Claude Rains

The career of English stage and film actor Claude Rains (1889-1967) spanned 47 years. In Hollywood, he was a supporting actor who achieved A-list stardom. With his smooth, distinguished voice, he could portray a wide variety of roles, ranging from villains to sympathetic gentlemen. He is best known as the title figure in The Invisible Man (1933), as wicked Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), as a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, of course, as Captain Renault in Casablanca (1942).


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 917a. Photo: First National.


Italian postcard in the Artisti del Cinema Series, no. 100, by Edizione ELAH, La vasa delle Caramelle. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for They Won't Forget (Mervyn LeRoy, 1937).


German postcard by Pwc-Verlag, München (Munich) from the Prestel-book 'Fashion in Film. Claude Rains, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Caption: Costumes by Orri-Kelly.


German collector card. Photo: RKO Radio Film. Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946).

Gas attack

William Claude Rains was born in Camberwell, London, in 1889. His father was the English stage actor and later film director Frederick Rains. In 2008, his daughter Jessica Rains and David J. Skal would publish the biography 'Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice'. According to Jessica, he grew up with "a very serious cockney accent and a speech impediment". In 1900, the 11-year-old Rains made his stage debut as a boy singer in 'Sweet Nell of Old Drury'. He learned the technical end of the business by working his way up from being a two-dollar-a-week page boy to assistant stage manager at His Majesty's Theatre in London.

In 1911, he made his adult stage debut in 'Gods of the Mountains'. His acting talents were recognised by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, founder of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tree paid for the elocution lessons Rains needed to succeed as an actor. After making his American stage debut in a tour with Granville Barker's troupe in 'Androcles and the Lion', Rains returned to England.

He served in the First World War in the London Scottish Regiment, with fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman and Herbert Marshall. Rains was involved in a gas attack that left him nearly blind in one eye for the rest of his life. However, the war did aid his social advancement and, by its end, he had risen from the rank of Private to Captain.

Rains began his career in the London theatre, having a success in the title role of John Drinkwater's play 'Ulysses S. Grant', the follow-up to the playwright's major hit 'Abraham Lincoln'. His one and only silent film venture was a small part in the British production Build Thy House (Fred Goodwins, 1920) starring Henry Ainley and Warwick Ward. This film is now considered lost.

In the 1920s, Rains taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Among his pupils were John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, and the lovely Isabel Jeans, who became the first of his six wives. In 1926, he travelled again to the USA on tour with the play 'The Constant Nymph', and he decided to stay. In the following years, he played leading roles with the Theatre Guild on Broadway in such plays as George Bernard Shaw's 'The Apple Cart' and in the dramatisation of Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth.


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Universal. Claude Rains and William Harrigan in The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933).


British postcard in the Filmshots series by Film Weekly. Photo: Universal. Gloria Stuart and Claude Rains in The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933).


Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion. Publicity still for Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945).


German collector card. Photo: RKO Radio Film. Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains and Leopoldine Konstantin in Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946).

A unique and solid British voice

Claude Rains came relatively late to film acting, when he had already reached middle age and established himself as an accomplished stage actor. In 1932, while working for the Theatre Guild, Universal Pictures offered him a screen test for a role in A Bill of Divorcement (1933), a part he had already played with considerable conviction on the stage in 1921. Rains had a unique and solid British voice - deep, slightly rasping - but richly dynamic. And as a man of small stature, the combination was immediately intriguing.

Although his screen test was a failure, his distinctive voice won him the title role in the classic fantasy film The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933), based on the novel by H.G. Wells, when someone accidentally overheard his screen test being played in the next room. In The Invisible Man, Rains was kept from view behind gauze bandages and through the magic of special effects. His face appears only briefly, after the character's death renders him visible again, but the strength of his vocal performance alone launched the actor's career in Hollywood.

William McPeak writes at IMDb: “He took the role by the ears, churning up a rasping malice and volume in his voice to achieve a bone-chilling persona of the disembodied mad doctor. He could also throw out a high-pitched maniac laugh that would make you leave the lights on before going to bed.“ At AllMovie, Hal Erickson added: “So forceful was Rains' verbal performance as 'The Invisible One' that he became an overnight movie star (after nearly twenty years on stage). Wittily scripted by R.C. Sherriff and an uncredited Philip Wylie, and brilliantly directed by James Whale, The Invisible Man is a near-untoppable combination of horror and humour.”

Following his sensational talking-picture debut, Universal Studios tried to typecast Rains in Horror films, but he appeared instead in such interesting films as the Paramount production Crime Without Passion (Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, 1934), in which he portrays a man driven to the brink of madness by an unhappy love affair. Rains would play similar characters in subsequent films, as his reserved, ironic manner proved an ideal mask for slowly crumbling sanity. In Britain, he starred as The Clairvoyant (Maurice Elvey, 1935). By 1936, he was at Warner Bros. with its ambitious laundry list of literary epics in full swing. His malicious, gouty Don Luis in Anthony Adverse (Mervyn LeRoy, Michael Curtiz (uncredited), 1936) was inspired. After a sheer lucky opportunity to dispatch his young wife's lover, Louis Hayward, in a duel, he triumphs over her in a scene with derisive, bulging eyes and that high-pitched laugh - with appropriate shadow and light backdrop - that is unforgettable.

Another success was his gleefully evil role of Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, William Keighley, 1938). Rains later credited director Michael Curtiz with teaching him the more understated requirements of film acting, or "what not to do in front of a camera". In 1939, Rains became an American citizen. He was also, for the first time, nominated for the Academy Award for his performance as the complex, ethics-tortured senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra, 1939). Janet E. Lorenz writes at Film Reference: “His performance in the Capra film exemplifies Rains' ability to portray characters who remain charming — and sometimes sympathetic — in spite of their actions.”


British postcard by the Picturegoer Series, London, no. B.8. Photo: Warner.


Spanish postcard, Series 4021, no. 69.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 917. Photo: Paramount.

Bette Davis' favourite co-star

Claude Rains’ most famous role is the flexible French police Captain Renault in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942). The next year, he played the disfigured music lover who haunts the Paris Opera house in Universal's full-colour remake of Phantom of the Opera (Arthur Lubin, 1943). Bette Davis named him her favourite co-star, and they made four films together. Janet E. Lorentz: “In Now, Voyager (Irving Rapper, 1942), one of the classic ‘women's films’ of the 1940s, he portrays Davis's wise, understanding psychiatrist, while his performance as her adoring, long-suffering husband in Mr. Skeffington (Vincent Sherman, 1944) brought him another Oscar nomination. The pairing of Davis's electric screen presence with Rains' precise, assured style lends a particular chemistry to their films together.”

Rains became the first actor to receive a million-dollar salary, playing Julius Caesar opposite Vivien Leigh in the lavish and unsuccessful version of George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945), made in Britain. In 1946, he played a nervous and malignant refugee Nazi agent in the classic thriller Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946). Nick Zegarac wrote at The Hollywood Art: “a stylish entrée in which, as a suave Nazi supporter living in Mexico City, he attempted to poison his wife (Ingrid Bergman) under the watchful eye of an FBI agent (Cary Grant). A formidable success at the box office, the film seemed to place Rains in the envious position to draw star billing once more.” Four years later, he appeared in The Passionate Friends (David Lean, 1949) with Ann Todd and Trevor Howard.

Claude Rains remained a popular character actor in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in many films. In 1951, he made a triumphant return to Broadway in Darkness at Noon, for which he won the Tony Award. The next year, he starred as the title figure in the British film The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (Harold French, 1952). His only singing and dancing role was in a television musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Bretaigne Windust, 1957), with Van Johnson as the Piper. This NBC colour special, shown as a film rather than a live or videotaped program, was highly successful with the public. Sold into syndication after its first telecast, it was repeated annually by many local TV stations. As a favoured Alfred Hitchcock alumnus, he starred in five Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1956-1962) suspense dramas.

Two of Rains’ well-known later screen roles were as Dryden, a cynical British diplomat in Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), featuring Peter O’Toole, and King Herod in The Greatest Story Ever Told (George Stevens, 1965) with Max von Sydow. The latter was his final film role. Rains made several audio recordings, narrating a few Bible stories for children on Capitol Records, and reciting Richard Strauss' setting for narrator and piano of Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden, with the piano solos played by Glenn Gould. This recording was made by Columbia Masterworks Records.

Claude Rains married six times, the first five of which ended in divorce: actress Isabel Jeans (1913–1915); Marie Hemingway (1920, for less than a year); Beatrix Thomson (1924-1935); Frances Proper (1935–1956); and to classic pianist Agi Jambor (1959–1960). He married Rosemary Clark Schrode in 1960 and stayed with her until she died in 1964. His only child, Jessica Rains, was born to him and Proper in 1938. Rains died from an abdominal haemorrhage in Laconia, New Hampshire, in 1967 at the age of 77. He was nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Casablanca (1942), Mr. Skeffington (1944), and Notorious (1946). Surprisingly, he never won.


British Real Photograph postcard, no. 236. Photo: Warner Bros.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 712 W. Photo: Paramount.


Trailer for The Passionate Friends (1949). Source: K8nairne (YouTube).

Sources: Janet E. Lorenz (Film Reference), Hal Erickson (AllMovie - Page now defunct), Nick Zegarassc (The Hollywood Art - Now defunct), William McPeak (IMDb), Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), Donald Greyfield (Find a Grave), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Nan Grey

Blonde American actress Nan Grey (1918-1993) worked for Universal and other studios in the 1930s. She is best remembered for two Deanna Durbin films, Three Smart Girls (1936) and Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939). She also worked with John Wayne in Sea Spoilers (1936), and with Gloria Jean in The Under-Pup (1939) and A Little Bit of Heaven (1940). After her last film in 1941, she worked for the radio. She abandoned her career when she married singer Frankie Laine in 1950.


Vintage postcard.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1140. Photo: Universal.

One of the three Smart Girls

Nan Grey was born Eschal Loleet Grey Miller in 1918 in Houston, Texas. In 1934, at age 16, she went to Hollywood with her mother for a holiday. She was persuaded to take a screen test and ended up in pictures.

Grey attended the school that Universal Studios operated for children who had film contracts. Grey's screen debut (as Nan Gray) was in Warner Bros.'s murder mystery The Firebird (William Dieterle, 1934), starring Verree Teasdale and Ricardo Cortez.

She starred opposite John Wayne in Sea Spoilers (Frank R. Strayer, 1936). Grey also appeared in the Universal Horror films Dracula's Daughter (Lambert Hillyer, 1936) and The Invisible Man Returns (Joe May, 1940), starring Cedric Hardwicke and Vincent Price.

A huge success was the musical comedy Three Smart Girls (Henry Koster, 1936) with Deanna Durbin and Helen Parrish, as well as the sequel Three Smart Girls Grow Up (Henry Koster, 1939).

She also acted in two early Gloria Jean films, The Under-Pup (Richard Wallace, 1939) and A Little Bit of Heaven (Andrew Marton, 1940). Furthermore, Grey was relegated to mostly B movies.


British postcard in the Colourgraph Series, London, no. C 322. Photo: Universal.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1275. Photo: Universal. Deanna Durbin, Nan Grey, Helen Parrish and Charles Winninger in Three Smart Girls Grow Up (Henry Koster, 1939).


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC 275. Photo: Universal. Robert Cummings and Nan Grey in Three Smart Girls Grow Up (Henry Koster, 1939).

A cosmetic mirror for nearsighted women

From 1938 to 1945, Nan Grey played Kathy Marshall in the NBC radio soap opera Those We Love'. She also appeared in an episode of The Lux Radio Theatre, 'She Loves Me Not (1937) with Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, and Sterling Holloway.

In 1939, Grey married U. S. Racing Hall of Fame jockey Jack Westrope in Phoenix, Arizona. Grey began to phase out her film career after her marriage. Her final film was the crime film Under Age (Edward Dmytryk, 1941).

In the 1940s, she switched to radio and theatre. The couple had two daughters, Pam and Jan. The marriage was considered an ideal one in Hollywood, but it ended in a Las Vegas divorce in 1950. Shortly after her divorce, she met singer Frankie Laine at Hollywood’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub. They married in 1950, and Laine adopted her daughters from her marriage to Westrope.

She made one guest appearance on television with Laine in 1960 in an episode of Rawhide, the Western series for which he recorded the theme song. In the 1960s, Grey invented and marketed a cosmetic mirror especially suited to nearsighted women. An obituary noted that among its users was Princess Grace of Monaco.

Nan and her husband Frenkie moved to San Diego in 1968 to indulge in their passion for sportfishing. The union of the Laines lasted 43 years, until her death from heart failure on 25 July 1993, her 75th birthday.


British postcard, no. 1140b. Photo: Universal.


Dutch postcard by J.S.A. Photo: N.V. Holl.-Am. F.B.O. Robert Stack, Gloria Jean and Nan Grey in A Little Bit of Heaven (Andrew Marton, 1940).

Sources: Myrna Oliver (Los Angeles Times), Tom Barrister (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Jean Toulout

Jean Toulout (1887-1962) was a French stage and screen actor, director and scriptwriter. He appeared in more than 100 films between 1911 and 1959. Toulout was married to the actress Yvette Andréyor between 1917 and 1926.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no.566. Photo: G.F.F.A. (Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert), a company existing between 1930 and 1938.


French collector card by Les Fiches de Monsieur Cinéma. Still from Les Misérables (Henri Fescourt, 1925), with Gabriel Gabrio as Jean Valjean/ M. Madeleine, Jean Toulout as Javert and Sandra Milowanoff as Fantine.

An intense early film career

Jean Joseph Charles Toulout was born in Paris in 1887. He was the son of Dominique Georges Toulout and Charlotte Louise Isabelle Monginot. While no real online biography has been written about him, this bio is largely based on Toulout’s filmography. According to Wikipedia, Toulout started to act on stage at least from 1907, when he played in the Victor Hugo play 'Marion Delorme' at the Comédie Française. One year later, he was already acting at the Théàtre des Arts, so if he ever was a member of the Comédie Française, then not for long. In 1911, he travelled around with Firmin Gémier’s wandering stage company, while at least from 1913, he settled in Paris playing with André Antoine’s 1913 staging of Paul Lindau’s 'The Prosecutor Hallers'.

At the same time, Jean Toulout debuted in French film. His career in the cinema would quickly become much more intense than his stage career. All in all, he would act in some 100 films within four decades. Toulout started in short films for Abel Gance’s company Le film français. He appeared in Gance's debut film, La Digue / The Dyke (Abel Gance, 1912), which was never released. That year followed Il y a des pieds au plafond / There are feet on the ceiling., Le Nègre blan / The White Negro, and Le Masque d’horreur / The Mask of Horror starring Édouard de Max, all directed by Abel Gance in 1912. Soon, Toulout had various parts at Gaumont, Pathé and smaller companies.

His early films included Louis Feuillade's La Maison des lions / The Lion Menagerie (1912), L’Homme qui assassina / The man who murdered (Henri Andréani, 1913), Jacques l’honneur / Jacques the Honourable (Henri Andréani, 1913) and Les Enfants d'Édouard / The Crown of Richard III (Henri Andréani, 1914), inspired by William Shakespeare's 'Richard III'. In L’Homme qui assassina / The Man Who Murdered (Henri Andréani, 1913), he is the evil, adulterous Lord Falkland. He presses his equally adulterous but goodhearted wife (Mlle Michelle) to either say goodbye to her child or publicly confess her sin. Her lover (Firmin Gémier) kills the husband, but is acquitted by the local Turkish commissioner (Adolphe Candé), who is understanding in these matters. Toulout also appeared in films directed by Gaston Leprieur, René Leprince, Gérard Bourgeois and Alexandre Devarennes. He didn’t act on screen in 1915, possibly because he was involved in the military during the First World War.

From late 1916, he was back on track in several Gaumont films by Feuillade and others. In Feuillade’s L’Autre / The Other (Louis Feuillade, 1917), he met the actress Yvette Andréyor, famous for her parts in Feuillade’s serials Fantomas (1913) and Judex (1916). Toulout and Andréyor married on 12 June 1917 and would perform together in various films until their divorce in 1926. In 1918, Toulout was the evil antagonist of Emmy Lynn in Gance’s La Dixième Symphonie / The Tenth Symphony (Abel Gance, 1918), blackmailing her for having accidentally killed his sister. He thus risks wrecking her new marriage with a composer (Séverin-Mars) but also the life of the composer’s daughter (Elizabeth Nizan). Luckily for the other, he doesn’t kill them, only himself. As English Wikipedia writes, “Gance's mastery of lighting, composition and editing was accompanied by a range of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and alienating.”

While Toulout would be reunited with Emmy Lynn in La faute d’Odette Marchal (Henri Roussel, 1920), he would also be reunited with Séverin-Mars as – again – a jealous, evil husband in Jacques Landauze (André Hugon, 1920). With director Hugon, Toulout would do several films in the 1920s and 1930s: Le Roi de Camargue / King of the Camargue (André Hugon, 1921), Notre Dame d'amour / Our Lady of Love (André Hugon, 1922), Le Diamant noir / The Black Diamond (André Hugon, 1922), La Rue du pavé d'amour / Love Pavement Street (André Hugon, 1923), and the first French sound film, Les Trois masques / The Three Masks (André Hugon, 1929), shot at the London Elstree studios in 15 days.


French film journal Mon Ciné, no. 44, 21 December 1922 (Cover). Jean Toulout in La Conquête des Gaules / The Conquest of Gaul (Marcel Yonnet, Yan Bernard Dyl, Léonce-Henri Burel, 1922). In the film, a film director, Jean Fortier, tries with scarce means to film Julius Caesar's 'The Conquest of Gaul'. The film was shot at the Gaumont studios.


French film journal La Petite Illustration, no. 345, 13 August 1927, p. 8. Jean Toulout as General Prince Tcherkoff and Claudia Victrix as Princess Masha in La princesse Masha / Princess Masha (René Leprince, 1927).

Again, a jealous husband who threatens to kill his wife

Jean Toulout also acted in films by Pierre Bressol (Le Mystère de la villa Mortain / The Mystery of Villa Mortain (1919) and La Mission du docteur Klivers / The Mission of Doctor Klivers (1919)), Germaine Dulac (La fète espagnole / The Spanish Celebration (1920) and La belle dame sans-merci / The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy (1921)), Jacques Robert, Henri Fescourt, Armand du Plessis, and others. In La belle dame sans-merci, he is a local count who understands that the playful femme fatale he brought home is wrecking his whole family, so he has them reunited. In Chantelouve (Georges Monca, 1921), he was once more the jealous husband who threatens to kill his wife (Yvette Andréyor). In La conquête des Gaules / The Conquest of Gaul (Yan B. Dyl, Marcel Yonnet, 1923), he is a film director who tries to film the conquest of the Gauls with modest means. In Le Crime de Monique (Robert Péguy, 1923), Yvette Andréyor is accused of killing her brutal, violent husband (Toulout, of course).

Jean Toulout also acted in Abel Gance’s hilarious comedy Au secours! / The Haunted House (1924), starring Max Linder as a man who takes a bet to stay a night in a haunted house. Toulout masterfully performed the persistent commissionary Javert in Les Misérables (Henri Fescourt, 1925), opposite Gabriel Gabrio as Jean Valjean. When a restored version was shown at the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone in October 2015, Peter Walsh wrote on his blog Burnt Retina: "Gabriel Gabrio as Jean Valjean was a towering presence on screen, and his redemptive arc and gradual ageing were shown convincingly. Jean Toulout as Javert was also superb, at times overpowered by some of the mightiest brows and mutton chops I’ve seen in a long time. The climax of his personal crisis, and collapse of his moral world, was incredibly striking, with extreme close-ups capturing a bristling performance."

After smaller parts as in Germaine Dulac’s Antoinette Sabrier (1927), in which Toulout would be paired with Gabrio again, Toulout left the set in 1928 and instead returned to the stage for 'Le Carnaval de l'amour' at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin. In 1929, however, Toulout returned as Mr de Villefort in the late silent film Monte Christo / The Count of Monte-Cristo (Henri Fescourt, 1929) – the last big silent French production - as well as in the first French sound film Les Trois masques / The Three Masks (André Hugon, 1929) as a Corsican whose son (François Rozet) makes a girl (Renée Héribel) pregnant, after which her brothers take revenge during the carnival. Toulout had the lead in the Henry Bataille adaptation La Tendresse / Tenderness (André Hugon, 1930) as a famous, older academician who discovers his much younger wife (Marcelle Chantal) isn’t that much in love with him as he is with her. When he gravely falls ill, he discovers she still gave the best of her life to him.

Toulout tried his luck in film direction and with Joe Francis, he directed Le Tampon du Capiston / The Capiston Stamp (1930), a comical operetta film on an old spinster (Hélène Hallier), a captain’s sister, who wants to marry the captain’s aide (Rellys), who presumably has inherited a fortune. In the same year, Toulout also wrote the scripts for two other films, both by Hugon: La Femme et le Rossignol / Nightingale Girl (André Hugon, 1930) and Lévy & Cie / Levy and Company (André Hugon, 1930). The collaboration continued in 1931 when Toulout scripted and starred in Le Marchand de sable / The Sandman (André Hugon, 1930), while he had a supporting part in La Croix du Sud / Southern Cross (André Hugon, 1930). The collaboration with Hugon would last till well into the mid-1940s with Le Faiseur / Mercadet (André Hugon, 1936), Monsieur Bégonia (André Hugon, 1937), La Rue sans joie / Street Without Joy (André Hugon, 1938), Le Héros de la Marne / Heroes of the Marne (André Hugon, 1938), La Sévillane / The Woman from Seville (André Hugon, 1943), and Le Chant de l'exilé / The Exile's Song (André Hugon, 1943). In 1931, Toulout also scripted Moritz macht sein Glück / Moritz Makes his Fortune, a German film by Dutch director Jaap Speijer. All through the 1930s, Toulout had a steady, intense career as an actor, but in 1934, he also directed his second film, La Reine du Biarritz / The Queen of Biarritz, in which he himself had only a small part. Elenita de Sierra Mirador (Alice Field) is the toast of Biarritz. For her, a young groom leaves his wife. For her, a forty-year-old man suddenly deceives his young wife. But Elenita, watched by her mother, resigns herself to becoming honest and returns to her husband.

Jean Toulout had mostly supporting parts, as in Le petit roi / The Little King (Julien Duvivier, 1933), Fédora (Louis Gasnier, 1934) starring Marie Bell, Les Nuits moscovites / Moscow Nights (Alexis Granowsky, 1934), and L'Épervier / The Hawk (Marcel L’Herbier, 1934). He could act the jealous, shooting husband again in Le Vertige / Vertigo (Paul Schiller, 1935), again starring Alice Field. He was the judge who forced Henri Garat and Lilian Harvey to marry on the spot in Les Gais Lurons / Lucky Kids (Jacques Natanson, Paul Martin), the French version of Martin’s Glückskinder. He is the prosecutor in La Danseuse rouge / The Red Dancer (Jean-Paul Paulin, 1937), a court case drama starring Vera Korène and inspired by Mata Hari’s trial. Toulout continued to act in minor film parts in the late 1930s, during the war years and the late 1940s: fathers, judges, doctors, officers, aristocrats. But a major part among the first three actors of the film he didn’t have anymore. Memorable were his parts in Édouard et Caroline / Edward and Caroline (Jacques Becker, 1951), starring Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon, and – again as a judge - in Obsession (Jean Delannoy, 1952) with Michèle Morgan and Raf Vallone. Toulout also worked as a voice actor in France, playing Donald Crisp’s part in How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1941, released in France in 1946), and Nigel Bruce’s part in Limelight (Charles Chaplin, 1952). In the late 1950s, he also acted on television. Jean Toulout died in l'hôpital de Ambroise Paré in Paris in 1962. He was 75. He is buried in the cemetery of Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine. His second wife was Simone Berthe Henriette Chéron.


French postcard in the series Nos artistes dans leur loge, no. 325. Photo: Comoedia.


French postcard by Editions-Cinémagazine.


French postcard in the Les Vedettes du Cinéma series by Editions Filma, no. 28. Photo: Agence Générale Cinématographique.

Sources: Peter Walsh, Les Gens du Cinéma (French), DVD-toile (French), Wikipedia (English, French and Italian) and IMDb.

Published by L.A.B.

L.A.B. is an abbreviation for Les Editions d'Art, Bruxelles (Brussels). This Belgian publisher produced postcards in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Brussels loved Hollywood and MGM still had more stars than there are in heaven. When the Belgian capital was liberated in 1944, people flocked to the cinemas and films that had previously been hidden and censored were screened. Many cinemas changed their names to celebrate the victors (Churchill, Roosevelt, Monty, etc.) or simply to modernise (Roxy, Star, Dixy, etc.). In 1953, the Actual cinema changed its name to the Avenue. A second theatre, the Studio, was built on the same site. Together, these two theatres formed the world's first duplex cinema. In 1956, a third theatre was built, giving rise to the Club. The postcards show what all these people loved to see then in their magnificent movie palaces in Brussels and elsewhere in Europe.


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art (L.A.B.), Bruxelles, no. 1009. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Maureen O'Sullivan in Tarzan's Secret Treasure (Richard Thorpe, 1941).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 1031. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944).


Belgian postcard by Editions L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 1035. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Katharine Hepburn, as Chinese character Jade Tan, in Dragon Seed (Harold S. Bucquet, Jack Conway, 1944).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Brussels, no. 1036. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Teresa Wright in Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles (Brussels), no. 1040. Photo: MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind (1939). This postcard was given to us by Gill4kleuren. Many thanks!


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art, Bruxelles (L.A.B.), no. 1501. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Clark Gable.


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 1508. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Van Heflin in Seven Sweethearts (Frank Borzage, 1942).


Belgian postcard by Editions L.A.B. Bruxelles, no. 2001. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Irene Dunne and Alan Marshall in The White Cliffs of Dover (Clarence Brown, 1944). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2007. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Van Johnson and Phyllis Thaxter in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (Mervyn LeRoy, 1944).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2009. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart in The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940). The French title was Rendez-vous.


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2011. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor in Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn LeRoy, 1940). The Belgian title was La valse dans l'Ombre.


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2013. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in Madame Curie (Mervyn LeRoy, 1943).



Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2016. Photo: MGM. Claudette Colbert and Spencer Tracy in Boom Town (Jack Conway, 1940).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Brussels, no. 2020. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Kathryn Grayson and Gene Kelly in Thousands Cheer (George Sidney, 1943).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2022. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Maureen O'Sullivan and Johnny Sheffield in Tarzan's Secret Treasure (Richard Thorpe, 1941).


Belgian postcard by L.A.B. (Les Editions d'Art, Bruxelles) no. 2023. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Katharine Hepburn and Turhan Bey in Dragon Seed (Harold S. Bucquet, Jack Conway, 1944).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2025. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Teresa Wright and Greer Garson in Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler, 1942).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Brussels, no. 2027. Photo: David O'Selznick Production / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard in Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939).


Belgian postcard by Les Editions d'Art L.A.B., Bruxelles, no. 2905. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor in Waterloo Bridge (Mervyn LeRoy, 1940). The Belgian title was La valse dans l'Ombre.

Source: Cinemas art et essai Bruxellois (French). If you would like to see more L.A.B. film star postcards, please check out our Flickr album.

Peggy Dow

Pretty and wholesome blonde American film actress Peggy Dow (1928) could handle comedy and drama with equal finesse. After only nine films, she retired and is now known as a philanthropist, Peggy V. Helmerich.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 264.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 286. Photo: Universal International.


Big German collector card by Greiling Sammelbilder, Series C, Image F. Photo: Universal-International.

Harvey's lovely nurse Kelly

Peggy Dow was born in 1928 in Columbia, Mississippi. At the age of 4, she moved with her family to Covington, Louisiana. She attended high school and junior college at Gulf Park College in Gulfport, Mississippi (now the Gulf Park campus of the University of Southern Mississippi), then finished college at Northwestern University in Illinois, appearing in college plays and receiving her degree from Northwestern's School of Speech in 1948.

After brief modelling and radio experience, Peggy Dow was spotted by a talent agent. In February 1949, she was cast in a TV show, and soon Universal offered her a seven-year contract.

She made nine films, starting with the female lead opposite Scott Brady in the Film Noir Undertow (William Castle, 1949). Brady plays a former Chicago mobster who is accused of murdering his old boss. Peggy played a vacationing schoolteacher who accidentally gets involved in the murder.

She hit her peak the next year when she co-starred as the lovely nurse Kelly in the classic farce Harvey (Henry Koster, 1950), with James Stewart and Josephine Hull. Stewart plays a man whose best friend is a pooka named Harvey, in the form of a six-foot, three-and-a-half-inch tall invisible white rabbit, and the ensuing debacle when the man's sister tries to have him committed to a sanatorium.

She also co-starred with Best Actor Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy in the touching war drama Bright Victory (Mark Robson, 1951). The film got raving reviews, but was a disaster financially..


Dutch postcard. Photo: Nova film. Sent by mail in 1951.


British card in the Greetings series. Photo: Universal-International.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 823. Photo: Universal International.

Marrying an oil driller from Tulsa

After being featured in several crime dramas, Peggy Dow had starring roles in two 1951 family films, Reunion in Reno (Kurt Neumann, 1951) opposite Mark Stevens and You Never Can Tell (Lou Breslow, 1951) with Dick Powell.

Her final film was the drama I Want You (Mark Robson, 1951), taking place in America during the Korean War. After just three years in the film business, Dow retired in 1951 to marry Walter Helmerich III, an oil driller from Tulsa, Oklahoma. He became president of his family's business, Helmerich & Payne.

Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "This promising 1950s Universal-International contract player had so much going for her - beauty, brains and talent - to go the distance, but she came up far short after deciding to retire for domestic life. (...) Despite such a promising Hollywood forecast, she never looked back and raised five sons in the process."

The couple was married for 60 years, until Walter Helmerich III died in 2012. The couple had five sons.

Peggy Helmrich, now 97, became an active supporter of libraries and other charitable activities. The Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, an award given annually since 1985 to an author by the Tulsa Library Trust, is named in her honour, as is the drama school at the University of Oklahoma and the auditorium at Northwestern University School of Communication's Annie May Swift Hall.


Spanish postcard. Peggy Dow and Farley Granger in I Want You (Mark Robson, 1951). Sent by mail in 1953.


Spanish postcard. Farley Granger and Peggy Dow in I Want You (1951). Sent by mail in 1954.


West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 380. Photo: Universal International.


Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no. 6433. Photo: Universal International. Sent by mail in 1952.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.