29 April 2013

Toxi

Afro-German actress Toxi (1946) starred as a child in a successful drama about racism. As a young adult, she appeared under her real name Elfi Fiegert in a few more films and on TV.

Toxi
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 593. Photo: Lilo / FONO / Allianz-Film.

Toxi in Der dunkle Stern (1955)
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 1406. Photo: WEGA / Constantin-Film. Elfie Fiegert as Toxi in Der dunkle Stern/The Dark Star (Hermann Kugelstadt, 1955).

Brown babies


Toxi was born as Elfi (or Elfie) in 1946. Her father was an African American G.I. and student, who soon after her birth was sent off to Korea. So her German mother had to bring her baby to an orphanage.

There she was discovered and adopted by the Fiegert family and renamed Elfi Fiegert. In 1952, after a mass audition held in Munich, the then 5-year-old Elfi was selected for the lead in Toxi (Robert A. Stemmle, 1952).

She played an Afro-German girl who comes to live at the house of a middle-class German family and thus confronts them with their own racism. The film's release came as the first wave of children born to black Allied servicemen and white German mothers (the ‘brown babies’) entered school.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "At the time the film was made, over 3000 children were living in Germany who'd been fathered by African American GIs. Referred to as ‘mischlings,’ these children were often treated as outcasts because of their illegitimacy and skin color."

Publicity for the film emphasised the similarities between Elfi Fiegert’s own story and that of Toxi. Elfi was even credited as Toxi. The light entertainment film had a happy ending and was the eighth most popular release at the West German box office in 1952. Hal Erickson: "By concentrating on a highly fictionalized plotline, Toxi tends to ignore the thousands of other mischlings whose lives are far more complex and tragic than that of the film's central character."

Toxi
German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 378. Photo: Lilo / FONO / Allianz-Film.

Toxi
German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 395. Photo: Lilo / FONO / Allianz-Film.

Aloha, Aloha, Lailani


Three years later, Toxi starred again in the less successful Der dunkle Stern/The Dark Star (Hermann Kugelstadt, 1955). She played again a black occupation child, but the film was not a sequel to Toxi. Her co-stars in this film drama were Ilse Steppat and Viktor Staal.

Then her film career was interrupted for eight years.

As a young adult, Toxi returned to the cinema in the Austrian comedy Unsere tollen Tanten in der Südsee/Our Mad Aunts in the Southsea (Rolf Olsen, 1963). Günther Philipp, Gus Backus and Udo Jürgens were the stars of the Tolle Tante films, a series of cross-dressing farces peppered with popular Schlagers.

This third and final episode took place in the Southsea, although the film was shot in the Canary Islands, Spain. Toxi, now credited as Elfi Fiegert, played the island girl Lailani and sang the song 'Aloha, Aloha, Lailani'.

That same year she also appeared in Das Haus in Montevideo/The House in Montevideo (Helmut Kaütner, 1963). In this comedy, Heinz Rühmann starred as a stiff German professor who inherits a villa in Montevideo, Uruguay. Toxi, this time credited as Toxi Fiegert, played the supporting part of the villa’s exotic attendant Belinda.

It was hard for her to find acting jobs and mostly she worked as a secretary in Munich. In their study, 'Not So Plain as Black and White', Patricia M. Mazón and Reinhild Steingröver cite an agent who bluntly said to Elfi: "There is just no demand in Germany for an actress like you." Her final screen appearance was again eight years later in two episodes of the popular TV series Salto Mortale (Michael Braun, 1971). Thereafter Elfi Fiegert retired from show business.

Toxi in Der dunkle Stern (1955)
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 1407. Photo: WEGA / Constantin-Film. Elfie Fiegert as Toxi in Der dunkle Stern/The Dark Star (Hermann Kugelstadt, 1955).


Opening scene from Toxi (1952). Source: Dantesvalley (YouTube).


Closing scene from Toxi (1952). Source: Dantesvalley (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Patricia M. Mazón and Reinhild Steingröver (Not So Plain as Black and White), Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 2 January 2024.

28 April 2013

Gérard Lanvin

Darkly handsome Gérard Lanvin (1950) is a César Award-winning French actor and screenwriter. In the last decade he appeared in several popular French comedies and gangster films.

Gérard Lanvin
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

A Kind of European Sex Symbol
Gérard Raymond Lanvain was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, France in 1950. He quit his studies when he was 17 to become an actor. Between 1968 and 1970, he attended acting courses by François Florent at the Cours Florent. During the 1970’s he works in the then fashionable theatre-café, Café de la Gare. He made his film debut as an extra in the hilarious comedy L'Aile ou la Cuisse/The Wing or the Thigh (1976, Claude Zidi) with Louis de Funès and Coluche as the editors of an internationally known restaurant guide, who are waging a war against a fast food entrepreneur. Coluche then asked Lanvin as the white knight for his historical satire Vous n'aurez pas l'Alsace et la Lorraine/You Won't Have Alsace-Lorraine (1977, Coluche). Lanvin co-starred with Nathalie Baye in the drama Une semaine de vacances/A Week's Vacation (1980, Bertrand Tavernier), which was entered into the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. He played a jazz musician in the moody comedy-drama Extérieur, nuit/Exterior Night (1980, Jacques Bral) with Christine Boisson and André Dussollier. With these romantic films, the darkly handsome Lanvin became a kind of European sex symbol. In 1982, he received the Prix Jean Gabin for his role as a manipulated advertising executive in Une étrange affaire/Strange Affair (1981, Pierre Granier-Deferre) opposite Michel Piccoli as his new manager. James Travers at Films de France: “A strange film indeed. By adopting the style if not the substance of a traditional French thriller, this film explores the competing pressures of family and work in modern society. The story should be familiar to anyone who works for a medium-sized company, where certain employees are prepared, or expected, to ditch their home life to advance their careers. Fortunately, the story is told in such an unusual way, with such complex characters, that it appears anything but anodyne.”

Catherine Deneuve
Catherine Deneuve. Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 568.

Seemingly Conventional Screen Lover
Gérard Lanvin then appeared in the crime thriller Le Choix des armes/Choice of Arms (1981, Alain Corneau), starring Yves Montand, Gérard Dépardieu and Catherine Deneuve. In 1983, he co-starred again with Michel Piccoli in the French-Yugoslav science-fiction thriller Le Prix du Danger/The price of the Danger (1983, Yves Boisset) about a popular television game show where everyday men or women volunteer to be hunted by professional killers. James Travers: “Whilst it may lack the coherence and sophistication of many of Yves Boisset’s previous thrillers, Le Prix du danger does achieve an effective and satisfying mix of modern film noir thriller and black comedy. The action sequences are pacy and well choreographed whilst the acerbic humour gets across the film’s dark political subtext with impact, in spite of its blatant lack of subtlety. The film benefits from a strong cast.” A triumph was the urban comedy Marche à l'ombre/Walking in the shadow (1984, Michel Blanc) with more than 6,000,000 spectators. James Travers: “The film’s strength lies in the amazing Blanc-Lanvin double act, the two contrasting actors playing off each other to great effect: Blanc the inept yet surprisingly successful Don Juan, Lanvin the seemingly conventional screen lover who fails to get lucky (despite oozing sex appeal by the bucket load).” Then followed for Lanvin some years in which he seemed to be looking for the right part. In 1992 he starred in La Belle Histoire/The Beautiful Story (1992, Claude Lelouch) as a gypsy called Jesus. Three years later he won a César Award for Best Actor for his role as a shady hotel manager in Le Fils préféré/The Favourite Son (1995, Nicole Garcia). That year, he also portrayed a homeless man who gets shelter of a prostitute in the erotic drama Mon Homme/My Man (1995, Bertrand Blier). It was entered into the 46th Berlin International Film Festival where his co-star Anouk Grinberg won the Silver Bear for Best Actress.

Gérard Lanvin, Bernard Giraudeau, Les Spécialistes
French postcard by Les Editions Gil in the série acteurs, no. 3. Publicity still for Les Spécialistes/The Specialists (1985, Patrice Leconte) with Bernard Giraudeau.

Wildly Successful
During the 2000’s, Gérard Lanvin returned to the big screen with popular comedies. In 2001, he received the César Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the romantic comedy of manners Le Goût des autres/The Taste of Others (2000, Agnes Jaoui). Jason Clark at AllMovie: “debut filmmaker Jaoui (who also plays one of the featured roles) finds the quirks in many of her characters in unusual ways, which sets her work apart from cruder efforts. More than anything, Others tries to find the root of human interaction and its subsequent effects, at times in a manner audiences might not be willing to accept, but mostly in an interesting, entertaining fashion.” The film won the César for Best Film, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Lanvin then starred in such popular comedies as Le Boulet/Dead Weight (2002, Alain Berbérian, Frédéric Forestier) with Benoît Poelvoorde, Trois zeros/Three Zeros (2002, Fabien Onteniente) with Samuel LeBihan, and Camping (2006, Fabien Onteniente) starring Frank Dubosc. Lanvin had a supporting part in the gangster biopic L'Instinct de Mort/Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2007, Jean-François Richet), which starred Vincent Cassel as larger-than-life outlaw Jacques Mesrine, who thrived on his status as French Public Enemy Number 1. It was the premier instalment in a two-part series of features, and Lanvin also appeared as Mesrine’s leftist spokesman in the second feature, L'ennemi Public No. 1/Mesrine: Public Enemy # 1 (2008, Jean-François Richet). In France this saga was wildly successful in the cinemas, and has been referred to as the French version of Scarface with Al Pacino. Also popular were the action-thriller À bout portant/Point Blank (2010, Fred Cavayé) starring Gilles Lellouche, and Les Lyonnais/A Gang Story (2011, Olivier Marchal) about a 1970’s gang which operated around Lyon. In 2013, he can be seen in the crime drama Colt 45 (2013, Fabrice du Welz). Gérard Lanvin is married to former actress and singer Jennifer. They have two children, singer Manu Lanvin and deejay Léo Lanvin.


Trailer for Extérieur, nuit/Exterior Night (1980). Source: Turguiefroide (YouTube).


Trailer for Passionnément/Passionately (2000, Bruno Nuytten) with Charlotte Gainsbourg. Source: Forever CLG (YouTube).


Trailer for Les Lyonnais/A Gang Story (2011). Source: abcscope (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (Films de France), Jason Clark (AllMovie), AlloCiné (French), AllMovie, Wikipedia (English and French) and IMDb.

27 April 2013

Bruto Castellani

Italian actor Bruto Castellani (1881-1933) was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the silent era. He was the noble strong man in such historical epics as Quo vadis? (1913), Quo Vadis? (1924), and Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei/The Last Days of Pompeii (1926).

Bruto Castellani in Quo vadis?
Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 665. Photo: publicity still for Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Georg Jacoby, 1924), produced by the Unione Cinematografica Italiana.

Fabiola (1918)
Spanish postcard for Amatller Marca Luna chocolate, series 8, no. 11. Photo: Palatino Film. Livio Pavanelli, Bruto Castellani and signora Poletti in Fabiola (Enrico Guazzoni, 1918).

Good giant


Bruto Castellani was born in Rome in 1881.

He started with small parts in silent films for the Cines company like the historical drama Santa Cecilia/Saint Cecilia (Enrique Santos, 1911).

He had his breakthrough as the noble strong man Ursus in the historical drama Quo Vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). This story of the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Nero was based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz. At the London gala premiere in the Albert Hall, the king and queen congratulated Castellani on his performance.

He next performed as the good giant in such epic films as Cajus Julius Caesar/Julius Caesar (Enrico Guazzoni, 1914) starring Amleto Novelli, and Fabiola (Enrico Guazzoni, 1918) with Elena Sangro.

During the 1920s, he played in Messalina/The Fall of an Empress (1923, Enrico Guazzoni), the 1924 version of Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Georg Jacoby, 1924) with Emil Jannings as Nero, and the 1926 version of Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei/The Last Days of Pompeii (Carmine Gallone, Amleto Palermi, 1926).

Quo vadis?
Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Film Cines, Roma. Publicity still for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Helped by Acte, Nero's former mistress, Ursus (Bruto Castellani) subtracts Lygia (Lea Giunchi) from the orgy of the imperial banquet, where the drunken Roman Vinicius tried to rape her.

Bruto Castellani and Augusto Mastripietri in Quo vadis? (1913)
Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Film Cines, Roma. Publicity still for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Christian strong man Ursus (Bruto Castellani) orders the treacherous Greek philosopher Chilon (Augusto Mastripietri) to come along.

Quo vadis?
Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Film Cines, Roma. Publicity still for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Vinicius (Amleto Novelli) finds Lygia in the catacombs of Ostriano. Left of Lygia is St. Peter (Giovanni Gizzi), and right of her protector Ursus. Vinicius plots to abduct Lygia, with the help of the Greek Chilo (Augusto Mastripietri) and a gladiator.

Quo vadis?
Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Film Cines, Roma. Publicity still for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Lygia saves Vinicius from the hands of Ursus (Bruto Castellani). Ursus, the protector of Lygia, has just killed a gladiator who had been charged by Vinicius to kill Ursus while he himself planned to abduct Licia.

Quo vadis?
Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Film Cines, Roma. Publicity still for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). The Giant Ursus awaits the bull in the circus. After his long captivity, Ursus is almost blinded when he enters the arena. Then a wild bull enters the arena on which back Lygia is bound. Ursus kills the bull with his bare hands, much to the delight of the audience and the emperor.

Quo vadis?
Italian postcard by Uff. Rev. St. Terni. Photo: Film Cines, Roma. Publicity still for Quo vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). Ursus and Vinicius implore the audience and emperor Nero to grace the Christian Lygia after Ursus has killed the bull on which back Lygia had been bound. The audience raves because of Ursus' tour de force. Vinicius has stripped his clothes to show his scars from the wars, while Ursus holds up Lygia. All around Nero hold their thumbs up for grace, even if this sign seems to have been a 19th-century invention and historically incorrect.

Bad pirate


Bruto Castellani performed as well in adventure films set in modern times. His rival strong man Bartolomeo Pagano had done the same after his success as Maciste in Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914).

Catellani appeared in 'modern' films like Una tragedia al cinematografo/Cinema Tragedy at Carnival Time (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913) and Il misteri del castello di Monroe/The Secret of Monroe Castle (Augusto Genina, 1914), both starring diva Pina Menichelli.

Next to good guys, Castellani played one memorable baddy: the pirate Gothar in the naval battle scene in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Fred Niblo, 1925), shot near Livorno in 1924.

His last film was La bella corsara/The Beautiful Corsair (Wladimiro De Liguoro, 1928) featuring Rina De Liguoro.

In 1928, Castellani withdrew from the cinema and became a civil servant. Bruto Castellani died in 1933 in Rome.

Quo vadis? (1924-25)
Italian postcard by G.B. Falci, Milano / La Fotominio, no. 163. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Publicity still for Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Georg Jacoby, 1924). Caption: While the Christians were awaiting their turn. In the foreground, Ursus (Bruto Castellani) is guarding Licia (Lilian Hall-Davis). In the background, the light falls on the family of Plautus, Domitilla (Elga Brink) and their son (Marcella Sabbatini).

Quo vadis? (1924-25)
Italian postcard by G.G. Falci, Milano / La Fotominio, no. 165. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Publicity still for Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Georg Jacoby, 1924). Caption: Acte and Licia meet again in the catacombs. Actually, the caption is wrong. Lycia meets again Domitilla (Elga Brink), her husband Plautus (name unknown) and their son. On the right Ursus (Bruto Castellani).

Quo vadis? (1924)
Italian postcard by Ed. L'Argentografica, Turin, no. 3048. Photo: Unione Cinematografia Italiana (UCI). Scene from Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Georg Jacoby, 1924). Ursus and Liica/Lygia in prison.

Quo vadis? (1924)
Italian postcard by Ed. L'Argentografica, Turin, no. 3056. Photo: Unione Cinematografia Italiana (UCI). Scene from Quo Vadis? (Gabriellino D'Annunzio, Georg Jacoby, 1924). Ursus (Bruto Castellani) has killed the gladiator Croton, who instead had been paid to kill Ursus, in order to abduct Lygia again. The traitor Chilo (Gino Viotti) watches on.

Emil Jannings as Nero
Emil Jannings as Nero in Quo Vadis? (1924). Italian postcard Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 668. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana. On the backside is an ink stamp for the Politeama Cesare Rossi, Fano.

Elena Sangro in Quo vadis
Elena Sangro as Empress Poppea in Quo Vadis? (1924). Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 663. Photo: Unione Cinematografica Italiana.

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Maciste & Co. I giganti buoni del muto italiano) and IMDb

This post was last updated on 11 September 2023.

26 April 2013

Dolly Haas

German-born, British stage and screen actress Dolly Haas (1910-1994) was popular in the 1930s as a vivacious, red-haired gamine often wearing trousers in German and British films. Although she got a 3-year contract with Columbia and she worked with Alfred Hitchcock in Hollywood, Dolly's American career mainly took place on and Off-Broadway.

Dolly Haas
German collectors card in the Moderne Schönheitsgalerie by Ross Verlag for Kurmark cigarettes, no. 55. Photo: Hisa-Film.

Dolly Haas
German collectors card in the Moderne Schönheitsgalerie by Ross Verlag for Kurmark cigarettes. Photo: Dolly Haas in Warum lügt Fräulein Käthe?/Why is Miss Käthe lying? (Georg Jacoby, 1935).

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6309/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Eli Marcus.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6565/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Schenker, Berlin.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6565/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Schenker, Berlin.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8157/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Walther Jaeger, Berlin.

A department doll who comes to life


Dolly Haas was born Dorothy Clara Louise Haas (some sources write Hass) in 1910 in Hamburg, Germany. She was British: her grandfather was a Dane who lived in England and married an Englishwoman. Her father, Charles Oswald Haas, a bookseller and friend of Sir Henry Wood, had married the Austrian Margarete Maria née Hansen and settled in Hamburg.

At six, Dolly started with ballet lessons, and she had her first public dance performance in a production of 'Die Fledermaus' (The Bat). From 1917 until 1927, Dolly attended the progressive lyceum of Dr. Löwenberg.

After her graduation, she went to Berlin where Erik Charell gave her a large supporting role in his stage production of 'Mikado'. In 1930 the famous Max Reinhardt offered her an engagement in his stage production 'Wie werde ich reich und glücklich' (How Do I Become Rich and Happy) (1930, Erich Engel).

That same year she made her film debut as a department doll who comes to life in Eine Stunde Glück/One Summer of Happiness (Wilhelm (William) Dieterle, 1930). Her second film was Dolly macht Karriere/Dolly's Way to Stardom (1930), the directorial debut of Anatole Litvak.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Dolly's Career top-bills the delightful Dolly Haas in the title role. It's a harmless little story about a starry-eyed chorus girl who hopes to become a big star and also keep her virtue, and of the various antagonists who try to prevent her from doing either. The film is highlighted by a number of elaborate dance sequences, gracefully performed by Haas and cleverly choreographed by Ernst Matray." The film title seemed prophetic for her future.

Dolly Haas in So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht
Dutch postcard by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, Z., no. B 168. Photo: Filma, Amsterdam. Publicity still for So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht/A Girl You Don't Forget (Fritz Kortner, 1932).

Dolly Haas, Wili Forst
Dutch postcard by Filma, no. 426. Photo: publicity still for So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht/A Girl You Don't Forget (Fritz Kortner, 1932) with Haas and Willi Forst.

Dolly Haas
Dutch postcard by Filma, no. 430.

Dolly Haas, Willi Forst, Oscar Sima

Dutch postcard by Filma, no. 449. Photo: Dolly Haas, Willi Forst and Oskar Sima (left) in So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht/A Girl You Don't Forget (Fritz Kortner, 1932).

Dolly Haas
Dutch postcard by Filma, no. 514.

Delicate and Lovely Child-Woman


Dolly Haas continued her stage career as a dancer, singer, and streetwise girl. In her films, she often embodied a delicate and lovely child-woman who is superior to her male partners because of her wit and energy.

Popular comedies with her were Der brave Sünder/The Upright Sinner (Fritz Kortner, 1931) with Max Pallenberg and Heinz Rühmann, So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht/A Girl You Don't Forget (Fritz Kortner, 1932) with Willi Forst and Oskar Sima, and Scampolo, ein Kind der Straße/Scampolo (Hans Steinhoff, 1932) with Karl Ludwig Diehl.

She regularly acted in 'Hosenrolle’ (roles in trousers), such as in Liebeskommando/Love's Command (Géza von Bolváry, 1931) with Gustav Fröhlich. Dolly played a girl who masquerades as her brother in order to join the military academy.

Anti-semitic protests followed the premiere of Das hässliche Mädchen/The Ugly Girl (Hermann Kosterlitz, 1933). It came to riots against her Jewish co-star Max Hansen. The names of Jewish director Hermann Kosterlitz (later Henry Koster) and writer Felix Joachimson (later Felix Jackson) were taken off the credits.

IMDb: "This was the last film that Henry Koster directed in Berlin before having to leave due to Nazis. He left Berlin, having knocked out an SS officer, one day before filming was finished on the movie. The Nazis removed his name from the credits and substituted the name of Hasse Preiss, the lyricist."

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6058/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Schrecker, Berlin.

Dolly Haas, Reinhold Schünzel and Lucie Mannheim in Der Ball (1931)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6079/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Vandal & Delac. Dolly Haas, Reinhold Schünzel and Lucie Mannheim in Der Ball/The Ball (Wilhelm Thiele, 1931).

Dolly Haas and Heinz Rühmann in Es wird schon wieder besser (1932)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6423/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa. Dolly Haas and Heinz Rühmann in Es wird schon wieder besser/Things Are Getting Better Already (Kurt Gerron, 1932).

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6765/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Elli Marcus, Berlin.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7186/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Lothar Stark-Film.

Dolly Haas, Willi Forst
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7397/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Walter Lichtenstein / Projectograph-Film. Publicity still for So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht/A Girl You Don't Forget (Fritz Kortner, 1932) with Haas and Willi Forst. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Girls Will Be Boys


After the National Socialists came to power in Germany, Dolly Haas and her first husband, the director Hans Brahm (later John Brahm), moved to England.

There, she again donned trousers for Girls Will Be Boys (Marcel Varnel, 1934). It involved her getting work at the all-male estate of a misogynistic duke (Cyril Maude). Only when she is saved from drowning while swimming in the nude, her gender is revealed.

She played in two more British films, including Broken Blossoms (John Brahm1936) a remake of the silent masterpiece. First, D.W. Griffith the director of the silent version had been hired.

The Guardian related in its 1994 obituary of Haas what happened: "while Dolly was contracted to play the Lillian Gish role of the Cockney waif, the director was rehearsing Ariane Borg, an unknown protegee of his. When the producers refused to use Borg, Griffith left to be replaced by Brahm. Delicately lovely, Haas, who researched the role by visiting Limehouse to watch slum children at play, was the saving grace of the film."

Her last British picture, before going to the US with her husband, was Spy Of Napoleon (Maurice Elvey, 1937), in which she was a dancer who believes herself to be Louis Napoleon's illegitimate daughter. In 1936 Haas signed a 3-year contract with Columbia and went to Hollywood, but after an 18-month wait for the right role, she left for New York.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7537/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Hisa-Film. Publicity still for Die Kleine Schwindlerin/The Little Crook (Johannes Meyer, 1933).

Dolly Haas and Harald Paulsen in Die Kleine Schwindlerin (1933)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7538/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Hisa-Film. Publicity still for Die Kleine Schwindlerin/The Little Crook (Johannes Meyer, 1933) with Harald Paulsen.

Dolly Haas
Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 6228. Photo: Kiba Verleih.

Dolly Haas
Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6481. Photo: Hugo Ingel Film.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 766. Photo: Atelier Yva, Berlin.

On and Off-Broadway


Dolly Haas became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1940 and made her New York stage debut in Erwin Piscator's production of the Chinese fantasy 'The Circle of Chalk' (1941).

She had met famous caricaturist Al Hirschfeld when the artist was on assignment to draw a sketch of a summer theatre company for The New York Times. In 1942 they married and three years later their daughter Nina was born.

At that time Dolly had a successful career on and Off-Broadway and she appeared a.o. with John Gielgud and Lillian Gish in a stage adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' (Theodore Komisarjevsky, 1947) at the National Theatre. She was also in the Off-Broadway productions of 'The Threepenny Opera' and 'Brecht on Brecht'.

Her only major movie role - after a 17-year absence on the screen - was in the high-profile I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953). She and O. E. Hasse played an artist couple whose emigration to the US ends in tragedy.

The Guardian: "she was superb as the doomed wife of the killer protected by priest Montgomery Clift's confessional vows." Thereafter she sporadically appeared on television.

In 1983, the Berlin International Film Festival dedicated a retrospective to her work. Her last screen appearance was in the documentary Dolly, Lotte und Maria/Dolly, Lotte and Maria (1987, Rosa von Praunheim) with Lotte Goslar, and Maria Ley Piscator.

Mel Gussow wrote about Haas and her husband in The New York Times: "For many decades the two were an elegant couple on the aisle at all Broadway opening nights, watching the actors and actresses whom Mr. Hirschfeld would sketch for The New York Times." They remained happily married until her death in 1994 at 84. Dolly Haas' ashes were scattered in the English Channel off Alderney, where her sister lived and died.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6350/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.

Dolly Haas in Das hässliche Mädchen (1933)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7825/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Willinger, Berlin. Dolly Haas in her outfit of Das hässliche Mädchen/The Ugly Girl (Henry Koster/Hermann Kosterlitz, Avanti-Tonfilm 1933), distributed by Bayerische Film.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7825/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Willinger, Berlin. Dolly Haas in her outfit of Das hässliche Mädchen (Henry Koster/Hermann Kosterlitz, 1933).

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8063/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Dolly Haas
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8324/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Lindner.

Dolly Haas in Es tut sich was um Mitternacht (1934)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8324/2, 1933-1934. Photo: Lindner / Hisa-Film-Vertrieb GmbH. Dolly Haas in Es tut sich was um Mitternacht/So This Is Midnight (Robert A. Stemmle, 1934).

Sources: Mel Gussow (The New York Times), The Guardian, Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, German Continental Strangers (Dartmouth.edu), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 9 December 2020.