Jean Galland (1897-1967) was a French actor who was known for such early sound films as Fantômas (1932) and Le jugement de minuit (1933). After the war, he played supporting parts in classics by Jean Becker and Max Ophüls.
French postcard, no. 20.
French postcard by Editions et Publications cinématographiques (EPC), no. 97.
"Indecent," "immoral", and tending to "corrupt morals"
Jean Charles Pierre Galland was born in 1897 in Laval, in the Mayenne department in France, into a family of magistrates. He studied law and prepared for the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. But soon, the First World War called him up. In 1916, he was seriously injured in Verdun and returned to civilian life with the rank of lieutenant.
After the war, his life had a turning point. By chance, he found himself in the middle of a group of actors, and this triggered him in an unexpected direction despite the opposition of his family. He made his stage debut in the music hall and then, under the pseudonym Jean Gallot, he joined the prestigious Vieux Colombier theatre company directed by Jacques Copeau. He stayed there for three years and then moved to the Boulevard Theatre.
With the advent of talking pictures, he began a career in cinema. Galland made his film debut in Paris la nuit / Paris By Night (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1930), starring Marguerite Moreno and Armand Bernard. Galland played another supporting part in the war drama Les croix de bois / The Wooden Crosses (Raymond Bernard, 1932) with Pierre Blanchar. He played Captain Cruchet, who experienced the horrors of the trenches during the First World War with his comrades.
He had his breakthrough as the mysterious star of the crime thriller Fantômas (Pál Fejös, 1932) opposite Tania Fedor and Thomy Bourdelle as Inspector Juve. That same year, he had a leading part in Gance's dreadful melodrama Mater dolorosa (Abel Gance, 1932) with Line Noro. He appeared as the husband of Jeanne Boitel in the romantic drama Remous / Whirlpool (Edmond T. Gréville, 1935). Galland played a newly-married man who is paralysed and impotent after a car accident. His sexually frustrated wife, who loves him, has a short affair with an athletic, handsome man. When the husband learns of the affair, he commits suicide. U.S. censors twice denied American distributors a license for the film as being "indecent," "immoral", and tending to "corrupt morals."
In Germany, Galland co-starred in the romantic drama Die Unbekannte / The Unknown (Frank Wisbar, 1936) opposite Sybille Schmitz. It was inspired by the famous death of an unknown woman who was discovered drowned in the River Seine in Paris. He also appeared in Gréville's Menaces.. / Threats (Edmond T. Gréville, 1940) with Mireille Balin, John Loder and Erich von Stroheim. The film was completed in September 1938 under the title Cinq jours d'angoisse, but before it could be released, the film was partially destroyed by fire. This required many of the scenes to be refilmed.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2071/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Piaz, Paris.
French collector card. Photo: Teddy Piaz.
The most perfect film ever made
After an interval during and after the war, Jean Galland returned to the screen as the snobbish uncle of Caroline in the warm and optimistic romantic comedy-drama Edouard et Caroline (Jacques Becker, 1951), featuring Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon. DB DuMonteil at IMDb: "My god, I love this film! Among Jacques Becker's small filmography (13 movies in all), this is perhaps the most overlooked one. The plot is very thin, and the whole story takes place in two apartments, Edouard and Caroline's modest home, and her uncle's luxurious dwelling."
Next, Galland appeared in another classic, the Guy de Maupassant adaptation Le Plaisir / Pleasure (Max Ophüls, 1951) with Claude Dauphin and Gaby Morlay. He also played a supporting part in Ophüls's romantic drama Madame de... / The Earrings of Madame de... (Max Ophüls, 1953), starring Danielle Darrieux. The film is considered a masterpiece of 1950s French cinema, with film critic Andrew Sarris calling it "the most perfect film ever made".
In the following decades, Galland continued acting in films, theatre and later, television. His later films included Marianne de ma jeunesse / Marianne of My Youth (Julien Duvivier, 1955) with Marianne Hold and Pierre Vaneck, Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955) starring Martine Carol, and La tête contre les murs (Georges Franju, 1959) with Pierre Brasseur and Jean-Pierre Mocky.
Later he appeared in Mocky's comedies Snobs! (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1962), Les vierges / The Virgins (1962) and Un drôle de paroissien / Thank Heaven for Small Favors (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1963) starring Bourvil. He also played a bank director in Une Manche et la Bell / What Price Murder? (1957) by Henri Verneuil and Arthur's uncle in Les godelureaux / Wise Guys (1960) by Claude Chabrol.
From 1931, Jean Galland ran with Charles Saint Pouloff the cinema Théâtre Le Ranelagh in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. A renowned mountaineer, he made a documentary film, which he presented in Cherbourg in 1959. In 1967, he retired definitively from artistic life to take charge of a pharmaceutical laboratory. In 1967, he died of a heart attack at the age of 70 while on tour in Evian-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, and is buried in the family grave in the Condé-sur-Noireau cemetery in Calvados. Jean Galland was married for 30 years, from 1926 to 1957, to the actress Germaine Dermoz, with whom he had a daughter, Anne-Marie. He then married Annie Maillard.
French postcard, no. 20.
French postcard by Editions et Publications Cinématographiques, no. 97.
American actress Farrah Fawcett (1947-2009) became known as Jill Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels (1976-1981). In the 1970s, she was considered a sex symbol. Later, her reputation as a serious actress grew, and Fawcett was nominated four times for the Emmy and six times for the Golden Globe but was never honoured.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
West German collector card by Bravo. Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith in Charlie's Angels (1976–1981).
The best-selling poster to date
Farrah Fawcett was born Mary Ferrah Leni Fawcett in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1947. She was the younger daughter of Pauline Alice and James William Fawcett, who worked in the oil business. Her mother came up with the name ‘Ferrah’ because she thought it fit the surname so well. Fawcett later changed it to Farrah. As a child, she showed sporting ability, which her father encouraged. She attended John J. Pershing Middle School in Houston and graduated from W.B. Ray High School in 1965.
She studied at the University of Texas at Austin and was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. She graduated with a degree in Microbiology, but she only wanted to be an actress. Winning a campus beauty contest got her noticed by an agent. She moved to Los Angeles, and her healthy, all-American blond beauty was immediately noticed. In 1968, she met another Southerner, actor Lee Majors, star of the popular TV series The Big Valley (1965), on a blind date set up by their publicists. He became very taken with her and also used his standing to promote her career.
Fawcett started her career in commercials, including Noxema shaving soap, Ultra Bright toothpaste, Wella and the Mercury Cougar. Her earliest acting appearances were guest spots on The Flying Nun (1969) and I Dream of Jeannie (1969–1970). She also appeared in the French romantic-drama Un homme qui me plaît / Love Is a Funny Thing (Claude Lelouch, 1969) with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Annie Girardot and played Mary-Jane Phelbs in the cult film Myra Breckinridge (Michael Sarne, 1970) with Raquel Welch, John Huston and Mae West. The controversial picture follows the exploits of a transgender woman who has undergone a sex change operation.
She won a recurring role in the crime series, Harry O (1973). Fawcett married Lee Majors in 1973 and was, from then on, known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors. She played in four episodes of his popular TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), about a cyborg. Farrah also had a supporting part in the successful Science-Fiction film Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976) starring Michael York.
Farrah Fawcett-Majors became a star through the series Charlie's Angels (1976-1977), with co-stars Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith. The series was about three female detectives working for an investigative agency called Charles Townsend Agency. Charlie's Angels was a global success. Each of the three actresses was propelled to stardom, but Fawcett dominated the popularity polls. She received her first Golden Globe nomination for her work in the show. Her hairstyle was copied by millions of women, and a poster of her in a red swimming suit sold six million copies in its first year in print and became the best-selling poster to date. Fawcett left Charlie's Angels after the first season to pursue more challenging roles in feature films. Fawcett was sued by Aaron Spelling, the show's producer, for breach of contract. The settlement stipulated, among other things, that Fawcett had to make six guest appearances in seasons three and four of the series until 1980. In 1979, she separated from Majors, and the couple divorced in 1982.
French postcard by Travelling Editions, Paris, no. CP 125.
An attempted rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker
After Charlie's Angels ended, Farrah Fawcett starred in several film flops. In 1979, People magazine called her ‘box office poison’ in an article. The British Sci-Fi thriller Saturn 3 (Stanley Donen, 1980) with Kirk Douglas was even nominated for three Razzie Awards, but the comedy The Cannonball Run (Hal Needham, 1981) with Burt Reynolds fared better and grossed over 70 million dollars in the USA. The mini-series Murder in Texas (William Hale, 1981), based on a true murder case, was also favourably received in the same year.
Fawcett remained true to the true crime genre in the following years. She also made several very successful biopics and dramas based on true stories for television. In 1982, Farrah Fawcett got into a relationship with film star Ryan O'Neal. They never married, despite several marriage proposals. With O'Neal, she had a son, Redmond O'Neal. In 1983, Fawcett received positive reviews for her performance in the controversial Off-Broadway play 'Extremities'. She played the role of an attempted rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker.
Highly acclaimed was her performance in the television film The Burning Bed (Paul Greenwald, 1985) with Paul Le Mat. It tells the true story of Francine Hughes, who killed her husband after years of domestic violence. The Burning Bed was the highest-rated television movie of the season. She received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination for her work. Fawcett was again nominated for an Emmy for the TV adaptation of Extremities (Robert M. Young, 1986). She was nominated for Golden Globe awards for roles as Beate Klarsfeld in Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1986) and troubled Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in the biopic Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (Charles Jarrott, 1987). Fawcett's reputation as a serious actress grew further with her roles as real-life murderer Diane Downs in the true-crime drama Small Sacrifices (David Greene, 1989) and groundbreaking LIFE magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White in Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (Lawrence Schiller, 1989).
In 1995, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her television work. In December of that year, she posed nude for Playboy, helping the magazine achieve its highest circulation in the 1990s. In 1997, at the age of 50, she took her clothes off again. Fawcett garnered strong reviews for her role opposite Robert Duvall in the film The Apostle (Robert Duvall, 1997). That year, her relationship with O'Neal ended. In 1998, she was seriously hurt by her new partner, filmmaker James Orr, when he proposed to her and she refused. The relationship ended when Orr was arrested, charged, and later convicted of beating her. Fawcett and O'Neal rekindled their relationship in 2001. One of her later films was the romantic comedy Dr T & the Women (Robert Altman, 2000), starring Richard Gere in the title role and Fawcett as his wife.
In the 21st century, she continued acting on television, holding recurring roles on the sitcom Spin City (2001) and the drama The Guardian (2002–2003). Her final film was the comedy The Cookout (Lance Rivera, 2004). In late 2006, Fawcett discovered that she suffered from anus cancer. The cancer later metastasised to her liver. During her treatments, she was filmed at her request for the documentary Farrah's Story (Farrah Fawcett, Alana Stewart, 2009). Farrah Fawcett died of the disease in 2009 at the age of 62. Shortly before her death, Ryan O'Neal had proposed to her. They wanted to get married as soon as possible. The wedding never took place. Fawcett was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles. At its premiere airing, the documentary Farrah's Story was watched by nearly nine million people. Fawcett posthumously earned her fourth Emmy nomination as the producer. In 2011, the red one-piece bathing suit Farrah Fawcett wore in her famous 1976 poster was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH).
British postcard by Pyramid, no. PC 8079. Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith in Charlie's Angels (1976–1981).
American film director, producer and screenwriter Allan Dwan (1885-1981) directed more than 400 short and feature films over 50 years. Along with Cecil B. DeMille, Dwan was one of the few directors who made the transition from the days of the one-reelers in the 1910s through the glory days of the studio system in the 1930s and 1940s and into its decline in the 1950s.
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1488/3, 1927-1928. Photo: Donald Biddle Keyes / Paramount / Parafumet. Gloria Swanson in Stage Struck (Allan Dwan, 1925).
French postcard by Europe, no. 453. Photo: United Artists / Regal Film. Douglas Fairbanks in The Iron Mask (Allan Dwan, 1929).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1483/5, 1937-1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox Film. Shirley Temple in Heidi (Allan Dwan, 1937).
Pressed into service as a director
Joseph Aloysius (Allan) Dwan was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1885. Dwan was the younger son of a commercial traveller of woollen clothing, Joseph Michael Dwan and his wife, Mary Jane Dwan (née Hunt). In 1892, Dwan moved with his family to America when he was seven years old and grew up in Chicago. He earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.
He started to work as an electrical engineer in Chicago for Cooper Hewitt Electric Company, installing Cooper-Hewitt lamps at the Chicago Post Office, opposite the Essanay film studio. Essanay exec George K. Spoor thought the lights could prove useful in film photography and contracted Dwan to design a bank of lights.
Dwan had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry, and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job in 1909. He wrote several screenplays for Essanay, first in Chicago, then in New York and from 1911, part-time in Hollywood.
His first directing assignment arrived almost by accident: he was "pressed into service" by the American Film Co. when one of its directors went AWOL on an alcoholic binge. Dwan operated Flying A Studios in La Mesa, California, from August 1911 to July 1912. Flying A was one of the first motion picture studios in California history.
In 1911–1913, Dwan turned out as many as 250 one-reelers — Westerns, comedies, and even documentaries, which rarely lasted longer than 15 minutes. All were written, edited, and produced by him, but few still exist. In 1913, he signed with the Universal Film Manufacturing Company, but within a year, he moved to the Famous Players Company in New York, and a year after that, he was working with D.W. Griffith at the Triangle Film Corporation.
Spanish minicard in the Series Intimidades cinematograficas, series I, card 16 of 20. Nita Naldiin an intermezzo with the director in Lawful Larceny (Allan Dwan, 1923). Caption: The modern Cleopatra.
Italian postcard by Ed. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 756. Photo: S.A.I. Films Paramount, Roma. Bebe Daniels, James Rennie and Ricardo Cortez in Argentine Love (Allan Dwan, 1924). Italian release title: Amore Argentino.
Italian postcard by Ed. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 759. Photo: S.A.I. Films Paramount, Roma. Bebe Daniels and James Rennie in Argentine Love (Allan Dwan, 1924). Italian release title: Amore Argentino.
American postcard by Photo / Chronicles Ltd., New York, NY, no. S 317. Photo: Paramount / Astoria Motion Picture and Television Foundation. Gloria Swanson in Manhandled (Allan Dwan, 1924).
Italian postcard by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, no. 743. Photo: S.A.I. Films Paramount, Roma. Gloria Swanson in Stage Struck (Allan Dwan, 1925). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
The go-to guy
During this time, Allan Dwan was the ‘go-to guy’ as a director, editor, screenwriter and occasional extra. This gave him a sound knowledge of technical aspects as well as dramaturgy and actor direction.
As a pioneer in this field, he was the inventor of the dolly shot in 1915, in which the camera is mounted on a moving automobile and follows the actor's movements. He first used the technique in the film David Harum (1915), in which he filmed a stroll by the actor William H. Crane.
In the same year, he was responsible for solving a technical problem that D.W. Griffith had during the shooting of Intolerance (1916). Dwan invented the equipment used for the crane shots.
After making a series of Westerns and comedies, Dwan was responsible for some of the early successes of Mary Pickford in such films as A Girl of Yesterday (1915) for Famous Players and of Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish for Triangle. From 1916, he favoured shooting with his good friend Douglas Fairbanks Sr., notably in A Modern Musketeer (1917), the acclaimed Swashbuckling epic Robin Hood (1922) and the part-talkie The Iron Mask (1929).
Dwan also directed Carole Lombard in her film debut, A Perfect Crime (1921), starring Monte Blue. He directed Gloria Swanson in eight feature films at Paramount, including Zaza (1923) with H.B. Warner, Manhandled (1924) and Stage Struck (1925) with Lawrence Gray. In 1925, he also directed Swanson in a short film made in the short-lived sound-on-film process Phonofilm. This short, also featuring Thomas Meighan and Henri de la Falaise, was produced as a joke, with the film showing Swanson crashing the all-male club The Lambs.
Italian postcard by Ed. Ballerini & Fratini, no. 764. Photo: Gloria Swansonin Zazà (Allan Dwan, 1923).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3658/3, 1928-1929. Photo: United Artists. The card depicts a moment in The Three Musketeers (Fred Niblo, 1921), but stems from when Douglas Fairbanks made the sequel to The Three Musketeers: The Iron Mask (Allan Dwan, 1929).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4115/3, 1929-1930. Photo: United Artists. Douglas Fairbanks in The Iron Mask (Allan Dwan, 1929).
French postcard by Europe, no. 452. Photo: United Artists / Regal Film. Douglas Fairbanks in The Iron Mask (Allan Dwan, 1929).
An exclusive contract with Republic
With the advent of sound film, Allan Dwan's career declined rapidly and after his return from England in 1934 he found himself mainly in B-movies. It was only the commercial and artistic success of two films with Shirley Temple, Heidi (1937) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), that helped to put him back on the list of directors in demand. In later years, Dwan repeatedly expressed his fascination with the professionalism and acting skills of Temple, who gave some of her best performances under his direction.
He was then allowed to direct the monumental film Suez (1938) with Tyrone Power and Loretta Young for 20th Century Fox, only to sink back to the level of second-rate productions shortly afterwards. It was not until the mid-1940s that his career recovered.
In 1946 Dwan signed an exclusive contract with Republic Studios. Highly acclaimed was his box office hit, the war film Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) starring John Wayne as a hard-boiled Marine. The film follows a group of United States Marines from training to the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. The film received four nominations at the 22nd Academy Awards but won no awards.
Moving to RKO Radio Pictures, Dwan made for producer Benedict Bogeaus’s Filmcrest Productions 10 films, among which are some of his most acclaimed. Silver Lode (1954) was a noirish Western that served as an allegory about McCarthyism: the town named in the title turns on beloved citizen Dan Ballard (John Payne) after he is framed for murder by Marshall Ned McCarty (Dan Duryea).
Cattle Queen of Montana (1954) starred Barbara Stanwyck, who, as Sierra Nevada Jones, out-toughs land-grabbers, Indians, and even helpful Ronald Reagan by a wide margin. Slightly Scarlet (1956) was an adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel ‘Love’s Lovely Counterfeit’, about sisters navigating the politics of a corrupt town. The River’s Edge (1957) gave Ray Milland one of his best late roles, as a bank robber trying to make it into Mexico with a suitcase of stolen cash.
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5121. Photo: Fox-Film. George O'Brien and June Collier in East Side, West Side (Allan Dwan, 1927).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1538/6, 1937-1938. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Shirley Temple in Heidi (Allan Dwan, 1937). She's wearing the costume in the fairytale music dance sequence Magic Wooden Shoes: "Once there was a Dutch girl ..."
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2337/1, 1939-1940. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Loretta Young in Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
British postcard by Real Photograph, London, nr. FS 177. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Tyrone Power and Annabella in Suez (Allan Dwan, 1938), a highly fictionalised biographical account of the builder of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps.
One of the last surviving pioneers of the cinema
Allan Dwan’s last film was Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961) with Ron Randell and Debra Paget. The Science-Fiction thriller was made in 1958 but not released until 1961. Eventually, Dwan directed more than 400 films over 50 years, including 125 features.
In his retirement, Allan Dwan was rediscovered as one of the last surviving pioneers of the cinema. British film historian Kevin Brownlow devoted a chapter to Dwan’s reminiscences in his study of silent-era Hollywood, ‘The Parade’s Gone By’ (1968).
Peter Bogdanovich wrote the biopic ‘Allan Dwan, The Last Pioneer’ about him in 1971. Allan Dwan received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for lifetime achievement for his services to American cinema. In 1980, he was interviewed at length for the documentary series Hollywood.
A year later, he died of heart failure at the age of 96 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles. Alan Dwan was married to the actresses Pauline Bush (1915-1919) and Marie Shelton (1927-1949).
Alan Dwan is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, CA, Section F, Tier 18, Grave 62. He had once used the mission grounds as a location for his silent feature Tide of Empire (1929). Just as he was fond of opening his films with a poem after the main credits, Dwan wrote the epitaph on his grave marker in verse: "Look Down, Oh Lord, and bless me with thy grace / And make me worthy of thy sacrifice / And after death to look upon thy face / And earn, perhaps, a place in paradise".
Spanish postcard by Ed. Sobe. John Agar and Adele Mara in Sands of Iwo Jima (Allan Dwan, 1949).
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 628. Photo: RKO Radio. Scott Brady in Montana Belle (Allan Dwan, 1952).
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 695. Photo: B.P.S. / Republic. Forrest Tucker in Flight Nurse (Allan Dwan, 1953).
American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. SC17489. Photo: Tony Koroda / 1981 Sygma. Ronald Reagan and Barbara Stanwyck in Cattle Queen of Montana (Allan Dwan, 1954).
Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was Italy's favourite leading man of the second half of the 20th century. In his long and prolific career, he almost singlehandedly defined the contemporary type of Latin lover, then proceeded to redefine it a dozen times and finally parodied it and played it against type.
American postcard by Fotofolio, no. Z860. Photo: Milton H. Greene. Caption: Marcello Mastroianni, Rome, 1963.
Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 76.
Italian postcard by Rotal Foto, Milano (Milan), no. 250.
Franco-German postcard by Ufa AG, Berlin / Editions P.I., Paris. Photo: Betzler / Bavaria / Schorcht Film.
German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3486. Photo: G.B. Poletto. Publicity still for Le notti bianche / White Nights (Luchino Visconti, 1957) with Maria Schell.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 159. Anouk Aimée and Marcello Mastroianni in La dolce vita / The Sweet Life (Federico Fellini, 1960).
Chinese postcard. Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau in La Notte / The Night (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961).
French postcard by Edition La Malibran, Paris, no. MC 38, 1990. Photo: Claude Schwartz. Publicity still for Otto e Mezzo / 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963) with Claudia Cardinale.
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, no. 1445. Photo: Cineriz.
Russian postcard from 1987. Collection: Pierre sur le Ciel.
Forced-labour camp
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines, in 1924. He was the son of Ida (née Irolle) and Ottone Mastroianni, who ran a carpentry shop. Marcello grew up in Turin and Rome. He appeared as an uncredited extra in Marionette (Carmine Gallone, 1939) and later appeared as an extra in Una storia d'amore / Love Story (Mario Camerini, 1942) and I bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us (Vittorio De Sica, 1944). He worked in his father's carpentry shop, but during World War II he was put to work by the Germans drawing maps. From 1943 to 1944 he was imprisoned in a forced labour camp, but he escaped and hid in Venice.
In 1944, Mastroianni started working as a cashier for the film company Eagle Lion (Rank) in Rome. He began taking acting lessons and acted with the University of Rome dramatic group. In the university's production of Angelica (1948), he appeared with Giulietta Masina. His first real film credit was in I Miserabili / Les misérables (Riccardo Freda, 1948) with Gino Cervi. That year Mastroianni joined Luchino Visconti's repertory company, which was bringing to Italy a new kind of theatre and novel ideas of staging. The young actor played Mitch in 'A Streetcar Named Desire', Happy in 'Death of a Salesman', Stanley Kowalski in Visconti's second staging of Streetcar, and roles in Anton Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' and 'Uncle Vanya'.
He also acted in radio plays and he had his first substantial film role in the comedy Una domenica d'agosto / Sunday in August (Luciano Emmer, 1949). In 1955 Mastroianni co-starred with Vittorio De Sica and Sophia Loren - an actress with whom he would frequently be paired in the years to come - in the Screwball comedy Peccato che Sia una Canaglia / Too Bad She's Bad (Alessandro Blasetti, 1955) and later worked with De Sica again on the comedy Padri e Figli / Like Father, Like Son (Mario Monicelli, 1957).
His roles gradually increased in importance, but for the most part, both the casts and crews of his projects were undistinguished, and he remained unknown outside of Italy. Mastroianni permanently sealed his stardom in Italy, playing a timid clerk whose love is not reciprocated by Maria Schell, in Le notti bianche/White Nights (Luchino Visconti, 1957). He soon became a major international star appearing in films like I soliti ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958) with Vittorio Gassman. In this classic crime caper, he displayed a light touch of comedy, playing the exasperated member of an inept group of burglars.
In 1960 he played his most famous role as a disillusioned and world-weary tabloid columnist who spends his days and nights exploring Rome's high society in Federico Fellini's La dolce vita / The Sweet Life (1960) with Anita Ekberg. La dolce vita changed the look and direction of the Italian cinema. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Throughout his adventures, Marcello's dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are mirrored by the hedonism around him. With a shrug, he concludes that, while his lifestyle is shallow and ultimately pointless, there's nothing he can do to change it so he might as well enjoy it. Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective 'Felliniesque' in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival."
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 460. Photo: Atlantis Film. Marcello Mastroianni in Febbre di vivere / Eager to Live (Claudio Gora, 1953).
Spanish postcard by F.A.G. Marcello Mastroianni and Marina Vlady in Giorni d'amore / Days of Love (Giuseppe De Santis, 1954).
Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 94.
Big East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 68/72. Photo: Steffen.
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3163. Photo: Titanus. Publicity still for La Bella Mugnaia / The Miller's Beautiful Wife (Mario Camerini, 1955).
Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, no. AX 3203. Photo: Standaardfilms. Publicity still for Padri e figli... / Fathers and Sons (Mario Monicelli, 1957).
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden / Westf., no. 2361. Photo: Bavaria / Schorcht / Vogelmann. Publicity still for Mädchen und Männer / La ragazza della salina / Sand, Love and Salt (1957).
Italian postcard. Marcello Mastroianni in I soliti ignoti/ Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958). The old man in the back is Carlo Pisacane.
Vintage photo. Marcello Mastroianni and Rosanna Schiaffino in Un ettaro di cielo / Piece of the Sky (Aglauco Casadio, 1958).
Italian postcard by Nuova Arti Grafiche Ricordi S.R.L. / Cinisello Balsamo, no. 2996, 1998. Photo: publicity still for Il bell' Antonio/Bell' Antonio (Mauro Bolognini, 1960).
Small Czechoslovakian card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 83/7, 1965. Retail price: 0,50 Kcs. Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni in La dolce vita (Federico Fellini, 1960).
Small Czech collector card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), 1965, no. S 83/6. Stefania Sandrelli and Marcello Mastroianni in Divorzio all'italiana / Divorce, Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1961).
Not one-dimensional pretty boys
During the 1960s Marcello Mastroianni played in many great films and regularly worked with top Italian and French filmmakers. He appeared as the title character in Il bell'Antonio / Bell' Antonio (Mauro Bolognini, 1960) and starred in Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece La notte / The Night (1961), where again his distanced, expressionless demeanour fit perfectly into the film's air of alienation and remote emotionality.
He appeared in interesting films like L'assassino / The Assassin (Elio Petri, 1961), La Vie Privée / A Very Private Affair (Louis Malle, 1962) with Brigitte Bardot, and Cronaca familiare / Family Diary (Valerio Zurlini, 1962) with Jacques Perrin.
Mastroianni followed La dolce vita with another signature role for Fellini, that of Fellini’s alter-ego, a film director who, amidst self-doubt and troubled love affairs, finds himself in a creative block while making a film in Otto e Mezzo / 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1962). The film won two Academy Awards. Mastroianni won the British BAFTA award twice for his roles in the black comedy Divorzio all'Italiana / Divorce, Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1963) and the deliciously funny three-part sex farce Ieri, oggi, domani / Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963) costarring with Sophia Loren. He and Loren starred together again in the equally amusing sex comedy Matrimonio all'italiana/Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964).
According to Elaine Mancini on Film Reference “Mastroianni's masculinity blends perfectly with Loren's exuberant earthy personality” in both these films. While he was to become known for playing Latin lover roles (which he spoofed in Casanova 70 (Mario Monicelli, 1965), his characters often were far more complexly drawn. They were not one-dimensional pretty boys; rather, beneath their handsome exteriors they were lazy, world-weary, and doubt-ridden. Other films were La decima vittima/The Tenth Victim (Elio Petri, 1965) with Ursula Andress and the Albert Camus adaptation Lo Straniero/The Stranger (Luchino Visconti, 1967) with Anna Karina.
Mastroianni won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for Dramma della gelosia - tutti i particolari in cronaca/Drama of Jealousy (Ettore Scola, 1970). In 1987 he would win the award again for Oci ciornie/Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1987). Mastroianni, Dean Stockwell and Jack Lemmon are the only actors to have won the award twice. During the 1970s Mastroianni continued to work in interesting films by prolific directors like Leo the Last (John Boorman, 1970), Permette? Rocco Papaleo/My Name Is Rocco Papaleo (Ettore Scola, 1971) with Lauren Hutton, Che?/What? (Roman Polanski, 1972) with Sydne Rome and La donna della domenica/The Sunday Woman (Luigi Comencini, 1975) with Jacqueline Bisset.
He often worked with controversial director Marco Ferreri at Liza (Marco Ferreri, 1972) with Catherine Deneuve, La Grande Bouffe/Blow Out (Marco Ferreri, 1973), Touche pas à la femme blanche/ Don't Touch the White Woman! (Marco Ferreri, 1974), and Ciao maschio/Bye Bye Monkey (Marco Ferreri, 1978) with Gérard Depardieu.Other interesting films are Così come sei/Stay as You Are (Alberto Lattuada, 1978) with Nastassja Kinski, L'ingorgo - Una storia impossibile/Traffic Jam (Luigi Comencini, 1979) with Annie Girardot, and La terrazza/The Terrace (Ettore Scola, 1980) with Vittorio Gassman. He played against his Latin lover image in Scola’s Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977), in which Mastroianni's homosexual and Sophia Loren's oppressed housewife come together on the day in 1938 when Adolph Hitler was cheered on the streets of Rome during his visit to Benito Mussolini. His seemingly detached air was perfectly suited to satire as well, as he demonstrated in films as diverse as the historical drama Allonsanfàn (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1974), and La città delle donne / City of Women (Federico Fellini, 1980).
Small Czechoslovakian card by Presseojo, Praha (Prague), no. 83/9, 1965. Retail price: 0,50 Kcs. Marcello Mastroianni in 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963).
Small Czechoslovakian card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), no. S 83/8, 1965. Retail price: 0,50 Kcs. Marcello Mastroianni in I compagni/The Organiser (Mario Monicelli, 1963).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2634. Photo: publicity still for Matrimonio all'italiana / Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964).
German postcard by Friedrich W. Sander Verlag, Minden. Photo: Inter Film. Still for Casanova 70 (Mario Monicelli, 1965).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Marcello Mastroianni in Lo Straniero / The Stranger (Luchino Visconti, 1967).
German postcard by pwe Verlag, München (Munich). Photo: publicity still for La moglie del prete / The Priest's Wife (Dino Risi, 1970) with Sophia Loren.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 4881.
Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 3624, 1975. This postcard was printed in an edition of 200.000 cards. Retail price: 5 kop.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for La terrazza (Ettore Scola, 1980) with Marie Trintignant.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Enrico IV / Henry IV (Marco Bellocchio, 1984).
Big East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 1020. Jack Lemmon and Marcello Mastroianni in Maccheroni / Macaroni (Ettore Scola, 1985).
German press photo, no. 5. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for Ginger e Fred (Federico Fellini, 1986).
French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Éditions Hazan, Paris, 1997, no. 6521. Photo: Constant Anée. Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in Prêt-à-Porter (Robert Altman, 1994).
Wonderfully nostalgic
In the latter stages of his career, Marcello Mastroianni continued to take serious dramatic roles. For instance, he played the senior citizen who simply looks back on his past. In Stanno tutti bene / Everybody's Fine (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1990), he is an elderly man who is absorbed in his memories, and who travels through Italy to call on his five adult children. In Oci ciornie / Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1987), he gives a tour-de-force performance as a once young and idealistic aspiring architect who married a banker's daughter, fell into a lifestyle of afternoon snoozes and philandering, and proved incapable of holding onto what was important to him.
His on-screen presence has also been directly linked to his earlier screen characterisations. In Prêt-à-Porter / Ready to Wear (Robert Altman, 1994), he was reunited with Sophia Loren, and at one point in the scenario, she recreated her famous steamy striptease sequence from Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Loren was as beguiling as she had been 30 years earlier but Mastroianni was no longer the attentive young lover, so Sophia's seductive moves only put him to sleep. Mastroianni's appearance in two of Fellini's final features is especially sentimental. Ginger e Fred / Ginger and Fred (Federico Fellini, 1996) is sweetly nostalgic for its union of Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina, two of the maestro's then-ageing but still vibrant stars of the past.
In Intervista (Federico Fellini, 1987), he appears as himself with Anita Ekberg, with whom he had starred decades before in La dolce vita. Mastroianni's entrance is especially magical; the sequence in which he and Ekberg (who, he remarks, he has not seen since making La dolce vita) observe their younger selves in some famous clips from that film is wonderfully nostalgic. with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the European Film Awards. He kept appearing in critically acclaimed films like To meteoro vima tou pelargou / The Suspended Step of the Stork (Theodoros Angelopoulos, 1991), in which he was quietly poignant as an obscure man who may have once been an important Greek politician who had disappeared years earlier.
Other films were Al di là delle nuvole / Beyond the Clouds (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1995) and Trois vies et une seule mort / Three Lives and Only One Death (Raúl Ruiz, 1996) with Anna Galiena. His final film was Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo / Voyage to the Beginning of the World (Manoel de Oliveira, 1997). Marcello Mastroianni was married to Italian actress Flora Carabella (1926-1999) from 1948 until his death. They had one child together, Barbara. Mastroianni also had a daughter, actress Chiara Mastroianni, with French film star Catherine Deneuve, his longtime lover during the 1970s.
Both Flora and Catherine were at his bedside in Paris when he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72, as was his partner at the time, author and filmmaker Anna Maria Tatò. According to Christopher Wiegand and Paul Duncan in their book Federico Fellini, when Mastroianni died in 1996, the Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain), which is so famously associated with him due to his role in Fellini's La dolce vita, was symbolically turned off and draped in black as a tribute. His brother Ruggero Mastroianni (1929-1996) was a highly regarded film editor who edited several of Marcello's films directed by Federico Fellini and appeared alongside Marcello in Scipione detto anche l'Africano / Scipio the African (Luigi Magni, 1971), a comedic take on the once popular Peplum, the Sword and Sandal film genre. Marcello Mastroianni has held starring roles in about 120 films throughout his long career.
Trailer for Domenica d'agosto (1950). Source: Ugo Tramontano (YouTube).
The classic Trevi Fountain scene in La dolce vita/The Sweet Life (1960) with Anita Ekberg. Source: רונן אברהם (YouTube).
Trailer for 8 1/2 (1961). Source: BFI (YouTube).
Trailer for La Notte (1961). Source: Hadalat (YouTube).
Trailer for Ieri, oggi, domain / Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963). Source: Jeffrey M. Anderson (YouTube).
Trailer for La Grande Bouffe/Blow Out (1973). Source: Arrow Video (YouTube).
Trailer for Una giornata particulate / A Special Day (1977). Source: Argent Films (YouTube).
Trailer for La città delle done / City of Women (1980). Source: Das Film Feuilleton (YouTube).
Trailer for Ginger e Fred / Ginger and Fred (1986). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).
Spanish poster postcard. Marcello Mastroianni in the Franco-Portuguese film Voyage to the Beginning of the World / Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo / Voyage au début du Monde (Manoel de Oliveira, 1997). It was Mastroianni's final film.
Sources: Elaine Mancini (Film Reference; updated by Rob Edelman), Hal Erickson (AllMovie - Page now defunct), Jason Ankeny (AllMovie - Page now defunct), Wikipedia and IMDb.
