Hedwiga Reicher

Hedwiga Reicher (1884-1971) was a German-born stage and screen actress. She was best known as Salomé in Oscar Wilde's play. In 1906, she moved to New York and performed on Broadway. Later, she worked in Los Angeles both on stage and in films by Cecil B. DeMille and Frank Borzage. One of her last films was Anatole Litvak's Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), the first anti-Nazi film from a major American studio.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4152-6. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. Caption: Give me the head of Jokanaan. After her lascivious dance, Salome, on the instigation of her mother Herodias, asks her father Herod for the head of the imprisoned John the Baptist. The postcard was mailed in France.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4265-?. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. The postcard was mailed in France.

Ernst Reicher's sister

Hedwiga Reicher was born as Hedwig E. Reicher in 1884 in Oldenburg, Germany. She was the daughter of actor-director Emanuel Reicher. Her brother Ernst Reicher was a famous stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter and producer, known for his Stuart Webbs detective films. Another brother, Hans Reicher, was a sculptor, and her sister, Elly Reicher, was also an actress. She also had a half-brother, actor Frank Reicher.

Hedwig Reicher made her stage debut in October 1902, playing Zoë in Adolf von Wilbrandt's 'Der Meister von Palmyra' in Hamburg.

She remained in Germany for five more years before accepting an engagement to the Deutsches Theater (the Irving Place Theatre) in New York City in 1907. She decided to stay in the United States. In the summer of 1908, she briefly returned to Germany to perform alongside her father in Goethe's 'Iphigenia' at the Esperanto World Congress in Dresden.

Hedwig Reicher continued her theatrical work, now on Broadway in English-language plays. Her Broadway debut was 'On the Eve' in 1909. Then followed 'The Next of Kin' (1909-1910), Henrik Ibsen's 'The Lady from the Sea' (1911), 'The Thunderbolt' (1911), 'June Madness' (1912), August Strindberg's 'The Stronger' (1913), 'When the Young Vine Blooms' (1915) and 'Caliban of the Young Sands' (1916), in which she played Cleopatra.

In 1913, Reicher was hired to portray the mythological figure Columbia for the Woman Suffrage Procession, a suffrage parade on 3 March 1913, in Washington, D.C. According to news reports, the group, which included 5,000 to 8,000 suffragists, marched from the US Capitol to the Treasury Building and was watched by a crowd of 500,000 (mostly men). The women tried to upstage Woodrow Wilson's inauguration the following day.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4265-3. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. The postcard was mailed in France.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4265-4. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. The postcard was mailed in France.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4265-5. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. The postcard was mailed in France.

Janet Gaynor's mother

In 1916, Hedwig Reicher performed Oscar Wilde's 'Salome' at the Punch & Judy's Theatre in New York. The play depicts the attempted seduction of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) by Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas; her dance of the seven veils; the execution of Jokanaan at Salome's instigation; and her death on Herod's orders. In 1901, within a year of Wilde's death, 'Salome' was produced for the first time in Berlin by Max Reinhardt in Hedwig Lachmann's German translation, with in the main roles Gertrud Eysoldt and Emanuel Reicher. It was a huge success. In 1907 or earlier, Hedwig Reicher performed the play in Germany. She also played it in New York in 1909 and in 1916. Then she moved to Los Angeles.

Hedwig Reicher's film debut came in A Lover's Oath (Ferdinand Earle, 1925), featuring Ramon Novarro and based upon the 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam', as translated by Edward Fitzgerald. The film was shot in 1920–1921 but not released in America until 1925. For its 1925 release by the small distributor Astor Pictures, Milton Sills edited the 1922 film to emphasise Novarro's role, who by then was a rising star. Novarro refused to cooperate with a request for some new close-ups. Reportedly, Sill edited some older clips of Novarro into the film. However, neither the critics nor the public liked the film. Although a few segments still exist, the film is considered lost.

From the mid-1920s on, Reicher played small and supporting roles in Hollywood, often as an immigrant or a mother. She was the prison matron in Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl (1928) and Janet Gaynor's mother in Frank Borzage's Lucky Star (1929). In September 1929, the artist was naturalised under a slightly different name, Hedwiga Reicher, as some Americans thought Hedwig was her last name.

In early 1939, Hedwiga Reicher appeared in the first decidedly anti-Nazi U.S. film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Anatole Litvak, 1939). The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated after the rise of Adolf Hitler. For this film, Reicher adopted the pseudonym Celia Sibelius for fear of Nazi reprisals against her family in Germany. Screenwriter John Wexley based his script on real events and the articles of former FBI agent Leon G. Turrou, who had been active in investigating Nazi spy rings in the United States before the war, quit the FBI and continued publishing articles on the topic that J. Edgar Hoover had largely ignored and tried to prevent from publication.

When World War II began, Reicher ended her film work. Her final, uncredited role was a nurse in the biopic Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (William Dieterle, 1940), based on the true story of the German doctor and scientist Dr. Paul Ehrlich (Edward G. Robinson). Hedwiga Reicher continued to reside in Los Angeles and died there in 1971. She was 87. Hedwiga Reicher is often confused with Emmanuel Reicher's first wife. This was opera singer Hedwig Reicher-Kindermann (1853-1883, who died early of peritonitis. Hedwiga was never an opera singer.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4265-6. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. The postcard was mailed in France.


German postcard by PH (Photochemie, Berlin), no. 4522-2. Hedwig Reicher in the play 'Salome' by Oscar Wilde. The postcard was mailed in France.

Sources: IBDB, Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Paul Scofield

Paul Scofield (1922-2008) was an English film and stage actor best known for A Man for All Seasons (1966). Though he only appeared in around 30 films, Scofield has cast a giant shadow in the world of acting. He was one of only nine actors to have ever won the Triple Crown of Acting: an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 657. Photo: 20th Century Fox.


Soviet postcard by Leningrad Department of the Bureau of Soviet Cinema Propaganda in the Actors Laureates series, no. 108, 1975. Paul Scofield in A Man For All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966). Scofield won the Best Actor award for his role at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1967.

The Hamlet of his generation

David Paul Scofield was born in Birmingham in 1922. He was the son of Mary and Edward Harry Scofield, the local headmaster in Hurstpierpoint, Mid Sussex. Scofield attended the Varndean School, a boys' school in Brighton. The love of acting came early. As a schoolboy, he played Juliet in a school production of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'.

At 17, he left school and began training as an actor at the Croydon Repertory Theatre School (1939) and then at the Mask Theatre School (1940) in London. He took on all the experience he could handle by joining touring companies and also entertained British troops during World War II. His debut performance was in American playwright Eugene O'Neill's 'Desire Under the Elms' at the Westminster Theatre. He joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

In 1946, he moved to Stratford-upon-Avon and had the title role in 'Henry V', Lucio in 'Measure for Measure', and then Hamlet, alongside a then-unknown Claire Bloom as Ophelia. Scofield's performance was so highly praised that it caused him to be dubbed "The Hamlet of his generation." William McPeak at IMDb: "With a rich, sonorous voice compared to a Rolls Royce being started up, in one instance, and a great sound rumbling forth from an antique crypt in yet another, he was quickly compared to Laurence Olivier."

Scofield won many awards for his stage performances, including a Tony Award for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in 'A Man for All Seasons' by a schoolmaster-turned-playwright, Robert Bolt. More was the great English humanist and chancellor, who defied King Henry VIII in his wish to put aside his first wife for Anne Boleyn. Scofield debuted the role in London in 1960. His only appearance on Broadway was the next year in that play, which ran into 1962. For this role, Scofield also won an Oscar for Best Actor in the film version of A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966).

Despite his great success in this film, the stage remained his primary focus. Scofield appeared as Charles Dyer in Dyer's play 'Staircase', staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966; Laurie in John Osborne's 'A Hotel in Amsterdam' (1968); and Antonio Salieri in the original stage production of Peter Shaffer's 'Amadeus' (1979). In 19977, he also played a leading role in the Peter Hall production of Ben Jonson’s play 'Volpone' for the Royal National Theatre. In 1997, he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in 'John Gabriel Borkman' (1996) by Henrik Ibsen.


Vintage postcard. Paul Scofield in 'Hamlet'. Michael Benthall directed Scofield in the 1948 production of 'Hamlet' by the Royal Shakespeare Company. He took the radical step of casting two Hamlets (Paul Scofield and Robert Helpmann) for his production. Audiences could compare the actors' performances on different nights, seeing how an actor's individual personality and presence can change the atmosphere of a production.


Canadian postcard by Canadian Post Card Co. Ltd., Toronto 3. Paul Scofield as Coriolanus in 'Coriolanus' at the Shakespearean Festival 1961, Stratford, Canada.

Winning the Triple Crown of Acting: the Tony, the Emmy and the Oscar

From his film debut in That Lady (Terence Young, 1955), Paul Scofield was always extremely picky about accepting a particular film role. Scofield won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role, but during the following years, he only played in the box-office hit Carve Her Name with Pride (Lewis Gilbert, 1958), opposite Virginia McKenna. His third film role was a standout performance in The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964), with Burt Lancaster.

A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) collected 33 international awards, including six Oscars. William McPeak: "Scofield was unforgettable as the incisive man of state, able to juggle the volatile politics of the time but always keep his honour and so brimming with faith as to endure the inevitably mounting tide against him." In 1969, he became the sixth performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting, when he won the Emmy for Best Actor for Emlyn (Anthony Page, 1969), an episode of Male of the Species with Laurence Olivier.

He joined Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon for the Spy thriller Scorpio (Michael Winner, 1973). He played a memorable role as a Russian comrade of Lancaster from World War II, caught in Cold War spycraft brutality. He co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in the drama A Delicate Balance (Tony Richardson, 1973) based on the 1966 Pulitzer Prize–winning play by Edward Albee. Through the 1980s, Scofield did a mix of TV and film on both sides of the Atlantic. He was drawn back to Shakespeare in Henry V (Kenneth Branagh, 1989) as the French king, and Hamlet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1990), as The Ghost. Both were supporting roles, and the real buzz around Hamlet was for Mel Gibson as the Prince of Denmark.

In 1994, Paul Scofield appeared in the film Quiz Show (Robert Redford, 1994) concerning a real-life quiz show scandal in the United States. Scofield played the role of Mark Van Doren, the father of Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes), the man at the centre of the scandal. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. In the same year, he starred in the television film Martin Chuzzlewit, an adaptation of Charles Dickens’s novel. He played both Martin Chuzzlewit senior and his brother Anthony. For this series, he received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later, he won a BAFTA Award for his role as Judge Danforth in The Crucible (Nicholas Hytner, 1996), starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. Writer Arthur Miller adapted his 1953 play of the same name, which was based on the Salem witch trials, into a screenplay for the film.

Scofield declined a CBE three times, but in 2001 he accepted an appointment as a Companion of Honour. "If you want a title, Mister is really good enough, isn't it? If you've always been that, why would you want to give it up? I have a title; it's the same one I've always had", Paul Scofield explained in a rare 1992 interview. Scofield was also well known as a voice actor. He provided the narration for the radio version of 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. In 2008, Paul Scofield died at the age of 86 in a hospital near his home in the South of England, following a battle with leukaemia. He was married from 1943 till his death to actress Joy Parker. They had two children: Martin (1944), a lecturer in 19th-century English literature at the University of Kent, and Sarah (1951).


British autograph card.


French poster postcard by Editions Avant Garde, no. P1261. Image: Warner Bros. Poster with Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Bates, Ian Holm and Paul Scofield in Hamlet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1990).

Sources: William McPeak (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

John Hodiak

John Hodiak (1914–1955) was an American actor who appeared in films, theatre, and on the radio. He had his breakthrough in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944). From then on, he often played leading roles during the war period. After the war, he mostly played supporting roles. From 1953 on, he also had success on Broadway.


Vintage autograph card.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 119D, 1953. John Hodiak in Across the Wide Missouri (William A. Wellman, 1951). Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 164. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Castaway in a lifeboat with Tallulah Bankhead

John Hodiak was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1914. He was the eldest of four children of Walter Hodiak and Anna Pogorzelec, of Ukrainian and Polish descent. John grew up in Hamtramck, a predominantly Polish suburb of Detroit. At an early age, he expressed an interest in music and drama. His father, who had appeared in amateur shows, encouraged him. His idol was Douglas Fairbanks. John began acting at age 11 in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He wished to become an actor.

John Hodiak first tried radio, but was rejected because of his Slavic accent. After speech exercises, a radio station in Chicago offered him a job. There he created cartoon character Li'l Abner in a radio show. MGM talent agent Marvin Schenck discovered him, and Hodiak went to Hollywood in 1942. The film company wanted to change his name, but Hodiak refused: "I like my name. It sounds like I look."

He played his first bit part in A Stranger in Town (Roy Rowland, 1943). After several small roles,  WWII  ultimately led to a starring career. When many major stars were off serving their country, Hodiak's high blood pressure made it impossible to enlist in the military. Alfred Hitchcock loaned him to 20th Century Fox for the castaway John Kovac in Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock, 1944) opposite Tallulah Bankhead.

Following his successful performance in the film, MGM cast him in the third lead in the war film Song of Russia (Gregory Ratoff, 1944), supporting Robert Taylor and Susan Peters. He played Ann Sothern's love interest in the romantic comedy Maisie Goes to Reno (Harry Beaumont, 1944) and acted in Marriage Is a Private Affair (Robert Z. Leonard, 1944), starring Lana Turner. 20th Century Fox cast Hodiak to play the title role in Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (Lloyd Bacon, 1944), opposite Anne Baxter.

Hodiak played major roles in A Bell for Adano (Henry King, 1945) with Gene Tierney and the Film Noir Somewhere in the Night (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946). According to Gary Brumburgh at IMDb, both films showed his quiet but rugged charm. Hodiak played Judy Garland's love interest in the musical The Harvey Girls (George Sidney, 1946), and acted with Lucille Ball in the Film Noir Two Smart People (Jules Dassin, 1946), which lost money. 'With MGM's male roster of talent back home now from the war, John was unceremoniously relegated to second leads that supported the top-tier actors', writes Gary Brumburgh.


Belgian collector card by Kwatta. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Belgian collector card by Kwatta. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. John Hodiak in A Lady Without Passport (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950).

Box-office poison

In 1946, John Hodiak married his former co-star Anne Baxter. In 1951, they had a daughter, Katrina Hodiak, who later became an actress. Their varied backgrounds (he was middle class, and she was more high society - her grandfather was the renowned Frank Lloyd Wright) and busy film careers created significant problems. They divorced in 1953.

In 1947, Hodiak played the lead in Desert Fury (Lewis Allen, 1947), with Lizabeth Scott and Burt Lancaster. Film critics later noted the homosexual overtones in this Film Noir, particularly in the relationship between the gangster Eddie Bendix (Hodiak) and his devoted, possessive sidekick (Wendell Corey). The actor then supported Lana Turner and Clark Gable in Homecoming (Mervyn Le Roy, 1948) and supported Gable again in Command Decision (Sam Wood, 1948). The two Gable films were hits, but Hodiak was voted 'box office poison' by exhibitors at the end of 1948.

However, the War film Battleground (William A. Wellman, 1949), in which he was second billed after Van Johnson, was a huge critical and commercial success. It was MGM's largest-grossing film in five years. Also popular was the thriller Malaya (Richard Thorpe, 1949), where Hodiak supported James Stewart and Spencer Tracy. Next, he was a love rival for Robert Taylor in the popular Western Ambush (Sam Wood, 1950). MGM gave him another lead role, co-starring with Hedy Lamarr in A Lady Without Passport (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950), but it lost money. He was third billed after Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in The Miniver Story (H.C. Potter, 1950), the flop sequel to Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942). Hodiak supported Spencer Tracy in the Film Noir The People Against O'Hara (John Sturges, 1951) and Clark Gable in the Western Across the Wide Missouri (William A. Wellman, 1952). His MGM contract expired in 1951, and he began to freelance.

In 1952, Hodiak went to New York City. There, he made his Broadway debut as the sheriff in the stage play 'The Chase' (1953). The play itself received poor reviews, but Hodiak received rave reviews and the Donaldson Award for his role. Later, he was cast as Lieutenant Maryk in 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial', written by Herman Wouk. The play, starring Henry Fonda and Lloyd Nolan, ran for two years, and Hodiak's portrayal brought him acclaim. He was extremely disappointed when former fellow MGM player Van Johnson was cast as the lieutenant in the acclaimed film version starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg.

After divorcing Anne Baxter, John built a home for his parents and younger brother in Los Angeles and eventually lived there with them. His later years grew difficult. He was plagued by self-doubt, a diminishing career and an equally diminishing social life. In 1955, John Hodiak had a heart attack while shaving in the bathroom of his parents' home. He died instantly. The only 41-year-old Hodiak was interred at Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles. At the time, he was working on the film On the Threshold of Space (Robert D. Webb, 1956), starring Guy Madison. The film provides a historical depiction of U.S. Air Force tests conducted in the lead-up to the space race. 20th Century Fox decided that they had enough footage of John Hodiak to complete the film and released it six months after he died. He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.


British Postcard by Real Photograph.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 891. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. John Hodiak as Spike Romway in The Miniver Story (H.C. Potter, 1950).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

Films Selectos (Part 3)

Spain in the era before the dictatorship of General Franco is an interesting goldmine for film memorabilia. We can't get enough of the beautiful leaflets from the early 1930s, published as an appendix by the weekly Films Selectos. We love the detailed photographs and the subtle colouring of this series. Here's a new selection of the Suplemento Artistico leaflets by Films Selectos.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Mary Pickford in The Taming of the Shrew (Sam Taylor, 1929).

Mary Pickford (1892-1979) was a legendary silent film actress and was known as 'America’s sweetheart.' She was a founder of United Artists and helped establish the Academy.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Paramount.

American singer and actress Lillian Roth was a Broadway star and Hollywood actress. Among the films she made with Paramount were The Love Parade (1929) with Maurice Chevalier, The Vagabond King (1930), Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan (1930), and the Marx Brothers second film, Animal Crackers (1930). She rebelled against the pressure of her domineering stage mother and reacted to the death of her fiancé by becoming an alcoholic. Her life story was told in the popular biopic I'll Cry Tomorrow (Daniel Mann, 1955) starring Susan Hayward.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Metro (MGM).

Joan Marsh (1913-2000) was a brassy, blue-eyed platinum blonde of the 1930s in the Jean Harlow tradition. As a child, she appeared between 1915 and 1921 in silent films starring Mary Pickford, on which her father worked as a cameraman. Later, during the sound era, she resumed her acting career and performed in a variety of films during the 1930s and 1940s.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Warner Bros.

Lovely British actress Lilian Bond (1908-1991) made over 50 films in Hollywood from the late 1920s through the 1940s. One of her first roles was in James Whale’s classic Horror comedy The Old Dark House (1932), but in later years she mostly appeared in B-movies, both in leading parts and in bit roles.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Fox Pictures.

Irene Ware (1910-1993) was a blonde beauty queen in 1930s Hollywood. She first joined the ensemble of Earl Carroll's Sketchbook on Broadway and had just the right blend of talent, charisma and sex appeal. She managed to replace Lillian Roth for a top-billed spot in the 1930 edition of 'Vanities' and soon signed a two-year contract with Fox. In only her second Hollywood film, she had the female lead in Chandu the Magician (1932), opposite Edmund Lowe and Bela Lugosi (as the evil Roxor). The New York Times critic praised Irene as "a charming juvenile". However, Fox only gave her ornamental second leads in bad pictures. When her contract expired in 1934, she fared no better with Universal. She paired with Lugosi once again in The Raven (1935). Until 1940, she appeared in B-movies with Poverty Row studios like Monogram. Then she quit and faded into obscurity.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Universal.

American actress Gloria Stuart (1910-2010) played lead roles for director James Whale in The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933). More than sixty years later, Stuart won a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Oscar nomination for her performance as Old Rose in Titanic (1997).


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Paramount.

American actress Frances Dee (1909-2004) got her big break when she was offered a leading role opposite Maurice Chevalier in The Playboy of Paris (1930) by Ludwig Berger. She also starred in Josef von Sternberg's An American Tragedy (1931) and Jacques Tourneur's psychological Horror film I Walked With a Zombie (1943).


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Paramount.

Sylvia Sidney (1910-1999) was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned over 70 years. She rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s, such as An American Tragedy (1931), City Streets (1931), Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936), and Fritz Lang's Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937). She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a caseworker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's film Beetlejuice (1988), and she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973).


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: R.K.O. Constance Bennett in Born to Love (Paul Stein, 1931).

Independent, outspoken Constance Bennett (1904-1965) was a Hollywood star of the 1920s and 1930s. Her classy blonde looks, husky voice, and unerring fashion sense gave her a distinctive style. In the early 1930s, she was for a time Hollywood's most popular and best-paid star and is known for e.g. What Price Hollywood? (George Cukor, 1932). She was the older sister of actress Joan Bennett.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: P.D.C.

American film actress Mary Astor (1906–1987) was famous for her part as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogart. She won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for The Great Lie (1941). Astor had a long-running career that began in the silent era in 1921 and spanned over 100 films.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Dorville as Sancho Panza in Don Quichotte / Don Quixote (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1933).

Dorville (1883–1940) was known for Circulez! (1931), Don Quichotte (1933), and Le dompteur (1938).


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Julio Peña as Luis I in Rosa de Francia / Rose of France (José López Rubio, Gordon Wiles, 1935).

Spanish actor Julio Peña (1912-1972) appeared in more than one hundred films from 1930 to 1972. At 60, he died at Cortijo Blanco in Marbella, where he was resting after appearing in the film Horror Express (1972).


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

American actress Sally Eilers (1908-1978) was a popular Hollywood star in the early 1930s. She was tagged 'the most beautiful girl in movies'.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Paramount.

Austrian-born actress and writer Elissa Landi (1904–1948) was (falsely) rumoured to be a descendant of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. During the 1920s, she appeared in British, French, and German films before travelling to the United States. In Hollywood, she became a popular star of the 1930s.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: First National / Warner Bros.

American stage and film actress Kay Francis (1905-1968) was a tall, attractive, grey-eyed brunette with undeniable style and poise, known for films such as Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932). For a while, in the 1930s, she ranked as one of America's most popular actresses, tagged the 'Queen of Warner Brothers'.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

American actress Bessie Love (1898-1986) was introduced to the cinema by D.W. Griffith. He also gave the actress her screen name. She played innocent young girls and wholesome leading ladies in silent films and early talkies. Her acting career spanned eight decades, and her role in The Broadway Melody (1929) earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Universal.

Lupe Velez (1908-1944) was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She starred in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). In the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Velez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Velez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Velez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Lovely British actress Lilian Bond (1908-1991) made over 50 films in Hollywood from the late 1920s through the 1940s. One of her first roles was in James Whale’s classic Horror comedy The Old Dark House (1932), but in later years she mostly appeared in B-movies, both in leading parts and in bit roles.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) in the Films Selectos series. Photo: Paramount.

Between 1921 and 1934, American actress Lilyan Tashman (1896–1934) appeared in some 69 films. Renowned for her personal style, Tashman was one of Hollywood's leading 'clothes horses' during the early 1930s.


Spanish collector card (flyer) by Films Selectos. Photo: R.K.O.

American actress Lita Chevret (1908–2001) began her career at the genesis of sound films. She appeared in over 60 films between 1929 and 1940, but mostly in small or unbilled parts.


Spanish collector card (flyer) by Films Selectos. Photo: Fox.

Marguerite Churchill (1910-2000) was an American film actress with a film career spanning from 1929 to 1952. She is best known today as John Wayne's first leading lady in The Big Trail (1930).


Spanish collector card (leaflet) by Films Selectos. Photo: Paramount.

French actress and singer Meg Lemonnier (1905-1988) was most active in the French cinema of the 1930s. In the early years of the sound film, she played more or less saucy ingénues in romantic comedies and operettas, often accompanied by Henri Garat.


Spanish collector card (leaflet) by Films Selectos. Photo: Cifesa. Scene from Morena clara / Dark and Bright (Florian Rey, 1936) with Imperio Argentina and Miguel Ligero.

Imperio Argentina (1906-2003) was a Spanish singer, dancer and actress born in San Telmo, the tango district of Buenos Aires, during an artistic tournee of her parents in Argentina. In 1926, she adopted the artistic name of Imperio Argentina, singing in the main theatres of Spain. Film director Floriàn Rey discovered her at the Romea theatre in Madrid and enabled her to play in the silent film La Hermana San Sulpicio (1927). Eventually she also married Rey in 1930 and became one of the major film stars of European cinema.

Check out our earlier posts on Films Selectos:
9 April 2025: Films Selectos (Part 1)
20 August 2026: Films Selectos (Part 2)

Eva Marie Saint (1924-2026)

On 6 October, American actress Eva Marie Saint (1924–2026) died in Los Angeles. She is best known for starring in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954), for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). With a career spanning over 70 years, she received Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations for A Hatful of Rain (1957) and won a Primetime Emmy Award for the television miniseries People Like Us (1990). Saint was 102.


French postcard by Editions P.I., offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 877. Photo: Paramount Pictures.


French poster postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 35. Poster: Snark / Columbia Films S.A.B. Belgian poster for On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) with Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint. The Wallonian title was Sur les quais, and the Flemish title was Op de kaaien.


American poster postcard by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Poster: MGM, 1966. American re-release poster for Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959). Caption: Only Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock ever gave you so much suspense in so many directions. So we brought it back!

Femme fatale Eve Kendall

Eva Marie Saint was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1924. Her parents were Quakers: Eva Marie née Rice and John Merle Saint. She had one older sister, Adelaide Louise Saint. Eva Marie attended Bethlehem Central High School in Delmar, New York, near Albany, graduating in 1942. According to her yearbook, Eva Marie's nickname was 'Bubbles', and her ambition was to be a teacher. She was also a cheerleader and senior class secretary. Saint studied acting at Bowling Green State University.

She started on television as an NBC page and appeared in the very early live NBC TV show Campus Hoopla in 1946–1947. Her acting career began with the TV movie A Christmas Carol (James Caddigan, 1947), starring John Carradine as the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. She also appeared in the Bonnie Maid's Versa-Tile Varieties on NBC in 1949 as one of the original singing 'Bonnie Maids' used in the live commercials. She appeared in a 1947 Life Magazine special about television, and also in a 1949 feature Life article about her as a struggling actress earning minimum amounts from early TV while trying to make ends meet in New York City. In the late 1940s, Saint continued to make her living by extensive work in radio and television. In 1953, she won the Drama Critics Award for her Broadway stage role in the Horton Foote play, 'The Trip to Bountiful' (1953), in which she co-starred with Lillian Gish and Jo Van Fleet. She appeared on both television and stage. In 1955, Saint was nominated for her first Emmy for Best Actress In A Single Performance on The Philco Television Playhouse, for playing the young mistress of middle-aged E. G. Marshall in Middle of the Night by Paddy Chayefsky. She won another Emmy nomination for the 1955 television musical version of Our Town, adapted from the Thornton Wilder play of the same name. She co-starred with Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra. A TV critic dubbed her 'the Helen Hayes of television.'

Saint made her cinema debut at 30. She co-starred in On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), opposite Marlon Brando. She played Edie Doyle, whose brother's death sets the film's drama in motion. Although Edie Doyle is essentially a lead, producer Sam Spiegel listed her as a Supporting Actress in hopes of getting her an Academy Award nomination. The ploy worked, and she won the Oscar. Her performance also earned her a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nomination for 'Most Promising Newcomer.' In his review for The New York Times, film critic A. H. Weiler wrote, "In casting Eva Marie Saint — a newcomer to movies from TV and Broadway — Mr. Kazan has come up with a pretty and blond artisan who does not have to depend on these attributes. Her parochial school training is no bar to love with the proper stranger. Amid scenes of carnage, she gives tenderness and sensitivity to genuine romance." The film was a major success and launched Saint's movie career. She received $7,500 for the role.

For over the next decade, Eva Marie Saint was in high demand. She next appeared alongside Bob Hope in That Certain Feeling (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1956) for which she received $50,000. She was then offered $100,000 to star in the lavish Civil War epic Raintree County (Edward Dmytryk, 1957) with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. After that, she starred with Don Murray in A Hatful of Rain (Fred Zinnemann, 1957), the pioneering drug-addiction drama. Although it was released earlier in 1957 than Raintree Country, it was made later. She received a BAFTA nomination for 'Best Foreign Actress' for her performance.

Her most famous director was Alfred Hitchcock. Hitch surprised many by choosing Saint over dozens of other candidates for the femme fatale Eve Kendall in his classic Spy thriller North by Northwest (1959) with Cary Grant and James Mason. Pedro Borges at IMDb: "Written by Ernest Lehman, the film updated and expanded upon the director's early 'wrong man' spy adventures of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, including The 39 Steps (1935), Young and Innocent (1937), and Saboteur (1942)." North by Northwest became a box-office hit. In his review in The New York Times, critic Abe H. Weiler wrote, "In casting Eva Marie Saint as [Cary Grant's] romantic vis-a-vis, Mr. Hitchcock has plumbed some talents not shown by the actress heretofore. Although she is seemingly a hard, designing type, she also emerges as both the sweet heroine and a glamorous charmer." Although North by Northwest might have propelled her to the top ranks of stardom, Eva Marie Saint chose to limit her film work to spend time with her husband, director Jeffrey Hayden, and their two children.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3813. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


British poster postcard by Pyramid, Leicester, no. PC 2126. Poster: MGM. Poster of Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959). Caption: The Master of Suspense weaves his greatest tale!

The mother of Tom Hanks

In the 1960s, Eva Marie Saint continued to act in both high-profile and offbeat pictures. She co-starred with Paul Newman in Exodus (Otto Preminger, 1960), a historical drama about the founding of the state of Israel adapted from the novel of the same name by Leon Uris. She also co-starred with Warren Beatty, Karl Malden, and Angela Lansbury as a tragic beauty in the drama All Fall Down (John Frankendheimer, 1962), based upon a novel by James Leo Herlihy and a screenplay by William Inge. She appeared with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the melodrama The Sandpiper (Vincente Minnelli, 1965) and with James Garner in the World War II thriller 36 Hours (George Seaton, 1965).

Saint joined an all-star cast in the comedic satire The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (Norman Jewison, 1966), and the international racing drama Grand Prix (John Frankenheimer, 1966), presented in Cinerama. Saint received some of her best reviews for co-starring as the wife of George Segal in Loving (Irvin Kershner, 1970), about a commercial artist's relationship with his wife and other women. It was critically acclaimed but did not do well at the box office.

Because mostly second-rate film roles came her way in the 1970s, Eva Marie Saint returned to television and the stage in the 1980s. She appeared in several made-for-television films. She played the mother of Cybill Shepherd on the television series Moonlighting (1986-1988), which lasted three years. She received Emmy nominations for the TV series How the West Was Won (Vincent McEveety, Bernard McEveety, 1976-1977), and for the TV movie Taxi!!! (Joseph Hardy, 1978). Saint was reunited with On the Waterfront co-star Karl Malden in the TV Mini-Series Fatal Vision (David Greene, 1984), this time as the wife of his character, as he investigated the murder of their daughter and granddaughters.

Saint returned to the big screen for the first time in over a decade in Nothing in Common (Garry Marshall, 1986), in which she played the mother of Tom Hanks's character. Critics applauded her return to features, but Saint soon returned to the small screen. After receiving five nominations, she won her first Emmy Award for the TV movie People Like Us (William Hale, 1990). She appeared in several television productions in the 1990s and was cast as the mother of radio producer Roz Doyle (Peri Gilpin) in a 1999 episode of the comedy series Frasier. Saint returned to feature films in I Dreamed of Africa (Hugh Hudson, 2000) with Kim Basinger. In 2005, she co-starred with Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard in Don't Come Knocking (Wim Wenders, 2005), and appeared in the family film Because of Winn-Dixie (Wayne Wang, 2005). Saint appeared as Martha Kent, the adoptive mother of Superman, in Superman Returns (Bryan Singer, 2006) alongside Brandon Routh.

In 2009, she made a rare public appearance at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony as a Best Supporting Actress presenter. Saint lent her voice to the 2012 Nickelodeon animated series The Legend of Korra, a sequel to the hit TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender, playing the now-elderly Katara, a main character from the original series. She played the adult version of Willa in the film adaptation of the novel Winter's Tale (Mark Helprin, 2014). Saint appeared at the 2018 Academy Awards and played in the drama Mariette in Ecstasy (John Bailey, 2019), set in a turn-of-the-century religious community about a nun who has recently taken her vows. It was her last film. She had two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for television at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard. Eva Marie Saint married producer and director Jeffrey Hayden in 1951. They had met on a subway in New York. The couple remained together till Hayden's death in 2016. Saint died on 6 October 2026 at her home in Los Angeles. They had two children, a son, Darrell Hayden (1955), and a daughter, actress Laurette Hayden (1958), and had four grandchildren.


French poster postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. E 421. French poster for Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959). The French title was La mort aux trousses.


French poster postcard by Éditions Zreik, Paris, in the Collection Télérama, la mémoire du cinéma, no. 17. Poster: Document 'The Last Movies'. French poster for Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959). The French title was La mort aux trousses.


Dutch poster postcard by Film Freak Productions, no. FF924. Poster: Radio Days, 1985. Poster for Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959). Caption: Only Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock ever gave you so much suspense in so many directions. So we brought it back!

Sources: Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.