Polidor
Vintage Spanish minicard. Polidor (Pasquali & Cie).
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 during 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: Italian Wikipedia, IMDB, Ivo Blom in Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (Routledge).
Polidor
Vintage Spanish minicard. Polidor (Pasquali & Cie).
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 during 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: Italian Wikipedia, IMDB, Ivo Blom in Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (Routledge).