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

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.

East-German postcard by Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no 3263, 1963.

 

On Thursday 21 April 2022, French actor Jacques Perrin (1941-2022) passed away. Handsome and talented, Perrin started his career as the romantic hero in the films of Italian director Valerio Zurlini. Later he made powerful films with Costa-Gravas and played the adult Salvatore in the international hit Cinema Paradiso (1988). With his own studio, he produced successful political films as Z (1969) and nature documentaries as Microcosmos (1996).

 

Jacques Perrin was born Jacques André Simonet in Paris in 1941. Occasionally, he is credited as Jacques Simonet. Perrin was his mother's name. His father, Alexandre Simonet, was a theatre director. In 1946, the five years old made his uncredited film debut in Les Portes de la nuit/Gates of the Night (1946, Marcel Carné), starring Serge Reggiani and Yves Montand. Perrin was trained as an actor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique. On stage, he gave over 400 performances of L'Année du bac in a Paris theatre. In the cinema, he played his first major juvenile parts in Italy for director Valerio Zurlini. He played Claudia Cardinale’s boyfriend in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia/Girl with a Suitcase (1961, Valerio Zurlini) and Marcello Mastroianni’s younger brother in Cronaca familiar/Family Diary (1962, Valerio Zurlini). In France he acted with Brigitte Bardot in La Vérité/The Truth (1960, Henri-Georges Clouzot), with Anna Karina in Le Soleil dans l'oeil/Sun in Your Eyes (1962, Jacques Bourdon), and with Bruno Cremer in the war film La 317ème section/317th Platoon (1965, Pierre Schoendoerffer). He also worked on the thriller film Compartiment tueurs/The Sleeping Car Murders (1965, Costa-Gravas). Hames Travers at Films de France: “Costa-Gavras made his directorial debut with this fast-moving, convoluted but magnificently assembled crime thriller. The film reflects the director’s interest in American Film Noir and, thanks largely to an impressive cast, is one of his most entertaining films.” It was the start of a long-time cooperation between actor and director. In 1966, Perrin won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival for the Italian film Un uomo a metà/Almost a Man (1966, Vittorio De Seta), and the Spanish film La busca/The Search (1966, Angelino Fons). The next year he co-starred in the musical Les demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy) with Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorleac. He would cooperate again with Demy and Deneuve on the fairytale Peau d'âne/Donkey Skin (1970, Jacques Demy) in which he played an appealing Prince Charming. Craig Butler at AllMovie: “Donkey Skin is a strange but utterly captivating little fantasy and one that, despite its fairy tale origins, is really aimed more at adults than at children. Jacques Demy has directed with an eye toward whimsy, but whimsy mixed both with magic and subtle disorientation.”

 

At 27, Jacques Perrin created his own studio. He produced and acted in Z (1969), directed by Costa Gavras and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, and Irene Papas. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. Dan Pavlides at AllMovie: “Z is one of the most politically insightful films ever made, exposing government hypocrisy and cover-up in the wake of a political assassination.” The production had nearly 4 million admissions in France and was the 4th highest-grossing film of the year. It was also the 10th highest-grossing film of 1969 in the United States. Z is also one of the few films to be nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture. Perrin worked with Costa-Gavras again on État de Siège/State of Siege (1972, Costa-Gavras) and Section special/Special Section (1975, Costa-Gavras). Both films had political themes, and Perrin continued this trend with La guerre d'Algérie (1975, Yves Courrière, Philippe Monnier), a documentary on the Algerian uprising, and La Spirale (1976, Armand Mattelart, Valérie Mayoux, Jacqueline Meppiel), a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende . In 1976, Perrin produced another Oscar-winning film in La Victoire en chantant/Black and White in Color (1976, Jean-Jacques Annaud). That year, he also embarked on Il deserto dei Tartari/Le Désert des Tartares/ The Desert of the Tartars (1976, Valerio Zurlini), with a cast filled with such big-name actors as Jean-Louis Trintignant, Vittorio Gassman, Max von Sydow, Francisco Rabal, Helmut Griem, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, Laurent Terzieff and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film, based on Dino Buzzati's novel The Tartar Steppe, tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo (Jacques Perrin), and the time that he spent guarding the Bastiani Fortress, an old, unmaintained border fortress. Although the film won the Grand Prix du Cinéma Français and three David di Donatello Awards in 1977, it was not very successful and left Perrin with debts.

 

Jacques Perrin had a huge success with the Italian drama Nuovo Cinema Paradiso/Cinema Paradiso (1988, Giuseppe Tornatore). He played a famous film director remembers his childhood at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo, the projectionist (Philippe Noiret), first brought about his love of films. Cinema Paradiso was a critical and box-office success and won many awards including the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Two years later, he also appeared in Tornatore’s Stanno tutti bene/Everybody’s Fine (1990, Giuseppe Tornatore) starring Marcello Mastroianni. As a producer, Perrin changed direction when he decided that the natural life around us could tell stories as fascinating and varied as anything dreamt up by a scriptwriter. He produced nature documentaries that transformed the scope of wildlife films, from Microcosmos (1996, Claude Nuridsany, Marie Pérennou), in which ants performed the starring role, to the austere travelogue Himalaya (1999, Eric Valli), nominated for an Oscar, and Le Peuple Migrateur/Winged Migration (2001, Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats, Jacques Perrin), which followed some 50 species of birds across 30 countries. All were filmed by Perrin’s studio Galatée Films. Another successful production was Les choristes/The Chorus (2004, Christophe Barratier). In this drama, Perrin played the narrator, the old orchestra conductor Pierre Morhange, who reminisces about his childhood inspirations through the pages of a diary kept by his old music teacher. The young Pépinot was played by Perrin’s son Maxence. Other films in which he played were the historical horror film Le pacte des loups/Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001, Christophe Gans), and the crime drama Le petit lieutenant/The Young Lieutenant (2005, Xavier Beauvois) with Nathalie Baye. In 1985, Perrin was made Knight of the Ordre national du Mérite, in 1997 he was promoted to Officer and in 2003 to Commander. He was also made Knight of the Légion d'honneur in 1990 and promoted to Officer in 2007. Jacques Perrin has three sons, actor MathieuPerrin (1975), actor Maxence Perrin (1995), and Lancelot Perrin (2000). His most recent film production is Océans/Oceans (2009, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud). Tracie Cooper at AllMovie: “Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, Oceans is made up of a compilation of underwater photography from over 75 diving expeditions that took place over a period of four years, and captures an astoundingly intimate glimpse into the lives of a wide array of sea life”.

 

Sources: James Travers (Films de France), Craig Butler (AllMovie), Dan Pavlides (AllMovie), Tracie Cooper (AllMovie), John Whitley (The Telegraph), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 121. Photo: Star

 

Georgius (1891-1970), alias George Guibourg, alias Theodore Crapulet, was one of the most popular and versatile performers in Paris for more than 50 years." He was a famous singer and author of songs and appeared in a series of escapist films of the 1930s.

 

Georgius was born Georges Auguste Charles Guibourg in 1891 in Mantes-la-Ville, Yvelines, France. He was the son of Georges Charles Joseph Guibourg, a schoolteacher, editor of the Petit Mantais and then editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper La France aérienne, and Clémentine Augustine Bouteilly. He began studying the piano at the age of 11 and at age 16 went to Paris where he performed on stage, singing extracts of traditional operettas and lovesongs. Over the next few years, his various engagements with cabarets progressed. He began to write comic songs. It was in 1912 that he really began his career as a chansonnier. Called to the Gaîté-Montparnasse theatre to replace a comic singer, his songs were so popular that the theatre signed him a contract for a year; he remained there for three years. In 1916 he began writing plays, which he then performed with his troupe, Les Joyeux Compagnons, created in 1919. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a veritable phenomenon of the music hall. His best-known song at the time was 'La Plus Bath des javas', a parody of fashionable javas. He continued to tour and put on revues with his troupe, which was renamed the Théâtre Chantant in 1926. During this inter-war period, he became one of the most popular singers in Paris, performing at the Moulin Rouge, Bobino, Alhambra Club and the Casino de Paris. 1930 was a great year for him: he released 'La Route de Pen-Zac', which sold more than 160,000 records, a record for the time! The shows followed one another, and everyone rushed to see him.

 

Georgius wrote and played the leading role in his film debut, the farce Pas de femmes?/No Women? (Mario Bonnard, 1932) with Aimos and the young Fernandel in a supporting part. He wrote the story for the short Maison hantée/Haunted House (Roger Capellani, 1933) with Monette Dinay and Paulette Dubost. He co-starred with Dolly Davis in Un train dans la nuit/The Ghost Train (René Hervil, 1934). Throughout the 1930s he appeared in nine escapist comedies. In 1936, he had another success as a singer, with the song 'Au Lycée Papillon', which also broke sales records. It had a verse that is no longer sung today because it was anti-Semitic. Other hits followed: 'Ca c'est de la bagnole' and 'On ne peut pas plaire à tout le monde'. In 1938 he wrote and performed a comic song against Hitler:' Il travaille du pinceau' in which he made fun of the house painter (Hitler was a painter in his youth). He continued his revues during the war. In 1941, he played Sganarelle in Moliere's 'Le Médecin malgré lui' at the Comédie-Française. In 1941 and 1942, he was the artistic director of three theatres: the Théâtre de l'Étoile, the Théâtre Antoine and the Théâtre de l'Ambigu. After the war, he was banned from the stage for a year by the Comité National d'Épuration du Spectacle. The main reasons were that he had campaigned for the 'Association syndicale des auteurs et compositeurs professionnels' during the Occupation, with the complicity of Alain Laubreaux, and for having staged Alain Laubreaux's play about Stavisky, 'Les Pirates de Paris', in his theatre at the Ambigu. He became a scriptwriter and writer under the pseudonym Jo Barnais. He wrote detective novels as a writer of detective novels for the Série noire. His final film appearance was in Julien Duvivier's drama Sous le ciel de Paris/Under the Paris Sky (Julien Duvivier, 1951) with Brigitte Auber. He also left the stage in 1951. He was married to Julia Bidault, Marcelle Irvin and Huguette Proye and had two children. Georgius died in 1970 in Paris, aged 78. Georgius was the author of more than 1,500 songs, 2,000 sketches, numerous screenplays and a dozen detective novels.

 

Sources: Jean-Pascal Constantin (Les Gens du Cinéma), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

 

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

Diana Markosian

Armenia / United States (1989)

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, the first American soap opera aired in Russia after the fall of the USSR, was followed by millions of Russians, including Diana Markosian’s mother. In 1996, when she decided to leave Moscow and the father of her children, she placed an ad with various marriage agencies. She accepted a proposal from a man living in Santa Barbara, California, and moved there with her two children. Years later, Diana devised a docudrama about her mother’s extraordinary story. This artist enlisted the help of one of the scriptwriters of the original soap opera to make a short film with actors embodying her own family drama.

 

Created especially for Images Vevey, Santa Barbara is a poignant piece about the American dream and the disenchantment it could bring, but also about the tenuous line between reality and fiction.

Spanish card by Romantica. Photo: Unifrance Films.

 

On Thursday 21 April 2022, French actor Jacques Perrin (1941-2022) passed away. Handsome and talented, Perrin started his career as the romantic hero in the films of Italian director Valerio Zurlini. Later he made powerful films with Costa-Gravas and played the adult Salvatore in the international hit Cinema Paradiso (1988). With his own studio, he produced successful political films as Z (1969) and nature documentaries as Microcosmos (1996).

 

Jacques Perrin was born Jacques André Simonet in Paris in 1941. Occasionally, he is credited as Jacques Simonet. Perrin was his mother's name. His father, Alexandre Simonet, was a theatre director. In 1946, the five years old made his uncredited film debut in Les Portes de la nuit/Gates of the Night (1946, Marcel Carné), starring Serge Reggiani and Yves Montand. Perrin was trained as an actor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique. On stage, he gave over 400 performances of L'Année du bac in a Paris theatre. In the cinema, he played his first major juvenile parts in Italy for director Valerio Zurlini. He played Claudia Cardinale’s boyfriend in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia/Girl with a Suitcase (Valerio Zurlini, 1961) and Marcello Mastroianni’s younger brother in Cronaca familiar/Family Diary (1962, Valerio Zurlini). In France he acted with Brigitte Bardot in La Vérité/The Truth (1960, Henri-Georges Clouzot), with Anna Karina in Le Soleil dans l'oeil/Sun in Your Eyes (1962, Jacques Bourdon), and with Bruno Cremer in the war film La 317ème section/317th Platoon (1965, Pierre Schoendoerffer). He also worked on the thriller film Compartiment tueurs/The Sleeping Car Murders (1965, Costa-Gravas). Hames Travers at Films de France: “Costa-Gavras made his directorial debut with this fast-moving, convoluted but magnificently assembled crime thriller. The film reflects the director’s interest in American Film Noir and, thanks largely to an impressive cast, is one of his most entertaining films.” It was the start of a long-time cooperation between actor and director. In 1966, Perrin won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival for the Italian film Un uomo a metà/Almost a Man (1966, Vittorio De Seta), and the Spanish film La busca/The Search (1966, Angelino Fons). The next year he co-starred in the musical Les demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, Jacques Demy) with Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorleac. He would cooperate again with Demy and Deneuve on the fairytale Peau d'âne/Donkey Skin (1970, Jacques Demy) in which he played an appealing Prince Charming. Craig Butler at AllMovie: “Donkey Skin is a strange but utterly captivating little fantasy and one that, despite its fairy tale origins, is really aimed more at adults than at children. Jacques Demy has directed with an eye toward whimsy, but whimsy mixed both with magic and subtle disorientation.”

 

At 27, Jacques Perrin created his own studio. He produced and acted in Z (1969), directed by Costa Gavras and starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, and Irene Papas. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. Dan Pavlides at AllMovie: “Z is one of the most politically insightful films ever made, exposing government hypocrisy and cover-up in the wake of a political assassination.” The production had nearly 4 million admissions in France and was the 4th highest-grossing film of the year. It was also the 10th highest-grossing film of 1969 in the United States. Z is also one of the few films to be nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture. Perrin worked with Costa-Gavras again on État de Siège/State of Siege (1972, Costa-Gavras) and Section special/Special Section (1975, Costa-Gavras). Both films had political themes, and Perrin continued this trend with La guerre d'Algérie (1975, Yves Courrière, Philippe Monnier), a documentary on the Algerian uprising, and La Spirale (1976, Armand Mattelart, Valérie Mayoux, Jacqueline Meppiel), a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende . In 1976, Perrin produced another Oscar-winning film La Victoire en chantant/Black and White in Color (1976, Jean-Jacques Annaud). That year, he also embarked on Il deserto dei Tartari/Le Désert des Tartares/ The Desert of the Tartars (1976, Valerio Zurlini), with a cast filled with such big-name actors as Jean-Louis Trintignant, Vittorio Gassman, Max von Sydow, Francisco Rabal, Helmut Griem, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, Laurent Terzieff and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film, based on Dino Buzzati's novel The Tartar Steppe, tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo (Jacques Perrin), and the time that he spent guarding the Bastiani Fortress, an old, unmaintained border fortress. Although the film won the Grand Prix du Cinéma Français and three David di Donatello Awards in 1977, it was not very successful and left Perrin with debts.

 

Jacques Perrin had a huge success with the Italian drama Nuovo Cinema Paradiso/Cinema Paradiso (1988, Giuseppe Tornatore). He played a famous film director remembers his childhood at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo, the projectionist (Philippe Noiret), first brought about his love of films. Cinema Paradiso was a critical and box-office success and won many awards including the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Two years later, he also appeared in Tornatore’s Stanno tutti bene/Everybody’s Fine (1990, Giuseppe Tornatore) starring Marcello Mastroianni. As a producer, Perrin changed direction when he decided that the natural life around us could tell stories as fascinating and varied as anything dreamt up by a scriptwriter. He produced nature documentaries that transformed the scope of wildlife films, from Microcosmos (1996, Claude Nuridsany, Marie Pérennou), in which ants performed the starring role, to the austere travelogue Himalaya (1999, Eric Valli), nominated for an Oscar, and Le Peuple Migrateur/Winged Migration (2001, Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats, Jacques Perrin), which followed some 50 species of birds across 30 countries. All were filmed by Perrin’s studio Galatée Films. Another successful production was Les choristes/The Chorus (2004, Christophe Barratier). In this drama, Perrin played the narrator, the old orchestra conductor Pierre Morhange, who reminisces about his childhood inspirations through the pages of a diary kept by his old music teacher. The young Pépinot was played by Perrin’s son Maxence. Other films in which he played were the historical horror film Le pacte des loups/Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001, Christophe Gans), and the crime drama Le petit lieutenant/The Young Lieutenant (2005, Xavier Beauvois) with Nathalie Baye. In 1985, Perrin was made Knight of the Ordre national du Mérite, in 1997 he was promoted to Officer and in 2003 to Commander. He was also made Knight of the Légion d'honneur in 1990 and promoted to Officer in 2007. Jacques Perrin has three sons, actor MathieuPerrin (1975), actor Maxence Perrin (1995), and Lancelot Perrin (2000). His most recent film production is Océans/Oceans (2009, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud). Tracie Cooper at AllMovie: “Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, Oceans is made up of a compilation of underwater photography from over 75 diving expeditions that took place over a period of four years, and captures an astoundingly intimate glimpse into the lives of a wide array of sea life”.

 

Sources: James Travers (Films de France), Craig Butler (AllMovie), Dan Pavlides (AllMovie), Tracie Cooper (AllMovie), John Whitley (The Telegraph), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Vintage Dutch postcard. Part of a booklet of cards for the Dutch stage play De Opstandigen (The Rebels) by August Defresne and based on the novel by Jo van Ammers-Küller. It premiered on 6 November 1926 at the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Amsterdam and was performed by the company Het Nieuwe Nederlandsch Tooneel. Director and art director of the play was Louis Saalborn. Oscar Tourniaire had the male lead as the stern patriarch Lodewijk Coornvelt, while the female lead was for Jacqueline Royaards-Sandberg as Maria Elizabeth "Miebetje" Sylvain, the only one to resist the patriarch's autocratic, conservative rule.

 

Oscar Tourniaire (1880-1939) was a major Dutch stage actor. In 1898 he made his stage debut with the Koninklijke Vereeniging Het Nederlandsch Tooneel (K.V.H.N.T.) in Friends of Us by Sardou. On 4 November 1937, he celebrated his 40th anniversary with Ferdy's conversion of Langer. The Polygoon newsreel made a recording of him on the occasion of that anniversary. Tourniaire directed one silent film for Film-Fabriek Anton Nöggerath: Roze Kate (Pink Kate, 1912), starring Caroline van Dommelen and with Tourniaire in a supporting part. In 1911 he had already acted as prison warden in De bannelingen (The Exiles, Leon Boedels, Caroline van Dommelen, 1911), also with Van Dommelen in the lead, who was also co-director and scriptwriter of the film. As an actor, Tourniaire appeared in two sound films. He played Mr. Steenman in the musical comedy De Jantjes (The Bluejacks, Jaap Speyer, 1934), while he also co-acted in Klokslag Twaalf, the Dutch version of Léo Joannon's Quand Minuit Sonne (1936), starring Louis de Bree.

 

Oscar Tourniaire was the son of the actor Ernst Tourniaire. His sister Jopie was also an actress. He was buried at the Amsterdam cemetery Zorgvlied.

British postcard by Karizzma Enterprises in the series Coronation Street Hall of Fame, ref K K20. Photo: Granada Promotions, 1985. Caption: Leonard Swindley played by Arthur Lowe, First Appearance 1960, Last Appearance 1965.

 

English actor Arthur Lowe (1915-1984) played Leonard Swindley in the classic soap opera Coronation Street between 1960 and 1965. His acting career spanned nearly forty years, including starring roles in numerous theatre and television productions. Most famously, he played Captain Mainwaring in the British sitcom Dad's Army from 1968 until 1977, was nominated for seven BAFTAs and became one of the most recognised faces on television.

 

Coronation Street (1960-) is the world's longest-running TV soap with more than 10,000 episodes. The British series focuses on the everyday lives of working-class people in Greater Manchester, England. 'Corrie' is now a significant part of British culture and has been one of the most financially lucrative programmes on commercial television in the U.K., underpinning the success of Granada Television and ITV. The programme centres on Coronation Street in Weatherfield, a fictional town based on Salford, its terraced houses, corner shop, newsagents, textile factory and The Rovers Return pub. The fictional street was built in the early 1900s and named in honour of the coronation of King Edward VII. At the centre of many early stories, there was Ena Sharples (Violet Carson), caretaker of the Glad Tidings Mission Hall, and her friends: timid Minnie Caldwell (Margot Bryant), and bespectacled Martha Longhurst (Lynne Carol). The trio was likened to the Greek chorus, and the three witches in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, as they would sit in the snug bar of the Rovers Return, passing judgement over family, neighbours and frequently each other. Other central characters during the 1960s were Elsie Tanner played by Patricia Phoenix and Annie Walker played by Doris Speed remained with the show for 20 years and like Ena Sharples became archetypes of British soap opera.

 

Coronation Street was devised in 1960 by scriptwriter Tony Warren at Granada Television in 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 thirteen pilot episodes. The first episode was aired on 9 December 1960. Between 9 December 1960 and 3 March 1961, Coronation Street was broadcast twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday. In March 1961, Coronation Street reached No.1 in the television ratings and remained there for the rest of the year. 15 million viewers tuned into Corrie at the end of 1961, and by 1964 the programme had over 20 million regular viewers. Coronation Street's creator, Tony Warren continued to write for the programme intermittently until 1976. Coronation Streetis made by Granada Television at MediaCity near 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. Coronation Street is noted for its depiction of a down-to-earth working-class community combined with light-hearted humour, and strong characters. After appearing in 288 episodes, Violet Carson and her character Ena Sharples left the series in 1980. William Roache, who plays Kenneth Barlow, is the only remaining member of the original cast,Coronation Street. This currently makes him the longest-serving actor in Coronation Street, as well as in British and global soap history. Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) has remained in the series since first appearing in early 1961 when the show was just weeks old. Helen Worth as Gail Platt, who appears since 1974 in the series, has played in the most episodes: 1.780, according to IMDb. Today, the programme still rates as one of the most-watched programmes on UK television for every day it is aired. Coronation Street is also shown in various countries worldwide. In Australia, it was in 1966 more popular than in the UK. Other countries which aired - or still air - Coronation Street are Canada, Ireland, United Arab Emirates and the Netherlands, where it was broadcasted by the Vara between 1967 and 1974. I dearly remember watching the series as a kid with the whole family.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our albums Dutch TV History and Vintage TV Heroes, and our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Didn't take as long to finish as I expected 😋. If you want to read it say so and I'll share it with you on Google docs!

German cigarette card.

 

Italian film director and screenwriter Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. He was known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. In a career spanning almost fifty years, Fellini won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita, was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and directed four motion pictures that won Oscars in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

 

Source: Wikipedia.

German collectors card in the Unsere Bunten Filmbilder series by Ross Verlag, no. 5 (of 275). Photo: Ufa. The card was a supplement to 'Salem Zigaretten', Dresden.

 

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.

 

Brigitte Helm was born as Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm in Berlin, Germany, in 1906 (some sources say 1908). Her father was a Prussian army officer, who left his wife a widow not long after. Brigitte gained her acting experience in school productions but never thought of acting classes. After her school exams, she wanted to be an astronomer. But then she was discovered by the famous director Fritz Lang for the lead in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), then the most expensive German film ever made. Her mother had sent a photograph of her beautiful 16-years-old daughter to Lang's wife, scriptwriter Thea von Harbou. Helm was invited to the set of Die Nibelungen and was given a screen test. She got the double role of the noble and virginal Maria and her evil and sensual twin, the Maschinenmensch, a robot created to urge the workers in revolting and destroy their own city. In their 1996 obituary in The New York Times, Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog note: "The film depicts the world of 2006, a time, Lang envisioned, when a ruling class lives in decadent luxury in the loft heights of skyscrapers linked by aerial railways, while beneath the streets slave-like workers toll in unbearable conditions to sustain their masters. But for all the steam and special effects, for many who have seen the movie in its various incarnations, including a tinted version and one accompanied by music, the most compelling lingering image is neither the towers above nor the hellish factories below. It is the staring transformation of Ms. Helm from an idealistic young woman into a barely clad creature performing a lascivious dance in a brothel." Metropolis made Brigitte Helm a star overnight.

 

UFA gave Brigitte Helm a contract, and over the next 10 years, she acted in 29 German, French, and English films. She was cast as the evil but oh so seductive protagonist in the Sci-Fi-horror film Alraune. First in the silent version of 1928, directed by Henrik Galeen. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel 'Alraune' has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his 'mad doctor' roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, the sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions - least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself." Two years later Helm also starred in the sound version, Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny (Richard Oswald, 1930), for which the Dutch postcard lower in this post was made.

 

Brigitte Helm played a helpless blind woman who is seduced by a rogue in the wartime melodrama Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney/The Love of Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927). It was Brigitte Helm's first project with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the director who could - better than any other director - bring out her mysterious adaptability. In his films Abwege/The Devious Path (1928) and L’Atlantide/Die Herrin von Atlantis/Queen of Atlantis (1932) she proved that she could perform more restrained and emotionally expressive characters. In Abwege, she portrays a spoilt woman of the world who from sheer boredom almost destroys her own life. In L'Atlantide (1932), Helm plays a goddess, the mere sight of whom makes men crazy. Werner Sudendorff wrote in his obituary of Helm in The Independent: "Her power is not of this world, but incomprehensible, magical. This was Helm's last really great role, a legendary mysterious sphinx of the German cinema." These films and Marcel L'Herbier's late silent film L'Argent/The Money (Marcel L’ Herbier, 1928) allowed Helm to act outside the tired cliches she was later often subjected to by scriptwriters and producers.

 

Brigitte Helm's first sound film was the musical Die singende Stadt/City of Song (Carmine Gallone, 1930) with Jan Kiepura. She also appeared in the French and English versions of her German films. Werner Sudendorff: "In her films of the early 1930s, Brigitte Helm became the embodiment of the down-to-earth, affluent modern woman. With her slim figure and austere pre-Raphaelite profile, she seems unapproachable, a model fashion-conscious woman, under whose ice-cold outer appearance criminal energies flicker." However, her sound films, like Gloria (Hans Behrendt, 1931), The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932), and Gold/L’Or (Karl Hartl, 1934), do not have the artistic cachet of her best silent films. Her relationship with the Ufa happened to be very rocky. While the studio had made her a star and kept increasing her pay, the actress was unhappy with the material the Ufa offered her and she was annoyed about the restrictive clauses dictating her weight.

 

Reportedly Brigitte Helm was Josef Von Sternberg's original choice for the starring role of Der Blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930), but the part went to Marlene Dietrich. Helm was also James Whale's first choice for his Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but reportedly she refused to go to America. In 1935, angered by the Nazi control of the German film industry, she didn’t extend her contract with the Ufa. Perhaps another reason for her decision were the negative press reports about her many traffic accidents and the short prison sentence as a result of it. Her last film was Ein Idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935), an adaptation of the play by Oscar Wilde.

 

In private, Brigitte Helm was a timid, modest, and not very ambitious personality. In 1935, after a short but prolific career of 32 films, she married Dr. Hugo Von Kunheim, a German industrialist of Jewish descent, and retired. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "in addition to no longer needing to pursue her acting, with which she was never 100-percent comfortable, she was repelled by the takeover of the German movie industry by the Hitler government. Her marital status, coupled with her anti-Nazi political views, made it impossible for Helm to continue working in movies or living in Germany. From 1935 onward, the couple lived in Switzerland. After the war, they divided their time between Germany and Switzerland, but Helm chose to live quietly and remain anonymous." The pair would raise four children. In 1968 Helm received the Filmband in Gold for “continued outstanding individual contributions to German film over the years". She steadfastly refused to appear in a film again, nor even grant an interview about her film career, but she always answered requests from her old fans for her signature. Brigitte Helm died in 1996 in Ascona, Switzerland. In particular, her Evil Maria won't be forgotten. Apt for her is the Mae West line: "When I am good, I am very good; but when I am bad, I am better."

 

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog (The New York Times), Werner Sudendorff (The Independent), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film Reference, Lenin Imports, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

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

Italian postcard by Tip. Sent by mail in 1922.

 

Ferdinand Guillaume (1887-1977) was an Italian comical actor, famous in the 1910s as Tontolini and Polidor.

 

Ferdinand(o) Guillaume, the son of a well-bred European circus family once fled from France during the Revolution, was enrolled by the Cines company in 1910 together with his brother Natale and their wives. Guillaume was launched as the character Tontolini, in 1912 also known in Britain and the US as Jenkins. Guillaume provided Cines and Italy an international reputation in the field of comical films. His circus background was a clear consistency in his films. Actress Lea Giunchi was married to Natale (Natalino) Guillaume and often played as 'Lea' in the Tontolini comedies, before becoming the regular film partner of Kri-Kri (Raymond Frau), who more or less substituted Guillaume when the latter moved over to Pasquali.

 

After some 100 shorts as Tontolini, and after the success of his first feature-length film, Pinocchio (Giulio Antamoro, 1911), Ferdinand Guillaume went over to the Pasquali company. Here he created the character of Polidor (named after a horse in his previous circus shows), continuing his double profession of leading actor and director, being often the scriptwriter of his films too. Shooting some 100 films, up to four films a month, in the years 1912-1914, the Polidor films were distributed all over Europe and the US. Guillaume's output shrunk considerately from the outbreak of the First World War, although he still had a large output in 1916-1917. Guillaume managed to pursue a constant career in cinema until 1920, when his brother died in a plane crash dring the shooting of a film. Guillaume had occasional come-backs in sound cinema, as in Fellini’s films Le notti di Cabiria (1957) and La dolce vita (1960), and in Pasolini's Accatone (1961). His last film part was that of an old actor in Fellini's Toby Dammitt (1968).

 

Sources: Ivo Blom (Encyclopedia of Early Cinema), Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

 

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

Spanish collectors card by Amattler Marca Luna chocolate, series 6, no. 9. Photo: Eclipse. Suzanne Grandais in Lorena (Georges Tréville, 1918).

 

In vain we tried to find the plot of this film on French sites, as e.g. numbers of the leading magazine Ciné-Journal from 1918 fail in the French online system Gallica. However, thanks to the Dutch online newspaper site Delpher, we managed to find a content description in a Dutch regional paper of 1919.

 

Plot: Lorena is the daughter of the marquis of Chambrey, and secretly engaged to the painter Pierre Laurent, but her father has other plans. he wants to give her hand to Count Borgo, a son of a late friend. Lorena hides in Mme Laurent's place but is discovered and brought back home. yet, when it all comes out that Count Borgo is already married, Lorena may marry her artist. Borgo, though, is keen on revenge and challenges Pierre to a duel. When the duel is undecided, Pierre comes into his power. When Borgo wants to use his right to shoot at Pierre from a distance of 12 meters, Lorena intervenes. After having drugged her lover, she dresses like a man and goes to the duel. Borgo is softened by so much courage and shoots at a bottle instead of at the woman. (Provinciale Geldersche en Nijmeegsche courant, 15-02-1919, www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/view?query=grandais+lorena&...)

 

Lorena was produced by Grandais' own company Les Films Suzanne Grandais, but under the aegis of Eclipse, and also distributed by Eclipse. Scriptwriter was Claude Valmont. The main actors were Suzanne Grandais in the title role, Jean Aymé as Count Borgo and Fred Zorilla as Pierre Laurent. Supporting actors were Berthe Jalabert as Madame Laurent and Maillard as Monsieur Chambrey. The film came out in Paris on 11 February 1918 (so a year before the review in the Dutch regional paper).

 

What we also know is that there were a large series of postcards for this film, made by the Spanish Amatller chocolate company. We will upload these in the coming times. Amatller did two large series for two films with Grandais for Eclipse: Midinettes (1917) and Lorena (1918).

 

Striking, sophisticated Suzanne Grandais (1893 - 1920) is one of our favorite European film stars. She was the most beautiful and refined actress of the French silent cinema. Her nickname was 'the French Mary Pickford' because of her angel face and blond hair. She died in a car crash when she was only 27.

Today regarded as a titan of American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1894-1940) was a St. Paul native and is commemorated there by a statue and a downtown theatre that carries his name. He achieved fame during the 1920s with his novels that captured the Jazz Age zeitgeist, but his fortunes faltered during the following decade in the wake of his wife Zelda’s mental illness and an unsuccessful move to become a Hollywood scriptwriter. A struggle with alcoholism led to Fitzgerald’s early death at the age of 44.

Slobodan Novakovic (1939 - 2007) was a Serbian dramaturg. He graduated from the Academy of Theater in the class of Josip Kulundžić. He made the first professional steps in 1967 in Belgrade TV, where he spent three full decades. He was also a director, scriptwriter and editor. He served and loved club of Partizan Belgrade and this graffiti was made in memoriam.

Soviet-Russian postcard. Bjuro propagandy sovetskogo kinoiskusstva. 1972.

 

Natalya Sergeyevna Bondarchuk (Russian: Наталья Серге́евна Бондарчук) (born May 10, 1950) is a Soviet and Russian actress and film director, internatonally best known for her appearance in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) as "Hari". She is the daughter of the Ukrainian director and actor Sergei Bondarchuk and the Russian actress Inna Makarova. Her half-brother is the film director and actor Fedor Bondarchuk; her half-sister is the actress Yelena Bondarchuk.

 

Natalya Bondarchuk was born in Moscow to Ukrainian director and actor Sergei Bondarchuk and the Russian actress Inna Makarova. In 1971 she graduated from the acting school of the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography and in 1975 from the directing school there. She made her film debut in 1969 in U ozera (By the Lake, Sergei Gerasimov), followed by the 1971 productions Ty i ya (You and Me, Larisa Šepit'ko) and Prishyol soldat s fronta (A Soldier Returns From the Front, Nikolaj Gubenko, released in 1972). She became famous for her role as "Hari Kelvin" in Andrei Tarkovsky's remarkable science-fiction film Solaris in 1972. It was her favorite role. She was also Tarkovsky's favorite of the film, as he wrote in his diary that "Natalya B. has outshone everybody". In 1973 she met her future husband, actor Nikolai Burlyayev (Russian: Николай Бурляев), on the set of the Nikolai Mashchenko film Kak zakalyalas stal (How the Steel Was Tempered) (Russian: Как закалялась сталь). Burlayev had worked with Tarkovsky too: he had been the principal actor in Tarkovsky's Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan's Childhood, 1962) and also had a major part in Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (1966). The two later withdrew from their participation in Maschenko's film. In 1976 their son Ivan was born. Bondarchuk played princess Mariya Volkonskaya in the 1975 historical film The Captivating Star of Happiness by Vladimir Motyl. In 1976 she acted as Mme de Rênal in Gerasimov's Krasnoe i chernoe/The Red and the Black (1976), after Stendhal. Until the mid-1980s she would continue a prolific career in film acting, as Gerasimov's Yunost Petra/ The Youth of Peter the Great (1980) and the dramatized documentary Lermontov (1986), directed by her husband and with himself in the title role.

 

In 1982 Bondarchuk directed her first film, Zhivaya raduga (Living Rainbow). The film was produced in Yalta. In 1985 she directed the film Detstvo Bambi (Bambi's Childhood), and in 1986 the film Yunost Bambi (Bambi's Youth), both with her husband in the lead. She often was also the scriptwriter of her own films. In addition, Natalya Bondarchuk leads a child opera theater on Krasnaya Presnya in Moscow. Her son Ivan Burlyayev sang in this theater during his childhood. He also plays parts in the films of his mother and father, but later developed as composer for films and TV series.

 

Sources: English Wikipedia, IMDb.

Vintage Italian postcard. ASER (Aldo Scarmiglia Ed., Roma), No. 90. Scalera Film. Photo by Pesce.

 

Anita Farra (1905–1979) was an Italian actress and scriptwriter, who also worked in Spain.

 

Born in Venice in 1905, Farra began attending small theater companies in the region, her arrival at the cinema would only take place in 1936 with the film Bertoldo, Bertoldino and Cacasenno, under the direction of Giorgio Simonelli. The career of the film actress consisted of about 31 films, in the period of about 40 years, but was extremely discontinuous, Farra would never be able to get out of secondary parts and would abandon work for the big screen in 1975, continuing to work in the theater. She also did occasional performances in radio programs of the thirties and forties by EIAR and RAI. Farra often worked in Spain, also participating in the screenplay for the film Buongiorno, Madrid! (Gian Maria Cominetti, 1943), starring Maria Mercader.

 

In the spring of 1943, Farra went to Spain for a series of Italo-Hispanic co-productions, such as Dora, la espia (1943), staring the diva of Italian silent cinema: Francesca Bertini. Her parts became considerably bigger. Her travel and work companions were Emilio Cigoli, Felice Romano, Franco Coop, Nerio Bernardi and Paola Barbara (who was already in Madrid with her husband, the director Primo Zeglio). After finishing the commitment with the production, the group of Italian actors, considering the wartime travel conditions and the state of order in Italy, decided to remain in the Spanish capital pending the end of the war. They were contacted by a representative of the 20th Century Fox who offered them the opportunity to work on the dubbing, in Italian, of the films of the American company, to make sure that at the end of the war, the films could be inserted in the circuits of the Italian cinemas, considering the shutdown of the dubbing plants in Rome. The group of actors set to work in a studio in Madrid, where several American films are dubbed, including How Green Was My Valley, Charley's Aunt, The Mark of Zorro, Suspicion, and The Lodger. These films arrived in Italy following the American Allied troops liberating Italy, and after a while they were distributed for viewing in public cinemas. In the middle of 1945 the actors returned to Rome, where they resumed their usual work within a short time.

 

After the war, Farra would continue act in films but much less than before, and alternating Italian and Spanish films. She played e.g. a friend of Paola (Lucia Bosé) In Michelangelo Antonioni's Cronaca di un amore (1950). Her last part Farra had as the mother of the leading character (played by Enrico Montesano) in Amore vuol dir gelosia (Mauro Severino, 1975).

 

NB While Italian Wikipedia writes Farra died August 7, 1979 in Madrid, IMDB and English Wikipedia state she died August 4, 2008 (age 103), in Predappio, Italy.

 

Source: Italian WIkipedia, IMDB.

 

Thanks to oi tim www.flickr.com/photos/24489951@N06/2317439334/ for the classic shot in 1950 and below march 2010,50 years of change!!! The former Grafton Arms hostelry, birthplace of the Goons, established in 1848,it was here that the comedy team first met up under the watchful eye of the publican and radio scriptwriter Jimmy Grafton, after whom the pub was named,and in the original there stands jimmy grafton....note the black gate on the far right still stands,the pub now opens all day...

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.

Russian postcard. Bjuro Propagandy Sovetskogo Kinoiskusstva, Riga, 1977. Juozas Budraitis and Aleksandr Kalyagin in Подранки/ Podranki (Wounded Game. Nikolai Gubenko 1977). It was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.

 

Juozas Stanislavas Budraitis (Lithuanian: Juozas Budraitis) is a Soviet and Lithuanian theater and film actor, born on October 6, 1940 in the small village of Lipinai, Kelmė District, Lithuanian SSR. He was a People's Artist of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1982.

 

Juozas Budraitis was born into a peasant background. His parents moved to Klaipėda in 1945, and to Švėkšna in 1955. Very active in the life of his school, Juozas would nevertheless be expelled from his high school, in tenth grade, for hooliganism. He then worked as a carpenter in Klaipėda. After completing his active service in the Soviet army, he entered the Faculty of Law at Vilnius University. His film career began in 1961 when he played in an episode of the film When Rivers Meet. As a third year student at the university, the director Vitautas Prano Jalakiavitchous invited him to play the role of Jonas in the famous Lithuanian film Niekas nenorėjo mirti (Nobody Wanted to Die, Vytautas Žalakevičius, 1965), which Donatas Banionis starred in. This film marked the beginning of Juozas' fame.

 

He enrolled in Law courses at the university of Vilnius, from which he graduated in 1969, and acted in many films, including those abroad. He became an actor in the Lithuanian Film Studios in 1969, and was the standard bearer of the "Lithuanian school" of cinema. During this period, he starred in the films The Shield and the Sword (1967), Two Comrades Were Serving (1968), The Lanfier Colony (1969), White Dunes (1969), King Lear (1970) Ave Vita (1970), The Rudobel Republic (1971), That Sweet Word: Liberty! (1973), With You and without You ... (1973), Blockade (1974), Time does not Wait (1975), The Life and Death of Ferdinand Luce (1976), The Legend of Thiel (1976), The Lost House (1976). From 1976 to 1978 he attended the advanced courses of scriptwriter and director at the State Film School of the USSR in Moscow. At the end of his training, Juozas was invited by his classmate and main director of the Kaunas State Dramatic Theatre, Jonas Vaitkus, to join this theater company, with which he worked until 1988 and played important roles.

 

Juozas abandoned his career as a director after the failure of his first production, City of Birds, based on a story by Yuri Olecha, in 1982. In 1980-1988 he was an actor of the Kaunas State Drama Theatre, where he acted in the plays Builder Solnes (1980), Sharunas (Prince of Dainavsky, 1980), Blue Horses on Red Grass (1982), Caligula (1983), Private (1985), The Home for the Elderly (1986). In parallel with the work in the theater, the actor continued to play in films. In the 1980s, he starred in the films Life Is Beautiful (1979), Fairfax's Millions (1980), Dangerous Age (1981), Niccolo Paganini (1982), Honeymoon in America (1982), Confessions of his Wife (1984), Battle of Moscow (1985), The 13th Apostle (1988), The Sinner (1988), etc. In 1983, Budraitis played one of the main roles in the television series The Rich Man, the Poor Man based on the novel of the same name by Irwin Shaw, and also starred in the romantic comedy Carousel. These roles made him one of the most sought-after actors of his generation.

 

In the 1990s, he starred in the films Mad Laurie (1991), Do not Ask Me About Nothing (1991), The Trail of the Rain (1991), The Tragedy of the Century (1993), The House on a Rock (1994), The Devil's Charm (1994), I do not know who I am (1995), etc. At the same time, he continued to act actively in domestic and Russian films, such as Classic (1999), Demobbed (2000), Revenge is Sweet (2001), Down House (2001), Princess Slutskaya (2004), The Fall of the Empire (2005), Wolfhound (2006), Tanker Tango (2006), Yes You Will not be Judged ... (2007), Kromov (2009), Debt (2009), Armed resistance (2009), Black Arrow (2009), and others. In 2001 he was appointed Cultural Attaché of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Russia and Ministerial Advisor to the Embassy.

 

In February 2008, Juozas Budraitis performed for the first time on the Russian stage, playing one of the main roles in the new performance of the Presnyakov brothers PAB, the premiere of which took place in Theatrium on Serpukhovka. In 2009, he acted in the play Cherry Orchard staged by the Finnish director Christian Smeds

 

Juozas Budraitis still actively pursues his career as an actor and appears in Lithuanian and Russian television series.

 

Sources: French and English Wikipedia, IMDb.

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

Italian postcard, no. 67. Photo: G. Vettori, Bologna.

 

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....

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 527/5. Photo: May Film. Mia May in Wogen des Schicksals (Joe May, 1918). The man on the dance floor signing to her is Erich Kaiser-Titz, while the man sitting next to Mia May is Rolf Brunner.

 

Bank director Von Letzow (Erich Kaiser-Titz) meets in an antique shop the girl Vera von Bergen (Mia May) with a medallion of a noble lady, her mother. She tells him how, after the death of her mother, her stepmother together with her brother - who became Vera's warden after her father died too - turned Vera's life into a nightmare, sending her to boarding school and making her flee to her only friend, her former nurse and now a poor grocery shop lady. Letzow offers to marry her so she can repossess her castle and chase the intruders. He also promises to divorce her when necessary, so she can marry her love Alfred, who is in the US. In the castle, Vera discovers a bottle of 'medicine' which she suspects to be the poison the stepmother used to kill off Vera's father. Letzow finds out this is truly so. When Alfred comes back penniless from the US he proves to be an unreliable gambler, so Vera's eyes are opened and she stays with Letzow.

 

Neue Kino-Rundschau (29 June 1918) wrote: "A film that appeals to the taste of the big audience! It contains a series of strong conflicts, a good portion of excitement, and finally a happily united loving couple. It is also brilliantly and effectively staged, as the name Joe May vouches for. (...) Mia May ... holds the female lead, which embodies her full of charm and grace. Erich Kaiser-Titz is her partner, whose noble calm and gentle pantomime always captivates and delights. Finally, the photography must also be mentioned, as it is simply exemplary." While sometimes direction is attributed to Leopold Bauer, most designate May as both the scriptwriter and director of the film. Cinematographer was Curt Courant. It is suspected Frieda Richard and Hermann Vallentin played the stepmother and her brother, and Rolf Brunner Alfred, but no hard proof is available.

 

Sources: German Wikipedia, IMDB, filmportal.de.

 

Mia May (1884-1980) was one of the first divas of the German cinema. She starred in many films of her husband, producer, writer and director Joe May.

German postcard by Verlag Ross, no. 626/5. Photo: Viggo Larsen, Tempelhof. Viggo Larsen and Erra Brognar in Der Fürst der Diebe und seine Liebe/The King of Thieves and His Love (Viggo Larsen, 1919).

 

Der Fürst der Diebe und seine Liebe was a four-part film which premiered in Berlin on November 4, 1919. Scriptwriter was Hans Hyan, photographer Julius Balting. Initially, the state censorship of 1921, completely forbade the film but after cuts, it remained only forbidden for youngsters.

 

While no content description of the film could be found, it is clear the plot deals with a gentleman criminal, played by Larsen himself. Critic Friedrich Sieburg in 1920 wrote about a terrifying experience he had when viewing this very film when suddenly the musicians stopped playing while the film went on. "In act 3, as Der Fürst der Diebe was roaring along in his car (his shawl fluttering like a flag, wind blowing briskly through the high grass of the passing landscape), the musicians in the small orchestra - violin and piano for lively scenes, organ for deathly scenes - suddenly decided to break for dinner. The music stopped. Silence. The reels whirred. The light hissed. The action sped ahead. I tell you, it was frightening. I felt as if I was six feet under." (Anton Kaes/ Michael Cowan ed., The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933).

 

Viggo Larsen (1880-1957) was a Danish actor, director, scriptwriter and producer. He was one of the pioneers in film history. With Wanda Treumann he directed and produced many German films of the 1910s.

PERFORMERS: ERIC MORECAMBE & ERNIE WISE

  

(BIOGRAPHY by Peter Tatchell, from LAUGH MAGAZINE #24, 2005)

 

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise were the most successful and best-loved double act in the history of British comedy.

 

In their peak years of the 1970s their television shows achieved huge audiences and attracted the biggest show business names as guest stars.

 

For their last B.B.C. Christmas special nearly half the country watched the two men who had become Royal favourites and national treasures.

 

Eric (born John Eric Bartholomew in 1926) and Ernie (born Ernest Wiseman six months earlier, in 1925) had come a long way since their humble early years in the north of England.

 

They first met as performers in the stage production Youth Takes A Bow in 1940, with Eric’s mother Sadie eventually taking charge of both youngsters and suggesting they form a double act. It lasted until Eric’s death over forty years later.

 

Taking inspiration from their movie heroes Laurel and Hardy and the wordplays of the more recently successful Abbott and Costello, the duo was soon featured in the West End production Strike A New Note and were able to witness the nightly routines of the legendary Sid Field and his straight man Jerry Desmonde.

 

Field’s “overnight success” with the show had taken years of hard work to achieve, and Morecambe and Wise would spend an equally long period climbing their way up the show business ladder.

 

After a short break for war service (Ernie in the Merchant Marine and Eric down the mines) the pair struggled to secure dates with touring shows and in variety theatres but by the early 1950s was popular enough to gain radio spots on Variety Fanfare and Worker’s Playtime.

 

By 1953, engagements in pantomimes and summer seasons also included their own radio series on the Nothern Home Service You’re Only Young Once which ran to three seasons and a number of episodes were rebroadcast nationally on the Light Programme.

 

At the same time, the B.B.C. starred Morecambe And Wise in their first television series, Running Wild, but the venture was a huge disappointment and they retreated to radio work.

 

Commercial television began in Britain soon after and A.T.V. signed them as comedy support to Winifred Atwell in mid-1957, performing scripts by Johnny Speight.

 

The future Till Death Us Do Part writer saw enormous potential in Eric and Ernie, and was probably the first to create material that concentrated on their characters.

 

A year later they were back on B.B.C. screens making appearances on Double Six, before embarking on a successful six month tour of Australia.

 

Upon their return Eric and Ernie were shocked to note the change the coming of commercial television had caused to to the variety stage with theatres closing across the country as audiences stayed home to watch the electronic box in their living rooms.

 

With their futures uncertain, they hired a new agent, Billy Marsh, whose drive and expertise soon had them booked for dozens of appearances on such shows as Star Time, Saturday Spectacular and Sunday Night At The London Palladium.

 

The most tumultuous decade of their careers had begun and Morecambe And Wise were on the threshold of national stardom.

 

Initial approaches to Lew Grade for a series at A.T.V. were unsuccessful, while at the same time the B.B.C. appeared keen to sign the pair (and even had six scripts prepared).

 

But in 1961 Grade suddenly changed his mind and agreed to sign them for a prime weekly timeslot.

 

For their part, Eric and Ernie insisted the show engage the writers Sid Green and Dick Hills (who’d been recommended to them by Jimmy Jewell and Ben Warriss).

 

The first episode of Two Of A Kind (in October 1961) found the stars lost in a procession of sketches surrounded by army of support actors.

 

Fearing a repeat of the Running Wild failure, Morecambe And Wise decided to take a stand but, in a moment of serendipity, Actors Equity suddenly went out on strike.

 

The result was a much less cluttered presentation with Eric and Ernie (who, as members of the Variety Artists’ Federation, were still able to appear) squarely in the spotlight.

 

There was even a touch of irony with writers Sid and Dick forced to appear as bit players in some sketches. As the series progressed, audience figures increased and the two north country comics (after twenty years together) finally had a hit on their hands.

 

Each half hour edition of Two Of A Kind had a strong variety flavour, including a band number and a vocal spot to separate a couple of lengthy comedy routines, with shorter pieces at the opening and closing.

 

By the second season, the following June, the show was moved to a regular Saturday evening timeslot where it stayed for all but its last A.T.V. season.

 

Two Of A Kind opened the door for Eric and Ernie to gain international stardom, to a degree.

 

In February 1964 several seasons of the show began appearing on Australian television screens, with the A.B.C. eventually airing all episodes from series 2, 3 and 4. Later that year an ethusiastic Ed Sullivan was in the audience of their London Palladium season (in support of Bruce Forsyth) and signed them for appearances on his top-rated Sunday night C.B.S. series.

 

Thus began a strenuous period of transatlantic flights which would continue until May 1968 (and a total of some 17 guest spots).

 

Morecambe And Wise’s television popularity led to their 1964 movie debut in a big screen sendup of the James Bond phenomenon,

 

The Intelligence Men (also known as Spylarks).. Written by Hills and Green (who could also be seen in brief walk-ons), it was an enjoyable if unexceptional outing that made enough money to be followed by That Riviera Touch a couple of years later and The Magnificent Two in 1967.

 

After five increasingly successful seasons on A.T.V., Lew Grade capitalized on Eric and Ernie’s ongoing exposure to the Americans (via The Ed Sullivan Show) by signing a deal with the U.S. ABC Network to screen their new season of one hour programmes which, as a result, would be made in colour.

 

Rechristened Picadilly Palace there, they were scheduled as the summer replacement for the Hollywood Palace timeslot, and aired several months before the ten shows could finally seen by British viewers (where I.T.V. was still only able to transmit the recordings in black and white).

 

Though the American venture did not lead to a followup season, Eric and Ernie were keen to continue appearing in colour and when Lew Grade vetoed the idea, they signed with Britain’s only channel then transmitting such programming … BBC2.

 

It was a momentous decision that would result in some of the finest television Britain had seen, but Eric would first have to survive a serious health crisis.

 

A fortnight after the season of eight half hour shows was aired in late 1968, Eric suffered a serious heart attack driving home from a live performance near Leeds, and was lucky to reach a hospital in time.

 

His recovery was slow and frustrating and for a time there was doubt whether the act would be able to continue.

 

When doctors finally gave Eric the go ahead to return to work (to a great sigh of relief from Ernie and the B.B.C.) there was a further complication – contractual problems with scriptwriters Green and Hills had resulted in their signing an exclusive contract back at A.T.V.

 

Their unlikely replacement, Eddie Braben, was best known for supplying one-liners in various Ken Dodd shows, but his contribution to the careers of Morecambe And Wise from that point on turned out to be monumental.

 

Far from merely supplying jokes for the team, Braben reshaped their public personas, replacing the previous comic and straight man roles with humorous character roles for Ernie as well as Eric.

 

The little man with the short, fat, hairy legs was now portrayed as miserly, pompous and childlike whenever the subject of sex. was involved.

 

And he was now a writer of gramatically-incorrect plays … a plethora of them. The addition of Braben and producer John Ammonds took Morecambe and Wise to the next level.

 

To lessen Eric’s workload following the heart attack , the B.B.C. scheduled a season of only four 45-minute programmes to air on a fortnightly basis from late July 1969.

 

As before, the format included a traditional variety mix of guest vocalists, a regular offering by Kenny Ball and His Jazzmen, a handful of short blackouts (often involving the antics of a couple of monks) and lengthier pieces set in the living room or bedroom of the flat where they supposedly lived.

 

The highlight of that first programme was a “play what Ernie wrote” about King Arthur, with movie great Peter Cushing taking the lead role, and launching an ongoing saga in pursuit of payment for the appearance.

 

Subsequent participants in those early Ernest Wise theatrical offerings included Juliet Mills and Edward Woodward.

 

Also seen at the end of each programme was the ample figure of Janet Webb who (for no apparent reason) suddenly burst forth on to centre stage waving and blowing kisses at the audience.

 

The series was an enormous success and the only downside to the team’s comeback was that year’s festive special, which was almost abandoned with both Eric and Ernie laid low with flu, leaving producers to stitch together a handful of pre-recorded segments and musical items by guest stars.

 

In subsequent years The Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show would become essential viewing for half the nation and a ratings goliath but that first venture was a travesty.

 

Despite being screened by Britain’s third channel (which could not be received by large numbers of viewers), subsequent BBC1 repeats ensured Morecambe And Wise were not lost to those late-1960s audiences and as the new decade began their popularity increased enormously.

 

A dozen new episodes were shown throughout 1970 (in two fortnightly seasons) with notable guests including Fenella Fielding, Diane Cilento, Ian Carmichael and Richard Greene.

 

There was also a special half hour edition entered for the prestigious Montreux festival and a Christmas offering. It was a remarkable turnaround.

 

A heart attack and a change of writers had propelled Eric and Ernie to the top of British television.

 

The golden era of Morecambe And Wise was underway.

 

The fourteen editions produced throughout 1971 included some of their best work.

 

Guests included Flora Robson, Arthur Lowe (and cameo walk ons from the Dad’s Army cast), Francis Matthews, Keith Michel, John Mills and Glenda Jackson as Cleopatra.

 

And that Christmas saw Shirley Bassey in boots and Andre Previn conducting Grieg’s Piano Concerto. It was also the year Janet Webb began thanking everyone for watching her little show and loving us all.

 

After twelve months out of the spotlight, the 1972 Christmas special brought back some favourite guest stars and featured a throwaway jibe about their friend Des O’Connor during a World War 1 sketch. It was the start of a celebrated fued that would last to the end of their career and include a memorable retaliation by Des on their 1975 Christmas Show.

 

(The team had not produced a traditional festive programme in 1974, feeling they didn’t have enough high quality material so a chat with Michael Parkinson was aired instead).

 

As the decade progressed Eric and Ernie began exploiting their musical talents more and more.

 

Throughout their A.T.V. years they had performed the memorable Boom-Oo-Yatta-Ta-Ta (with Sid and Dick), a clever dance sendup of Puttin’ On The Ritz and even Grieg’s Piano Concerto (with Ernie as conductor).

 

Their B.B.C. shows always ended with fairly straight renditions of ballads inspired by the Flanagan And Allen songbook like Following You Around, Don’t You Agree?, Just Around The Corner and the song which would become their signature tune, Bring Me Sunshine.

 

By the 1973 season, Ernest Maxin was creating occasional production numbers which sprinkled humorous bits amongst the song and dance routines.

 

Along with the historical sendups, famous guests and the sketches set in living room or bedroom of their flat, these musical offerings would soon become some of their most fondly remembered work.

 

By the end of 1975, Maxin had replaced Ammonds as the show’s producer and the consequent increased musical content lead to the classic pieces where they prepared breakfast to The Stripper and parodied Singin’ In The Rain.

 

Their Christmas editions of 1975 and 1976 also offered memorable versions of The Liar Song (with Diana Rigg) and Elton John trying in vain to teach Eric how to sing Play A Simple Melody.

 

Then, the incredibly popular festive edition of 1977 when an estimated 28 million people tuned in to see a chorus line of B.B.C. personalities and Penelope Keith awkwardly climbing down the scaffolding from an unfinished stairway.

 

A daring conclusion to the show featured the unexpected return of Elton John for a vocal after the end credits had rolled.

 

Though unknown at the time, the careers of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise had peaked with that final B.B.C. show.

 

Weeks later, newspaper headlines announced the pair had signed with Thames Television and were headed back to I.T.V.

 

A major factor in negotiations had been the desire by Eric and Ernie to return to the big screen, with Thames (unlike the B.B.C.) then producing movies as well as TV shows.

 

But the fates began working against the team. Writer Eddie Braben was not willing to move across with them and the duo’s first two programmes (aired as one hour specials in late 1978) didn’t capture the usual magic.

 

Then, in early 1979, Eric suffered more life threatening heart troubles and was out of action for the whole year, being barely able to take part in a predominantly talk programme with David Frost that Christmas.

 

And their promised return to cinema screens was put on hold.

 

By the time he had recovered fully (a further six months later) both Eddie Braben and John Ammonds had been signed by Thames for the proposed series of half hour programmes.

 

Disappointingly, these consisted of almost total reworkings of old B.B.C. sketches, with little new material being included.

 

Eric and Ernie did four seasons for Thames in as many years with original scripting taking second place to the tried and true “old favourites”.

 

At least most of the musical offerings were being done for the first time.

 

Even their prestigious Christmas specials were not immune to the practice, and also fell victim to programming problems from the early 1980s.

 

With the lucrative commercial franchise for London being split between two companies, December the 25th fell outside the evenings covered by Thames from 1981 to 1983.

 

Unwilling to allow their stars’ annual ratings winner to be telecast on London Weekend’s days of operation, it was no longer scheduled on Christmas Day.

 

The 1983 Christmas show was notable for including two particularly successful pieces written by their old scriptwriters Sid Green and Dick Hills, amongst the inevitable updating of old Eddie Braben B.B.C. scripts.

 

Sadly, it was the last programme Morecambe And Wise would ever present.

 

As 1984 commenced, Eric’s health was once again causing concern and he was seriously considering devoting his talents to writing books (he’d already written an handful of novels).

 

He was also unhappy at the lack of originality in their Thames shows and the disappointing quality of a telemovie called Night Train To Murder they had recently recorded.

 

On May 27th Eric took part (without Ernie) in an evening of reminisces at a theatre in Tewkesbury as a favour to his friend Stan Stennett.

 

The show went well but as he walked off stage, he suddenly collapsed in the wings.

 

Five hours later in hospital, Eric Morecambe died.

 

The double act that the British public had taken to their hearts was no more.

 

Though Ernie continued performing (a nostalgic one-man tour of Australia, appearances in the West End musical The Mystery Of Edwin Drood and the longrunning farce Run For Your Wife, plus TV panel games and pantomimes) it could never be the same without his beloved partner.

 

He retired after a series of strokes in the mid-1990s and died in 1999 (aged 73).

 

Thanks to the video taped copies of nearly all of their television work since the 1960s, the magic of Eric Morecambe And Ernie Wise lives on.

 

laughterlog.com/2009/03/14/eric-morecambe-ernie-wise/

British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 836. Photo: Associated British.

 

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.

German postcard. Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, No. 5067.

 

Helen(e) Gammeltoft (1895-?) was an Danish-American actress and scriptwriter.

 

Born 26/3 1895 in Syracuse, America, as Inger Madden or Madsen, she made her debut in film in Britain according to IDMB, in the 1913 film The Eleventh Commandment, and under the name of Helena Callen. The film was also the debut of the popular British stage star Gladys Cooper. The next year, she moved to Denmark, where she debuted at Nordisk Film in August Blom's comedy Bytte Roller/ The Girl of his Heart (1914), starring opposite Nicolai Johannsen as millionnaire Thomas Grey and Frederik Buch as his cook.

 

In 1915, Gammeltoft had leads or important supporting parts in five films at Nordisk: Hans Kusine/ His Cousin (Lau Lauritzen sr.) with Peter Jørgensen, En Død i Skønhed/ Beatrix (Robert Dinesen) with Rita Sacchetto, Olaf Fönss and Nicolai Johannsen, Susanne i Badet (Lau Lauritzen) with Oscar Stribolt, Kærlighed og Mobilisering/ Put me amongst the Girls (Lauritzen) with Frederik Buch, and Den lille Chauffør (August Blom) with Nicolai Johannsen. In 1916 Gammeltoft acted in four films at Nordisk, while in 1917 she acted in six and in 1918 in five films - mostly in the role of 'the pretty girl'. Yet, from 1916 Gammeltoft developed as screenwriter too, writing comedies for Buch, Stribolt, Rasmus Christiansen and others, starting with Den ædle Skrædder (Lauritzen, 1916) and En landlig Uskyldighed (Lauritzen, 1916) - she had the lead in the latter comedy.

 

In 1917-1918 Gammeltoft was most prolific as both actress and screenwriter, mostly in short comedies. She appeared in a small number of 'serious' feature films (e.g. En Lykkeper, Gunnar Sommerfeldt 1918, starring Carlo Wieth) and made just a few films outside Nordisk's direction, Hjerteknuseren (Carl Barcklind, 1919) for Skandinavisk Filmcentral, and Dommens Dag (Fritz Magnussen, 1918) for Olaf Fønss' company Dansk Film Co. After 1918, Gammeltoft's peak as actress and scriptwriter was over, while she did two films in 1919, and the three last films in 1920. In 1920 Lauritzen, who had worked at Nordisk for years, started his own firm Palladium, with which he launched in 1921 the popular comic duo of Long and Short/ Pat & Patachon/ Fy och By, with tall Carl Schenström and short Harald Madsen. Incidentally, Schenström had already played in the comedies by Lauritzen and Gammeltoft at Nordisk.

 

Sources: IMDb, www.dfi.dk/viden-om-film/filmdatabasen/person/helen-gamme..., Danish Wikipedia.

 

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 346.

 

Raymond Griffith (1895-1957) was an American silent movie comedian, known for films such as Paths to Paradise (1925) and Hands Up! (1926). In the sound era, he worked as production supervisor and associate producer.

 

Griffith, born in Boston, Mass., was raised in an actor's family and so he started acting on stage as a child. lost his voice at an early age, causing him to speak for the rest of his life in a hoarse whisper. Griffith claimed that it was the result of his having to scream at the top of his lungs every night in a stage melodrama as a child actor. Others have stated that a respiratory diphtheria had permanently damaged his vocal chords. Afterward, he worked in a circus, was dancer and dance teacher, toured Europe with French pantomime players and joined the US Navy for a while, before settling in California in 1914.

 

In 1915, he debut in film at the L-KO Kompany, where a played in countless comedies, switching to Mack Sennet's Keystone in 1916, where he remained for years, and at first worked mostly as gagman and scriptwriter. After interludes at Fox and Triangle, Griffith returned to Keystone in 1918. From 1918 he worked mainly in features. In 1921 he joined Marshall Neilan and the next year got a contract at Goldwyn Pictures, which eventually would merge into MGM. It was here that his career as star comedian began. As Jon Hopwood writes on IMDB: "During his Goldwyn period, Griffith created an acting style uniquely his own that was a hybrid of the comedic and the dramatic." At MGM he also played in dark tales such as The White Tiger (1923) by Tod Browning, in which he is searching for the murder of his father (Wallace Beery). In 1924 he moved to Paramount, where some of his best films were made, first of all Badger's Paths to Paradise (1925), a caper film that is in all circulating prints missing its final reel. It was highly praised when it came out and some predicted Chaplin a rival. But even more famous is Hands Up! (1926), a Civil War comedy feature directed by Clarence G. Badger, and co-starring Mack Swain, which was entered into the National Film Registry in 2005. In his 1975 book The Silent Clowns, Walter Kerr wrote about it: "'Hands Up!' contains some work that is daring -for its period, certainly -and some that is masterfully delicate, the work of an inventive, unaggressive, amiably iconoclastic intelligence." Like many silent comedians, Griffith had a traditional costume; his was a top hat, white tie and tails, often augmented by a cape and/or walking stick. Unfortunately, many of Griffith's starring feature films have long since been lost, or have not been re-released.

 

The coming of sound ended Griffith's acting career, but he did have one memorable role in a motion picture before retiring from the screen, playing a French soldier slowly dying in front of Lew Ayres's character in the 1930 Lewis Milestone film All Quiet on the Western Front. He then segued into a writing/producing career at Twentieth Century Fox. Griffith choked to death at the Masquers Club in Los Angeles, California, aged 62, on November 25, 1957. His asphyxia was due to partially masticated food. Griffith was married to stage and film actress Bertha Mann between 1928 and his death. They had one adopted daughter and two children of their own (one stillborn).

 

Sources: Wikipedia (English and German; actually, the German version gives much more information) and IMDb.

It's the sort of story that scriptwriters would get laughed out of conference rooms for entering. The sort of story that illustrates perfect synchronicity between hunger, passion and time. The sort of story that only happens every 30-odd years. And the sort of story that would approximately 500 pages to do it true justice.

 

Metallica. A household name. The 7th biggest selling act in American history.

 

Who'd have thought it when, on October 28th, 1981, drummer Lars Ulrich made guitar player/singer James Hetfield an offer he couldn't refuse: "I’ve got a track saved for my band on Brian Slagel's new Metal Blade label."

 

The truth is, Lars didn't have a band at that time, but he did that day when James joined him. The two recorded their first track on a cheap recorder with James performing singing duties, rhythm guitar duties and bass guitar duties. Lars dutifully pounded the drums, helped with musical arrangements and acted as manager. Hetfield's friend and housemate Ron McGovney was eventually talked into taking up bass and Dave Mustaine took lead guitar duties.

 

The band adopted the moniker Metallica after a suggestion from Bay Area friend Ron Quintana, and they quickly began gigging in the Los Angeles area opening for bands like Saxon. Eventually recording a fully-fledged demo called No Life Til Leather, Metallica quickly saw the tape whistle around the metal tape-trading underground and become a hot commodity, with San Francisco and New York particularly receptive.

 

Metallica performed 2 shows in San Francisco and found the crowds friendlier and more honest than LA's "there to be seen" mob. They also caught up-and-coming band Trauma, and most importantly their bass player, Cliff Burton. Cliff refused to move to Southern California: it was enough to convince Metallica to relocate to the Bay Area, and Cliff subsequently joined Metallica.

 

In New York, a copy of No Life Til Leather made its way to Jon Zazula's record shop, the aptly named Metal Heaven. Zazula quickly recruited Metallica to come out east to play some shows and record an album. The band made it to New York in a stolen U-Haul. Dave Mustaine, at that point the band's guitarist, was proving to be more problematic than even these loose young chaps could handle. Thus a few weeks after arrival, Mustaine was sent packing, roadie Mark Whitakker suggesting Kirk Hammett from Bay Area thrashers Exodus. Two phone calls and one flight later, on April 1, 1983 Kirk Hammett joined Metallica.

 

Metallica's first album, Kill 'Em All, was released in late 1983 and some ferocious touring which saw the band's reputation soar both in the US and Europe. In 1984 they went to work with producer Flemming Rassmussen in Copenhagen at Sweet Silence Studios on their second album. 'Ride The Lightning' proved that Metallica were not some thrash-in-the-pan one trick pony, the writing and sound illustrating a growth, maturity and intensity which saw them immediately targeted by major management in QPrime, and a major label in Elektra. Both deals were done by the fall of '84 and their reputation continued to grow worldwide.

 

Returning to the same studios in 1985, the group recorded 'Master Of Puppets', mixing in LA with Michael Wagner and releasing in early 1986. They quickly secured a tour with Ozzy Osbourne, and that stint (plus a top 30 album chart position) saw their fan base and name take a quantum leap. What had seemed so unlikely was nearer than ever to coming true; world domination.

 

On September 27th, 1986, that dream was given the most shattering of blows. Somewhere in Sweden on an overnight drive, the bands' tour bus skidded out of control and flipped, killing Cliff Burton. His influence on the musical growth of the band was enormous. Burton combined the DIY philosophies of jamming and experimenting with an acute knowledge of musical theory, and Hetfield in particular found a lot in his playing and personality. It was impossible to imagine Metallica without him. Yet Cliff would equally not have cared for people throwing in the towel because he wasn't around. And so it was that after a brief yet intense mourning period, Lars, James and Kirk decided to fight on. Jason Newsted was chosen from over 40 auditions to be the new bassist, the Michigan-born four-stringer leaving Arizona based Flotsam & Jetsam to take on the chance of a lifetime. The quartet immediately jumped into a tour, and then quickly recorded an EP of cover tunes titled Garage Days Re-Revisited (the band literally did the dirty work in Lars' garage!).

 

With Jason fully established, the band went back to record their fourth full-length album, ...And Justice For All, released in August 1988. The explosion that had been threatening for sometime finally happened. It reached #6 on the US charts, received a Grammy nomination for Best Metal/Hard Rock album, the band blew headliners Van Halen off-stage during the Monsters Of Rock tour and subsequently embarked upon an enormous worldwide tour. It was even the moment they finally delved into video territory, although the footage for 'One' was most certainly the most 'anti' video video of it's era.

 

The band took the show back out on the road and toured extensively to all parts of the world. ...And Justice For All produced two US singles and the band's very first venture into music video for the song One.

 

In 1991 Metallica released the self-titled 'Black' album, and saw their popularity soar to stratospheric heights. With new producer Bob Rock, this album was a subtle departure from the previous album with shorter songs, a fuller sound and simpler arrangements. It went straight to number one all over the world, stayed there for several weeks and ended up selling in excess of 15 million copies worldwide, spawned several legitimate singles as well as earning a Grammy and MTV/ American Music Awards. The band toured for close to three years, playing a solo arena tour in 'An Evening With Metallica', with Guns N' Roses on the duos' joint-headline stadium tour, and as headliner at many festivals. It meant that by the time the fall of 1993 rolled around, the four members were shattered both physically and mentally. Save for some Summer Shed action, there was little major activity as the band allowed their real lives to catch up with their rock lives.

 

Nearly four years would pass before the next Metallica album saw the light. Called Load, and recorded at The Plant in Sausalito California, it was the longest Metallica album to date with 14 songs, and signaled some significant changes for the band. Produced by Bob Rock, the material was loose, powerful and eclectic, the sound thick and punchy and the image one which screamed out change and freedom from enslavement to the Black album era. So many songs came from the sessions, that a second album titled ReLoad, followed in 1997. The Load tour was spectacular, encompassing cutting-edge technology, stuntmen, two-stages and an epic two-plus hours of performance. What ever doubts people might have had were swiftly blown away, and whilst Load could never match the heights of the Black album sales wise, it became a phenomenally successful album in it's own right.

 

In 1998, they re-packaged all the old B-sides, covers and the two previous Garage Days sessions and ran into The Plant to slam down 11 new covers. Electric, exciting and raw, the double-disc Garage Inc. was great reminder that for all the success, Metallica's heart still lay in the music. This point was further proven in 1999, when with conductor/composer Michael Kamen, Metallica embarked upon collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony to bring new dimension to classic material. Any potential skepticism of the project was blown away by two nights in April at the Berkeley Community Theater which proved to be epic milestones in the group's history. Far from their material being compromised, the arrangements of songs such as 'Master Of Puppets' gave symphonic instruments the chance to explode into the spaces and fill them with greater, heavier power than ever before. Having recorded and filmed the shows on the off-chance it might turn out alright on the night, Metallica released the S&M double-disc and DVD in late '99, marking yet another significant chapter in a Hall Of Fame - like history.

 

In the summer of 2000, Metallica took yet fresher steps towards establishing freedom from convention, proving that it was possible to assemble, and headline, your own stadium tour without promoting a record. Summer Sanitarium, Hetfield's back not withstanding, was a huge success, and anticipation grew as to when the band would hit the studio again.

 

The anticipation was replaced by fear at the turn of 2001 when, after several rumors, Jason Newsted departed the band. No one reason can be fairly the cause, more several long-standing issues that silently grew beyond their initial molehills. Of course many assumed that this would precipitate the break-up of the band, when of course it merely provided a conduit to newer levels of creativity and understanding.

 

The band realized there was much work to be done on both their personal and creative relationships, and spent the first part of 2001 investigating spontaneous avenues of discovery both in and out of the studio. They set up shop at an old ex-Army barracks called The Presidio, jammed together at length and made a decision not to rush the process of finding a new band member, opting instead to have producer Bob Rock do all bass parts.

 

In the middle of 2001, James Hetfield reached a place in his life where he felt rehabilitation, rest and re-focus were necessary for him to not only continue but also flourish. It meant that for many months, the members of Metallica embarked upon various levels of deeper discovery about themselves, the band and their lives both as a band and human beings. The results were to manifest themselves two-fold: when they came together again in the Spring of 2002 there was a deeper respect and appreciation for each other than ever before. And they were finally ready to make a new album, free of outside expectations, free of inner expectations and independent of anyone.

 

Settling into their new HQ, the band set about making 'St Anger' with Bob Rock. Those early Presidio sessions had certainly helped shape the freeform thinking and expression that was to come, but no-one, least of all the guys themselves, could've known just how fierce, raw and passionate the 'St Anger' material would turn out to be. With Rock always offering prompt and support, lyrics were written by everyone, writing was shared and performance was off the cuff, spontaneous and a 180 degree turn from the months of cut-and-paste which had become a part of the Metallirecording process in the past.

 

This Metallica was proud, confident, appreciative, humble, hungry, edgy, angry and also happy. Nervous? Sure, a little bit, but that too was good, yet another driver to new places and creative achievements that Metallica were enjoying.

 

It was in the Fall of 2002 that the band decided it was time to search for a new bassist, and after some closed auditions with personal invitees over a few months, ex-Suicidal Tendencies/Ozzy Osbourne bass player Robert Trujillo was chosen to be the new member of Metallica. Note, member. Not bassist or hired gun or replacement. But a band member. His whole demeanor, happy, relaxed, warm, enthusiastic blended with over 15 years of experience and a ferocious finger-picking style made Robert the only natural choice.

 

And so it is that as you read this, 'St Anger' has been completed, expectations are reaching heights that even the band cannot believe and there is the excitement of the first proper tour since Summer Sanitarium 2000. Looking at them, listening to them and seeing them, Lars, Kirk, Robert and James look like excited, eager children, men who cannot wait to be let out of then house to go and wreak aural havoc. Why? Because they can't! Metallica are about to hit a whole new level...and this is a story that will most DEFINITELY be continued...

 

…the “St.Anger” era kicked off on April 30th/May 1st with the small matter of a video shoot at San Quentin prison for the same-titled track, and continued in earnest with an MTV Icons tribute show a week later, where peers such as Korn and Limp Bizkit lined up to pay tribute to the chaps. The guys also performed live, marking the first ‘official’ live appearance of Robert Trujillo (and the last in which he wore long trousers!) as well as James Hetfield’s first public performance since his stint in rehab.

 

Then came the small matter of rehearsals…which Metallica chose to do in front of their loyal fan club members over 4 nights at the historic Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco…and then it was off to Europe in June for the start of what would end up being 19 months of touring, with the festival circuit taking the early brunt, Metallica successfully playing to multiple 60,000-plus crowds. “St.Anger” saw it’s release on June 5th, a raw, feral, unrestrained slab of molten Metallica stuffed with abrasion, aggression and the overspill of four years excitement, anger, frustration and ultimate fruition. For those who thought it would signal a radio-hohned band, “St.Anger” was a big, fat slap in the face. Indeed, it was actually too heavy for some! Oh, and as if to prove that this ‘new’ Metallica were not a bunch of ginger-snap panty-waists, the boys played three shows in three different Parisian clubs in one day during mid-June, each venue harboring a temperature of not less than 100 degrees.

 

In the US, Summer Sanitarium followed, with Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit amongst the support acts on another series of stadium sell-outs. In the meanwhile, the fervor was slowly building for ‘Some Kind Of Monster’, the documentary film by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky about the world of Metallica between 2001 and 2003. Ostensibly slated to be about the making of an album, the filmmakers found a whole new project developing when James went into rehab, and thus having been projected as a marketing tool, the end product ended up being an incredibly revealing 2 hour 20 minute documentary.

 

As the Mighty Metallica continued ploughing on through the world (going back to Europe, Japan and then onto Australia in January), SKOM was debuted to enormous critical acclaim at the 2004 Sundance Independent Film Festival in Utah during January.

 

And the year continued in the way that you’d imagine a Metalli-year does, deciding to play (seemingly) every single town capable of hosting a major arena gig in North America (some 80-plus dates) with Godsmack in support. Result? Oh well, the usual sell-outs you’d expect for this ‘in-the-round’ two hour thirty minute set which saw no song off limits and many a fan favorite raised from retirement for a gleeful airing. (p.s….there was another Grammy in February for Best Metal Performance – ‘St.Anger’).

 

July saw the theatrical debut of ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ which opened to enormous critical acclaim and went on to hold it’s own in North American theaters for three months before going through Europe. And August also saw the release of the first official Metallica book, “So What! The Good, the Mad, and the Ugly”, an edited compilation of the band’s fan club magazine spanning 10 years from 1994 to 2004.

 

And still the ‘Madly In Anger With The World’ tour continued, selling out venues right through to it’s final date in San Jose, California on November 29, 2004…

 

A busy spell? By many’s standards most certainly.

 

By Metallica’s?

 

Business as usual.

 

They did publicly state that the majority of 2005 would be spent re-charging those creative and mental batteries, and true to their word it was a quiet year, except for two little hometown gigs with the Rolling Stones at SBC Park in November. We all knew an entire year would not pass without at least a sighting of the guys!

 

With batteries re-charged after the two shows with the Stones, the guys hit the studio in early 2006 to start writing a new album and were excited to announce that they would be working with a new producer, Rick Rubin. The spring and summer found them escaping from the studio once again with shows in South Africa (their first ever visit to the continent!), Europe, Japan and Korea. “The New Song” made its debut in Berlin, Germany on June 6 to give us all a little taste of things to come in 2007 with the remainder of the year scheduled for more writing and jamming.

 

Before they had even played 'The New Song' on that 07 summer jaunt, Metallica had decided to take a different approach to the studio, now working with Rubin. Having availed themselves of long-time twiddler Bob Rock's expertise and unifying qualities, the band wanted to see what happened when working with the decidedly hands-off Rubin. His message, when the band entered the studio in April of 07 to record, was simple; don't be afraid of your past, don't be afraid to rediscover your roots, embrace the ethic of performance over editing and get back to what Metallica essentially is. Thus began months of work with hands-on engineer Greg Fidelman handing the daily duties and Rubin overseeing and dropping in for tete-a-tetes to make sure matters remained on course. In essence, Rubin removed himself from the process as an ally to anyone and forced Metallica to find their own solutions and resolutions. He also made everyone re-record entire parts if they were unhappy to avoid a pro-tools dominated approach to creation, the idea being that it was always about the performance. Ironically, Rubin would later comment in the band's magazine So What! that the bulk of the album was recorded in a month, despite the fact it finally saw light on September 12, 2008, celebrating the release with two low ticket cost charity shows in Berlin and at London's O2 Arena.

 

The popular response was enormous, with the album smashing the charts at #1 and critical acclaim acknowledging that this was, indeed, the return to business that Metallica had threatened for so long. The groundwork had been laid with St.Anger and the fruit was abundant with Death Magnetic, cuts such as "The Day That Never Comes", "Broken, Beat & Scarred" and "All Nightmare Long" becoming instant fan favorites. Aside from the Death Magnetic album, on March 29, 2009 the band also saw Guitar Hero: Metallica released in North America, with international releases coming in the following couple of months. An Activision game, GH:M features 28 Metallica favorites and 21 songs from bands Metallica like, as well as guest appearances from King Diamond and Lemmy from Motorhead.

 

As well as all these releases, the band of course hit the road, the World Magnetic Tour starting on October 20, 2008 in Glendale, Arizona. It is a tour that keeps on giving, keeps on coming, and will flow deep into 2010, the band hoping to perhaps play in some places they've never been before. Gone, however, are the grueling days of 8-10 weeks at a time on the asphalt, instead the schedule ensures Metallica are never on the road for longer than a couple of weeks before taking at least a week off back at home. It is a highly effective solution to the problem of making the road work with family and home life, and as such the tour thus far has seen some of Metallica's best performances ever as 'burn-out' is not even a factor. Indeed, with shows selling out left, right, centre and sideways, an appearance at the legendary British site Knebworth on August 2nd as part of the Sonisphere Festival, plus three sold-out nights in Mexico City, it is fair to say that this portion of the story is most certainly to be continued...

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 527/5. Photo: May Film. Mia May in Wogen des Schicksals (Joe May, 1918).

 

Bank director Von Letzow (Erich Kaiser-Titz) meets in an antique shop the girl Vera von Bergen (Mia May) with a medallion of a noble lady, her mother. She tells him how, after the death of her mother, her stepmother together with her brother - who became Vera's warden after her father died too - turned Vera's life into a nightmare, sending her to boarding school and making her flee to her only friend, her former nurse and now a poor grocery shop lady. Letzow offers to marry her so she can repossess her castle and chase the intruders. He also promises to divorce her when necessary, so she can marry her love Alfred, who is in the US. In the castle, Vera discovers a bottle of 'medicine' which she suspects to be the poison the stepmother used to kill off Vera's father. Letzow finds out this is truly so. When Alfred comes back penniless from the US he proves to be an unreliable gambler, so Vera's eyes are opened and she stays with Letzow.

 

Neue Kino-Rundschau (29 June 1918) wrote: "A film that appeals to the taste of the big audience! It contains a series of strong conflicts, a good portion of excitement, and finally a happily united loving couple. It is also brilliantly and effectively staged, as the name Joe May vouches for. (...) Mia May ... holds the female lead, which embodies her full of charm and grace. Erich Kaiser-Titz is her partner, whose noble calm and gentle pantomime always captivates and delights. Finally, the photography must also be mentioned, as it is simply exemplary." While sometimes direction is attributed to Leopold Bauer, most designate May as both the scriptwriter and director of the film. Cinematographer was Curt Courant. It is suspected Frieda Richard and Hermann Vallentin played the stepmother and her brother, and Rolf Brunner Alfred, but no hard proof is available.

 

Sources: German Wikipedia, IMDB, filmportal.de.

 

Mia May (1884-1980) was one of the first divas of the German cinema. She starred in many films of her husband, producer, writer and director Joe May.

Part of Comic Relief... 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 sister project Sport Relief. 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.

 

www.rednoseday.com/

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Relief

Russian postcard by Dynamo, no. MB 22975-86, 1954.

 

Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin (1873–1938) was an international sensation and is considered as the greatest Russian singer of the twentieth century, as well as the greatest male operatic actor ever. The possessor of a large, deep and expressive basso profundo, he was celebrated at major opera houses all over the world and established the tradition of naturalistic acting in operas. The only sound film which shows his acting style is Don Quixote (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1933).

 

Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (Russian: Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, or Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin) was born in 1873, into a poor peasant family in Omet Tawi, near Kazan, Russia. His childhood was full of suffering, hunger, and humiliation. From the age of 10, he worked as an apprentice to a shoemaker, a sales clerk, a carpenter, and a lowly clerk in a district court before joining, at age 17, a local operetta company. In 1890, Chaliapin was hired to sing in a choir at the Semenov-Samarsky private theatre in Ufa. There he began singing solo parts. In 1891, he toured Russia with the Dergach Opera. In 1892, he settled in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia), because he found a good teacher, Dmitri Usatov, who gave Chaliapin free professional opera training for one year. He also sang at the St. Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral in Tbilisi. In 1893, he began his career at the Tbilisi Opera, and a year later, he moved to Moscow upon recommendation of Dmitri Usatov. In 1895 ,Chaliapin debuted at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre as Mephistopheles in Charles Gounod’s Faust, in which he was a considerable success. In 1896 he also joined Mamontovs Private Russian Opera in Moscow, where he mastered the Russian, French, and Italian roles that made him famous. Savva Mamontov was a Russian industrialist and philanthropist, who staged the operas, conducted the orchestra, trained the actors, taught them singing and paid all the expenses. At Mamontov's, he met in 1897 Sergei Rachmaninoff, who started as an assistant conductor there. The two men remained friends for life. With Rachmaninoff he learned the title role of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, which became his signature character. Rachmaninoff taught him much about musicianship, including how to analyse a music score, and insisted that Chaliapin learn not only his own roles but also all the other roles in the operas in which he was scheduled to appear. When Chaliapin became dissatisfied with his performances, Chaliapin began to attend straight dramatic plays to learn the art of acting. His approach revolutionised acting in opera. In 1896, Savva Mamontov introduced Chaliapin to a young Italian ballerina Iola Tornagi, who came to Moscow for a stage career. She quit dancing and devoted herself to family life with Chaliapin. He was very happy in this marriage. From 1899 until 1914, he also performed regularly at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The couple settled in Moscow and had six children. Their first boy died at the age of 4, causing Chaliapin a nervous breakdown.

 

In 1901, Feodor Chaliapin made his sensational debut at La Scala in the role of the devil in Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito under the baton of conductor Arturo Toscanini. Other famous roles were Boris Godunov in Mussorgsky's opera, King Philip in Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos. Bertram in Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, and Ivan the Terrible in The Maid of Pskov by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His great comic characterizations were Don Basilio in Gioachino Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and Leporello in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In 1906, Chaliapin started a civil union with Maria Valentinovna Petzhold (also called: Maria Augusta Eluchen) in St. Petersburg, Russia. She had three daughters with Chaliapin in addition to 2 other children from her previous family. He could not legalize his second family, because his first wife would not give him a divorce. Chaliapin even applied to the Emperor Tsar Nicholas II with a request of registering his three daughters under his last name. His request was not satisfied. In 1913, Chaliapin was introduced to London and Paris by the brilliant entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev. He began giving well-received solo recitals in Paris in which he sang traditional Russian folk songs as well as more serious fare, and also performed at the Paris Opera. His acting and singing was sensational to the western audiences. He made many sound recordings, of which the 1913 recordings of the Russian folk songs Vdol po Piterskoi and The Song of the Volga Boatmen are best known. In 1915, he made his film debut as Czar Ivan IV the Terrible in the silent Russian film Tsar Ivan Vasilevich Groznyy/Czar Ivan the Terrible (Aleksandr Ivanov-Gai, 1915) opposite the later director Richard Boleslawski. Fourteen years later, he appeared in another silent film, the German-Czech coproduction Aufruhr des Blutes/Riot of the blood (Victor Trivas, 1929) with Vera Voronina and Oscar Marion.

 

Feodor Chaliapin was torn between his two families for many years, living with one in Moscow, and with another in St. Petersburg. With Maria Petzhold and their three daughters, he left Russia in 1922 as part of an extended tour of western Europe. They would never return. Ther family settled in Paris. A man of lower-class origins, Chaliapin was not unsympathetic to the Bolshevik Revolution and his emigration from Russia was painful. Although he had left Russia for good, he remained a tax-paying citizen of Soviet Russia for several years. Finally he could divorce in 1927 and marry Maria Petzhold. Chaliapin worked for impresario Sol Hurok and from 1921 on, he sang for eight seasons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His debut at the Met in the 1907 season had been disappointing due to the unprecedented frankness of his stage acting. In 1921, the public in New York had grown more broad-minded and the eight seasons were a huge success. According to Steve Shelokhonov at IMDb, Chaliapin was the undisputed best basso in the first half of the 20th century. He had revolutionised opera by bringing serious acting in combination with great singing. His first open break with the Soviet regime occurred in 1927 when the government, as part of its campaign to pressure him into returning to Russia, stripped him of his title of 'The First People’s Artist of the Soviet Republic' and threatened to deprive him of Soviet citizenship. Prodded by Joseph Stalin, Maxim Gorky, Chaliapin’s longtime friend, tried to persuade him to return to Russia. Gorky broke with him after Chaliapin published his memoirs, Man and Mask: Forty Years in the Life of a Singer (Maska i dusha, 1932), in which he denounced the lack of freedom under the Bolsheviks.

 

The only sound film which shows Chaliapin's acting style is Don Quixote/Adventures of Don Quixote (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1933). He had also starred onstage as the knight in Jules Massenet's 1910 opera, Don Quichotte, but the 1933 film does not use Massenet's music, and is more faithful to Miguel de Cervantes' novel than the opera. In fact there were three versions of this early sound film. Georg Wilhelm Pabst shot simultaneously with the German language version also English and French versions. Feodor Chaliapin Sr. starred in all three versions of Don Quixote, but with a different supporting cast. Sancho Pansa was played by Dorville in the German and French versions but by George Robey in the English version. Benoit A. Racine at IMDb: "These films (the French, English and German versions) were an attempt to capture his legendary stage performance of this character even though the songs are by Jacques Ibert. Ravel had also been asked to compose the songs for the film but he missed the deadline and his songs survive on their own with texts that are different from those found here. The interplay between the French and English versions is fascinating. Some scenes are done exactly the same for better or worse, some use the same footage, re-cut to edit out performance problems, while others have slight variants in staging and dialogue. (The English version was doctored by Australian-born scriptwriter and director John Farrow, Mia's father, by the way.) Even though the films are short and they transform, reduce and simplify considerably the original novel, they still manage to carry the themes and the feeling that would make Man of La Mancha a hit several decades later and to be evocative of Cervantes' Spain." In the late 1930s, Feodor Chaliapin Sr. suffered from leukaemia and kidney ailment. In 1937, he died in Paris, France. He was laid to rest is the Novodevichy Monastery Cemetery in Moscow. Chaliapin was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6770 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. In 1998, the TV film Chaliapin: The Enchanter (Elisabeth Kapnist, 1998) followed. His son Boris Chaliapin became a famous painter. who painted the portraits used on 414 covers of the Time magazine between 1942 and 1970. Another son Feodor Chaliapin Jr. became a film actor, who appeared in character roles in such films as the Western Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west/Buffalo Bill (Mario Costa, 1965) with Gordon Scott, and Der Name der Rose/The Name of the Rose (Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1986), starring Sean Connery. His first wife, Iola Tornagi, lived in the Soviet Union until 1959, when Nikita Khrushchev brought the 'Thaw'. Tornagi was allowed to leave the Soviet Union and reunited with her son Feodor Chaliapin Jr, in Rome, Italy.

 

Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Benoit A. Racine (IMDb), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Vintage Italian postcard. G.B. Falci, Milano, No. 258. Pina Menichelli and Livio Pavanelli in one of Pina Menichelli's last films La biondina (Amleto Palermi 1923), based on a book by Marco Praga on the tragedy of a woman whose husband kills her in the end. It seems that Italian censorship forced the scriptwriter to add morality to the film, so Praga's tragedy is framed within a story about a modest, conventional wife who, encouraged by her friend, dreams of breaking out, but then reads Praga's book and decides to remain honest and loyal.

 

Fascinating and enigmatic Pina Menichelli (1890-1984) was the most bizarre Italian diva of the silent era. With her contorted postures and disdainful expression, she impersonated the striking femme fatale. See also filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com/2008/09/pina-menichelli.html

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today however we are not in Lettice’s flat. Rather we are out down London’s busy Oxford Street at Selfridge’s department store where Lettice, accompanied by her old childhood chum Gerald Bruton, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street, have come to hear the reading of the chapter from a newly released romance novel. Through her social connections, Lettice’s Aunt Egg contrived an invitation for Lettice to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their weekend parties at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John. Over the course of the weekend, Lettice was coerced into accepting Lady Glady’s request that she redecorate the Bloomsbury flat of her ward, Phoebe Chambers. When Lettice agreed to take on the commission, Lady Gladys said she would arrange a time for Lettice to inspect the flat the next time Lady Gladys was in London. Now the day has arrived. The pair will go to Phoebe’s flat directly after Lady Gladys gives a reading from her latest romance novel at its launch in Selfridge’s book department with its floor to ceiling shelves full of books. Wanting company, and thinking he might enjoy the outing, Lettice has invited Gerald to join her.

 

Now the pair stand at the back of a large crowd made up entirely of middle-class and lower middle-class women sitting about on bentwood chairs or standing about when no more chairs were left. In their centre Lady Gladys stands, elegantly reciting from her novel to the rapturous group, who hang on her every word. Aside from Lady Gladys’ voice and the quiet hubbub of the busy department store outside the book department, not a word can be heard as everyone listens in reverent silence. Occasionally a gasp, or quickly muffled cough from amongst the audience punctuates the air, but nothing more.

 

“And Miranda fell into the arms of Lord Percy Shoebridge, her chest above the décolleté of her bodice betraying the emotions she felt for him, as she melted into him.”

 

“Oh lord!” Gerald hisses underneath his breath. “What a load of melodramatic mush.”

 

Evidently his criticism of Lady Glady’s latest literary exploits is not as silent as he thinks, as a middle aged woman dressed all in black, save for a wide white collar trimmed with lace, turns her cloche clad head and gives Gerald a hard, critical stare through her gold pince-nez*. She raises a black leather glove clad finger to her bloodless, thin lips before turning back to the authoress standing amidst her audience. Once he knows it’s safe, Gerald sticks his tongue out at the back of the berating woman’s head.

 

“Gerald!” Lettice hisses. “Behave.”

 

“I thought, Lettuce Leaf,” Gerald whispers in his friend’s delicate ear, using her most hated of childhood pet names. “When you asked me to accompany you to Selfridges, that we might be doing something fun, like picking out some new lipsticks or rouge** for you: certainly not listening to this,” He gesticulates towards Lady Gladys as he struggles to find the right word to describe the romantic adventures of Miranda the poor governess as she falls under the spell of Lord Percy Shoebridge. “This drivel.” he finally spits.

 

“Don’t call me that Gerald!” Lettice hisses back with a scowl. “You know how I hate it! And I’m shocked you would think I would buy my cosmetics from Selfridges, like a common shop girl.”

 

“Well, there are plenty of them here.” Gerald murmurs back, nodding his head in sneering amusement at the sea of cloches, toques and picture hat covered heads of the enraptured all female audience. “Look at it: a sea of middle and aspiring class mediocrity, clad in black and shades of muddy mushroom, with Lady Gladys Caxton… err….” He purposefully corrects himself. “Madeline St John standing in their midst like a wilting hothouse flower.”

 

“Oh, you are awful, Gerald.” Lettice replies, stifling a giggle at Gerald’s wry observation.

 

Gerald eyes Lady Glady’s outfit critically, looking her ruffled lavender floral patterned silk de chiné frock up and down, noting the clash between a diamond necklace at her throat and several strands of faceted bugle beads cascading down her front. “I thought you said Lady Gladys was a Fabian***.”

 

“She is Gerald,” Lettice quietly replies. “And when you meet her, you mustn’t call her Lady Gladys. She doesn’t like it. Call her Gladys, or today call her Madeline. Why do you ask?”

 

“Well, it’s just that I thought Fabians claimed to be proponents of ‘clean, simplified living’. I was expecting her to be dressed as dourly and as simply as her audience. There’s nothing simple about her gown. That’s a Lucile**** dream dress if I’m not mistaken.”

 

“Their eyes met, and Miranda knew that her beating heart was his for now and forever,” Lady Gladys reads aloud from her book in her well modulated and highly elocuted voice.

 

“God spare me from any more of this rot.” Gerald mutters, more carefully this time, so as not to gain further ire from the bespectacled black clad woman before him. “Jane Eyre this, unfortunately, is not,” He shudders. “Charlotte Brontë would be horrified by the exploits of Miranda the governess.” He shakes his head in disgust.

 

“Come on, Gerald.” Lettice replies, taking pity on her friend and nudging him in the ribs. “Let’s wait for Gladys over there by the display table. We’ll be far enough away so as not to disturb the orator, or her audience.”

 

The pair carefully slip away, weaving behind the standing component of the female audience until they are outside of the circle and outside of earshot enough for them to be able to speak in less hushed tones.

 

“Well, I can well understand why Lady Glad… I mean, Gladys, chose Selfridges to launch her newest ghastly romance.” Gerald remarks as he peruses the romance titles set out in an elegant display on a circular presentation table, with ‘Miranda’ – lady Gladys. newest work – proudly on display.

 

“What do you mean, Gerald?” Lettice queries.

 

“Well,” he nods again towards Lady Gladys standing in the centre of the large circle of standing and seated women. “She obviously enjoys the limelight and célébrité as much as Harry Selfridge***** does.”

 

Lettice looks over at Lady Gladys in her wide, romantic picture hat of black straw, covered in silk wisteria flowers dyed to match her frock. “Yes,” She sighs. “I think you may be right.”

 

“You don’t actually read this guff, do you?” Gerald takes up the copy of ‘Miranda’ and waves it accusingly at Lettice.

 

“No, but Edith does.” she replies.

 

“I seem to remember you reading quite a few romance novels with rather gushing titles, not all that long ago, Lettuce Leaf.” Gerald pursues, good-naturedly. “Are you sure that there weren’t any Madeline St John titles amongst their number?”

 

“I said, don’t call me that, Gerald!” she replies, taking up a copy of another of Lady Glady’s many popular romance novels from the surface of the table and playfully hitting her friend’s elbow with it. “You know I don’t like it! We aren’t children any more.”

 

“But you did used to read her books, didn’t you?” Gerald persists.

 

“Alright,” Lettice sighs. “Yes, I used to read them, but I don’t now. Margot helped me broaden my reading choices.”

 

“Good for darling Margot.” Gerald says. “What she suggests yiu read must be a hundred times better than these!” He glances down at the rather Edwardian looking cover of another of Lady Gladys’ novels, ‘Jewel Weed’. Swathed in an old fashioned Edwardian toque like those worn by Queen Mary, the Gibson Girl****** looking face of the heroine peers out of layers of black veil. “I…” he begins a little awkwardly. “I don’t suppose… thinking of romance…” he looks up at his best friend. “I don’t imagine you’ve heard from Selwyn?”

 

“No.” Lettice answers plainly, her voice cracking as she does, betraying in the single syllable uttered how heartbroken she is. “You think he might have smuggled out one little letter addressed to me.”

 

Gerald walks around the edge of the table and puts an arm comfortingly around his oldest friend and pulls her into his side, rubbing her upper arm just below the capped sleeve of her pale blue frock. “I shouldn’t mind too much, Lettice darling. The rules around your separation from him are very strictly enforced by Lady Zinnia.”

 

“That horror!” Lettice spits.

 

“Now, now, Lettice darling! Careful. That could be your future mother-in-law you are speaking of.” He cautions her. “It’s her spiderweb you are entangled in. Tread carefully!”

 

“Future mother-in-law or not, Gerald, she’s a beast, and no mistake! Keeping us separated like this.” Tears well in her eyes, making their blue hue all the more brilliant. “It’s torture.”

 

“I know, darling.” Gerald pulls her a little closer. “But Selwyn’s probably wise not to try and cross Lady Zinnia. The stakes are high, and you know it. If he is found to be corresponding with you, she may not be able to force him to marry someone else like she thinks she can, but she can certainly prevent Selwyn from marrying you.”

 

“It’s not fair.” Lettice sulks, running her manicured nail along the edge of a novel on display on the table. “Surely he could get a letter to me.”

 

“How?”

 

“Through a friend. Lady Zinnia’s spies and minions can’t possibly open ever piece of correspondence that goes through the Durban post office.”

 

“But who can he trust, Lettice darling? He hasn’t any friends there. That’s one of the reasons Lady Zinnia sent him there. Not only was he a world away from you, but a world away from all his friends. She can control who he sees, or more importantly for her, who can befriend him and spy for her, and try and influence him away from his affections for you.”

 

“She really is despicable, Gerald. I hate her, and I won’t ever forgive her for this separation between Selwyn and I, even when we do get married.” Lettice sighs despondently. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard from him, have you? You’re not forbidden to write to him, surely?”

 

“No, I’m not, and as a matter of fact, I did write to him, and he replied.”

 

“Gerald!” Lettice gasps.” “You never told me that! What does he say?”

 

The look of hope suddenly ignited in his best friend’s face pains Gerald as he answers, “There’s nothing really to tell. He’s well. He is designing some houses for a few South African sugar merchants and a few holiday houses for members of what passes for civilised society out there. He goes to the D’Urban Club******* regularly.”

 

“Does he ask about me?” she asks anxiously, her hands squeezing his forearm through his blazer jacket. “Does he mention me?”

 

Gerald’s eyes cloud with sadness. “No, he doesn’t Lettice.” He feels her grip quickly loosen and the sudden burst of vibrant energy around her dissipate, replaced with an air of despondence. “But then he wouldn’t dare in a letter to me, would he?”

 

“Why wouldn’t he, Gerald? You’re his friend, of sorts.”

 

“You know perfectly well that even in its most oblique form, that would be deemed as communication with you, which would make your marriage prospects with him null and void, Lettice darling. And,” he continues dourly. “May I, at this moment, point out that the letters I receive in reply to my own letters have always been tampered with. The gum on the envelopes is loose, which suggests that they have been steamed open and read by Lady Zinnia’s spies in Durban, and any contents meticulously copied out, down to the last punctuation mark, and reported back to her.”

 

“This really is interminable, Gerald.”

 

“I know it is, Lettice. If anyone knows about the travails of love, it’s me, oh and our resident expert Madeline St John, of course.” He indicates again to Lady Gladys as she nears the end of her reading.

 

“Oh how selfish of me, Gerald.” Lettice gasps. She winds her hand through the crook of his arm. “Here I am, wallowing in self-pity. Forgive me?”

 

“There is nothing to forgive, Lettice darling.” Gerald pats her hand with his own. “You just have to be patient. It’s been six months now already. Just keep yourself engaged with entertainment and designing, and the next six months will be gone in the blink of an eye, and he’ll be back, and he’ll take you in his arms, just like Sir What’s His Name does with Miranda.” He looks with revulsion at the garish cover of the novel featuring the heroine riding atop a coach bound for London from the provinces.

 

“Yes,” Lettice sighs. “I suppose you are right, and I have more than enough work ahead of me with Gladys, I suspect.”

 

Their conversation is broken by applause as Lady Glady’s reading of an excerpt of ‘Miranda’ comes to an end.

 

“Ms. St John will be autographing copies of ‘Miranda’ bought here at Selfridges today just over there.” a male Selfridges sales assistant announces, indicating to a small desk set up in a discreet corner of the book department, surrounded by floor to ceiling shelves of books.

 

A burst of excited chattering fills the air as women start to gather their umbrellas and bags, stand up from their seats stretching, and move towards a second display table near where Lettice and Gerald are standing covered in copies of the novel. The pair quickly move aside as a throng of ladies hurriedly start snatching up copies of the brightly jacketed book.

 

Through the burbling female crowd, Lady Gladys strides proudly, rather like Moses parting the red sea, graciously accepting the accolades and words of thanks from her toadying fans as they kowtow about her with a gracious smile, extending her hand here, pausing and nodding there.

 

“Ah! There you are, Lettice!” Lady Gladys calls, gliding towards Lettice and Gerald. “How are you, my dear?” she asks as she reaches Lettice’s side, placing a light air kiss on both cheeks.

 

“Very well thank you, Glad… err, Madeline.” Lettice quickly corrects herself, remembering the telephone conversation she had with Lady Gladys at Cavendish Mews the other day, when the authoress told her to use her nom de plume of Madeline St John when she attended the reading, prior to their visit to Pheobe at her Bloomsbury pied-à-terre******** to assess what the redecoration of it might include. “It appears your launch of ‘Miranda’ here at Selfridges has been a great success.”

 

“Eat your own heart out*********, Elinor Glynn**********, I say!” Lady Gladys chortles in delight as she watches copy after copy of ‘Miranda’ eagerly snatched up by pairs of dainty hands. “Look at how popular ‘Miranda’ is already! Remind me later, that I must give you an autographed copy to gift to your maid. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.”

 

“I don’t doubt it, Madeline. Edith is a great fan of yours.”

 

Gerald coughs as he tries to muffle his chuckle at Lettice’s remark.

 

It is then that Gladys suddenly notices Gerald standing at Lettice’s side. She eyes him up and down, appraising him in much the same way that he had done to her not long ago, appraising him.

 

“Well, it isn’t often I get gentlemen at my book readings,” Lady Gladys remarks with a sly smile. “Especially not such handsome, roguish ones.” Gerald blushes at the compliment. “Are you wanting an autographed copy of my book too, young man?”

 

“Me?” Gerald splutters. “Ahh, no, no… I.”

 

“Perhaps you’d like to be my next Sir Percy Shoebridge, young man? I’m sure we could come to some… arrangement.” Her smile broadens and she gives him a conspiratorial wink.

 

“Madeline, this is my oldest friend and childhood chum, Gerald Bruton,” Lettice quickly pipes up to save her friend from any awkward embarrassment. “Gerald, may I present the highly successful novelist, Madeline St John.”

 

“Charmed, I’m sure, Ms St. John.” Gerald plays the part of the fawning young man Lady Gladys obviously expects him to be by taking her proffered lavender kid glove hand and almost kissing it like she were a queen. She smiles graciously, and doesn’t notice his own smirk of amusement at her obvious pompous egotistical self-importance.

 

“Bruton… Bruton…” Lady Gladys ruminates, her mouth screwing up like a sponge as she does. “You’re the frock maker!”

 

“Yes, Ms. St John, I’m the fashion designer.” Gerald corrects her pointedly.

 

“I say, how terribly tiresome.” Lady Gladys replies, causing a surprised look on both Gerald’s and Lettice’s faces. With her interest in him as a mere maker of gowns, rather than a wit or literary man, immediately extinguished, she turns her head away from him and focuses upon Lettice. “I shouldn’t be too long, my dear Lettice. I’ll just sign copies of my books for my most ardent of fans here, and then you and I,” She gives Gerald a dismissive glance and a downturned mouth. “Can be on our way to Pheobe’s. I’ve ordered the car for one, and my driver will have picked up something delicious from Harrods for us to eat. I can’t rely on my ward to cater for us, so wrapped up in her studies as she is.” She gives Gerald another disapproving look. “It will give you time to say goodbye to your friend, Mr. Buttons.”

 

“Mr. Bruton, I think you mean, Madeline.” Lettice says anxiously, her face flushing with embarrassment at Lady Gladys’ obvious snub of Gerald.

 

“No, I mean Mr. Button, Lettice dear.” She deigns to cast another appraising sideways glance at Gerald. “It suits him better with his chosen profession.”

 

And without another word, she slips away, and glides across the room to the desk, where she takes a seat, pushed in for her obsequiously by the Selfridges sales assistant, and taking up a pen proffered to her by him, begins to sign copies of her books handed to her by her patient fans who have just purchased it from a nearby register.

 

“Oh Gerald!” Lettice gasps. “I’m so sorry!”

 

“Don’t you be sorry, Lettice.” Gerald replies, kindly. A far away look fills his face as he appears to steel himself. “I’ve suffered far worse snubs than hers before, I can assure you.”

 

“I know you have, darling, but that doesn’t excuse her behaviour. I shall have stern words with her when we leave, Gerald.”

 

“Oh no you won’t, Lettice.” Gerald counters.

 

“But she blatantly snubbed you, right in front of me!”

 

“Nevertheless, you won’t say anything about it to her.”

 

“But she should be berated.”

 

“Should and are, are two quite different things, Lettice.” Gerald cautions her. “Lady Gladys is very influential, and she knows it. Her star is still on the rise, and hasn’t waned yet. If you berate her, however much I would appreciate you doing it, the only thing you will succeed in doing is causing your own reputation irreparable damage. That woman obviously has a most spiteful tongue, which could do you a lot of harm. Be cautious. Be polite. Be obsequious. Accept her praise when she gives it, and any good publicity and good fortune she brings you.”

 

“Oh Gerald,” Lettice mewls. “It’s so unfair.”

 

“Never mind!” Gerald says breezily, shaking off the snub. “Let’s not let her spoil things. You’ll be done with her for the day in a few hours. Shall we have supper at the Café Royal*********** tonight? My treat!”

 

“Oh Gerald! But how?” Her question as to how her usually impecunious friend can afford to offer to shout them both dinner at such a fine restaurant.

 

“I may only be a frock maker, according to some, but I’m a very good one, and I’ve just been commissioned by Lady Loughborough************ to make her two suits two opera capes, three frocks and some Lido pyjamas*************.”

 

“Oh Gerald!” Lettice gasps. “That’s wonderful news.”

 

The pair look over at Lady Gladys as she smiles beatifically at a young woman in a moss green velvet frock with ratty red hair poking out from under a wide brimmed hat as she hands her an autographed copy of ‘Miranda’.

 

“What have I let myself in for, Gerald?” Lettice asks quietly.

 

“Well, remember when I said before that you were in Lady Zinnia’s spiderweb?” When Lettice nods, Gerald goes on. “Well, you may have just become entangled in an even stickier web with Lady Gladys.”

 

*Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", and nez, "nose"

 

**Cosmetics in the 1920s were characterized by their use to create a specific look: lips painted in the shape of a Cupid's bow, kohl-rimmed eyes, and bright cheeks brushed with bright red blush. The heavily made-up look of the 1920s was a reaction to the demure, feminine Gibson Girl of the pre-war period. In the 1920s, an international beauty culture was forged, and society increasingly focused on novelty and change. Fashion trends influenced theatre, films, literature, and art. With the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt, the fashion of kohl-rimmed eyes like Egyptian pharaohs was very popular in the early 1920s.

 

***The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

 

****Lucile – Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon was a leading British fashion designer in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries who use the professional name Lucile. She was the originator of the “mannequin parade”, a pre-cursor to the modern fashion parade, and is reported to have been the person to first use the word “chic” which she then popularised. Lucile aimed to make an art of beautiful dressing, and her ‘Dream Dresses’ were faerie tale creations of shimmering silks, gossamer laces, and delicate rainbows of ribbons in soft pastel shades. Influenced by her early designs for lingerie and tea gowns, Lucile’s dresses, which she also referred to as “Gowns of Emotion” were given suitably romantic name, like “Happiness”. Lucile is also infamous for escaping the Titanic in a lifeboat designed for forty occupants with her husband and secretary and only nine other people aboard, seven being crew members.

 

*****Harry Gordon Selfridge, was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. His twenty-year leadership of Selfridges led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'. Selfridge promoted the radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity, and his success lay in his ability to draw crowds through heavy promotion, theatrical displays and calling upon famous people of the day to feature in publicity stunts, the likes of which had never been seen in London, or England before.

 

******The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness as portrayed by the pen-and-ink illustrations of artist Charles Dana Gibson during a twenty-year period that spanned the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries in the United States. The artist saw his creation as representing the composite of “thousands of American girls”.

 

******* On 14 June 1854, twenty prominent Durban residents signed an agreement to form the first D'Urban Club, named after Sir Benjamin D'Urban, Governor of the Cape Colony. The newly formed club was to be used for the playing of billiards, chess and as a reading and newsroom. From very humble beginnings, and two earlier club buildings, the present building housing what is now known as the Durban Club was started in 1900, and completed in 1904, in grand Edwardian Baroque Revival style, which was very popular at that time. The building was then described as being “one of the Town’s most exquisite buildings”. The Durban Club building is a listed building and a famous landmark in the city today. Having passed through the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, the First (1889) and Second (1899-1902) Anglo-Boer Wars, the Zulu Rebellion (1906), the Great War of 1914-1918 and the Second World War (1939-1945) the Durban Club has hosted more than its fair share of famous people, including George Cato, Prince Louis Napoleon, Thomas Baines, Cathcart Methven, Lord Chelmsford, Sir Garnet Wolseley, General Sir Henry Evelyn Wood, General Sir Redvers Buller, General Lord Roberts, General Sir Robert Baden Powell, Sir Winston S. Churchill, the Right Honourable Lord Milner and Field Marshal Earl Douglas Haig.

 

********A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.

 

*********The idiom to “eat your heart out” meaning to feel bitter anguish, grief, worry, jealousy, or another strong negative emotion, derives from around the 1580s. T he most common origin story states the phrase was “eat one's own heart” – a term that meant to “suffer in silence from anguish or grief”. The eating part is thought to have come from the Bible phrase “to eat one's own flesh” – which meant to be lazy.

 

********** Elinor Glyn was a British novelist and scriptwriter who specialised in romantic fiction, which was considered scandalous for its time, although her works are relatively tame by modern standards. She popularized the concept of the it-girl, and had tremendous influence on early Twentieth Century popular culture and, possibly, on the careers of notable Hollywood stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson and, especially, Clara Bow. She was also the sister of Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, the leading British fashion designer in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries who use the professional name Lucile.

 

***********The Café Royal in Regent Street, Piccadilly was originally conceived and set up in 1865 by Daniel Nicholas Thévenon, who was a French wine merchant. He had to flee France due to bankruptcy, arriving in Britain in 1863 with his wife, Célestine, and just five pounds in cash. He changed his name to Daniel Nicols and under his management - and later that of his wife - the Café Royal flourished and was considered at one point to have the greatest wine cellar in the world. By the 1890s the Café Royal had become the place to see and be seen at. It remained as such into the Twenty-First Century when it finally closed its doors in 2008. Renovated over the subsequent four years, the Café Royal reopened as a luxury five star hotel.

 

************Margaret Sheila Mackellar Chisholm (1895 – 1969) was an Australian socialite and "it girl" in British high society during and after World War I. Known as Sheila, she married three times: Francis St Clair-Erskine, Lord Loughborough (heir to the 5th Earl of Rosslyn); Sir John Charles Peniston Milbanke, and Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich of Russia. Sheila also had close relationships with brothers Edward, Prince of Wales and Prince Albert of York, both future Kings of the United Kingdom. Sheila’s romantic liaison with Albert ended when his father, George V, told him to leave "the already-married Australian" and find someone more suitable. Known for her striking beauty, she is likely the inspiration for the Australian phrase "a good-looking sheila".

 

*************In many ways, Lido or beach pyjamas were seen as pragmatic garments. The introduction of the tight-fitting knit swimsuit, popularized by Annette Kellerman in the first decades of the 20th century, was a far departure from the baggy, figure-concealing bathing costumes previously worn. Pyjamas, with their loose fit and versatile layers, were easily slipped on over a swimsuit and provided modesty, warmth on winter beaches, and protection from the sun. More and more women adopted the fashion, and by 1925, “beach pyjamas” were being advertised in Vogue.

 

These books might be the kind of romance novel you wish to read, but if you do, you may need a magnifying glass, for these are all artisan pieces as part of my extensive 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The books on display here, and in the shelves behind are all 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. In this case, this selection of romance novels are not designed to be opened. What might amaze you in spite of this fact is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make them all miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The round display table on which the books stand tilts like a real loo table, and is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, which came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the United Kingdom.

Vintage Italian postcard (despite the French text) for the German language version of Alessandro Blasetti's Terra madre/ Mother Earth: the German early sound film Kennst Du das Land (Constantin J. David, 1931), shot simultaneously with the Italian version in Italy. Cines-Pittaluga, No. 4.

 

The leads in this German version were for Hans Adalbert Schlettow as the landowner Marco, Eduard von Winterstein as Nunzio, the foreman of the estate, Maria Solveg/ Maria Matray as his daughter Emilia, Fritz Genschow as the farmer Silvano, Olaf Fjord as Bianchi and Mary Kid as Lia. They played the parts performed by Sandro Salvini (Marco), Leda Gloria (Emilia), Vasco Creti (Nunzio), Franco Coop (Silvano) and Isa Pola (Daisy/ Lia) in the Italian version. The plot deals with a young aristocrat, planning to spend time in town, returns to sell his farmland to a modernizing new owner, thus threatening the welfare of the peasants who work for him. He then has a change of heart.

 

Plot: Duke Marco has been living in the city for a long time, far from the lands he owns. He comes back only when he decides to sell them to maintain a costly standard of living which also includes his mistress Daisy. His return is welcomed by peasants hoping he'll stay with them. During a solitary tour of his lands, in which he remembers his youth in the countryside with growing nostalgia, Marco meets Emilia, the farmer's daughter, and is struck by her spontaneous energy and freshness. When the peasants learn about the news of the sale their enthusiasm turns into disappointment, but Marco, pressured by financial needs, returns to the city with Daisy to sign the documents. Here he is joined by a phone call from Emilia informing him of a serious fire that broke out on the farm. At that point, Marco leaves everything, runs into the countryside, directs the victorious fight against the fire and decides to revoke the sale. He will stay to take care of his lands and he will marry Emilia.

 

Terra Madre was drawn from a subject entitled Passa la morte, written in 1930 by Camillo Apolloni, a former actor of silent cinema, which was purchased in 1930 by "Cines" relaunched by Stefano Pittaluga as the first Italian company in the production of sound cinema. On the basis of that text Blasetti, in collaboration with the director of the silent era and writer Gianni Bistolfi, wrote the script with the intention of providing «an indication of the social and lyrical value of rural life. Two parties contested the originality of the story, but years after, Blasetti said that from the original story "only the boots of the farmer" had remained.

 

After a few years of vehement criticism of Pittaluga conducted with the group gathered around the magazine Cinematografo, in the middle of 1930 Blasetti and some of his collaborators entered the Cines and became its staunch defenders. The Roman director thus had the opportunity, after the searing failure of Blasetti's Sole (and apart from the parenthesis of Nerone/ Petrolini) to resume the themes of "rebirth" in the new situation, first with Resurrectio and then with Terra Madre, in which he revived the spirit " ruralista "already present in his debut film Sole. It was the contrast between the urban world, considered indolent and parasitic (the "Stracittà"), and the peasant one (the "Strapaese"), seen instead as strong and healthy by a current of fascism, the one born in the countryside, favorable to the preservation of the rural character of the Italian people.

 

The film - one of the 10 feature films published by the Cines-Pittaluga in the 1930 - 1931 season - was shot at the Theater 3 of the Cines in Via Vejo in Rome, between September 1930 and January 1931, while for the exteriors some locations in the Roman countryside were used. Like the first sound film released in Italy, Gennaro Righelli's La canzone dell'amore, also Terra Madre was a co-production of which a German version was made, again at the Cines, on behalf of the company Atlas of Berlin (title: Kennst Du das Land), interpreted in the two main roles by Hans Adalbert Schlettow and Maria Solveg, and directed by Constantin David, former director of the German version of the Righelli film.

 

Next to Blasetti, on the set of Terra Madre worked the future directors Ferdinando Maria Poggioli and Goffredo Alessandrini, who on that occasion had entered the Cines as scriptwriter and assistant, both from the group around the magazine Cinemagrafo that at the beginning of 1931 had ceased publication after the transfer of most of its exponents employed by Pittaluga. Particularly important for highlighting the contrast between city and countryside was the musical comment given on one side to Foxtrot motifs and the other to the rhythm of a popular "saltarello" and to 5 choirs performed by the Camerata Lughese of the "Canterini Romagnoli". A great deal of attention was also paid to photography, so much so that to the two hired operators (Montuori and De Luca) a third assistant joined them, the almost newcomer Clemente Santoni, producing a result of great expressive value in chiaroscuro and depth.

 

Terra madre was released in March 1931 and was a big success, both critically and commercially. This also was the case for the German version, and equally for a French dubbed version called Le rappel de la terre. Also in Latin America, it was very successful. Critics were not unanimous in their praise. Some rather praised Pittaluga's effort to raise the new national sound cinema and were less convinced by Blasetti's direction, claiming that in comparison with Sole, in Terra madre the landscape had lost its primitive, raw and pure beauty. Others, such as Leo Longanesi, considered Sole and Terra madre on a par, on equal height. Longanesi called it "a masterpiece of rural rhetoric, an oleography of our times."

 

Source: Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.

 

Eduard von Winterstein (born 1 August 1871 in Vienna; died 22 July 1961 in Berlin, real name: Eduard Clemens Franz Freiherr von Wangenheim) was a German film and theatre actor. His German film career spanned from the 1910s to the late 1950s, from the Wilhelminian cinema to the cinema of the GDR.

German postcard. Film-Sterne, No. 542/3. Messter-Film, Berlin. Viggo Larsen in Der Sohn des Hannibal (1918), directed by himself. The woman with the gun is Käthe Haack.

 

Plot: The racing team owner Count Ferdinand Muntaniz buys a racehorse, a descendant of the stallion Hannibal, and calls it "Imperator". Immediately he bets with Count Szivarwany that the horse will win the first derby. Due to race shifts and game losses, Count Ferdinand is forced to resell Imperator but he has recovered his losses through the bet.

 

Viggo Larsen (1880-1957) was a Danish actor, director, scriptwriter and producer. He was one of the pioneers in film history. With Wanda Treumann he directed and produced many German films of the 1910s.

The Beatles named their final 1969 studio LP Abbey Road. The album's cover photograph shows the four group members walking across the zebra crossing located just outside the studio entrance. More & cover image on Abbey Road.

 

Some trivia on the Abbey Road album cover - The front cover design, a photograph of the group traversing a zebra crossing, was based on sketched ideas by McCartney and taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI Studios on Abbey Road. At around 11:30 that morning, photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photo whilst he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up the traffic

 

Thanks Ashwin/ 00-skope for the title.

 

As I roamed on the streets of Buleshwar, I did not expect to shoot this frame. Almost cinematic, I loved this dramatic entry of four characters - an entry bollywoodesque almost. The backlight light creating drama that is associated with superman powers that the scriptwriter bestows lovingly on our heros.

One doubting bystander, stares into the frame unbelievingly mocking the marching shadows.

 

So much for my creative imagination!! Used lightroom for the first time and am quiet pleased with quick develop features. I seem to have lost the exif data - i guess some setting issue. Let me have your feedback / comments.

Walter Salles is a director, a scriptwriter, a fitter(editor) and a Brazilian producer been born on April 12th, 1956 in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

He(It) in in particular realized in 2012 the movie " On the road " with among others in the casting, Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst.

 

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Walter Salles est un réalisateur, scénariste, monteur et producteur brésilien né le 12 avril 1956 à Rio de Janeiro au Brésil.

Il à notamment réalisé en 2012 le film "Sur la route" avec entre autres au casting, Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst.

 

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Spanish collector's card by Chocolat Imperial, no. 6 in a series of 6. Photo: Grandes Exclusivas Verdaguer / FAI. Ida Carloni Talli and Giovanni Schettini in El Vertigo, Spanish title for the Italian silent drama Vertigine (Baldassarre Negroni, 1919).

 

Plot: A party takes place at the Royal Palace in Birlandia, when the Prince Regent substitutes the Royal couple Marisa and Carlos de Seydoon who are dethroned. Carlos is killed by counter-revolutionaries, while Marisa chased from the court leads a life as countess Marisa de Seydoon (Hesperia). She goes to Rome by train, by chance in the same compartment as count Enzo (Tullio Carminati) who is unaware of her beauties, so she uses all her assets to seduce him. They get acquainted at the dinner wagon and because of trouble with the train, they share the same hotel. They make several excursions together during which their love blossoms and meet on old study friend of Enzo, Fausto Ursini (Giovanni Schettini). Ursini visits Enzo because he needs money as creditors want to take away the estate so dear to his mother (Ida Carloni Talli). Touched, Enzo helps him and buys the estate. Marisa passes wonderful days at the estate, while both she and Fausto's mother don't know it is by now Enzo's property. While Enzo is away, and the summer blossoms drug Fausto and Marisa, the two young people fall in love, even if Marisa keeps her distance. When Enzo returns, Marisa is afraid he may find out and accuses Fausto of ingratitude towards Enzo. Fausto's mother suspects something is going on, but also Enzo notices Marisa is not herself. She finally admits Fausto has declared her his love. Enzo, blind of rage, reacts to Fausto, who admits his guilt and offers his life. Enzo instead forces Fausto to reveal his mother the truth. Fausto cannot cope with so much disgrace to his mother, so he commits suicide. Enzo, realizing that his woman who now forever would doubt him, disappears forever. Marisa, who before felt the weight of her crown, now left by Enzo, retires to a lonely villa, to mourn over her tragic fate and the loss of both men who marked her rise and fall. [Plot from the back of the cards]

 

At the time, Giuseppe Lega, in the magazine Apollon, thought it a rather old-fashioned drama, and below the level of the talent of the young scriptwriter Luciano Doria. Hesperia made the most of it, Carminati could have been better, while best was Carloni Talli.

 

Ida Carloni Talli (1860-1940) was an important Italian stage actress, who also acted in 92 Italian silent films.

Here, hundreds of researchers, businesses and progressive home- owners will be living and working side-by-side, along with great food, drink and entertainment venues. A collection of stunning public spaces for everyone, of all ages, to use.

Everyone here is united by one purpose: to help families, communities and cities around the world to live healthier, longer, smarter and easier lives. In short, to live better. In the process, our businesses will continue to grow, employ more local people and help ensure Newcastle excels.

 

The Catalyst

This stunning building is home to two National Innovation Centres, project teams from industry and academia, and tenants working across ageing, data and innovation.

 

The Catalyst is home to the National Innovation Centre for Ageing and the National Innovation Centre for Data. It is a bustling place full of curious and ambitious teams working collaboratively to develop products and services.

 

The award-winning building includes a cafe, workspaces, and different event spaces. The helpful centre team create a supportive environment for businesses and visitors.

 

Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick university and a member of the Russell Group, an association of research-intensive UK universities.

 

The university finds its roots in the School of Medicine and Surgery (later the College of Medicine), established in 1834, and the College of Physical Science (later renamed Armstrong College), founded in 1871. These two colleges came to form the larger division of the federal University of Durham, with the Durham Colleges forming the other. The Newcastle colleges merged to form King's College in 1937. In 1963, following an Act of Parliament, King's College became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

The university subdivides into three faculties: the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; the Faculty of Medical Sciences; and the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering. The university offers around 175 full-time undergraduate degree programmes in a wide range of subject areas spanning arts, sciences, engineering and medicine, together with approximately 340 postgraduate taught and research programmes across a range of disciplines.[6] The annual income of the institution for 2022–23 was £592.4 million of which £119.3 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £558 million.

 

History

Durham University § Colleges in Newcastle

The establishment of a university in Newcastle upon Tyne was first proposed in 1831 by Thomas Greenhow in a lecture to the Literary and Philosophical Society. In 1832 a group of local medics – physicians George Fife (teaching materia medica and therapeutics) and Samuel Knott (teaching theory and practice of medicine), and surgeons John Fife (teaching surgery), Alexander Fraser (teaching anatomy and physiology) and Henry Glassford Potter (teaching chemistry) – started offering medical lectures in Bell's Court to supplement the apprenticeship system (a fourth surgeon, Duncan McAllum, is mentioned by some sources among the founders, but was not included in the prospectus). The first session started on 1 October 1832 with eight or nine students, including John Snow, then apprenticed to a local surgeon-apothecary, the opening lecture being delivered by John Fife. In 1834 the lectures and practical demonstrations moved to the Hall of the Company of Barber Surgeons to accommodate the growing number of students, and the School of Medicine and Surgery was formally established on 1 October 1834.

 

On 25 June 1851, following a dispute among the teaching staff, the school was formally dissolved and the lecturers split into two rival institutions. The majority formed the Newcastle College of Medicine, and the others established themselves as the Newcastle upon Tyne College of Medicine and Practical Science with competing lecture courses. In July 1851 the majority college was recognised by the Society of Apothecaries and in October by the Royal College of Surgeons of England and in January 1852 was approved by the University of London to submit its students for London medical degree examinations. Later in 1852, the majority college was formally linked to the University of Durham, becoming the "Newcastle-upon-Tyne College of Medicine in connection with the University of Durham". The college awarded its first 'Licence in Medicine' (LicMed) under the auspices of the University of Durham in 1856, with external examiners from Oxford and London, becoming the first medical examining body on the United Kingdom to institute practical examinations alongside written and viva voce examinations. The two colleges amalgamated in 1857, with the first session of the unified college opening on 3 October that year. In 1861 the degree of Master of Surgery was introduced, allowing for the double qualification of Licence of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, along with the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Doctor of Medicine, both of which required residence in Durham. In 1870 the college was brought into closer connection with the university, becoming the "Durham University College of Medicine" with the Reader in Medicine becoming the Professor of Medicine, the college gaining a representative on the university's senate, and residence at the college henceforth counting as residence in the university towards degrees in medicine and surgery, removing the need for students to spend a period of residence in Durham before they could receive the higher degrees.

 

Attempts to realise a place for the teaching of sciences in the city were finally met with the foundation of the College of Physical Science in 1871. The college offered instruction in mathematics, physics, chemistry and geology to meet the growing needs of the mining industry, becoming the "Durham College of Physical Science" in 1883 and then renamed after William George Armstrong as Armstrong College in 1904. Both of these institutions were part of the University of Durham, which became a federal university under the Durham University Act 1908 with two divisions in Durham and Newcastle. By 1908, the Newcastle division was teaching a full range of subjects in the Faculties of Medicine, Arts, and Science, which also included agriculture and engineering.

 

Throughout the early 20th century, the medical and science colleges outpaced the growth of their Durham counterparts. Following tensions between the two Newcastle colleges in the early 1930s, a Royal Commission in 1934 recommended the merger of the two colleges to form "King's College, Durham"; that was effected by the Durham University Act 1937. Further growth of both division of the federal university led to tensions within the structure and a feeling that it was too large to manage as a single body. On 1 August 1963 the Universities of Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne Act 1963 separated the two thus creating the "University of Newcastle upon Tyne". As the successor of King's College, Durham, the university at its founding in 1963, adopted the coat of arms originally granted to the Council of King's College in 1937.

 

Above the portico of the Students' Union building are bas-relief carvings of the arms and mottoes of the University of Durham, Armstrong College and Durham University College of Medicine, the predecessor parts of Newcastle University. While a Latin motto, mens agitat molem (mind moves matter) appears in the Students' Union building, the university itself does not have an official motto.

 

Campus and location

The university occupies a campus site close to Haymarket in central Newcastle upon Tyne. It is located to the northwest of the city centre between the open spaces of Leazes Park and the Town Moor; the university medical school and Royal Victoria Infirmary are adjacent to the west.

 

The Armstrong building is the oldest building on the campus and is the site of the original Armstrong College. The building was constructed in three stages; the north east wing was completed first at a cost of £18,000 and opened by Princess Louise on 5 November 1888. The south-east wing, which includes the Jubilee Tower, and south-west wings were opened in 1894. The Jubilee Tower was built with surplus funds raised from an Exhibition to mark Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887. The north-west front, forming the main entrance, was completed in 1906 and features two stone figures to represent science and the arts. Much of the later construction work was financed by Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, the metallurgist and former Lord Mayor of Newcastle, after whom the main tower is named. In 1906 it was opened by King Edward VII.

 

The building contains the King's Hall, which serves as the university's chief hall for ceremonial purposes where Congregation ceremonies are held. It can contain 500 seats. King Edward VII gave permission to call the Great Hall, King's Hall. During the First World War, the building was requisitioned by the War Office to create the first Northern General Hospital, a facility for the Royal Army Medical Corps to treat military casualties. Graduation photographs are often taken in the University Quadrangle, next to the Armstrong building. In 1949 the Quadrangle was turned into a formal garden in memory of members of Newcastle University who gave their lives in the two World Wars. In 2017, a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. was erected in the inner courtyard of the Armstrong Building, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his honorary degree from the university.

 

The Bruce Building is a former brewery, constructed between 1896 and 1900 on the site of the Hotspur Hotel, and designed by the architect Joseph Oswald as the new premises of Newcastle Breweries Limited. The university occupied the building from the 1950s, but, having been empty for some time, the building was refurbished in 2016 to become residential and office space.

 

The Devonshire Building, opened in 2004, incorporates in an energy efficient design. It uses photovoltaic cells to help to power motorised shades that control the temperature of the building and geothermal heating coils. Its architects won awards in the Hadrian awards and the RICS Building of the Year Award 2004. The university won a Green Gown award for its construction.

 

Plans for additions and improvements to the campus were made public in March 2008 and completed in 2010 at a cost of £200 million. They included a redevelopment of the south-east (Haymarket) façade with a five-storey King's Gate administration building as well as new student accommodation. Two additional buildings for the school of medicine were also built. September 2012 saw the completion of the new buildings and facilities for INTO Newcastle University on the university campus. The main building provides 18 new teaching rooms, a Learning Resource Centre, a lecture theatre, science lab, administrative and academic offices and restaurant.

 

The Philip Robinson Library is the main university library and is named after a bookseller in the city and benefactor to the library. The Walton Library specialises in services for the Faculty of Medical Sciences in the Medical School. It is named after Lord Walton of Detchant, former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Professor of Neurology. The library has a relationship with the Northern region of the NHS allowing their staff to use the library for research and study. The Law Library specialises in resources relating to law, and the Marjorie Robinson Library Rooms offers additional study spaces and computers. Together, these house over one million books and 500,000 electronic resources. Some schools within the university, such as the School of Modern Languages, also have their own smaller libraries with smaller highly specialised collections.

 

In addition to the city centre campus there are buildings such as the Dove Marine Laboratory located on Cullercoats Bay, and Cockle Park Farm in Northumberland.

 

International

In September 2008, the university's first overseas branch was opened in Singapore, a Marine International campus called, NUMI Singapore. This later expanded beyond marine subjects and became Newcastle University Singapore, largely through becoming an Overseas University Partner of Singapore Institute of Technology.

 

In 2011, the university's Medical School opened an international branch campus in Iskandar Puteri, Johor, Malaysia, namely Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia.

 

Student accommodation

Newcastle University has many catered and non-catered halls of residence available to first-year students, located around the city of Newcastle. Popular Newcastle areas for private student houses and flats off campus include Jesmond, Heaton, Sandyford, Shieldfield, South Shields and Spital Tongues.

 

Henderson Hall was used as a hall of residence until a fire destroyed it in 2023.

 

St Mary's College in Fenham, one of the halls of residence, was formerly St Mary's College of Education, a teacher training college.

 

Organisation and governance

The current Chancellor is the British poet and artist Imtiaz Dharker. She assumed the position of Chancellor on 1 January 2020. The vice-chancellor is Chris Day, a hepatologist and former pro-vice-chancellor of the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

 

The university has an enrolment of some 16,000 undergraduate and 5,600 postgraduate students. Teaching and research are delivered in 19 academic schools, 13 research institutes and 38 research centres, spread across three Faculties: the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences; the Faculty of Medical Sciences; and the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering. The university offers around 175 full-time undergraduate degree programmes in a wide range of subject areas spanning arts, sciences, engineering and medicine, together with approximately 340 postgraduate taught and research programmes across a range of disciplines.

 

It holds a series of public lectures called 'Insights' each year in the Curtis Auditorium in the Herschel Building. Many of the university's partnerships with companies, like Red Hat, are housed in the Herschel Annex.

 

Chancellors and vice-chancellors

For heads of the predecessor colleges, see Colleges of Durham University § Colleges in Newcastle.

Chancellors

Hugh Percy, 10th Duke of Northumberland (1963–1988)

Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley (1988–1999)

Chris Patten (1999–2009)

Liam Donaldson (2009–2019)

Imtiaz Dharker (2020–)

Vice-chancellors

Charles Bosanquet (1963–1968)

Henry Miller (1968–1976)

Ewan Stafford Page (1976–1978, acting)

Laurence Martin (1978–1990)

Duncan Murchison (1991, acting)

James Wright (1992–2000)

Christopher Edwards (2001–2007)

Chris Brink (2007–2016)

Chris Day (2017–present)

Civic responsibility

 

The university Quadrangle

The university describes itself as a civic university, with a role to play in society by bringing its research to bear on issues faced by communities (local, national or international).

 

In 2012, the university opened the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal to address issues of social and economic change, representing the research-led academic schools across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences[45] and the Business School.

 

Mark Shucksmith was Director of the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal (NISR) at Newcastle University, where he is also Professor of Planning.

 

In 2006, the university was granted fair trade status and from January 2007 it became a smoke-free campus.

 

The university has also been actively involved with several of the region's museums for many years. The Great North Museum: Hancock originally opened in 1884 and is often a venue for the university's events programme.

 

Faculties and schools

Teaching schools within the university are based within three faculties. Each faculty is led by a Provost/Pro-vice-chancellor and a team of Deans with specific responsibilities.

 

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

School of Arts and Cultures

Newcastle University Business School

Combined Honours Centre

School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences

School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics

School of Geography, Politics and Sociology

School of History, Classics and Archaeology

Newcastle Law School

School of Modern Languages

Faculty of Medical Sciences

School of Biomedical Sciences

School of Dental Sciences

School of Medical Education

School of Pharmacy

School of Psychology

Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology (CBCB)

Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering

School of Computing

School of Engineering

School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics

School of Natural and Environmental Sciences

Business School

 

Newcastle University Business School

As early as the 1900/1 academic year, there was teaching in economics (political economy, as it was then known) at Newcastle, making Economics the oldest department in the School. The Economics Department is currently headed by the Sir David Dale Chair. Among the eminent economists having served in the Department (both as holders of the Sir David Dale Chair) are Harry Mainwaring Hallsworth and Stanley Dennison.

 

Newcastle University Business School is a triple accredited business school, with accreditation by the three major accreditation bodies: AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS.

 

In 2002, Newcastle University Business School established the Business Accounting and Finance or 'Flying Start' degree in association with the ICAEW and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The course offers an accelerated route towards the ACA Chartered Accountancy qualification and is the Business School's Flagship programme.

 

In 2011 the business school opened their new building built on the former Scottish and Newcastle brewery site next to St James' Park. This building was officially opened on 19 March 2012 by Lord Burns.

 

The business school operated a central London campus from 2014 to 2021, in partnership with INTO University Partnerships until 2020.

 

Medical School

The BMC Medicine journal reported in 2008 that medical graduates from Oxford, Cambridge and Newcastle performed better in postgraduate tests than any other medical school in the UK.

 

In 2008 the Medical School announced that they were expanding their campus to Malaysia.

 

The Royal Victoria Infirmary has always had close links with the Faculty of Medical Sciences as a major teaching hospital.

 

School of Modern Languages

The School of Modern Languages consists of five sections: East Asian (which includes Japanese and Chinese); French; German; Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies; and Translating & Interpreting Studies. Six languages are taught from beginner's level to full degree level ‒ Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese ‒ and beginner's courses in Catalan, Dutch, Italian and Quechua are also available. Beyond the learning of the languages themselves, Newcastle also places a great deal of emphasis on study and experience of the cultures of the countries where the languages taught are spoken. The School of Modern Languages hosts North East England's only branches of two internationally important institutes: the Camões Institute, a language institute for Portuguese, and the Confucius Institute, a language and cultural institute for Chinese.

 

The teaching of modern foreign languages at Newcastle predates the creation of Newcastle University itself, as in 1911 Armstrong College in Newcastle installed Albert George Latham, its first professor of modern languages.

 

The School of Modern Languages at Newcastle is the lead institution in the North East Routes into Languages Consortium and, together with the Durham University, Northumbria University, the University of Sunderland, the Teesside University and a network of schools, undertakes work activities of discovery of languages for the 9 to 13 years pupils. This implies having festivals, Q&A sessions, language tasters, or quizzes organised, as well as a web learning work aiming at constructing a web portal to link language learners across the region.

 

Newcastle Law School

Newcastle Law School is the longest established law school in the north-east of England when law was taught at the university's predecessor college before it became independent from Durham University. It has a number of recognised international and national experts in a variety of areas of legal scholarship ranging from Common and Chancery law, to International and European law, as well as contextual, socio-legal and theoretical legal studies.

 

The Law School occupies four specially adapted late-Victorian town houses. The Staff Offices, the Alumni Lecture Theatre and seminar rooms as well as the Law Library are all located within the School buildings.

 

School of Computing

The School of Computing was ranked in the Times Higher Education world Top 100. Research areas include Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and ubiquitous computing, secure and resilient systems, synthetic biology, scalable computing (high performance systems, data science, machine learning and data visualization), and advanced modelling. The school led the formation of the National Innovation Centre for Data. Innovative teaching in the School was recognised in 2017 with the award of a National Teaching Fellowship.

 

Cavitation tunnel

Newcastle University has the second largest cavitation tunnel in the UK. Founded in 1950, and based in the Marine Science and Technology Department, the Emerson Cavitation Tunnel is used as a test basin for propellers, water turbines, underwater coatings and interaction of propellers with ice. The Emerson Cavitation Tunnel was recently relocated to a new facility in Blyth.

 

Museums and galleries

The university is associated with a number of the region's museums and galleries, including the Great North Museum project, which is primarily based at the world-renowned Hancock Museum. The Great North Museum: Hancock also contains the collections from two of the university's former museums, the Shefton Museum and the Museum of Antiquities, both now closed. The university's Hatton Gallery is also a part of the Great North Museum project, and remains within the Fine Art Building.

 

Academic profile

Reputation and rankings

Rankings

National rankings

Complete (2024)30

Guardian (2024)67

Times / Sunday Times (2024)37

Global rankings

ARWU (2023)201–300

QS (2024)110

THE (2024)168=

 

Newcastle University's national league table performance over the past ten years

The university is a member of the Russell Group of the UK's research-intensive universities. It is ranked in the top 200 of most world rankings, and in the top 40 of most UK rankings. As of 2023, it is ranked 110th globally by QS, 292nd by Leiden, 139th by Times Higher Education and 201st–300th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Nationally, it is ranked joint 33rd by the Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide, 30th by the Complete University Guide[68] and joint 63rd by the Guardian.

 

Admissions

UCAS Admission Statistics 20222021202020192018

Application 33,73532,40034,55031,96533,785

Accepte 6,7556,2556,5806,4456,465

Applications/Accepted Ratio 5.05.25.35.05.2

Offer Rate (%78.178.080.279.280.0)

Average Entry Tariff—151148144152

Main scheme applications, International and UK

UK domiciled applicants

HESA Student Body Composition

In terms of average UCAS points of entrants, Newcastle ranked joint 19th in Britain in 2014. In 2015, the university gave offers of admission to 92.1% of its applicants, the highest amongst the Russell Group.

 

25.1% of Newcastle's undergraduates are privately educated, the thirteenth highest proportion amongst mainstream British universities. In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 74:5:21 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female to male ratio of 51:49.

 

Research

Newcastle is a member of the Russell Group of 24 research-intensive universities. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions, Newcastle is ranked joint 33rd by GPA (along with the University of Strathclyde and the University of Sussex) and 15th for research power (the grade point average score of a university, multiplied by the full-time equivalent number of researchers submitted).

 

Student life

Newcastle University Students' Union (NUSU), known as the Union Society until a 2012 rebranding, includes student-run sports clubs and societies.

 

The Union building was built in 1924 following a generous gift from an anonymous donor, who is now believed to have been Sir Cecil Cochrane, a major benefactor to the university.[87] It is built in the neo-Jacobean style and was designed by the local architect Robert Burns Dick. It was opened on 22 October 1925 by the Rt. Hon. Lord Eustace Percy, who later served as Rector of King's College from 1937 to 1952. It is a Grade II listed building. In 2010 the university donated £8 million towards a redevelopment project for the Union Building.

 

The Students' Union is run by seven paid sabbatical officers, including a Welfare and Equality Officer, and ten part-time unpaid officer positions. The former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron was President of NUSU in 1991–1992. The Students' Union also employs around 300 people in ancillary roles including bar staff and entertainment organisers.

 

The Courier is a weekly student newspaper. Established in 1948, the current weekly readership is around 12,000, most of whom are students at the university. The Courier has won The Guardian's Student Publication of the Year award twice in a row, in 2012 and 2013. It is published every Monday during term time.

 

Newcastle Student Radio is a student radio station based in the university. It produces shows on music, news, talk and sport and aims to cater for a wide range of musical tastes.

 

NUTV, known as TCTV from 2010 to 2017, is student television channel, first established in 2007. It produces live and on-demand content with coverage of events, as well as student-made programmes and shows.

 

Student exchange

Newcastle University has signed over 100 agreements with foreign universities allowing for student exchange to take place reciprocally.

 

Sport

Newcastle is one of the leading universities for sport in the UK and is consistently ranked within the top 12 out of 152 higher education institutions in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) rankings. More than 50 student-led sports clubs are supported through a team of professional staff and a network of indoor and outdoor sports facilities based over four sites. The university have a strong rugby history and were the winners of the Northumberland Senior Cup in 1965.

 

The university enjoys a friendly sporting rivalry with local universities. The Stan Calvert Cup was held between 1994 and 2018 by major sports teams from Newcastle and Northumbria University. The Boat Race of the North has also taken place between the rowing clubs of Newcastle and Durham University.

 

As of 2023, Newcastle University F.C. compete in men's senior football in the Northern League Division Two.

 

The university's Cochrane Park sports facility was a training venue for the teams playing football games at St James' Park for the 2012 London Olympics.

 

A

Ali Mohamed Shein, 7th President of Zanzibar

Richard Adams - fairtrade businessman

Kate Adie - journalist

Yasmin Ahmad - Malaysian film director, writer and scriptwriter

Prince Adewale Aladesanmi - Nigerian prince and businessman

Jane Alexander - Bishop

Theodosios Alexander (BSc Marine Engineering 1981) - Dean, Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology of Saint Louis University

William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong - industrialist; in 1871 founded College of Physical Science, an early part of the University

Roy Ascott - new media artist

Dennis Assanis - President, University of Delaware

Neil Astley - publisher, editor and writer

Rodney Atkinson - eurosceptic conservative academic

Rowan Atkinson - comedian and actor

Kane Avellano - Guinness World Record for youngest person to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle (solo and unsupported) at the age of 23 in 2017

B

Bruce Babbitt - U.S. politician; 16th Governor of Arizona (1978–1987); 47th United States Secretary of the Interior (1993–2001); Democrat

James Baddiley - biochemist, based at Newcastle University 1954–1983; the Baddiley-Clark building is named in part after him

Tunde Baiyewu - member of the Lighthouse Family

John C. A. Barrett - clergyman

G. W. S. Barrow - historian

Neil Bartlett - chemist, creation of the first noble gas compounds (BSc and PhD at King's College, University of Durham, later Newcastle University)

Sue Beardsmore - television presenter

Alan Beith - politician

Jean Benedetti - biographer, translator, director and dramatist

Phil Bennion - politician

Catherine Bertola - contemporary painter

Simon Best - Captain of the Ulster Rugby team; Prop for the Ireland Team

Andy Bird - CEO of Disney International

Rory Jonathan Courtenay Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan - heir apparent to the earldom of Cork

David Bradley - science writer

Mike Brearley - professional cricketer, formerly a lecturer in philosophy at the university (1968–1971)

Constance Briscoe - one of the first black women to sit as a judge in the UK; author of the best-selling autobiography Ugly; found guilty in May 2014 on three charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice; jailed for 16 months

Steve Brooks - entomologist; attained BSc in Zoology and MSc in Public Health Engineering from Newcastle University in 1976 and 1977 respectively

Thom Brooks - academic, columnist

Gavin Brown - academic

Vicki Bruce - psychologist

Basil Bunting - poet; Northern Arts Poetry Fellow at Newcastle University (1968–70); honorary DLitt in 1971

John Burgan - documentary filmmaker

Mark Burgess - computer scientist

Sir John Burn - Professor of Clinical Genetics at Newcastle University Medical School; Medical Director and Head of the Institute of Genetics; Newcastle Medical School alumnus

William Lawrence Burn - historian and lawyer, history chair at King's College, Newcastle (1944–66)

John Harrison Burnett - botanist, chair of Botany at King's College, Newcastle (1960–68)

C.

Richard Caddel - poet

Ann Cairns - President of International Markets for MasterCard

Deborah Cameron - linguist

Stuart Cameron - lecturer

John Ashton Cannon - historian; Professor of Modern History; Head of Department of History from 1976 until his appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Arts in 1979; Pro-Vice-Chancellor 1983–1986

Ian Carr - musician

Jimmy Cartmell - rugby player, Newcastle Falcons

Steve Chapman - Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University

Dion Chen - Hong Kong educator, principal of Ying Wa College and former principal of YMCA of Hong Kong Christian College

Hsing Chia-hui - author

Ashraf Choudhary - scientist

Chua Chor Teck - Managing Director of Keppel Group

Jennifer A. Clack - palaeontologist

George Clarke - architect

Carol Clewlow - novelist

Brian Clouston - landscape architect

Ed Coode - Olympic gold medallist

John Coulson - chemical engineering academic

Caroline Cox, Baroness Cox - cross-bench member of the British House of Lords

Nicola Curtin – Professor of Experimental Cancer Therapeutics

Pippa Crerar - Political Editor of the Daily Mirror

D

Fred D'Aguiar - author

Julia Darling - poet, playwright, novelist, MA in Creative Writing

Simin Davoudi - academic

Richard Dawson - civil engineering academic and member of the UK Committee on Climate Change

Tom Dening - medical academic and researcher

Katie Doherty - singer-songwriter

Nowell Donovan - vice-chancellor for academic affairs and Provost of Texas Christian University

Catherine Douglas - Ig Nobel Prize winner for Veterinary Medicine

Annabel Dover - artist, studied fine art 1994–1998

Alexander Downer - Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs (1996–2007)

Chloë Duckworth - archaeologist and presenter

Chris Duffield - Town Clerk and Chief Executive of the City of London Corporation

E

Michael Earl - academic

Tom English - drummer, Maxïmo Park

Princess Eugenie - member of the British royal family. Eugenie is a niece of King Charles III and a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II. She began studying at Newcastle University in September 2009, graduating in 2012 with a 2:1 degree in English Literature and History of Art.

F

U. A. Fanthorpe - poet

Frank Farmer - medical physicist; professor of medical physics at Newcastle University in 1966

Terry Farrell - architect

Tim Farron - former Liberal Democrat leader and MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale

Ian Fells - professor

Andy Fenby - rugby player

Bryan Ferry - singer, songwriter and musician, member of Roxy Music and solo artist; studied fine art

E. J. Field - neuroscientist, director of the university's Demyelinating Disease Unit

John Niemeyer Findlay - philosopher

John Fitzgerald - computer scientist

Vicky Forster - cancer researcher

Maximimlian (Max) Fosh- YouTuber and independent candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election.

Rose Frain - artist

G

Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster - aristocrat, billionaire, businessman and landowner

Peter Gibbs - television weather presenter

Ken Goodall - rugby player

Peter Gooderham - British ambassador

Michael Goodfellow - Professor in Microbial Systematics

Robert Goodwill - politician

Richard Gordon - author

Teresa Graham - accountant

Thomas George Greenwell - National Conservative Member of Parliament

H

Sarah Hainsworth - Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Aston University

Reginald Hall - endocrinologist, Professor of Medicine (1970–1980)

Alex Halliday - Professor of Geochemistry, University of Oxford

Richard Hamilton - artist

Vicki L. Hanson - computer scientist; honorary doctorate in 2017

Rupert Harden - professional rugby union player

Tim Head - artist

Patsy Healey - professor

Alastair Heathcote - rower

Dorothy Heathcote - academic

Adrian Henri - 'Mersey Scene' poet and painter

Stephen Hepburn - politician

Jack Heslop-Harrison - botanist

Tony Hey - computer scientist; honorary doctorate 2007

Stuart Hill - author

Jean Hillier - professor

Ken Hodcroft - Chairman of Hartlepool United; founder of Increased Oil Recovery

Robert Holden - landscape architect

Bill Hopkins - composer

David Horrobin - entrepreneur

Debbie Horsfield - writer of dramas, including Cutting It

John House - geographer

Paul Hudson - weather presenter

Philip Hunter - educationist

Ronald Hunt – Art Historian who was librarian at the Art Department

Anya Hurlbert - visual neuroscientis

I

Martin Ince - journalist and media adviser, founder of the QS World University Rankings

Charles Innes-Ker - Marquess of Bowmont and Cessford

Mark Isherwood - politician

Jonathan Israel - historian

J

Alan J. Jamieson - marine biologist

George Neil Jenkins - medical researcher

Caroline Johnson - Conservative Member of Parliament

Wilko Johnson - guitarist with 1970s British rhythm and blues band Dr. Feelgood

Rich Johnston - comic book writer and cartoonist

Anna Jones - businesswoman

Cliff Jones - computer scientist

Colin Jones - historian

David E. H. Jones - chemist

Francis R. Jones - poetry translator and Reader in Translation Studies

Phil Jones - climatologist

Michael Jopling, Baron Jopling - Member of the House of Lords and the Conservative Party

Wilfred Josephs - dentist and composer

K

Michael King Jr. - civil rights leader; honorary graduate. In November 1967, MLK made a 24-hour trip to the United Kingdom to receive an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from Newcastle University, becoming the first African American the institution had recognised in this way.

Panayiotis Kalorkoti - artist; studied B.A. (Hons) in Fine Art (1976–80); Bartlett Fellow in the Visual Arts (1988)

Rashida Karmali - businesswoman

Jackie Kay - poet, novelist, Professor of Creative Writing

Paul Kennedy - historian of international relations and grand strategy

Mark Khangure - neuroradiologist

L

Joy Labinjo - artist

Henrike Lähnemann - German medievalist

Dave Leadbetter - politician

Lim Boon Heng - Singapore Minister

Lin Hsin Hsin - IT inventor, artist, poet and composer

Anne Longfield - children's campaigner, former Children's Commissioner for England

Keith Ludeman - businessman

M

Jack Mapanje - writer and poet

Milton Margai - first prime minister of Sierra Leone (medical degree from the Durham College of Medicine, later Newcastle University Medical School)

Laurence Martin - war studies writer

Murray Martin, documentary and docudrama filmmaker, co-founder of Amber Film & Photography Collective

Adrian Martineau – medical researcher and professor of respiratory Infection and immunity at Queen Mary University of London

Carl R. May - sociologist

Tom May - professional rugby union player, now with Northampton Saints, and capped by England

Kate McCann – journalist and television presenter

Ian G. McKeith – professor of Old Age Psychiatry

John Anthony McGuckin - Orthodox Christian scholar, priest, and poet

Wyl Menmuir - novelist

Zia Mian - physicist

Richard Middleton - musicologist

Mary Midgley - moral philosopher

G.C.J. Midgley - philosopher

Moein Moghimi - biochemist and nanoscientist

Hermann Moisl - linguist

Anthony Michaels-Moore - Operatic Baritone

Joanna Moncrieff - Critical Psychiatrist

Theodore Morison - Principal of Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne (1919–24)

Andy Morrell - footballer

Frank Moulaert - professor

Mo Mowlam - former British Labour Party Member of Parliament, former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, lecturer at Newcastle University

Chris Mullin - former British Labour Party Member of Parliament, author, visiting fellow

VA Mundella - College of Physical Science, 1884—1887; lecturer in physics at the College, 1891—1896: Professor of Physics at Northern Polytechnic Institute and Principal of Sunderland Technical College.

Richard Murphy - architect

N

Lisa Nandy - British Labour Party Member of Parliament, former Shadow Foreign Secretary

Karim Nayernia - biomedical scientist

Dianne Nelmes - TV producer

O

Sally O'Reilly - writer

Mo O'Toole - former British Labour Party Member of European Parliament

P

Ewan Page - founding director of the Newcastle University School of Computing and briefly acting vice-chancellor; later appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Reading

Rachel Pain - academic

Amanda Parker - Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire since 2023

Geoff Parling - Leicester Tigers rugby player

Chris Patten, Baron Patten of Barnes - British Conservative politician and Chancellor of the University (1999–2009)

Chris M Pattinson former Great Britain International Swimmer 1976-1984

Mick Paynter - Cornish poet and Grandbard

Robert A. Pearce - academic

Hugh Percy, 10th Duke of Northumberland - Chancellor of the University (1964–1988)

Jonathan Pile - Showbiz Editor, ZOO magazine

Ben Pimlott - political historian; PhD and lectureship at Newcastle University (1970–79)

Robin Plackett - statistician

Alan Plater - playwright and screenwriter

Ruth Plummer - Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research and Fellow of the UK's Academy of Medical Sciences.

Poh Kwee Ong - Deputy President of SembCorp Marine

John Porter - musician

Rob Powell - former London Broncos coach

Stuart Prebble - former chief executive of ITV

Oliver Proudlock - Made in Chelsea star; creator of Serge De Nîmes clothing line[

Mark Purnell - palaeontologist

Q

Pirzada Qasim - Pakistani scholar, Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi

Joyce Quin, Baroness Quin - politician

R

Andy Raleigh - Rugby League player for Wakefield Trinity Wildcats

Brian Randell - computer scientist

Rupert Mitford, 6th Baron Redesdale - Liberal Democrat spokesman in the House of Lords for International Development

Alastair Reynolds - novelist, former research astronomer with the European Space Agency

Ben Rice - author

Lewis Fry Richardson - mathematician, studied at the Durham College of Science in Newcastle

Matthew White Ridley, 4th Viscount Ridley - Chancellor of the University 1988-1999

Colin Riordan - VC of Cardiff University, Professor of German Studies (1988–2006)

Susie Rodgers - British Paralympic swimmer

Nayef Al-Rodhan - philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Neil Rollinson - poet

Johanna Ropner - Lord lieutenant of North Yorkshire

Sharon Rowlands - CEO of ReachLocal

Peter Rowlinson - Ig Nobel Prize winner for Veterinary Medicine

John Rushby - computer scientist

Camilla Rutherford - actress

S

Jonathan Sacks - former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

Ross Samson - Scottish rugby union footballer; studied history

Helen Scales - marine biologist, broadcaster, and writer

William Scammell - poet

Fred B. Schneider - computer scientist; honorary doctorate in 2003

Sean Scully - painter

Nigel Shadbolt - computer scientist

Tom Shakespeare - geneticist

Jo Shapcott - poet

James Shapiro - Canadian surgeon and scientist

Jack Shepherd - actor and playwright

Mark Shucksmith - professor

Chris Simms - crime thriller novel author

Graham William Smith - probation officer, widely regarded as the father of the national probation service

Iain Smith - Scottish politician

Paul Smith - singer, Maxïmo Park

John Snow - discoverer of cholera transmission through water; leader in the adoption of anaesthesia; one of the 8 students enrolled on the very first term of the Medical School

William Somerville - agriculturist, professor of agriculture and forestry at Durham College of Science (later Newcastle University)

Ed Stafford - explorer, walked the length of the Amazon River

Chris Steele-Perkins - photographer

Chris Stevenson - academic

Di Stewart - Sky Sports News reader

Diana Stöcker - German CDU Member of Parliament

Miodrag Stojković - genetics researcher

Miriam Stoppard - physician, author and agony aunt

Charlie van Straubenzee - businessman and investment executive

Peter Straughan - playwright and short story writer

T

Mathew Tait - rugby union footballer

Eric Thomas - academic

David Tibet - cult musician and poet

Archis Tiku - bassist, Maxïmo Park

James Tooley - professor

Elsie Tu - politician

Maurice Tucker - sedimentologist

Paul Tucker - member of Lighthouse Family

George Grey Turner - surgeon

Ronald F. Tylecote - archaeologist

V

Chris Vance - actor in Prison Break and All Saints

Géza Vermes - scholar

Geoff Vigar - lecturer

Hugh Vyvyan - rugby union player

W

Alick Walker - palaeontologist

Matthew Walker - Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley

Tom Walker - Sunday Times foreign correspondent

Lord Walton of Detchant - physician; President of the GMC, BMA, RSM; Warden of Green College, Oxford (1983–1989)

Kevin Warwick - Professor of Cybernetics; former Lecturer in Electrical & Electronic Engineering

Duncan Watmore - footballer at Millwall F.C.

Mary Webb - artist

Charlie Webster - television sports presenter

Li Wei - Chair of Applied Linguistics at UCL Institute of Education, University College London

Joseph Joshua Weiss - Professor of Radiation Chemistry

Robert Westall - children's writer, twice winner of Carnegie Medal

Thomas Stanley Westoll - Fellow of the Royal Society

Gillian Whitehead - composer

William Whitfield - architect, later designed the Hadrian Building and the Northern Stage

Claire Williams - motorsport executive

Zoe Williams - sportswoman, worked on Gladiators

Donald I. Williamson - planktologist and carcinologist

Philip Williamson - former Chief Executive of Nationwide Building Society

John Willis - Royal Air Force officer and council member of the University

Lukas Wooller - keyboard player, Maxïmo Park

Graham Wylie - co-founder of the Sage Group; studied Computing Science & Statistics BSc and graduated in 1980; awarded an honorary doctorate in 2004

Y

Hisila Yami, Nepalese politician and former Minister of Physical Planning and Works (Government of Nepal

John Yorke - Controller of Continuing Drama; Head of Independent Drama at the BBC

Martha Young-Scholten - linguist

Paul Younger - hydrogeologist

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

Hope Loring

scenarist and scriptwriter

born Mary Hayes on January 29 1887, probably in Ottumwa Iowa.

 

Hope Loring was a scenarist and scriptwriter who had credits on some of the most successful and influential hits of the era, for instance Wings (1927) and It (1927). She arrived in Hollywood by 1917 and married fellow writer and producer Louis Lighton in 1920. The couple became successful and well-connected professionally and upwardly mobile socially in Hollywood between 1920 and 1940. Hope drew my attention because of the extensive and excellent write up of her life and career at the Women Film Pioneers Project of Columbia University website (wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-hope-loring/#citation ).

 

This biography, good as it is, accepts Hope Loring’s own account of her pre-Hollywood life without sufficient skepticism and doesn’t go much beyond the self-publicity Hope spun for the newspapers and movie mags. What follows is my attempt to outline her life based on publicly available records (mostly at ancestry.com).

 

Hope Loring gave varying accounts of her origins to those who asked over the years. She often claimed to have been born in Spain, (Barcelona by some accounts, Madrid in others) to a couple who were killed in an automobile crash when she was a baby. An aunt then took her to live in England before she eventually came to the US at age 5. She reported that she had been a dancer in New York and a drama critic in Florida before coming to Hollywood. She married Hollywood writer and producer Louis Lighton in 1920. She had a daughter, Patricia. (wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-hope-loring/)

 

The records concerning this woman paint a more complex, if less exotic, story. Some public records for Hope Loring give her birthplace as Spain, but others give it as Iowa. When she married writer Louis Lighton 26 April 1920, it was under the name Mary Wetherell. Hope Loring/Mary Wetherell had a daughter, Patricia who was born 28 Jan 1911 in Everett, Washington. The Washington State Birth Index give her parents’ names as Robert M. Wetherell and Patricia Hayes.

 

When Hope Loring applied for a US Passport in 1919 in connection to her work for Universal Studios, it was rejected because she hadn’t used her legal name, and she had to reapply as Mary Wetherell. Mary’s identity was attested to by one Eva M. Hayes who says she has known Mary since her birth. Tracking down Eva Hayes it turns out she is the wife of a Samuel Sherman Hayes and that the Illinois-born couple are living in Los Angeles in 1920 with their daughter, Hope Loring. The 1900 US Census for Ottumwa, Iowa finds SS Hays and his wife, Eva May with two daughters the eldest of whom I believe is our subject, Mary H Hay(e)s, born January 1887.

 

Regarding the birth year of Hope Loring, she pretty consistently gave 1893 or 1894, but that would have made her a mother at the young age of 18 at the oldest, and evidence from Tampa FL city directories suggests that she was married to Robert Wetherell as early as 1906 when she would have been 13 years old. The birth year of 1887 given in the 1900 Iowa Census seems to fit better with the what’s known of her life, having her marry Wetherell around age 19 and bear her daughter Patricia in 1911 when she was 24.

 

So here is a timeline, based on what I know and infer for Hope Loring:

 

January 1887 - Mary H. Hayes is born, probably at Ottumwa Iowa, to Samuel Sherman and Eva May (Parish) Hayes.

 

About 1905 – Mary Hayes marries Robert M. Wetherell. By 1906 the couple is living in Tampa FL where Robert is a bank employee.

 

In 1906 and 1908 the Robert Wetherell and his wife Mary are listed in the Tampa city directories living with Robert’s mother Harriett, widow of Oscar Wetherell.

 

The 1910 and 1911 directories for Everett WA list Robert M Wetherell. His wife, Patricia also appears in 1911. Their daughter, Patricia Wetherell, is born in Everett in January 1911.

By 1913 it looks like Robert and Mary/Patricia are back in Tampa where they also are in the 1915 directory. Thereafter, Robert is listed without a wife until he remarries by 1923.

 

In 1917 Hope Loring, writer, is listed in the city directory for Los Angeles CA.

 

There is a curious incident that doesn’t exactly square with this timeline that took place in New York City in July 1914. An article in the New York Times describes an attack on and attempted murder of one Hope Loring, a cabaret dancer at Rector’s Restaurant near Times Square, by a jilted admirer. Hope Loring was able to plead for her life and eventually escape and summon help. Details in the article make it plausible that this is Mary Wetherell. A: by 1917, Mary is known to be using the name, Hope Loring. B: the New York woman has a three-year-old daughter in 1914 as does Mary Wetherell. C: Hope Loring the screenwriter said in interviews that she had been a dancer before coming to Hollywood.

 

She may have chosen the name from a popular novel titled “Hope Loring” published in 1908 by Lillian Bell.

 

May 1919 - Mary Wetherell applies for a passport to travel to Great Britain and France in connection to her work for Universal, possibly on the film, The Vanishing Dagger. She has been working two years at this time. Her mother, Eva M, Hayes, attested to her identity.

 

January 1920 - “Hope Loring” appears in the 1920 Census of Los Angeles living with her parents, Samuel and Eva Hayes. Her marital status is “divorced”. She is using the fictionalized biographical info she would later had been giving to the press, that is, that she was born in Spain to an Irish father and Spanish mother and that she immigrated in 1910. Her age in the census would indicate a birth year of 1895.

 

January 1920 – Robert M. Wetherell is living in the household of his widowed mother in Tampa FL, with his 8-year-old daughter, Patricia. His marital status is “divorced”.

 

April 26, 1920 – Hope marries screenwriter

and producer Louis Lighton in LA under the name, Mary Wetherell. Some time after this, her daughter, Patricia, joins her in California. This may have been related to Hope’s first husband Robert Wetherell remarrying by 1923 in Florida.

 

1930 US Census has Louis Lighton, wife, Hope, and daughter, Patricia Lighton living at 640 Beverley Drive in Beverley Hills, LA along with 3 servants.

 

26 June 1937 - Mary Pickford married Charles “Buddy” Rogers at the home of her friends Louis Lighton and Hope Loring. I’m not sure but I think this must have been at the Lightons’ home on Perugia Way in Bel Air which would be a much more private setting thn the home on Beverley Drive.

 

1940 US Census has Louis Lighton and Hope living at 616 Perugia Way in LA adjacent to the Bel Air Country Club.

   

Spanish collector's card. Chocolate Salas-Sabadell,No. 4. 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 man on the left is Bonaventura Ibanez.

 

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.

American Arcade card. Ex. Sup. Co., Chicago. Pathé.

 

Leo Daniel Maloney (San Jose or Santa Rosa, 4 January 1888 - New York, 2 November 1929) was an American actor, stuntman, director and screenwriter. As an actor, he appeared in 183 films. He directed forty-eight films, produced thirteen and wrote the screenplay for ten films.

 

Maloney started his film career in 1911 at Selig, as bit actor opposite western hero Tom Mix. In 1912 he played at Nestor under direction of Milton J. Fahrney and at Bison under direction of Thomas Ince, before moving over in 1913 to the Kalem company. Under direction of J.P. McGowan Maloney became the male lead (hero or villain) opposite McGowan's wife Helen Holmes in countless two-reelers as well as the Helen Holmes serial The Hazards of Helen (1914-1915), which was a huge success. In parallel to his work at Kalem, from 1914 Maloney also started to act in the Tom Mix films at Selig, directed by Mix himself. In 1916-1917 Maloney mainly co-acted in the Helen Holmes serials The Girl and the Game (1916), A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916), The Railroad Raiders (1917), and The Lost Express (1917), now made at Signal Films, the company of McGowan and Holmes. But when Signal's distributor Mutual collapsed, it also meant the end for the Holmes serials.

 

So, while Maloney's production was low in 1918 (possibly because of the above), it increased again in 1919-1920, now working for Universal. From 1920 he also directed some of his films there, such as The Honor of the Range (1920) and One Law for All (1920), while at Arrow Film he acted in the crime serial The Fatal Sign (Stuart Paton, 1920). In 1922-1923 he made many short westerns as the Range Rider, with Ford Beebe as director, for their own company Malobee Productions. In 1925 he built the Leo Maloney Studio, aka Skyland Studio, in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California, a studio village of fifty buildings where thirty-five people could live all year around. In 1924-25 Maloney directed several of his westerns for producer William Steiner, with Beebe as his scriptwriter, while from 1926 he did a few westerns distributed by Pathé, such as The High Hand (1926). By the end of the silent era he was still directing himself, but also acted under direction of Richard Thorpe in serials like The Vanishing West (1928). In 1929 the West vanished for Maloney himself. After having directed, and acted in what is known as the first B-western with sound, Overland Bound (1929), Maloney died of a heart attack, brought on by acute and chronic alcoholism, while at a party in Manhattan to celebrate the completion of that picture.

 

Sources: Italian and English Wikipedia, IMDb.

   

French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leurs expressions series by Paris sur Scene, no. 1047.

 

Marcel Lévesque (1877-1962) was a French actor and scriptwriter who excelled in French silent and sound comedies but also played memorable parts in the crime serials by Feuillade and in Renoir’s Le crime de M. Lange.