvatico as his secretary and was in contact with the philosopher and critic Adriano Tilgher, with whom he polemised at length. D'Ambra was also the animator of a literary salon that allowed him to come into contact with literary figures and personalities from the world of art (he was friends with the writer Arturo Olivieri Sangiacomo, the playwright Tito Marrone and the founder of the Bagutta Prize Marino Parenti, among others). In 1923, he founded the company called Teatro degli Italiani at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome, together with Mario Fumagalli and Santi Severino (which had little luck, however), whose aim was to promote Italian dramaturgy.

 

While occasionally already writing the script for the 1913 film Il bacio di Cirano by Carmine Gallone and starring Soava Gallone, in 1916 D'Ambra steadily started his film career as screenwriter for the company Medusa Film, first for the delicious Lubitsch-like comedy La signorina Ciclone (Augusto Genina, 1916) with Suzanne Armelle as a dynamic New Yorkese heiress who keeps all of her seven admirers on a leash like dogs but in the end prefers a European who possesses all seven sins the admirers represent individually. D'Ambra also wrote scripts for star vehicles, such as Effetti di luce (Ugo Falena, 1916) with Stacia Napierkowska and La chiamavano 'Cosetta' (Eugenio Perego, 1917) with Soava Gallone, La storia dei tredici (Carmine Gallone, 1917) and Carnevalesca (Amleto Palermi, 1918) both with Lyda Borelli, and so on. D'Ambra also scripted for Medusa Il re, le torri, gli alfieri (Ivo Illuminati, 1920), a now lost film which seems to have had affinities with Italian Futurism. It was based on D'Ambra's own novel. The story was a kind of dramatisation of a chess game, where the characters were dressed as the various pieces and moved around on a chessboard floor. For the company Do-Re-Mi D'Ambra directed in 1918-19 a series of films starring Mary Corwyn/ Maria Corvin: Napoleoncina (1918), Ballerine (1918), La commedia dal mio palco (1918), Passa il dramma a Lilliput (1919), and La valse bleue (1919), in which the actress often was paired with Romano Calò.

 

In 1919, in collaboration with the Piedmontese entrepreneur Alfredo Fasola, Lucio D'Ambra founded his own production company, D'Ambra-Film, with which directors Carmine Gallone, Augusto Genina and others collaborated, e.g. for Nemesis (Carmine Gallone, 1920) and La peccatrice senza peccato (Augusto Genina, 1922), both starring Soava Gallone. Yet, many films were directed by D'Ambra himself, such as Il girotondo degli undici lancieri (1919) with Mary Corwyn and Romano Calò, and the witty short comedy L'illustre attrice Cicala Formica (1920), with Lia Formia as a wannabe actress who to the frustration of her family pursues with all means to become a diva, but utterly fails. The film clearly mocked the Italian diva and epic films, amateurism in the film world, but also the Italian family. Yet, D'Ambra also directed serious drama, such as the Ugo Foscolo adaptation Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1921), on a man's despair about his inability to obtain the woman of his dreams. Until 1922 D'Ambra continued to direct and script various films at his company, often with Lia Formia in the lead, the last one being Tragedia su tre carte (1922). Together with the collapse of the Italian film industry, D'Ambra's film adventures collapsed. From the late 1930s he returned but only as screenwriter, and only for a small amount of films.

 

On D'Ambra's film career, Italian scholar Gianni Rondolino wrote in the Enciclopedia Treccani: "A largely independent author and director, he was able to deal with themes and topics, situations and characters from the high society, but also from everyday life, with great fluency, in a style that took into account the linguistic peculiarities of cinema, skillfully using close-ups and camera movements, scenic effects and daring narrative solutions. His films, considered forerunners of those of Ernst Lubitsch for the lightness of touch and the environments described, constitute a not inconsiderable chapter in the history of Italian silent films, for their formal innovation, after the more conventional splendour of the previous years, among historical reconstructions, novels of appendices, melodramas and farces."

 

Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDb, Enciclopedia Treccani.

Dutch postcard by Takken, no. 3015. Photo: MGM. Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in High Society (Charles Walters, 1956).

 

High Society (Charles Walters, 1956) is a glossy Technicolor-and-VistaVision musical remake of George Cukor's classic The Philadelphia Story (1940), starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. Both were based on Philip Barry's enormously successful stage comedy of manners. Set amongst the rich and famous in Newport, RI, the story revolves around the wedding plans of spoiled heiress Tracy Lord (Grace Kelly). Tracy is all set to marry stuffy social climber George Kittridge (John Lund), while undercover Spy magazine reporter Mike Connor (Frank Sinatra) and photographer Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) intend to cover the ceremony. Meanwhile, Tracy's ex-husband C.K. Dexter-Haven (Bing Crosby), a successful popular jazz musician who lives next door, also comes calling. Ostensibly, he is there to attend the annual Newport Jazz Festival, but actually, he wants to win Tracy back. In the course of events, Mike falls in love with Tracy, and she with him. Tracy has to choose between the three men. The Jazz Festival subplot allows scriptwriter John Patrick to bring Louis Armstrong and his band into the proceedings. Minus points are the casting of Crosby who appears old enough to be Kelly's grandfather and obviously misses the looks and the class of Cary Grant, and the fact that the more satiric aspects of Barry's witty dialogue seem to have been sanded away. But we love these Cole Porter tunes like the Crosby-Sinatra duet 'Well, Did You Evah?,' the Crosby-Armstrong teaming 'Now You Has Jazz,' the Kelly-Crosby romantic ballad 'True Love,' and the Sinatra solo 'You're Sensational.' Oh yes, and High Society was Grace Kelly's final screen appearance before her real-life wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco.

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Michael Costello (AllMovie) and IMDb.

British postcard in the Celebrity Autograph Series by Celebrity Publishers London, no. 298. Photo: Rank Organisation. Publicity still for Campbell's Kingdom (Ralph Thomas, 1957).

 

British actor Michael Craig (1928) is known for his work in theatre, film and television both in the United Kingdom and Australia. He also worked as a scriptwriter, such as for The Angry Silence (1960). In Italy, Luchino Visconti directed him in Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa.../Sandra (1965).

 

Michael Craig was born Michael Francis Gregson in Poona, British India, in 1928. He was the son of Donald Gregson, a Scottish captain in the 3rd Indian Cavalry. He came to Britain with his family when aged three, and went to Canada when he was ten. He left school for the Merchant Navy at 16, but finally returned to England and the lure of the theater. By 1947, he debuted on stage in The Merchant of Venice. Craig's film career started as an extra in the Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius, 1949). He gained his first speaking part in 1953 in the British war film Malta Story (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1953). This eventually led to discovery by the Rank Organisation. Craig was groomed for stardom, and leading roles followed in such films as Yield to the Night (J. Lee Thompson, 1956) starring Diana Dors, Campbell's Kingdom (Ralph Thomas, 1957) with Dirk Bogarde, Sea of Sand (Guy Green, 1958) starring Richard Attenborough, The Silent Enemy (William Fairchild, 1958), Upstairs and Downstairs (Ralph Thomas, 1959) with Mylène Demongeot, and the comedy Doctor in Love (Ralph Thomas, 1960). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “As leading man in such films, Craig was required to do little more beyond looking handsome and dependable. One of his few movie roles of substance was in The Angry Silence (1960), which he co-wrote.“ The Angry Silence (Guy Green, 1960) starred Richard Attenborough and Pier Angeli. When Craig’s 7-year contract with Rank ended, Craig was optioned by Columbia Pictures. Yet his American work only remembered in two films, ironically co-American productions with the UK, Mysterious Island (Cy Endfield, 1961), and Australia, the Disney TV installment, Ride a Wild Pony (Don Chaffey, 1975).” He often worked in Italy and his faraway best Italian film is Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa.../Sandra (Luchino Visconti, 1965) with Claudia Cardinale and Jean Sorel. Other interesting films include Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey, 1966) featuring Monica Vitti, Star! (Robert Wise, 1968) with Julie Andrews, Turkey Shoot (Brian Trenchard-Smith, 1982), and Appointment with Death (Michael Winner, 1988) with Peter Ustinov and Lauren Bacall.

 

Michael Craig began his career in the theatre — his first job was as an assistant stage manager at the Castle Theatre, Farnham in 1950. In 1953, Sir Peter Hall gave him his first lead stage role. His many later stage credits include A Whistle in the Dark (1961), Wars of the Roses (Season at Stratford 1963–1964), Jule Styne's musical Funny Girl (with Barbra Streisand at the Prince of Wales Theatre 1964), William Shakespeare's play, Richard II (1965), the Homecoming (1966–1967) and the lead role in Trying in 2008. His television credits include appearing in: Arthur of the Britons (1973), The Emigrants (1976), Rush (1976), The Professionals (1980), Shoestring (1980), The Timeless Land (1980), Triangle (1981–1983), Tales of the Unexpected (1982), Robin of Sherwood (1986), and Doctor Who (1986). By the mid-1970s, Craig's TV and film work was heavily concentrated in Australia and composed a depth or roles, both comedic and dramatic, that has included memorable and solid character pieces as he has matured in age. His Australian series include G.P. (1989–1995), Brides of Christ (1991), Grass Roots (2000) and Always Greener (2003). Craig's scriptwriting credits include the highly acclaimed ABC-TV trilogy The Fourth Wish (1974), which starred John Meillon in his award-winning performance as the father of a dying boy. He also wrote the screenplay for the feature film of The Fourth Wish (1976), which was produced following the success of the television series. Alongside his brother, Richard Gregson and co-writer Bryan Forbes, Craig was Academy Award nominated for his screenplay of The Angry Silence (1960). Twice married, his first wife was Babette Collier, second is Susan Walker. He is the father of Michael, Stephen and Jessica Gregson; his brother is film producer Richard Gregson, and from Richard's marriage to Natalie Wood, he is the uncle of actress Natasha Gregson Wagner. In 2005 Michael Craig released his autobiography The Smallest Giant: An Actor's Tale. Michael Craig resides in Australia.

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Photo: publicity still for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).

 

"In space, no one can hear you scream" is the tagline of the Sci-Fi Horror classic Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979). A close encounter of the third kind becomes a Jaws-style nightmare when an alien invades a spacecraft. Alien stands as one of the more thought-provoking, yet utterly terrifying horror films ever. Sigourney Weaver is amazing as Ellen Ripley, who became an iconic character in film history. The film won an Oscar for special effects, including the alien designed by Swiss artist H.R. Giger.

 

It is the year 2122. The U.S.C.S. Nostromo (Italian for "mate"), a commercial cargo spacecraft, is flying to Earth with several million tonnes of ore on board. The ship is manned by seven people and a sophisticated computer, which the crew call "Mother". The crew members are the men Dallas, Ash, Kane, Parker and Brett and the women Ripley and Lambert. The crew is woken up from hibernation by the ship's Mother computer to answer a distress signal from a nearby planet. Capt. Dallas's (Tom Skerritt) rescue team discovers a bizarre pod field, but things get even stranger when a face-hugging creature bursts out of a pod and attaches itself to Kane (John Hurt). Over the objections of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), science officer Ash (Ian Holm) lets Kane back on the ship. The acid-blooded incubus detaches itself from an apparently recovered Kane, but an alien erupts from Kane's stomach and escapes. The alien starts stalking the humans, pitting Dallas and his crew (and cat) against a malevolent killing machine that also has a protector in the nefarious Company. While still a student at the University of Southern California, scriptwriter Dan O'Bannon had teamed up with director John Carpenter to make a comic science fiction film called Dark Star. His experience making this film gave Bannon the idea of making a similar film, but with a horror theme instead of a comedy. A few years later, he began writing a screenplay around this idea. Around the same time, Ronald Shusett began working on a screenplay that would eventually become Total Recall. He contacted O'Bannon after seeing Dark Star, after which the two decided to work together on Alien. However, O'Bannon had not yet thought about what the monster should look like.

 

Swiss artist H.R. Giger's alien design and Carlo Rambaldi's visual effects for Alien (1979) creepily meld technology with corporeality, creating a claustrophobic environment that is coldly mechanical yet horribly anthropomorphized, like the metallic monster itself. Director Ridley Scott keeps the alien out of full view, hiding it in the dark or camouflaging it in the workings of the Nostromo. Lucia Bozzola at AllMovie: "Signs of '70s cultural upheaval permeate Alien's future world, from the relationship between corporate capitalism and rapacious monstrosity to the heterogeneous crew and Ripley's forceful horror heroine. However, the intense frights and gross-outs are credited with making Alien one of the biggest hits of 1979 (it premiered on the two-year anniversary of Star Wars); Giger, Rambaldi, et al. won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects." Alien went on to spawn some genre-bending sequels: the actioner Aliens (1986), dark prison drama Alien 3 (1992), and the exotically grotesque Alien Resurrection (1997). In 2003, a director's cut of Alien (1979) was released in cinemas, with some additional scenes. The franchise now counts seven films. Roger Ebert: "Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in the romance of finding the alien, and still less in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to "Special Order 24" ("Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded") is succinct: "How do we kill it?" Her implacable hatred for the alien is the common thread running through all three "Alien" sequels, which have gradually descended in quality but retained their motivating obsession."

 

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Lucia Bozzola (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.

 

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

i was tagged by Beetabonk to write 16 things about myself.

 

1) born in da nang, vietnam in 1984. a middle child to a family of 3 daughters. Later, I enrolled in literary and then language classes which made me grow up always among females at home or school.

 

2) somehow, and don't ask me how, i grew up to be a black sheep with nicknames being "crazy" in middle & high schools and "psycho" in college.

 

3) have real big hair which results in nickname "mop" by two close beloveds.

 

4) used to be my family's pride with my academic records & awards till i dropped out of university.

 

5) i quit university against everybody's wish and despite my parents' bitter disappointment. Then I moved down to Saigon (Hochiminh City) with 3 million dong ($200) borrowed from a cousin to start a new life without friends, acquaintances, jobs nor a degree.

 

6) 2 years and now am a copywriter as a full timer (sometimes, makes me do up-yours) and a writer for a lifestyle magazine featuring celebrities as agents of change in Vietnam (dig). Also write and edit an online lifestyle mag. Being a translator sometimes. Scriptwriter occasionally doing TV shows and joining indie movie project with a dear friend. In all paths, I am green but by end of 2008, things started to rise. again.

 

7) 2008 was the worst time of my life so far and somehow, it managed to change me drastically. My Dad fell into coma in Feb. I started staying long cold somber painful nights sleeping on the cold ground waiting outside of ICU. Dead silence interrupted by emotionless beeps from machines and sudden cries and moans by those who just lost their loved ones was beyond words. The incident pushed me down into a dark hole where I felt absolutely flat. Suddenly nothing meant. [oh shut me up before it becomes whining) I've tried to get out since.

 

I think I did.

Yesterday was exactly one year after the day it all began.

 

8) There are a few things that I completely lose myself into: dancing, sex, photography. The last one is the trickiest as I can't take a photo of something I dont feel for. Friends think I am selfish not to take photos of them and make them look good. I just can't. Absolutely incapable when ppl pose.

 

9) Life is absolutely amazing. I learn about it everyday. I swallow it in a slow way. I use up four over five of my senses to enjoy everything around me. The taste interests me the least. I am very visual and easily amused by little pretty things. Music magically shapes my mood. Smells can wake up memories and fantasies. I am ridiculously tactile.

 

10) I suck at most things. I have all thumbs. I have no memory. The only capability that I am rather assured of is being inspiring. I don't know how. People've told me so. I guess cos I am fine goofing off sometimes and filled with thoughts and ideals some other times. Or maybe as I don't try hard to please anyone. Or, at the end of the day, I want to be better and want this world to be better.

 

11) I am self-indulgent. I can be corrupting and corrupted. Sometimes, I am carefree and many of those times were when I made stupid mistakes. I don't intend to go down. So I keep trying fighting.

 

12) I never regret quitting university and having no degree. But I do regret once cheating on my boyfriend. Oddly enough, lies and excuses are the things that disgust me the most. Much more than people being honest and truthful about how lame, how weak and stupid they are.

 

13) I want to see and embrace the big world before my time runs out. I assign it as a mission in life on myself.

 

14) There are a few people I am proud of. My two sisters and my best friends, Jake and Van. And some coming up to the test of time and shared experiences. Those as named are the ones who I confide in and believe in wherever they are, whichever phase of life they are in, whatever stupid things they are doing, I know they are wonderful souls.

 

15) I like strong stuff: extremely spicy food, coffee, alcohol, smoking, being the last one on the dance floor...to name a few. And I like the natural: breeze blowing in to my hair and ears and nape, summer rains on me on lips and cheeks, the smell of wood and burnt incense, warmth of the sun on skin, sincere smiles and from-the- heart laughs, genuine souls and colorful fireworks of authentic cultures, ...

 

16) My name is Chi. My screen name on Flickr is Chi. My screen name on Facebook is Chi. My Yahoo ID is Chi. My pen name is Chi.

     

Shanghai Ballet: Echoes of Eternity

 

Shanghai Ballet presents 'Echoes of Eternity ' at the London Coliseum, choreographed by Patrick de Bana and inspired by the ancient Chinese poem ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow. 7-21 August 2016.

 

Choreographer: Patrick de Bana

Set designer: Jaya Ibrahim

Costume designer: Agnes Letestu

Light designer: James Angot

Scriptwriter: Jean Francois Vazelle

Literature Consultant: Sifu TANG

 

Dancers:

Emperor: WU Husheng

Lady Yang: QI Bingxue

Moon Fairy: ZHAO Hanbing

Gao Lishi: ZHANG Yao

Chen Xuanli: WU Bin

An Lushan: ZHANG Wenjun

 

see www.dancetabs.com

photo - © Foteini Christofilopoulou | All rights reserved | For all usage/licensing enquiries please contact www.foteini.com

German collectors card by Helmstedter Margarinewerk GMBH, Helmstedt. Photo: Universal International. Gift by Didier Hanson.

 

Last, Saturday, Irish born Maureen O’Hara, one of the icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age, has died. The feisty and fearless actress starred in John Ford’s Oscar-winning drama How Green Was My Valley (1941), set in Wales, and Ford’s Irish-set The Quiet Man (1952) opposite John Wayne. The famously red-headed actress also worked successfully with Charles Laughton at Jamaica Inn (1939) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), starred in the perennial Christmas hit Miracle on 34th Street (1947), and appeared in the Disney children’s hit The Parent Trap (1961). O'Hara was 95.

 

Maureen O’Hara was born Maureen FitzSimons in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh in 1920. Her mother, Marguerita Lilburn FitzSimons, was an accomplished contralto. Her father, Charles FitzSimons, managed a business in Dublin and also owned part of the renowned Irish soccer team The Shamrock Rovers. From the age of 6 to 17, Maureen trained in drama, music and dance, and at the age of 10 she joined the Rathmines Theatre Company and worked in amateur theatre in the evenings after her lessons. O'Hara's dream at this time was to be a stage actress. By age 14 she was accepted to the prestigious Abbey Theater and pursued her dream of classical theater and operatic singing. Her first screen test was for a British film called Kicking the Moon Around (Walter Forde, 1938) at Elstree Studios, It was arranged by American bandleader Harry Richman, who was then appearing in Dublin. The result was deemed unsatisfactory, but when Charles Laughton later saw it he was intrigued by her large and expressive eyes. He arranged for her to co-star with him in the British film Jamaica Inn (Alfred Hitchcock, 1939). Laughton was so pleased with O'Hara's performance that she was cast in the role of Esmeralda opposite him in the Hollywood production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (William Dieterle, 1939). The epic film was an extraordinary success and international audiences were now alerted to her natural beauty and talent. From there, she went on to enjoy a long and highly successful career in Hollywood. Director John Ford cast her as Angharad in How Green Was My Valley (1941), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. She starred in Swashbucklers such as The Black Swan (Henry King, 1942), opposite Tyrone Power, and Sinbad the Sailor (Richard Wallace, 1947), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., She also starred as Doris Walker and the mother of a young Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947), which became a perennial Christmas classic.

 

Maureen O'Hara made a number of films with John Wayne. She met Wayne through director John Ford, and the two hit it right off. O'Hara: "I adored him, and he loved me. But we were never sweethearts. Never, ever.” Opposite Wayne, she played Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952), an iconic film that is still very much celebrated in Ireland and abroad. In total, they made five films together between 1948 and 1972, also including Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950), The Wings of Eagles (John Ford, 1957), McLintock! (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1963) and Big Jake (George Sherman, 1971). O’Hara most often played strong and willful women, but offscreen she was the same. In 1957 her career was threatened by scandal, when the tabloid Confidential magazine claimed she and a man had engaged in 'the hottest show in town' in the back row of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. However, as she later told the Associated Press, at the time she “was making a movie in Spain, and I had the passport to prove it”. She testified against the magazine in a criminal libel trial and brought a lawsuit that was settled out of court. The magazine eventually went out of business.

 

Maureen O'Hara was married three times. In 1939, at the age of 19, O'Hara secretly married Englishman George H. Brown, a film producer, production assistant and occasional scriptwriter, who she had met on the set of Jamaica Inn. The marriage was annulled in 1941. Later that year, O'Hara married American film director William Houston Price (dialogue director in The Hunchback of Notre Dame), but the union ended in 1953, reportedly as a result of his alcohol abuse. They had one child, a daughter named Bronwyn FitzSimons Price (1944). In later life, Maureen O’Hara married her third husband, Brigadier General Charles Blair. The couple lived in the US Virgin Islands, where he operated an airline. He died in a plane crash in 1978 and O’Hara took over management of the airline, which she eventually sold. “Being married to Charlie Blair and traveling all over the world with him, believe me, was enough for any woman,” she said in 1995. “It was the best time of my life.” O'Hara remained retired from acting until 1991, when she starred in the film Only the Lonely (Chris Columbus, 1991), playing Rose Muldoon, the domineering mother of a Chicago cop played by John Candy. In the following years, she continued to work, starring in several made-for-TV films. Her autobiography, 'Tis Herself, was published in 2004 and was a New York Times Bestseller. She was never nominated for an Oscar, instead being given an honorary award in 2014. After accepting her statuette from a wheelchair, the then 94-year-old star protested when her speech of thanks was cut short. Maureen O'Hara died in her sleep at home in Boise, Idaho. She was 95 years old.

 

Dources: The Guardian, Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

Spanish collector's card. Chocolate Salas-Sabadell, No. 5. French actress Fabienne Fabrèges and Didaco Chellini in the Italian silent film Spasimi (Giuseppe Giusti, Corona Films 1916). The Spanish release title of the film was Espasmos.

 

Fabienne Fabrèges (1889-?) was a French actress, but also scriptwriter and director of the silent film. She had a rich career at Gaumont, and afterward in Italian silent film.

 

German press photo by ORF. Released for the broadcasting on 1 October 1994. Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claude Jade in Domicile Conjugal (François Truffaut, 1970).

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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

"The date of Manganji's founding is unclear, though it may have its antecedents in the Heian Period, when it was originally a Shingon sect temple.

 

During the Edo Period in 1697, Manganji became a Nichiren temple and many of the present buildings date from that time, including the Main Hall constructed between 1702-1704 and the Bell Tower in 1703. It is thought that Nichiren (1222-1282) himself once stayed at the temple in its earlier incarnation...

 

...The spacious grounds of Manganji Temple contain a memorial to the film director and scriptwriter Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956), who directed such classics of his time as Ugetsu (1953) which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

 

Mizoguchi worked in Kyoto's Nikkatsu's studios for a period directing such movies as Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion.

 

After the war, Mizoguchi along with fellow director Yasujiro Ozu, of Tokyo Story fame, were "rediscovered" and acclaimed in the West. At the time of his death in Kyoto of leukemia, aged only 58, Mizoguchi ranked as one of the three great masters of Japanese cinema alongside Ozu and Akira Kurosawa."

www.japanvisitor.com/japan-temples-shrines/manganji

Jane Birkin, 1964. The photographs were taken by Jane Birkin’s brother, Andrew, a film scriptwriter and director, who had been photographing his sister since he first bought a cheap camera in his teens. All shots had been carefully filed away for half a century, and some he had never seen printed before. He met Gainsbourg almost as soon as his sister did, when he was working with Stanley Kubrick on the eventually aborted project for An Epic Film of Napoleon, and she wrote from the set of the film Slogan, begging him to come and keep her company and cheer her up from her daily encounters with ‘a horrible man’, who was mocking and teasing her. Gainsbourg was, and remains a giant in French cultural circles, but Birkin was already well known from film roles including a famous nude scene in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow Up

Italian postcard. Fotocelere, Torino.

 

Eleuterio Rodolfi (1876-1933) was an Italian actor, director, and scriptwriter, who was highly active in Italian silent cinema. For Ambrosio, Rodolfi acted in some 95 films of which some 80 were directed and scripted by himself. Many of these were comedies interpreted by Rodolfi together with actress Gigetta Morano, with the two acting and becoming known as ‘Gigetta’ and ‘Rodolfi’. In contrast to the previous anarchist farces by Cretinetti and others focused on speed and havoc, entitled as ‘comiche’ in Italian, the comedies with Gigetta and Rodolfi were true ‘commedie’, so more situational, boulevardier, less speedy, and often hinting at forbidden fruits and voyeurism.

 

Eleuterio Rodolfi aka Rodolfo Rodolfi was born in Bologna on 28 January 1876. He was the son of Giuseppe Rodolfi (1827-1885), a famous stage actor in the 19th century. He debuted on stage as "generico giovane" (generic young actor) with the company of Francesco Garzes. He then moved to other important theatre companies, such as the one of Ermete Novelli. There he met Adele Mosso, who worked as "seconda donna" (second woman) in the company. They married in 1895. In 1911 he moved over to the cinema and was hired by the Ambrosio film company of Turin, where he became both actor and director. For Ambrosio, Rodolfi acted in some 95 films of which some 80 were directed and scripted by himself. Many of these were comedies interpreted by Rodolfi together with actress Gigetta Morano, with the two acting and becoming known as ‘Gigetta’ and ‘Rodolfi’. In contrast to the previous anarchist farces by Cretinetti and others focused on speed and havoc, entitled as ‘comiche’ in Italian, the comedies with Gigetta and Rodolfi were true ‘commedie’, so more situational, boulevardier, less speedy, and often hinting at forbidden fruits and voyeurism. In the risqué comedy Acqua miracolosa (1914) Gigetta’s husband deplores that in their flat he hears children everywhere (the set is built up like a doll’s house) but he cannot get any. The family doctor (Rodolfi) has a secret affair with Gigetta. He advises the wife to go the wondrous wells – where she meets no other than the doctor. In the end, everybody is happy: the husband has become the father of twins, and the wife lifts a glass in which see a little doctor. Often in their comedies Morano and Rodolfi played together with a third actor, the portly little bourgeois Camillo De Riso, who frequently played Morano’s father, as in Un successo diplomatico (1913) and L’oca alla Colbert (1913).

 

Rodolfi also acted in and directed historical films, such as Ambrosio's super-production Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1913), based on Bulwer-Lytton’s famous novel and a worldwide success. The film starred Fernanda Negri Pouget as the blind girl Nydia, Ubaldo Stefani as Glaucus and Antonio Crisanti as Arbaces. NB despite what IMDB tells, Mario Caserini had nothing to do with the film. The Turinese company Pasquali made a competing version at the same time, so competition was fierce. Moreover, in recent times the Ambrosio version is often confused with the later silent version of 1926, directed by Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi, and starring Victor Varconi, Maria Corda, and Bernhard Goetzke, as Glaucus, Nydia and Arbaces. Among his films in the mid-1910s for Ambrosio were a few with the Polish actress turned Italian diva Elena/ Helena Makowska, such as Val d'Olivi (1916), Eva nemica (1916), and the D’Annunzio adaptations La Gioconda (1916) and La fiaccola sotto il moggio (1916).

 

In 1916 Rodolfi also started at Jupiter Film, where he shot some seven dramas – of which just one survives: Ah! Le donne! (1916), with Rodolfi. Armand Pouget and Mercedes Brignone. In 1917 he founded his own film company Rodolfi Film, with which he made films like the Shakespeare adaptation Amleto (1917), starring Ruggero Ruggeri, ‘monstre sacré’ of the Italian Belle Epoque, and also with Makowska as Ofelia, Pouget as the King, and Brignone as the Queen. In the early 1920s Rodolfi did various films with Mercedes Brignone, Lola Visconti Brignone, and Pouget. Rodolfi’s company ceased activity around 1922, after which he did one last production for the Fert Pittaluga company: Maciste e il nipote d’America, a film in a completely different genre, and starring Bartolomeo Pagano and Diomira Jacobini, plus Pauline Polaire, Alberto Collo, Oreste Bilancia, and Mercedes Brignone. After that he withdrew from the set he returned to the stage. In the late 1920s he withdrew from the stage as well. The last years of his life Rodolfi spent in the city of Brescia, where on 19 December 1933 he committed suicide and died.

 

Sources: Italian Wikipedia; IMDB; Aldo Bernardini/Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano; Mariann Lewinsky/Chiara Caranti, ‘Rodolfi e Gigetta: coppia in commedia’, www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemaritrovato2009/ev/sezioni/r....

Shanghai Ballet: Echoes of Eternity

 

Shanghai Ballet presents 'Echoes of Eternity ' at the London Coliseum, choreographed by Patrick de Bana and inspired by the ancient Chinese poem ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow. 7-21 August 2016.

 

Choreographer: Patrick de Bana

Set designer: Jaya Ibrahim

Costume designer: Agnes Letestu

Light designer: James Angot

Scriptwriter: Jean Francois Vazelle

Literature Consultant: Sifu TANG

 

Dancers:

Emperor: WU Husheng

Lady Yang: QI Bingxue

Moon Fairy: ZHAO Hanbing

Gao Lishi: ZHANG Yao

Chen Xuanli: WU Bin

An Lushan: ZHANG Wenjun

 

see www.dancetabs.com

photo - © Foteini Christofilopoulou | All rights reserved | For all usage/licensing enquiries please contact www.foteini.com

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1447, 1961.

 

Last Sunday, 22 December 2019, British stage and screen actor Tony Britton died, aged 95. In a career spanning six decades, he went from being a leading juvenile at Stratford-upon-Avon, a film star with British Lion in the 1950s, to a West End star in the 1960s and then a TV sitcom favourite in the 1970s and 1980s. He was still touring into his mid-80s, playing Canon Chasuble in 'The Importance of Being Earnest' in 2007.

 

Anthony Edward Lowry Britton was born in 1924 in a room above the Trocadero pub in Temple Street, Birmingham, Doris Marguerite (née Jones) and Edward Leslie Britton. He attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, Birmingham and Thornbury Grammar School, Gloucestershire. He thought of doing nothing else except acting since childhood. On leaving school, he joined two amateur drama companies in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, while articled to an estate agent and then working in an aircraft factory. A professional debut followed in 1942 when he appeared in Esther McCracken’s 'Quiet Weekend' at the Knightstone Pavilion in the seaside town. He was called up and served during the second World War with the Royal Artillery. While doing officer training, he formed a small drama group. After the war, he reurned to the theatre, at first in the capacity of an assistant stage manager at the Manchester Library Theatre. While there he progressed to lead actor, then made his London debut in 'The Rising Wind' at the Embassy Theatre. His big break came in 1952 when he played the juvenile lead, the pharaoh Ramases, in Christopher Fry’s 'The Firstborn', about Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, at the Winter Garden in London in 1952. His second big leading role, at the Edinburgh festival of the same year, and on tour, was opposite Cathleen Nesbitt in 'The Player King' by Christopher Hassall, a lyricist for Ivor Novello’s musicals. This experience with the two leading verse dramatists of the day led to a two-year stint in Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon (1953-1954) as Bassanio in 'The Merchant of Venice', Lysander in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet' and Cassio to Anthony Quayle’s 'Othello'. He was now becoming established, and returned to the West End in Michael Burn’s The 'Night of the Ball' (1955) in a cast, directed by Joseph Losey, which included Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper; and in the Louis Jourdan role in Gigi (1956, before the film) with Leslie Caron, directed by Peter Hall.

 

Tony Britton's first two starring roles for British Lion – as a posh criminal in The Birthday Present (Pat Jackson, 1957) with Sylvia Syms and as a surgeon covering for a fatal mishap in Behind the Mask (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1958) with Michael Redgrave – were virtually his last as the British film industry was transformed with the new wave of working-class subjects and actors. Britton’s polish and class were suddenly surplus to requirements. Something similar happened in the theatre, but Britton could adapt more easily, playing Trigorin in The Seagull and Hotspur in Henry IV Part 1 at the Old Vic in 1961. As a slightly less irascible version of Rex Harrison, he toured for two years in 1964 as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. He repeated the role 10 years later in a touring revival by Cameron Mackintosh that was the first such commercial venture underpinned with money from the Arts Council. The show, in which Liz Robertson co-starred as Eliza Doolittle, settled at the Adelphi in the West End for a decent run. He was also the partner of Margaret Leighton in Abe Burrows’s Cactus Flower at the Lyric in 1967, and Margaret Lockwood in Somerset Maugham’s Lady Frederick at the Vaudeville in 1970.

 

Tony Britton appeared in a few, interesting films during the 1970s, including Sunday Bloody Sunday (John Schlesinger, 1971) with Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson, The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973) starring Edward Fox, and Agatha (Michael Apted, 1979) starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave. He reinvented himself as a television favourite, first in Arthur Hopcraft’s comic series on Westminster politics, The Nearly Man (1975). Britton won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 1975 for his role. Then, decisively, in Robin’s Nest (1977-1981), the first common-law marital sitcom. Britton starred as James Nicholls, business partner of Richard O’Sullivan’s aspirational chef, Robin Tripp whose “nest” was his Fulham bistro. Britton then consolidated his place in the sitcom firmament with Don’t Wait Up (1983-1990), about a tricky father-and-son relationship, with serious moral and political overtones, co-starring Nigel Havers. In the next decade, his pre-eminence on television was matched in three West End hits: starring with Cicely Courtneidge and Moira Lister in Ray Cooney and John Chapman’s mechanically ingenious farce of swapped apartments, Move Over Mrs Markham (1972); alongside Anna Neagle and Thora Hird in the musical No, No, Nanette at Drury Lane in 1973; and, in 1974, opposite a formidable Celia Johnson, as the invading Nazi commander on the Channel Islands in William Douglas Home’s The Dame of Sark at Wyndham’s. The Chichester Festival theatre was a natural habitat for him. In the 1987 season, he directed Wilde’s An Ideal Husband with Clive Francis and Joanna Lumley, and played Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons, with Roy Kinnear as the Common Man. In 1994, he returned to Stratford as Chorus in Henry V and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. His last West End appearance, at the Haymarket, was in Jeffrey Archer’s The Accused (2000). His last film appearance was in the comedy Run for Your Wife (Ray Cooney, John Luton, 2012) with Danny Dyer. Tony Britton married Ruth Hawkins in 1948. They divorced, and in 1962 he married the Danish portrait sculptor Eva Birkefeldt; she died in 2008. Britton is survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Cherry, a scriptwriter, and Fern Britton, a TV presenter, and by a son, classical actor Jasper Britton, from his second marriage. His grandson is actor Peter Cant.

 

Sources: Michael Coveney (The Guardian), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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Coronation Street (informally known as Corrie) is a British soap opera created by Granada Television and shown on ITV since 9 December 1960.

 

The programme centres on Coronation Street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on inner city Salford, its terraced houses, café, corner shop, newsagents, building yard, taxicab office, salon, restaurant, textile factory and the Rovers Return pub. In the show's fictional history, the street was built in the early 1900s and named in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII.

 

The show typically airs five times a week; Monday and Friday 7.30–8 pm & 8.30–9 pm and Wednesday 7.30–8 pm, however this occasionally varies due to sport or around Christmas and New Year. From late 2017 the show will air six times a week.

 

The programme was conceived in 1960 by scriptwriter Tony Warren at Granada Televisionin Manchester.

 

Warren's initial kitchen sink drama proposal was rejected by the station's founder Sidney Bernstein, but he was persuaded by producer Harry Elton to produce the programme for 13 pilot episodes. Within six months of the show's first broadcast, it had become the most-watched programme on British television, and is now a significant part of British culture.

 

The show has been one of the most lucrative programmes on British commercial television, underpinning the success of Granada Television and ITV.

 

Coronation Street is made by Granada Television at MediaCity Manchester and shown in all ITV regions, as well as internationally. On 17 September 2010, it became the world's longest-running TV soap opera in production.

 

On 23 September 2015, Coronation Street was broadcast live to mark ITV's 60th anniversary.

 

Coronation Street is noted for its depiction of a down-to-earth working class community combined with light-hearted humour, and strong characters.

Italian postcard.

 

American actor William Holden (1918-1981) was called 'The Golden Boy' thanks to his first starring role as a young man torn between the violin and boxing in Golden Boy (1939). From then on he was typecast as the boy-next-door. After returning from World War II military service, he got two important roles: Joe Gillis, the gigolo, in Sunset Blvd. (1950), and the tutor in Born Yesterday (1950). These were followed by his Oscar-winning role as the cynical sergeant in Stalag 17 (1953). He stayed popular through the 1950s, appearing in such films as Picnic (1955) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

 

William 'Bill' Holden was born William Franklin Beedle Jr. in O'Fallon, Illinois, in 1918. Holden grew up in a wealthy family, which moved to Pasadena when Holden was three. His father, William Franklin Beedle, Sr., was an industrial chemist, head of the George W. Gooch Laboratories in Pasadena and his mother, Mary Blanche (Ball), a teacher. His father, a keen physical fitness enthusiast, taught young Bill the art of tumbling and boxing. He went to study chemistry at Pasadena Junior College. A trip to New York and Broadway set Bill's path firmly toward an acting career. He had already performed in school plays and lent his voice to several radio plays in Los Angeles. When he played the part of octogenarian Eugene Curie at the Pasadena Workshop Theatre, he was spotted by a Paramount talent scout. In 1938, he made his feature film debut with a role in Prison Farm. Having joined Paramount's Golden Circle Club of promising young actors, Bill was now groomed for stardom. However, it was a loan-out to Columbia that secured him his breakthrough role. He was the sixty-sixth actor to audition for the part of an Italian violinist forced to become a boxer in Golden Boy (Rouben Mamoulian, 1939) opposite Barbara Stanwyck and Adolphe Menjou. The picture was a minor hit and Columbia consequently acquired half his contract. Since then, he was cast many times as the 'boy-next-door' or a rookie serviceman in pictures like Our Town (Sam Wood, 1940), I Wanted Wings (Mitchell Leisen, 1941) opposite 'peek-a-boo' star Veronica Lake, and The Fleet's In (Victor Schertzinger, 1942). His salary had been enhanced and he now earned $150 a week. In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income. In 1942, he enlisted in the Officers Candidate School in Florida, graduating as an Air Force second lieutenant. He spent the next three years on P.R. duties and making training films for the Office of Public Information. One of his brothers, a naval pilot, was shot down and killed over the Pacific in 1943.

 

After the war, William Holden got two very important roles. He played caddish, down-on-his-luck scriptwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950) and a teacher in Born Yesterday (George Cukor, 1950). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "Holden had effectively graduated from leading man to leading actor. No longer typecast, he was now allowed more hard-edged or even morally ambiguous roles." His Oscar-winning role was that of a self-serving, cynical prisoner-of-war in Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder, 1953). Throughout the 1950s, Holden remained popular, thanks in part to films such as Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954) with Audrey Hepburn, The Bridges at Toko-Ri (Mark Robson, 1954), and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (Henry King, 1955). In Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955) he played an unemployed drifter who disrupts and changes the lives (particularly of the women) in a small Kansas town.Already one of the highest paid stars of the 1950s, Holden received 10% of the gross for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), making him an instant multi-millionaire. He invested much of his earnings in various enterprises, even a radio station in Hong Kong. At the end of the decade, he relocated his family to Geneva, Switzerland, but spent more and more of his own time globetrotting. In the 1960s, Holden founded the exclusive Mount Kenya Safari Club with oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann. His fervent advocacy of wildlife conservation now consumed more of his time than his acting. His films, consequently, dropped in quality. I.S. Mowis: "Drinking ever more heavily, he also started to show his age. By the time he appeared as the leader of an outlaw gang on their last roundup in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), his face was so heavily lined that someone likened it to "a map of the United States. He still had a couple more good performances in him"" , in The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin, 1974) with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, and Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) opposite Faye Dunaway. His last film was the excellent comedy S.O.B. (Blake Edwards, 1981) with Julie Andrews. William Holden married actress Brenda Marshall in 1941, from whom he divorced in 1971. They had two children, born in 1943 (Peter) and 1946 (Scott). Holden also had a daughter, Virginia, from a previous marriage. Virginia was not Holden's child, but he adopted her. Holden was good friends with fellow actor Ronald Reagan. In 1952, he and his wife were best men at the wedding of Reagan and Nancy Davis. However, he had no interest in politics. In 1981, William Holden died from a head injury caused by a fall. Holden had drunk too much and remained conscious for at least half an hour after his fall. He did not realise that he had to call an ambulance, otherwise, he would certainly have survived.

 

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

 

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