Mary Bayma-Riva
Italian postcard by Ed. Vettori, Bologna, no. 217. Photo: Civirani, Roma.
Mary Bayma-Riva (?-?) was an actress of Italian silent cinema of the 1910s and early 1920s, acting at companies such as Gloria and Floreal Film in films like Florette et Patapon (1913) and Il pastor fido (1918).
After a brief contact with the short-lived Torino Films in 1912, in 1913 Mary Bayma-Riva entered the Gloria company in Turin. Here she acted in major roles as in the comedy of misunderstandings Florette e Patapon (Mario Caserini, 1913), based on the popular boulevard comedy by Hennequin and Veber. Bayma played Clara, the fiancee of the secretary Giuliano Barbet (Camillo De Riso). The comedy, which also had Maria Caserini, Lydia Quaranta, Gentile Miotti, Vittorio Rossi-Pianelli, and Mario Bonnard amongst its main actors, was a giant success in Italy and abroad. The success of the little, rotund De Riso inspired him to start directing comedies, e.g. the farce Sonnambulismo (1913), in which he is wild about his maid (Bayma-Riva), but his wife takes revenge. Bayma-Riva then did one film, Jack (Eugenio Testa, 1913) at Isis Film, before returning to Gloria until mid-1914. She then moved to Psiche Film for parts in Le avventure del barone di Münchhausen (Paolo Azzurri, 1914) and Rose fatali (Attilio D'Anversa, 1914). From 1915 Bayma-Riva acted for several years at Floreal Film, even she alternated with films at other companies (Megale Film, Polifilms, Lombardo Film, etc.). At Floreal, she played e.g the title characters in La principessa Nadina (Elio Gioppo, 1915) and in Astrid (Alberto Carlo Lolli, 1917), while she acted opposite Annibale Ninchi in Il pastor fido (Telemaco Ruggeri, 1918) and Le mariage de Chiffon (Lolli, 1918). The former was based on a classic Arcadian drama (1590) by Giovan Battista Guarini about a shepherd, Mirtillo, who sacrifices himself when his beloved Amarilli is condemned to death. The latter was a turn of the century romance about a teenage girl torn between a planned marriage to a much older military officer and her unacknowledged love for her uncle, an aviation pioneer. Bayma-Riva's last role at Floreal was that of the title character in Francesca da Rimini (Carlo Dalbani, Mario Volpe, 1922). She then married the director Guido Parisch and withdrew from the film world.
Sources: IMDb. Aldo Bernardini/Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano. Aldo Bernardini, Cinema muto italiano protagonisti.
Mary Bayma-Riva
Italian postcard by Ed. Vettori, Bologna, no. 217. Photo: Civirani, Roma.
Mary Bayma-Riva (?-?) was an actress of Italian silent cinema of the 1910s and early 1920s, acting at companies such as Gloria and Floreal Film in films like Florette et Patapon (1913) and Il pastor fido (1918).
After a brief contact with the short-lived Torino Films in 1912, in 1913 Mary Bayma-Riva entered the Gloria company in Turin. Here she acted in major roles as in the comedy of misunderstandings Florette e Patapon (Mario Caserini, 1913), based on the popular boulevard comedy by Hennequin and Veber. Bayma played Clara, the fiancee of the secretary Giuliano Barbet (Camillo De Riso). The comedy, which also had Maria Caserini, Lydia Quaranta, Gentile Miotti, Vittorio Rossi-Pianelli, and Mario Bonnard amongst its main actors, was a giant success in Italy and abroad. The success of the little, rotund De Riso inspired him to start directing comedies, e.g. the farce Sonnambulismo (1913), in which he is wild about his maid (Bayma-Riva), but his wife takes revenge. Bayma-Riva then did one film, Jack (Eugenio Testa, 1913) at Isis Film, before returning to Gloria until mid-1914. She then moved to Psiche Film for parts in Le avventure del barone di Münchhausen (Paolo Azzurri, 1914) and Rose fatali (Attilio D'Anversa, 1914). From 1915 Bayma-Riva acted for several years at Floreal Film, even she alternated with films at other companies (Megale Film, Polifilms, Lombardo Film, etc.). At Floreal, she played e.g the title characters in La principessa Nadina (Elio Gioppo, 1915) and in Astrid (Alberto Carlo Lolli, 1917), while she acted opposite Annibale Ninchi in Il pastor fido (Telemaco Ruggeri, 1918) and Le mariage de Chiffon (Lolli, 1918). The former was based on a classic Arcadian drama (1590) by Giovan Battista Guarini about a shepherd, Mirtillo, who sacrifices himself when his beloved Amarilli is condemned to death. The latter was a turn of the century romance about a teenage girl torn between a planned marriage to a much older military officer and her unacknowledged love for her uncle, an aviation pioneer. Bayma-Riva's last role at Floreal was that of the title character in Francesca da Rimini (Carlo Dalbani, Mario Volpe, 1922). She then married the director Guido Parisch and withdrew from the film world.
Sources: IMDb. Aldo Bernardini/Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano. Aldo Bernardini, Cinema muto italiano protagonisti.