The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993) is an American musical animated film written by Tim Burton. The production was almost entirely made with stop-motion. The script of The Nightmare Before Christmas was taken from a short story of the same name (in verse) written by Burton. The film was produced by Touchstone Pictures, a film studio of Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, itself part of The Walt Disney Company. Burton came up with the story of the original poem after seeing Halloween paraphernalia in the window of a shop being taken down and replaced with Christmas decorations.


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC 9651. Image: Touchstone Pictures / Disney. Sandyclaws in The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993).


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC 9652. Image: Touchstone Pictures / Disney. Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993).


Italian poster postcard by CIAK. Image: Touchstone Pictures / Disney. Poster for The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993).

Santa Claus in the lair of Oogie Boogie

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, was directed by Henry Selick in his feature directorial debut, and produced and based on a story and characters conceived by Tim Burton. Burton situated the film in Halloween Town, a town in the holiday world that is part of the realm of dreams. The town is completely dedicated to the organisation of the Halloween celebrations all year round. In that same holiday world, Christmas Town and Easter Town also exist, accessible through a kind of 'interdimensional' portal.

The local hero in Halloween Town is the bone man, Jack Skellington. He's known as the Pumpkin King because he's a master at scaring people, the main purpose of Halloween. However, Skellington has simply grown bored after all those years of Halloween and longs for something new in his life. Lost in his thoughts, he takes a walk through the woods and encounters places he's never been before. Shortly after, his dream comes true. By opening a Christmas tree-shaped door in a tree trunk, Skellington is drawn into Christmas Town. There, after his initial confusion, he immediately feels the cosy and peaceful atmosphere.

He wants this too and decides that Christmas should become his celebration instead of Halloween. Full of ideas, he returns to Halloween Town. Sally, a piece of rag-stitched Sally, doesn't feel good about it, but the rest of the town enthusiastically supports Skellington's plan. Everyone gets to work preparing for the upcoming Christmas. The townspeople, however, have very different ideas about what's cosy and what constitutes a nice gift. For example, they see monstrous toys as the ideal Christmas gift. Sally admires Jack but has a bad feeling. She tells him as much, but he's dismissive and makes plans to take Santa's place on December 25th.

To carry out this plan, he has Santa Claus (Sandy Claws) captured by three monstrous children named Lock, Shock, and Barrel. They take him to the lair of Oogie Boogie, a gambling ogre. Meanwhile, Jack Skellington heads to town to deliver the Christmas presents in his newly built sleigh, consisting of a coffin, skeleton reindeer, and his ghost dog, Zero, with a red, glowing nose.

This is the beginning of what will become the most horrific Christmas Day ever. Before Jack realises what he's done, his sleigh is shot out of the sky by soldiers. He rushes back to Halloween Town and frees the real Santa Claus and the now-captive Sally from Oogie Boogie's lair, who was about to murder them. Santa Claus, it turns out, can still save the day. Skellington discovers that what he's been missing from his life isn't Christmas, but love. He and Sally fall in love. Moreover, Jack's performance as Santa has given him inspiration and a wealth of new ideas for the next Halloween celebration.


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC 9649. Image: Disney. Spooky kids in The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993).


British postcard by Pyramid Posters, Leicester, no. PC 9650. Image: Touchstone Pictures / Disney. Scene from The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993).

400 heads were needed for the various facial expressions

In 1982, while still working as an animator at Walt Disney Productions, Tim Burton wrote a three-page poem called 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. He drew inspiration from the television specia Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Larry Roemer, 1964), the animated TV film How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Chuck Jones, Ben Washam, 1966), and the 1823 poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas ('Twas The Night Before Christmas)' by Clement Clarke Moore. After the success of Burton's stop-motion short Vincent (Tim Burton, 1982), Disney began making plans to adapt Burton's poem into a short film.

Rick Heinrichs and Burton drafted a preliminary script and developed several characters. The short film never materialised, but over the years, Burton lingered on the idea of a film. In 1990, he discovered that Disney still held the film rights to the story and made a development deal with Walt Disney Studios. He made plans to produce a feature film instead of a short film and received the green light from Disney.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) was Burton's third consecutive Christmas-themed film. He was unable to direct the film himself due to his work directing Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992), so Henry Selick took over. Burton approached Michael McDowell, with whom he had previously collaborated on Beetlejuice, to complete the film's script. However, Burton insisted that it be a musical. He hired his longtime collaborator Danny Elfman to compose the film's songs. Elfman later revealed that writing the film's 10 songs was one of his easiest tasks ever.

Production began in July 1991 with a crew of 200. For the sets, the filmmakers drew heavily from the work of artists from various disciplines: Ray Harryhausen, Ladislas Starevich, Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Jan Lenica, Francis Bacon, and Wassily Kandinsky. It was the first film made entirely with the stop-motion technique that Tim Burton used in several of his films for its surreal quality. 227 puppets were created for the characters. For the main character, Jack, alone, 400 heads were needed for the various facial expressions. The character Sally had 10 faces, each with 11 different emotions and expressions. In the final stages of production, Disney added to the film by having some of the backgrounds drawn using traditional animation.

Disney initially released the film through the Touchstone Pictures label because the studio believed the film's gothic tone would be "too dark and scary for kids". The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) was well to very well-received by critics. However, many critics noted that the film's story strongly resembled 'Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas'. Bethany Cox at IMDb: "Is it an animated classic. Yes, I think it is! It is wonderfully weird yet lots of fun as well. Visually and technically, the film looks absolutely amazing, with wonderful Gothic backgrounds and detailed colouring. Skellington silhouetted against the moonlight is quite possibly the film's most haunting image. The story is great, about Jack Skellington discovering Christmas Town, but he doesn't understand the concept, so he kidnaps Santa Claus. And the characters are endearing and weird, ranging from jazz-playing zombies, four-tenor-like vampires to a wolf man." Wikipedia: "While initially a modest box-office hit, it has since garnered a large cult following and is widely regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time."


American postcard by Walt Disney Art Classics, no. 1217555. Image: Touchstone Pictures / Disney. The Pumpkin King in The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993).


Dutch poster postcard by Boomerang Freecards. Image: Touchstone Pictures / Disney. Poster for The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick, 1993). Captions: Get ready for the weirdest Christmas ever. An inventive, funny, brilliantly designed, bizarre fairy tale, using the latest stop-motion animation techniques.

Sources: Bethany Cox (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

La Collectionneuse: Patsy Ruth Miller

Patsy Ruth Miller was a versatile actress who was in high demand in the 1920s, especially after she had played gypsy girl Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Her other best-known film is probably Ernst Lubitsch’s successful and inventive comedy So This Is Paris (1926). During her career, the actress appeared in a large variety of roles and later declared, "Whenever a part came along, I took it. In my day, being an actress meant doing what you were hired to do. And that was acting. But when I look back on it, it’s amazing all the parts I played."


British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 173.


Spanish postcard in the Kursaal series. Patsy Ruth Miller in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, 1923).

A trip to Los Angeles that changed her life

Patsy Ruth Miller was born on the 17th of January 1904 in St Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

As a teenager, she developed a desire to become an actress. To author Michael G. Ankerich, she reminisced: "I loved being in school plays. I can remember I always went into it heart and soul, while most of the girls giggled and laughed it off."

She was also a big fan of motion pictures. In 1920, during a trip to Los Angeles with her parents to visit relatives, she made a screen test, which proved awful. Luckily, she was thereafter introduced to famous star Alla Nazimova, who took a liking to the young girl and thought that she had movie potential.

So, she was given the role of Nichette, the heroine’s young milliner friend, in Camille (1921), in which Nazimova starred as Marguerite Gautier, the Lady of the Camellias.

Her hopes had come true, and her film career was on track.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 505. Photo: Universal. Patsy Ruth Miller in Lorraine of the Lions (Edward Sedgwick, 1925).


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci Editore, Milano, no. 516. Photo: Universal. Patsy Ruth Miller in Lorraine of the Lions (Edward Sedgwick, 1925).

Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

In 1922, Patsy Ruth Miller notably played opposite Tom Mix, who taught her to ride, in two Westerns, The Fighting Streak and For Big Stakes. That same year, she was chosen as a Wampas Baby Star.

She was then Charles Ray’s leading lady in The Girl I Loved (1923), adapted from James Whitcomb Riley‘s book of poetry about unspoken love and unrealised aspirations. Patsy fondly remembered: "It was one of the most beautiful pictures of its time. It was really lovely. It was a pleasure working with Charles Ray, and I really think I learned a great deal of sensitivity and subtlety from him."| 

She got a big break when Universal gave her the role of Esmeralda in their prestigious and costly The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), which starred Lon Chaney as Quasimodo.

Later, she explained how he gave her helpful advice on their profession. He pointed out to her that acting was making people feel the emotion rather than intensely feeling it oneself. He insisted on staying in control of one’s performance, as, if you wasted yourself in dramatics, you might not have any effect on the audience at all.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a smash hit and brought her into prominence.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4220/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Universal.


Polish postcard by Edition Victoria, no. 278.

A prolific actress

The young star was in high demand in the following years and had a hectic film schedule. 1924 was a record year, as 12 films featuring Patsy were released.

She got along very well with Monte Blue, and they co-starred in three Warner comedies: Red Hot Tires (1925), Ernst Lubitsch’s So This Is Paris (1926) and Wolf’s Clothing (1927). About Lubitsch, she once said: "You did have to do everything exactly the way he wanted it, but it always turned out that the way he wanted it was really the best way for you. He was great."

She also loved working with popular comedian Glenn Tryon, with whom she was paired by Universal in films such as Painting the Town (1927), Hot Heels (1927), A Hero for a Night (1927), and The Gate Crasher (1928).

Her other films include Daughters of To-Day (1924), Girls Men Forget (1924), The Wise Virgin (1924), The Girl on the Stairs (1925), Lorraine of the Lions (1925), Rose of the World (1925), Hogan’s Alley (1925), Why Girls Go Back Home (1926), Hell-Bent for Heaven (1926), Broken Hearts of Hollywood (1926), What Every Girl Should Know (1927), The First Auto (1927), Once and Forever (1927), South Sea Love (1927), The Tragedy of Youth (1928), We Americans (1928), Beautiful But Dumb (1928), …

She found time for other activities as well. She learned to pilot an aeroplane and was popular with the Hollywood society of the 1920s. She was regularly invited by Marion Davies and W.R. Hearst to parties at San Simeon Castle. She also belonged to a group of actresses known as "Our Club", organised in 1923 by Mildred Davis and Helen Ferguson, with Mary Pickford as its honorary president.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5320. Photo: Universal-Film.


French postcard by Cinémagazine Edition, Paris, no. 529. Photo: Cannons.

A new interest: writing

At Columbia, Patsy Ruth Miller appeared in her first all-talking picture, The Fall of Eve (1929).

Warner teamed her with Edward Everett Horton in four comedies: The Hottentot (1929), The Sap (1929), The Aviator (1929) and Wide Open (1930). Pathé reunited them for the last time in Lonely Wives (1931). That same year, she starred in Night Beat for the Poverty Row company Action Pictures.

However, by the early 1930s, she was losing interest in movie acting and was ready to tackle a new challenge. In 1929, she married screenwriter and director Tay Garnett and claimed to have begun to unofficially help him on some of his scripts.

After their divorce in 1933, she turned to a writing career. First, she authored short stories and then came a novel about Hollywood, 'That Flannigan Girl', published in 1939. She also penned a play, 'Windy Hill', which was performed on the road by Kay Francis in 1945 and 1946, and she wrote the book for the musical 'Music in My Heart', which ran on Broadway from October 1947 to January 1948.

She also briefly came back to acting in 1936 by appearing on Broadway in Samson Raphaelson’s 'White Man', based on a story of Afro-Americans passing for white. It was a flop and closed after seven performances.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5190/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Warner Bros / National.


Spanish postcard by M.C., Barcelona, no. 50.

My Hollywood: When Both of Us Were Young

Patsy Ruth Miller married screenwriter John Lee Mahin in 1937, and they had a son in 1941. They divorced in 1946. Her last husband was businessman Effingham Smith Deans. The couple travelled extensively, and she remained happily married with him from 1951 to his death in 1986.

In 1951, she accepted, allegedly as a joke, to play a bit part, made up like an old woman, in Quebec (1951), directed by George Templeton, who had known her since the 1920s.

She came back to the screen for the last time in Mother (1978), an independent film reportedly shot in five days on a small budget. The script had been especially written for her and Coleen Gray by Brian Pinette, who also directed and produced.

Her memoirs, 'My Hollywood: When Both of Us Were Young', were published in 1988. She remarked at the time: "I don’t think any of us ever dreamed that, half a century later, all those films we made in our day-to-day routine would be hauled out again and viewed by young people."

Patsy Ruth Miller passed away on the 16th of July 1995.


Belgian postcard by Weekblad “Cinéma”, Antwerpen.

Postcards and text: Marlene Pilaete.

Dan Dailey

American actor and dancer Dan Dailey (1915-1978) was best known for his roles in several Hollywood musicals in the 1940s and 1950s.


British postcard by Show Parade Picture Service, London, in the Film Star Series, no. P. 1174. Photo: 20th Century Fox.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 62. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The musical as his specialisation

Daniel James Dailey Jr. was born in New York in 1915. His parents were Daniel James Dailey Sr. and Helen Theresa (née Ryan) Dailey. His father ran a hotel for show people on Long Island. He was the older brother of actress Irene Dailey. Dan performed in a minstrel show in 1921 and later appeared in Vaudeville.

He worked as a golf caddy and shoe salesman before he got his first good break, playing in a show on a South American cruise ship in 1934. He made his Broadway debut in 1937 in 'Babes in Arms'. He followed it with 'Stars in Your Eyes' and 'I Married an Angel'.

In 1940, he signed a contract with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, where he played supporting roles in several films credited as Dan Dailey Jr. Although the musical was his specialisation, one of his first film roles was in the comedy-drama Susan and God (George Cukor, 1940) starring Joan Crawford. He also played a Nazi in The Mortal Storm (Frank Borzage, 1940) starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart.

Dailey was the juvenile lead in the comedy The Captain Is a Lady (George B. Sinclair, 1940) starring Charles Coburn. His breakthrough came with a role in the musical film Panama Hattie (Norman Z. McLeod, 1942). Due to its success, he acquired the lead role in For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley, 1942) opposite Judy Garland, but he was drafted by the army and eventually had to give up the role to Gene Kelly.

Consequently, Dailey served for the US Army as an army officer during World War II, now credited as Dan Dailey. During his service, he acted in the Propaganda film This Is the Army (Michael Curtiz, 1943). After the end of the war, MGM did not renew his contract, which led him to sign a contract with 20th Century Fox. Their association began brilliantly with Mother Wore Tights (Walter Lang, 1947) in which Dailey supported the studio's biggest star, Betty Grable. His part was built up during filming, and the film was Fox's biggest hit of 1947, making $5 million. Dailey soon grew to become one of the film studio's big stars, mainly playing the male lead in musicals.


American autograph card.


Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no. 712. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Cracking up

Dan Dailey was reunited with Betty Grable in When My Baby Smiles at Me (Walter Lang, 1948). It was Fox's biggest hit of the year and garnered Dailey an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor at the 21st Academy Awards. Dailey starred in a film for John Ford, When Willie Comes Marching Home (John Ford, 1950), which was a mild success at the box office. A third teaming with Grable was in My Blue Heaven (Henry Koster, 1950). Dailey co-starred with Anne Baxter in A Ticket to Tomahawk (Richard Sale, 1950), often noted as one of the first screen appearances of Marilyn Monroe, who played a dance hall girl.

He made a fourth and final film with Betty Grable, Call Me Mister (Lloyd Bacon, 1951). IMDb: "In 1951, he checked himself into the Menninger Clinic for five months and, after his return to Hollywood, presented his experiences there frankly to Hedda Hopper and other reporters, pointing out that the necessity of this break from his hectic show business career was prompted by his 'cracking up'." Dailey made a second film with Ford, a remake of What Price Glory (John Ford, 1952), where he teamed with James Cagney.

In 1954, Dailey signed a new seven-year contract with Fox. Another highlight of his work for Fox was his role opposite Marilyn Monroe in There's No Business Like Show Business (Walter Lang, 1954), which featured Irving Berlin's music. There's No Business Like Show Business proved to be Dailey's biggest hit in a long time. In the late 1950s, he returned to his first film studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Dailey went to MGM to play GI-turned-advertising man Doug Hallerton in It's Always Fair Weather (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 1955) alongside Gene Kelly. Dailey returned to Fox for one more musical, The Best Things in Life Are Free (Michael Curtiz, 1956), to play songwriter Ray Henderson opposite Gordon MacRae.

As the popularity of the musical genre waned in the late 1950s, Dailey saw his career threatened with it as well. He made a move to television and starred in The Four Just Men (1959–1960). His later films include Pepe (George Sidney, 1960) with Cantinflas, and Las Cuatro Noches de la Luna Llena / Four Nights of the Full Moon (Sobey Martin, 1963) with Gene Tierney and made in Spain. The latter is considered a lost film. During production, the producers ran out of money, and the project was shortened for television. Dailey lectured on the college circuit in later years, speaking on dance and motion, the art of acting in dance and the importance of acting to the dancer.

His final film was The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Larry Cohen, 1977) starring Broderick Crawford. Dailey married his first wife, high school sweetheart Esther Rodier, in 1942. His second wife, Elizabeth Hofert, was a Los Angeles socialite with whom he had a son, Dan Jr. The couple divorced in 1951, and his son committed suicide in 1975. From 1955 to 1960, he was married to Gwen Carter O'Connor, a former actress and the ex-wife of actor Donald O'Connor. His fourth wife, Carol Warner, was a dancer. Dan Dailey broke his hip in 1977 and required surgery. He died in autumn 1978 from complications of this operation. According to an in-depth article written by Frances Ingram in the January 2001 issue of Classic Images film magazine, Dan was buried in his favourite pink hunting jacket and singer and long-time friend John Raitt sang at his funeral.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 534. Photo: 20th Century Fox.


Belgian postcard, no. 750. Photo: 20th Century Fox.


West German postcard by ISV, no. A 45. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for There's No Business Like Show Business (Walter Lang, 1954).

Sources: Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

Published by Joepie: Teen Stars from the 1970s

Joepie was a Dutch-language Belgian music magazine aimed at young people in Flanders, but also many teenagers in the Netherlands read it. The target audience was 12- to 17-year-olds, mainly girls. Joepie (Dutch: Yippie) was launched on 28 February 1973 and was initially published every fortnight, but switched to weekly publication on 5 March 1975. When it started, Joepie formed a combo with the Joepie Top 50, which was broadcast by Radio Mi Amigo in Belgium on Saturday afternoons. The magazine had an average readership of 350,000 readers. Joepie also published collector cards (stickers) in colour of both pop and film idols, and in collaboration with the chocolate brands Raider and Bounty a series of film star postcards in black and white.


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

American singer-songwriter and actress Deborah 'Debbie' Harry (1945) is best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie.


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

Village People is an American disco group well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American masculine cultural stereotypes as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics. The line-up at the picture was Glenn Hughes (leatherman), Felipe Rose (dressed as a Native American), David Hodo (construction worker), Ray Simpson (cop), Randy Jones (cowboy) and Alex Briley (who started portraying an athlete but eventually took on the soldier persona).


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

ABBA were the winners at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with the song 'Waterloo'. It gave Sweden its first victory in the history of the contest, and ABBA became the most successful group ever to take part in the tournament. The Swedish group was formed in Stockholm in 1972 and comprised Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. (ABBA is an acronym of the first letters of their first names.) They remain one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1972 to 1982. ABBA has sold over 400 million albums and singles worldwide and continues to sell millions of records a year.


Belgian collector card by Joepie. John Travolta in Urban Cowboy (James Bridges, 1980).

John Travolta (1954) is an American actor and singer, who rose to fame during the 1970s, when he appeared on the television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975-1979), and starred in the box office successes Carrie (1976), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978) and Urban Cowboy (1980). His acting career declined throughout the 1980s, but in 1994, Travolta made one of the most stunning comebacks in entertainment history by starring in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). Since then he starred in such films as Get Shorty (1995), Face/Off (1997), Primary Colors (1998), and Hairspray (2007). Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for performances in Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. In 2016, he received his first Primetime Emmy Award, as a producer of the anthology series American Crime Story in which he also played lawyer Robert Shapiro.


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

Joey Travolta (1950) is an American actor, singer, producer and director. He is the elder brother of film star John Travolta. He often acted in the films of John Landis and directed a series of B films in the 1990s. Later, he worked as a disability education teacher and founded the film company Inclusion Films, which involves individuals with disabilities in the process of making films.


Belgian collector card by Joepie. Gaston (right) & Leo.

Gaston & Leo were a legendary Flemish comedy stage, TV and film duo consisting of Gaston Berghmans (1926-2016) and Leo Martin (1924-1993). They were active from 1972 to 1992, six months before Martin died of a long illness in 1993. For a long time, they were the most popular comedians in Flanders, and several of their sketches have become classics.


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

Patrick Duffy (1949) is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Bobby Ewing in the popular television series Dallas (1978-1991). He had his breakthrough with the television series Man from Atlantis (1977-1978). He is also known as Frank Lambert in the Sitcom Step by Step (1991-1998), and as Stephen Logan in the Soap Opera The Bold and the Beautiful (2006–2011, 2022-2023).


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

Bob Geldof (1951) is an Irish singer, philanthropist and songwriter. He became famous in the 1970s as the lead singer of the Irish punk rock band Boomtown Rats. Geldof starred as Pink in Pink Floyd's film Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982). His international fame grew considerably thanks to his charity concerts Live Aid (1985) and Live 8 (2005) to bring relief to the starving in Ethiopia.


Belgian collector card by Joepie.

Gene Simmons (1949) is the fire-breathing, blood-spitting and larger-than-life co-founder of the hard rock group KISS. The Israeli-American rock musician is also a businessman and an actor. Simmons is also known for his long tongue and for his reality television show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels (2006-2012).


Belgian collector card by Joepie. Golden Earring with from left tot right: Cesar Zuiderwijk, Eelco Gelling, George Kooymans, Barry Hay and Rinus Gerritsen. Gelling was a guitarist in the Golden Earring between 1973 and 1978.

Golden Earring was a Dutch rock band, founded in 1961 in The Hague as the Golden Earrings (the 's' was dropped in 1969). They achieved worldwide fame with their hits 'Radar Love' (1973), 'Twilight Zone' (1982), and 'When the Lady Smiles' (1984). During their career, they had nearly 30 top-ten singles on the Dutch charts, and over the years, they produced 25 studio albums. The band stopped in 2021.


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty Joepie. Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon in Borsalino (Jacques Deray, 1970).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Gene Hackman in The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd (John Sturges, 1972).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Robert Redford and Paul Newman in The Sting (George Roy Hill, 1973).


Belgian postcard by Joepie / Raider Bounty. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. Anthony Daniels as C-3PO and Kenny Baker as R2-D2 in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977).


Belgian postcard by Joepie / Raider Bounty. Photo: Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry in Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979).


Belgian postcard by Raider Bounty / Joepie. Photo: publicity still for Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).


Belgian Postcard by Joepie / Raider / Bounty. Photo: Nastassja Kinski in Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979).

Source: Wikipedia (Dutch and English).

Alfonsina Pieri

Alfonsina Pieri (1880-1959) was an Italian stage and screen actress, who acted in six Italian silent films. She was married to actor Amedeo Chiantoni (1871-1965), both were scions of families of famous stage actors.


Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 383. Photo: Badodi, Milano. This postcard was mailed in 1922.


Italian postcard, no. 130. Photo: Vettori, Bologna.


Italian postcard. Photo: Vettori, Bologna.

A famous and long-lived dynasty of Italian actors

Alfonsina Pieri was born in Rome, Italy, in 1880. She was born into a famous and long-lived dynasty of Italian actors.

In the early 20th century, she became a theatre actress and participated in the premiere of Gabriele d'Annunzio's tragedy 'La nave' in 1908, which proved to be a great success.

Alfonsina Pieri was the 'first actress' in the prose company of her husband Amedeo Chiantoni, which he had founded in 1912. Chiantoni was also born into a dynasty of actors.

She appeared in several films of the silent period. Pieri began in 1913 with two films at Film d'Arte Italiana, the Italian branch of Pathé Frères: La rinunzia / The Renunciation (Ugo Falena, 1913) and L'intrusa / The Intruder (?, 1913). In both films, she co-starred with Ettore Berti.

In 1915 Pieri played at Sabaudo Film in Debito di sangue / Blood Debt (Salvatore Aversano, 1915), with Pina Fabbri and Lina Millefleurs.


Spanish cromo (collector card) by Chocolate Imperiale, no. 4 of 6. Photo: Sabaudo Film / Spanish distr. J. Verdaguer. Diana Karenne (left), Alfonsina Pieri and Umberto Casilini in Lea (Diana Karenne, Salvatore Aversano, 1916).


Spanish cromo (collector card) by Chocolate Imperiale, no. 5 of 6. Photo: Sabaudo Film / Spanish distr. J. Verdaguer. Possibly Umberto Casilini and Alfonsina Pieri in Lea (Diana Karenne, Salvatore Aversano, 1916). The two could also be Teresa Boetti-Valvassura (the Duchess) and Roberto Vilani (Duke of Baiamonte), as indeed Pieri seems to look different. The little boy could be instead a girl actress, Carmen Varriale, who plays little Peppino in the film.


Italian postcard by Sacchetti, Bologna. Photo: Vettori, Bologna.

The female antagonist of Diana Karenne

Alfonsina Pieri acted opposite Ruggero Lupi and her husband, Amedeo Chiantoni, in Il ciclone / The Cyclone (Eugenio Perego, 1916). In the same year, she was the female antagonist of Diana Karenne in Lea (Salvatore Aversano, Diana Karenne, 1916), again produced by Sabaudo Film.

Pieri's last film was an Italian version of Mister Wu (unknown director, 1920), based on the famous play by Harold Owen and Harry M. Vernon. Pieri again acted opposite her husband and this time also opposite Marcello Giorda.

From the beginning of the 1930s, she was present in radio plays for Ente Italiano per le Audizioni Radiofoniche (EIAR), and later in those of RAI, as part of the Compagnia di Radio Roma.

In the 1950s, she was part of the Compagnia del Teatro delle Muse in Rome, directed by Carlo Tamberlani. A few plays from the 1955 season would also be programmed on television, again directed by Tamberlani.

Alfonsina Pieri died in Milan, Italy, in 1959. Pieri and Amedeo Chiantoni were the parents of actor Renato Chiantoni (1906-1979). Her sister-in-law was the actress Giannina Chiantoni.


Italian postcard, no. 32. Photo: Vettori, Bologna.


Italian postcard. Photo: Vettori, Bologna.


Italian postcard, no. 18. Photo: Badodi, Milano. Amedeo Chiantoni.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.