Pages

20 March 2022

Artisti di sempre

'Artisti di sempre' was an Italian postcard series by Edit. ris. Rotalfoto S.p.A. in Milano. The big-sized postcards show classic Hollywood and European film stars of the 1960s in full colour. Artisti di sempre translates as 'Artists of all times'.

Thomas Milian
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, in the series Artisti di sempre, no. 118.

Cuban-American actor Tomás Milián or Thomas Milian (1933) worked extensively in Italian films from the early 1960s to the late 1980s. He played neurotic and sadistic killers in several Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and lone-wolf anti-heroes in violent action and police thrillers of the 1970s. Very popular in Italy were his crime-comedies of the late 1970s and 1980s. Besides these genre films, he worked with such prolific directors as Mauro Bolognini, Luchino Visconti, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Paul Newman
Italian postcard in the series Artisti di Sempre by Ed. Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 291.

American film actor Paul Newman (1925-2008) was as much a hero off-screen as on. A blue-eyed matinee idol whose career successfully spanned five decades, he was also a prominent social activist, a major proponent of actors' creative rights, and a noted philanthropist.

Gina Lollobrigida
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto in the Artisti di Sempre series, no. 294.

Gorgeous Italian actress and photojournalist Gina Lollobrigida (1927) was the first European sex symbol of the post-war years. ‘La Lollo’ paved the way into Hollywood for her younger colleagues Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale.

Joan Collins
Italian postcard by Ed. Ris. Rotalfoto S.p.A., Milano (Milan) in the series Artisti di Sempre, no. 295. Joan Collins.

Glamorous English actress Joan Collins (1933) is one of the great survivors of the cinema. She began in the early 1950s as a starlet of British film. 20th Century Fox brought her to Hollywood as their answer to MGM's Elizabeth Taylor. In the 1970’s she was the ‘Queen of the B-pictures’, but in the 1980s Joan became the highest-paid TV star, thanks to Dynasty.

Kirk Douglas (1916-2020)
Italian postcard by in the Artisti di Sempre series by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 297.

Cleft-chinned and steely-eyed American superstar Kirk Douglas (1916-2020) made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Douglas soon developed into a leading box-office star throughout the 1950s, known for serious dramas, Westerns, and war films. Our favourites are the two classics he made with Stanley Kubrick, Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960). During his long career, he appeared in more than 90 films.

Jean Simmons
Italian postcard in the Artisti di sempre series by Edit. ris. Rotalfoto S.p.A., Milano, no 298.

Demure, dark-haired English beauty Jean Simmons (1929-2010) was in the late 1940s a box office attraction in films like Great Expectations and Hamlet. In 1950 she moved to Hollywood with her husband, Stewart Granger, and soon became a major Hollywood star who would be twice nominated for an Oscar.

Ava Gardner
Italian postcard in the series Artisti di Sempre by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 299.

American actress Ava Gardner (1922-1990) was signed to a contract by MGM in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading stars and was considered one of the most beautiful women of her day. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953). She appeared in several high-profile films from the 1950s to 1970s and continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death at the age of 67.

Doris Day (1922-2019)
Big Italian postcard in the Artisti di Sempre series by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 341.

Doris Day (1922-2019) was a legendary actress and singer. She performed with several big bands before going solo in 1947. In the 1950s, she made a series of popular film musicals, including Calamity Jane (1953) and The Pajama Game (1957). With Rock Hudson, she starred in the box office hit Pillow Talk (1959). On TV, she appeared in the sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968-1973).

Leslie Caron
Italian postcard in the Artisti di Sempre series by Ed. ris. Rotalfoto S.p.A., Milano, no. 343.

French film actress and dancer Leslie Caron (1931) was one of the most famous Hollywood stars in the 1950s. She is best known for the waif-like gamines in musical films like An American in Paris (1951), Lili (1953), and Gigi (1958). Since the 1960s she’s also working in European cinema.

Jane Fonda
Italian postcard in the Artisti di Sempre series by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 344.

American actress Jane Fonda (1937) is a two-time Academy Award winner. In 2014, she was the recipient of the American Film Institute AFI Life Achievement Award.

Raquel Welch
Italian postcard in the Artisti di Sempre series by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 347.

American actress Raquel Welch (1940) is one of the icons of the 1960s and 1970s. She first won attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage (1966). In Great Britain, she then made One Million Years B.C. (1966). Although she had only three lines in the film, a poster of Welch in a furry prehistoric bikini became an amazing bestseller and catapulted her to stardom.

Ursula Andress
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano in the Artisti di Sempre series, no. 358.

Stunning Swiss sex symbol, starlet, and jet-setter Ursula Andress (1936) will always be remembered as the first and quintessential Bond girl. In Dr. No (1962) she made film history when she spectacularly rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini. Though she won a Golden Globe Ursula's looks generally outweighed her acting talent and she never took her film career very seriously.

No comments:

Post a Comment