Vintage photo.
Romy Schneider (1938-1982) was one of the most beautiful and intelligent actors of her generation. More than 40 years after her death, she still has an immense popular appeal.
Vintage autograph card. Photo: J.J. Lapeyronnie.
Elegant Catherine Deneuve (1943) is an icon of French cinema who has graced the screen for more than five decades. She gained recognition in the 1960s for her portrayal of cool, mysterious beauties in classic films by directors like Luis Buñuel, Roman Polanski and François Truffaut. Apart from being a great actress, she is also an archetype for Gallic Beauty. From 1985 to 1989, she succeeded Brigitte Bardot as the model for the national symbol Marianne, seen on French coins and stamps.
French autograph card.
French actress Anny Duperey (1947) is known for her stage, film and television roles, but she is also a best-selling author. Duperey is a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.
Sharing forgotten pictures, sleeping on the bottom of a drawer
It was very rude of me. And when I finally discovered Añelo de la Krotsche's mail, I apologised immediately. I wrote him a bit about Truus, Bob and Jan Too! and EFSP and the people behind it. And thanked him for his very kind offer. He was, of course, welcome to send his cards to us, very welcome.
When he read my message, Añelo remembered that in the early 1980s, he had a friend in Austria, whose mother used to be friends with Magda and Romy Schneider in the 1950s, and who had many original photos of them. Back at the time, she gave him one of these original photos of Romy. He promised to send me that one as well. "It took me more than an hour to find it, as all my old photos and postcards are in boxes, and I never watched them in 25 years or more, so I don't really need them anymore."
Searching for this photo he also found some film-related postcards: several from A bout de souffle by Godard with Belmondo and Jean Seberg, but also cards with portraits of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and David Bennent, and poster cards of La Pirate by Doillon with Jane Birkin, Kika by Almodóvar, and Witness with Harrison Ford: "I didn't even remember having these postcards."
Añelo liked to read that Ivo and I both have worked for Eye Filmmuseum: "I know the modern building of Eye very well, I often went for walks in the area during 2011 and 2015. Some of my best memories remain in Amsterdam. I love cinema very much too, but don't have your knowledge about its history, especially when it comes to the cinema of the 1920s, 1930s or 1940s. My three favourite directors (in very different styles) are Luchino Visconti, Ingmar Bergman and Theo Angelopoulos. It is almost an extraordinary coincidence that Ivo is the author of one of the books on Visconti that I have in my library. I have all their movies, and have watched them all many times. I also love other directors of whom I have almost all their films: Hitchcock, Almodóvar, Aleksandar Petrović, Tarkovsky and some others..."
So I proposed to Añelo a guest post on EFSP. Añelo: "I don't have much to say about the actresses who signed a picture, all I can say is that they were all very friendly and nice, but there are no other anecdotes I could talk about. Or I could only explain that sharing these pictures allows them to come out from the 'bottom of a drawer' where they were forgotten, and the fact that I like to pass things on." Here is the result.
French autograph card by Editions P.I., Paris. Photo: Sygma.
French film, television, and stage actress Nathalie Baye (1948) began her career in 1970 and has appeared in more than 80 films. She has won more than ten acting awards, including the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for Une liaison pornographique (1999). Baye won four Césars, for Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980), Une étrange affaire (1981), La Balance (1982) and Le petit lieutenant (2005).
French autograph card.
Isabelle Adjani (1955) is a dark-haired beauty with porcelain skin and expressive blue eyes, who has appeared in nearly 50 films since 1970. The French film actress holds the record for most César Awards for Best Actress with five, for Possession (1981), L'Été Meurtrier / One Deadly Summer (1983), Camille Claudel (1988), La Reine Margot / Queen Margot (1994) and La journée de la jupe / Skirt Day (2009). She also received two Oscar nominations for Best Actress.
French postcard. Photo: Phonogram / Raymond Bounon. Publicity still for the record 'Baby alone in Baylone' (1983).
In the Swinging Sixties, shy, awkward-looking British actress Jane Birkin (1946-2023) made a huge international splash as one of the nude models in Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). In France, she became the muse of singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote several of her albums, plus their explicitly erotic duet 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'. Later, she worked with such respected film directors as Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda and Jacques Doillon, and won several acting awards.
French poster postcard by SEDII, no. C 7. Image: A.M.L.F. French poster for La Pirate / The Pirate (Jacques Doillon, 1984) with Jane Birkin and Maruschka Detmers.
French postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma, no. EDC 909. Image: S.U.B. P.O.P. / October Films. English poster for Kika (Pedro Almodóvar, 1993) with Victoria Abril, Veronica Forqué and Rossy De Palma.
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. 248. Image: Paramount / Cinema International Corporation. French poster for Witness (Peter Weir, 1985) with Harrison Ford. The French title is Témoin sous surveillance.
Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers, no. 57122. Image: Clément Hurel / Collection Cinémathèque Suisse Lausanne. French poster for A bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).
In 1959, Jean-Luc Godard directed his first feature film, À bout de souffle / Breathless (1960), based on a screenplay by François Truffaut. This film played a key role in the birth of the Nouvelle Vague. It broke with many then prevailing conventions, with its references, influences from the American (gangster) film, the low budget, and the rough editing. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg starred, and the film was a huge success with audiences and critics. Godard won the Silver Bear for this film at the Berlin Film Festival in 1960. Jean Seberg was nominated for a BAFTA Award.
Swiss postcard by CVB Publishers, no. 57138. Image: Ciné Vog Films / News Productions / Collection Cinémathèque Suisse Lausanne. Belgian poster for A bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960). The Flemish title is Tot de laatste zucht.
French postcard by Editions Art & Scene, 1996, no. CF 63. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).
French postcard by Editions Art & Scene, 1996, no. CF 84. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier. Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in A bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).
French postcard by Editions Art & Scene, 1996, no. CF 85. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier. Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).
French postcard by Editions Art & Scene, Paris, 1996, no. CF 106. Photo: Raymond Cauchetier. Jean Seberg in A bout de souffle / Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960).
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. Star 46. Photo: George Barris. Marilyn Monroe on Santa Monica Beach in July 1962. Marilyn wears a handmade knit cardigan she purchased from Mexico.
By 1953, Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars, with leading roles in three films: the Film Noir Niagara, which focused on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, but returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, The Seven Year Itch (1955).
Belgian postcard by Edition Atom.
American actor James Dean (1931-1955) was the quintessential 1950s teenager, brooding and romantic. An air of androgyny is attributed to his iconic appeal to both men and women. The three roles that defined his stardom are as troubled teenager Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly Ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). After he died in a car crash, the 24-year-old Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
West German postcard by Gebr. König Postkartenverlag, Köln, no. D 129. Photo: Roswitha Hecke. Caption: David Bennent, Berlin, 1968.
David Bennent (1966) is a Swiss actor who appeared in numerous theatre plays and films for cinema and television. He is best known for his role as Oskar Matzerath in Volker Schlöndorff's Oscar-winning film The Tin Drum (1979), an adaptation of Günter Grass' novel. Añelo: "As for David Bennent's card, I found it in Paris. I don't even remember when, probably in the 1990s. He's an actor I really like, and there's actually a funny anecdote about him and my username on Flickr. In the beautiful film Canicule / Heatwave by Yves Boisset (a dark thriller), David Bennent plays a humorous character. In a rather dark murder scene, he is asked his name and he answers "Anielo Dellacroce". I thought he had invented this strange name, and I wrote it as I heard it with his German accent, and the name seemed funny to me. I had the impression that it was a mixture of Spanish, a particle of nobility in French and a German name. I took this phonetic transcription of the name, Añelo de la Krotsche. Contacts on Flickr later told me that their friends claimed it couldn't possibly be my real name. And my sister's partner asked me, much later, why I had chosen that name as my username on Flickr. I didn't understand the reason for all the questions about this alias. And then I discovered by chance that Anielo Dellacroce is a real person, who used to be a member of the mafia. I was obviously surprised. I feel completely at odds with everything the mafia represents, and as far as cinema goes, films that evoke the mafia don't interest me either. But I kept my Flickr username because I still find it amusing with its mixture of three languages, the way I wrote it, and it's a sort of nod to David Bennent's character in Canicule.
Merçi beaucoup, Añelo! Many thanks for this extraordinary gift and your contribution to European Film Star Postcards.
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