29 July 2021

The People

Around 1950, the British newspaper The People issued a series of black and white film star postcards. Most of the stars were British actors working for the Rank studios, but among 'The People' were also Hollywood stars. Many of the starlets were photographed in bathing suits, but the male stars were always fully dressed in suits, and sometimes smoking a pipe. Typical for The People cards is also the white frame below.

Dennis Price
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1001. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

British actor Dennis Price (1915-1973) made nearly 130 films and television plays. He started as a suave leading man and became a character star of great versatility.

Patricia Hall
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1007. Photo: Universal-International.

Patricia Hall was an American starlet who appeared in small parts in such films as Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949).

Yvonne De Carlo
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1021. Photo: Universal-International.

Yvonne De Carlo (1922-2007) was a Canadian American actress, singer, and dancer whose career in film, television, and musical theatre spanned six decades.

Patricia Alphin
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1026. Photo: Universal-International.

Blonde Hollywood starlet Patricia Alphin (1926) reportedly was rather more seen in advertising – including for Hollywood Bread, a product that purported to be a weight-losing proposition - than on screen where she usually played 'model' or 'girl.'

Barbara Payton
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1033. Photo: Universal-International.

American film actress Barbara Payton (1927-1967) was a blue-eyed, peroxide blonde sexpot, less known for her films than for her stormy social life and eventual battles with alcohol and drug addiction. Her tale is one of the saddest ever to come out of Hollywood.

Burt Lancaster
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1038. Photo: Universal-International.

Fame came to American film legend Burt Lancaster (1913-1994) with his first film role, as the doomed Swede in Universal's The Killers (1946), but the former circus acrobat knew better than to leave his career in other hands. After less than two years in Hollywood, Lancaster formed his own production company and took the lead in such popular successes as the Technicolor Swashbucklers The Flame and the Arrow (1950) and The Crimson Pirate (1952), and the Western Vera Cruz (1954). The athletic, savvy but passionate Lancaster remained a box office draw for 20 years, winning a 1961 Academy Award for playing the corrupt evangelist Elmer Gantry (1960). His best work through the next decades was often in European features like Luchino Visconti's Il gattopardo/The Leopard (1963) and Gruppo di famiglia in un interno/Conversation Piece (1974), Novecento/1900 (1976), and Atlantic City (1980), which netted him an Oscar nomination.

Moira Shearer
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1041. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

Red-headed Moira Shearer (1926-2006) was a luminous star of the British ballet. She became an international film idol with her unforgettable debut as the young ballerina Vicky in The Red Shoes (1948), a classic of British cinema and probably the most popular film about ballet.

June Haver
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Services, London, no. P. 1050. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

American film actress June Haver (1926-2005) was a popular alternative to the musical film stars Betty Grable and Alice Faye in several musicals of the 1940s. Haver's second husband was the actor Fred MacMurray, whom she married after she retired from show business.

Carmen Miranda
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1051. Photo: Virgil Apger / United Artists.

Brazilian dancer, singer, and actress Carmen Miranda (1909-1955) was famed for wearing a fruit basket hat, she taught the world how to samba dance. Miranda starred in fourteen films. As Miranda became famous around the world her trademark fruit basket went with her, morphing into a range of exuberant and colourful headdresses. Popular from the 1930s to the 1950s in Brazil and Hollywood, Miranda's most famous songs include 'Tico Tico', 'South American Way, 'Chica Chica Boom Chic', 'Rebola a Bola' and 'I Yi Yi Yi Yi'.

David Niven
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1057. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd. David Niven in Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, 1939).

British Academy Award-winning actor David Niven (1910-1983) impersonated the archetypal English gentleman, witty, naturally charming, immaculate in dress and behaviour, but he also had a dash of light-hearted sexual roguishness. He is probably best known for his role as the punctuality-obsessed adventurer Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

Richard Attenborough
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1065. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

English actor, film director, and producer Richard Attenborough (1923) won two Oscars for Gandhi in 1983. He has also won four BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. As an actor, he is known for his roles in Brighton Rock (1947), The Great Escape (1963), and Jurassic Park (1993).

Laurence Olivier
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1085. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. The Brit played a wide variety of roles on stage and screen from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and Restoration comedy to modern American and British drama. He got fourteen Oscar nominations, with two wins for Best Actor and Best Picture for Hamlet (1948), and two honorary awards.

Ralph Richardson
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, no. P. 1100. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation Ltd.

English actor Sir Ralph David Richardson (1902-1983) was one of the theatrical knights of the 20th century. Though more closely associated with the theater, he appeared over a period of 50 years in such film classics as The Fallen Idol (1948), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Greystoke (1984).

Kieron Moore
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1111. Photo: London Film Productions LTD.

With his dark good looks and tall figure, Irish actor Kieron Moore (1924-2007) made a name for himself in post-war British films as both heroes and villains. After he retired as an actor he became a passionate Catholic journalist and charity worker.

Trevor Howard
British postcard in The People series of Show Parade Picture Services, London, no. P. 1118. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

English film, stage, and television actor Trevor Howard (1913-1988) is best known as the doctor in the classic romantic drama Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945), in which his co-star was Celia Johnson. In the 1940s and 1950s, he often played the slightly dry, slightly crusty but capable British military officer, and in the 1960s he became one of England's finest character actors.

Guy Madison
British postcard in The People series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1124. Photo: Allied Arts.

Handsome American leading man Guy Madison (1922-1996) appeared in 85 films, on radio, and on television. In the 1940s, he started as a fresh-faced dreamboat. He became a hero to the Baby Boom generation as James Butler Hickock in the television series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951-1958). After the Hickok series ended, Madison became a star of European cinema.

Hedy Lamarr in Copper Ranyon (1950)
British postcard in 'The People' series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P 1127. Photo: Paramount. Hedy Lamarr in Copper Ranyon (John Farrow, 1950).

Glamorous and seductive film star Hedy Lamarr (1913–2000) was born in Austria. The notorious Czechoslovak film Ekstase/Ecstasy (1933) made her an international sensation, and Louis Mayer invited her to Hollywood where she became ‘the most beautiful woman in films’.

Adele Jergens
British postcard in The People Series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1131. Photo: Columbia. Adele Jergens in Beware of Blondie (Edward Bernds, 1950).

Glamorous Adele Jergens (1917-2002) was an American film actress of the 1940s and 1950s who was often cast in B-films as blonde floozies and burlesque dancers.

Betsy Drake (1923-2015)
British postcard in the Film Star Series by Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1167. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

American actress and writer Betsy Drake (1923-2015) played in films such as The Second Woman (1950), Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) with Jayne Mansfield, and the British thriller Intent to Kill (1958) with Richard Todd. She was also known for being the third wife of Cary Grant, with whom she co-starred in Every Girl Should Be Married (1948) and Room for One More (1952).

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