Souvenirs from Noordwijk (1)

Every spring and autumn, we visit de VerzamelJaarbeurs, the Collectors' Fair in Utrecht. Of course, we have our favourite postcard sellers there. Unfortunately, their numbers are dwindling. The range on offer is changing; sellers are getting older or find the stall hire fees too high. One such seller is Jac Verloop. I once bought our finest find from him: an album of Pathé postcards from 1911. After the COVID period, Jac decided to stop attending the Collectors’ Fair, but continued to trade in postcards. So this summer, we visited him and his wife at their home in Noordwijk, a lovely coastal town in the Netherlands. We found some wonderful postcards, which we’ll be sharing with you in two posts. Here's the first with Ivo's selection of his finds.


Vintage postcard, nation and editor unknown, 1920s-1930s. The writing is in Esperanto.

Kôkichi Takada (1911-1998) was born Takeichi Kaijura in 1911. He began his film career with Shochiku Co. in 1926 and became a leading star in the mid-1930s. He often starred in historical films. Takada performed with a travelling troupe in post-war Japan before returning to the screen in 1954. He died in Kyoto of pneumonia at the age of 86 in 1998. This card is part of a set of Japanese film actors from the period before WW II. We'll share them in a future post.


French postcard by J.R.P.R., Paris, no. 379. Photo: Studio Lorelle. Simone Genevois as Jeanne d'Arc in La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d'Arc / Saint Joan the Maid (Marco De Gastyne, 1929), produced by Pathé-Natan and distributed by Aubert.

Simone Genevois (1912–1995) was a French film actress who began her career as a child actor. She had a supporting part as Pauline Bonaparte in Abel Gance's Napoléon (1927). Thern followed her best-known role as Joan of Arc in the epic La nerveilleuse de Jeanne d'Arc / Saint Joan the Maid (1929).


French postcard in the series Nos artistes dans leur loge, no. 131. Photo: Comoedia.

Denise Grey (1896-1996) debuted on screen in Mademoiselle Etchiko (André Hugon, 1913), but her first major part was in the Hector Malot adaptation En famille (1915). Grey also became a star of the Parisian stage in the 1920s and was a leading can-can dancer with the Folies Bergère. From 1935, she was prolific as a supporting actress in sound cinema and during World War II, she became a member of the Comédie Française. Until 1992, she acted in 122 films and TV productions.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 6603. Photo: Film Pathe. Caption: The Kiss of Judas.

This could be a postcard for Pathé's second film adaptation of the Life of Christ: La Vie et la Passion de Jésus-Christ (Ferdinand Zecca, Lucien Nonguet, 1902-1903). The postcard series consists of four cards: 'Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane', 'The Betrayal of Judas', 'The Kiss of Judas', and 'Judas Receives the Thirty Silver Pieces'.


French postcard by SIP, Series 42, no. 16. Photo: Camus, Paris.

Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944) was a French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque. Her ingenious delivery of songs charged with risqué meaning made her famous. She also appeared in some classic silent films, such as F.W. Murnau's Faust (1926).


French postcard, no. 126. The card was sent by mail in 1911.

Suzanne Desprès (1875–1951) was a French stage actress of the Comédie Française, where she appeared in important plays, including 'Phèdre'. In 1915, Desprès debuted in cinema in the female lead in Les soeurs ennemies by Germaine Dulac. In the 1920s, she played the lead in La porteuse de pain (1923) by René Le Somptier, and had a major supporting part in Jean Renoir's historical film Le tournoi (1928). Between 1935 and 1940 she acted in ten French sound films, including Julien Duvivier's Maria Chapdelaine (1934).


French postcard KF, Paris. Caricature of Edmond Rostand on the back of the rooster Chantecler, one of his most famous plays. The surrounding chicks represent his other plays.


French postcard by Ed. Etoile, Paris (G. Piprot). Photo: Moreau.

Paola Monti (?-?) started her career in the 1900s in Paris as a barefoot dancer. In the years before WWI, she was the leading actress in some thirty mostly short Italian films.


French postcard by Ed. C. Jeangette, Paris. Mlle Santory as La Muse in the opera 'Louise' by Gustave Charpentier. It was performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1900. The postcard was sent by mail in 1905.


French postcard by SIP, series 34, no. 4. Photo: Leopold Reutlinger, Paris. The postcard was sent by mail in 1901.

Marie Marville began her career as a horsewoman at the Molier circus in 1894. Sporty and emancipated, she rode horses, rowed, fenced, and ice skated. The newspaper Gil Blas frequently mentioned her among the demi-mondaines of the Belle Époque. In 1898, she made her stage debut in Courteline's 'La Peur des coups' in Ostend. She was hired in 1908/1909 and 1910/1911 to perform in the Folies Bergère revues. In 1913, she married P.-L. Flers (Léon Pujol), a playwright, songwriter, and revue director. Marville continued to perform on stage, but she probably never acted in a film.


French postcard, no. 1553. Photo: Leopold Reutlinger, Paris. The postcard was sent by mail in 1903.

Louise Willy, also known as Loulou, was born around 1873 and died on an undetermined date after 1913. She was a French cabaret, theatre and silent film artist. Willy is best known for her part in the first erotic film in 1896. Yes, she made history.


French postcard. The characters Dudulle & Bébert in the stage farce 'Le Tour du Monde d'un Enfant de Paris' (1914) at the Théâtre Molière. 'Le Tour du monde d'un enfant de Paris' was a play in 12 acts by Ernest Morel. It was also performed as 'Le Beau voyage d'un enfant de Paris'.


British postcard in The Bee Series. Caption: The late Miss Bessie Wentworth.

Bessie Wentworth (1873-1901) was an English music hall singer and comic entertainer. In 1891, she joined Jack Sheppard's troupe and became a principal boy in pantomimes, before developing a solo act in music halls. She sang plantation and coon songs, dressed as a young man wearing a stereotypical costume of open-necked shirt, striped pantaloons, and a large straw hat. One of her most successful songs was 'Looking for a Coon Like Me' by John Harrington. In the 1890s, she was a popular subject of postcards of her in masculine poses. Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed her as a plantation worker in a lithograph in 1896. She died aged 27 from typhoid fever.


British postcard by Ed. J. Baker & Son, no. 36. Photo: Prothero, Bristol. Fanny Fields as Gretchen, the servant of Mother Goose in the 1905 play 'Mother Goose', performed as the Bristol Prince’s Theatre’s Christmas pantomime.

Fanny Fields (1880–1961), often billed as 'Happy' Fanny Fields, was an American singer, dancer and comic entertainer who found success in British music halls and pantomimes in the early 1900s. Fields was famous for her impersonations of Dutch country girls, complete with folkloristic attire and clog dances. She made two silent films before making her last stage appearance at the London Coliseum in 1913.


Vintage postcard. We love this beautifully cut card, as if it were lace. Though it only mentions the word 'Carmen', the portrait is very much like the early Francesca Bertini, who would become one of the divas of Italian silent cinema.

Next week follows part 2 of Souvenirs from Noordwijk.