Published by Armando Terzoli

During the late 1930s and  1940s, A. (Armando) Terzoli in Rome edited a large series of film star postcards with actors from the Italian sound cinema. The cards were printed by Stabilimenti Angeli in Terni. In and around Terni was then the heart of the Italian paper production. The photographers were the regular masters of that era: Bragaglia, Pesce, Gneme, Venturini, Ghergo, Bertazzini, Vaselli. Under his full name of Armando Terzoli, he edited a second series of Italian film star postcards, without the mentioning of Angeli. For this post, we selected sixteen postcards, thirteen of the first series and the final three of the second series.


Italian postcard by St. b Angeli, Terni / A. Terzoli, Roma, no. 4.A. Photo: Bragaglia.
Though she acted in many light entertainment films, Clara Calamai's (1909-1998) most famous role will for always be femme fatale Giovanna in Luchino Visconti's steamy (proto-)neorealist film Ossessione (1943).


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 70. Photo: Gneme.

Paola Barbara (1912-1989) was an Italian actress who acted in over 60 films but also worked on stage and for television. She is best known for the film La peccatrice (1940) by Amleto Palermi.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 126.

Italian actress Laura Nucci (1913-1994) was one of the stars of Italian cinema of the 1930s and 1940s. Between 1930 and 1989, she appeared in more than 60 films and TV series.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 263. Photo: Bragaglia.

Adriana Benetti (1919–2016) was an Italian actress, who peaked in the 1940s in films such as Teresa Venerdí (1941) and Quattro passi fra le nuvole (1942).


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 276. Photo: Pesce.

Italian character actor Paolo Stoppa (1906–1988) is best known for his stage work with director Luchino Visconti. In a career of more than 50 years, he also appeared in such cinema classics as Miracolo a Milano (1951), Il Gattopardo (1962), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 305. Photo: Ciolfi.

Fausto Guerzoni (1904-1967) began his career as a young comic actor in avant-garde and variety theatre. He was discovered by Mario Camerini, who let him debut in the film Darò un milione/I'll give you a million (1935). Thus he began a career in over a hundred films.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 333 Photo: Gneme.

Italian stage and screen actress Elsa De Giorgi (1914-1997) worked also as a director and set designer and was a successful novelist. She had a prolific career in the Italian cinema under Mussolini, and after the war, she worked on stage with Luchino Visconti and Giorgi Strehler and in films by Pier Paolo Pasolini. But she is now best remembered for her extramarital affair with author Italo Calvino.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 339. Photo: Vaselli. Laura Nucci in Rita da Cascia (Antonio Leonviola, 1943).

Italian actress Laura Nucci (1913-1994) was one of the stars of the Fascist era. Between 1930 and 1989, she appeared in more than 60 films and TV series.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 343. Photo: Dinami e M.

Giuseppe Rinaldi (1919-2007) had his first supporting part at the age of 20 in Mario Camerini's I grandi magazzini (1939). His first major part was opposite Maria Mercader in Il prigioniero di Santa Cruz (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1941). During the war years, Rinaldi had several major supporting parts in Italian cinema, both in drama and comedy. After the war, he acted as the engineer in Aldo Fabrizi's Emigrantes (1949). In parallel with his career as an actor, Rinaldi dedicated his life to dubbing films.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 351. Photo: Bertazzini.

Aldo Fabrizi (1905-1990) was an Italian actor, screenwriter, and director. Aldo Fabrizi was one of the most important figures in post-war Italian cinema. With his receding hairline and round silhouette, he imposed a character typical of a sympathetic and naive Roman, which won him great success in the Italian peninsula. But his talent far exceeded the mere register of comedy, as his tragic role as a resistant priest in Roma, città aperta/Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945) proved.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 420. Photo: Ghergo.

Blonde Italian film actress Mariella Lotti (1921–2006) played leading ladies in a number of Fascist-era and post-war films. The refined beauty quickly became one of the most popular Italian divas of the 1940s.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 422. Dina Sassoli in Colpi di timone (Gennaro Righelli, 1942).

Dina Sassoli (1920-2008) was an Italian stage and screen actress, who broke through with the film I promessi sposi (Mario Camerini, 1941), but her success came with a twist. She had married a young journalist, who was considered antifascist by the government. In 1942, he disappeared. Devastated, Sassoli almost gave up her career. However, in the war years, she played several leads in films as Nessuno torna indietro/None came back (Alessandro Blasetti, 1943, released 1945). She also starred in memorable films from the postwar era such as Un giorno nella vita/A day in the life (1946), Umanità/Humanity (1946), and Il mulino del Po/The Mill on the Po (1948), as the sister of Jacques Sernas.


Italian postcard by A. Terzoli, Roma / Stabilimenti Angeli, Terni, no. 482. Photo: Salvatori. The card may refer to the war propaganda film Inviati speciali (Romolo Marcellini, 1943) in which D'Ancora plays a camera operator.

Maurizio D'Ancora (1912-1983) was discovered by the Danish film director Alfred Lind, who was looking for a new face, to give him the male role in the silent film Ragazze non scherzate/Girls, be serious (1929) alongside the diva Leda Gloria. In 1929 Mario Camerini chose him to star opposite Käthe von Nagy as the suicidal poor couple in the almost proto-Antonioni film Rotaie (1931). These films were the beginning of a successful acting career, which he would pursue until the end of World War II.


Italian postcard by Armando Terzoli, Roma, no. 532. Photo: Pesce. Clara Calamai in La Cena delle Beffe/The Jesters' Supper (Alessandro Blasetti, 1942).

Though she acted in many light entertainment films, Clara Calamai's (1909-1998) most famous role will always be femme fatale Giovanna in Luchino Visconti's steamy (proto-)neorealist film Ossessione/Obsession (1943).


Italian postcard by Armando Terzoli, Roma. Photo: Venturini, Roma.

Italian actress Doris Duranti (1917-1995) was a major star of the Italian cinema of the late 1930s and early 1940s and the main competitor of Clara Calamai. Duranti was also the lover of a notorious fascist.


Italian postcard by Armando Terzoli, Roma, no. 58. Photo: Luxardo.

Leonardo Cortese (1916-1984) was a matinee idol of the Italian cinema of the 1940s. He starred in such films as Sissignora (1941) and Un garibaldino al convento (Vittorio De Sica, 1942). After the war, he started directing, first films and later on rather focusing on television.