Marina Vlady (1938-2026)

French actress Marina Vlady, who appeared in more than 80 films, died on Thursday, 24 September 2026. The sensual and alluring star had the makings of just another blonde bombshell, but in 1963 she stunned everybody with her performance in Una storia moderna - L'ape regina / The Conjugal Bed. At the Cannes Film Festival, she won that year the Palme d'Or for Best Actress. Marina Vlady was 88.


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 74. Photo: Sam Lévin.


Italian postcard. Photo: Minerva Film. Marina Vlady in Giorni d'amore / Days of Love (Giuseppe De Santis, 1954).


West German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-76. Photo: Unifrance Film.


Dutch postcard by N.V. v.h. Weenenk & Snel, Baar, no. 761. Photo: Hafbo-Film. Marina Vlady in La ragazza in vetrina / Girl in the Window (Luciano Emmer, 1961).


West German postcard by Krüger.


French postcard by Arte. Photo: Argos Films. Marina Vlady in 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle / 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967).

Vision of loveliness

Marina Vlady was born Marina De Poliakoff-Baidaroff in Clichy, France, in 1938. She was the daughter of a noted Russian-born painter and opera singer, Vladimir de Poliakoff and star dancer Militza Envald, and the youngest sister of the actresses Odile Versois, Hélène Vallier, and Olga Baïdar-Poliakoff.

Like her siblings, she began acting as a child and, for a while, pursued a ballet career. Marina and Olga both made their minor film debuts in Orage d'été / Summer Storm (Jean Gehret, 1949), which featured their sister Odile.

Marina caught the eye of talent agents. She was a vision of loveliness alongside Marcello Mastroianni in the touching WWII drama Penne nere / Black Feathers (Oreste Biancoli, 1952).

The following year, she co-starred with Italy's top character actor Aldo Fabrizi as his daughter in L’età dell'amore / Too Young for Love (Lionello De Felice, 1953). In 1955, at the ripe young age of 17, Vlady met and married actor, writer, and director Robert Hossein, who featured her prominently and seductively in several of his films.

These films included Les salauds vont en enfer / The Wicked Go to Hell (Robert Hossein, 1956) as a femme fatale bent on revenge, Pardonnez nos offenses / Forgive Our Trespasses (Robert Hossein, 1956), La nuit des espions / Double Agents (Robert Hossein, 1959), and notably, Toi, le venin / Nude in a White Car (Robert Hossein, 1958), which co-starred her sister Odile. With her sensual and alluring image, Marina Vlady gained international renown. The marriage to Hossein lasted only a few years.


French postcard by Éditions du Globe(E.D.U.G.), Paris, no. 644. Photo: Sam Lévin.


French postcard by Éditions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), Paris, no. 470. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


Spanish postcard by F.A.G. Marcello Mastroianni and Marina Vlady in Giorni d'amore / Days of Love (Giuseppe De Santis, 1954).


Collector card. Photo: Sam Lévin.


West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no. 2476. Photo: Cinepress / Stempka.


East German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1842, 1963. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée / Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Robert Hossein.

Sexually insatiable wife

Marina Vlady could have ended up in the film history annals as merely a second-rate Brigitte Bardot, but the provocative sex kitten proved that she was capable of much more.

In 1961, her role in the costume drama La Princesse de Clèves / Princess of Clèves (Jean Delannoy, 1961), with Jean Marais, was reviewed favourably.

In 1963, she gave a stunning performance as the sexually insatiable wife in Una storia moderna - L'ape regina / The Conjugal Bed (Marco Ferreri, 1963) opposite Ugo Tognazzi. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Best Actress Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival.

She also starred in Godard’s essay on Paris, prostitution and cinema, 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle / Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967).

Gracing both French and Italian productions throughout most of her career, Marina Vlady was not shy about playing unsympathetic, even caustic characters, and proved adept at both saucy comedy and edgy drama. One of her rare English roles was Kate Percy in the William Shakespeare adaptation Campanadas a medianoche / Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1965).


West German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 87.


Vintage collector card, no. 39.


Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 265.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1093. Photo: Ektachrome Anders. This postcard was offered by Corvisart (a biscuit factory), Épinal.



Israelian postcard by Editions de Luxe, no. 120.


Russian postcard by Izdanije Byuro Propogandy Sovietskogo Kinoiskusstva, no. 3624, 1975. This postcard was printed in an edition of 200.000 cards. Retail price: 5 kop.

Caustic characters

In 1967, Marina Vlady played at the Théâtre Hébertot in Paris with her three sisters, Hélène Vallier, Odile Versois, and Olga Poliakoff, and they had 250 performances.

Her later films included Ök ketten / The Two of Them (Márta Mészarós, 1977), Tangos, l'exil de Gardel / Tangos, the Exile of Gardel (Fernando Solanas, 1985) and Splendor (Ettore Scola, 1989). She also worked a lot for TV. Five years later, she appeared in Jeunesse / Youth (Noel Alpi, 1995).

In 2011, she returned to the screen in the French-Algerian film Quelques jours de répit / A Few Days of Respite (Amor Hakkar, 2011). It competed in the World Cinema section at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. She appeared in the short film, L'air d'un oubli / Maxence & Clara (Olivier Fely-Biolet, 2016) and gave her voice to another short, La lettre à Noémie / The Letter to Noémie (Micheline Abergel, Natasha Mashkevich, 2017).

Marina Vlady was married four times. She has two sons with Robert Hossein, Igor and Pierre. Her second husband was Jean-Claude Brouillet.

In 1969 (or 1970 - the sources differ about the date), she married Russian poet, songwriter and actor Vladimir Vysotsky, who died in 1980 of a drug overdose aggravated by chronic alcoholism. About their love affair, she wrote the memoir 'Vladimir, or the Aborted Flight'. Her fourth husband, Dr Léon Schwartzenberg, passed away in 2003. Marina Vlady died at home, surrounded by her loved ones and her animals, her children said in a statement. They praised "a long and beautiful life, well lived".


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3277. Photo: Minerva Film.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 950. Photo: Studio Bernard & Vauclair.


East German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin. Photo: Les Films Metzger & Woog und Productions Iena, no. 1/457. Still from La Sorcière / The Blonde Witch (André Michel, 1956). In this film, Marina Vlady plays Ina, a Swedish nature girl, who meets Brulard, a French civil engineer on assignment in Sweden for a lumber company. They fall in love and have an affair. He tries to convert her to 'civilisation', but ends up getting her killed by superstitious villagers instead.


Serbian postcard by ZK, no. 2183. Sent by mail in 1961.


East German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Les Films Metzger & Woog u. Productions Iena, no. 1.375, 1957. Still from La Sorcière / The Blonde Witch (André Michel, 1956), with Maurice Ronet.


Scene with Marina Vlady and Maurice Ronet in La Sorcière / The Blonde Witch (André Michel, 1956). Source: Jinochka (YouTube).


Russian card by Ukr Filmofond Reklama, no. 935, 1989. Photo: V. Plotnikov. Vladimir Vysotskiy and Marina Vlady, 1975.


Italian postcard by Gruppo Editoriale Lo Vecchio, Genova, from the Alberto Sordi series. Laura Antonelli, Alberto Sordi and Marina Vlady in Il malato immaginario / Hypochondriac (Tonino Cervi, 1981).


French autograph card.


Marina Vlady was a guest at Cinema Ritrovato 2018. Here, festival director Gian Luca Farinelli interviews her before the screening of Giorni d'amore / Days of Love (Giuseppe De Santis, 1954) at Cinema Arlecchino. She was funny, very alert and looked amazing.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie - Page now defunct), Ciné-Ressources (French), France24, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Robert Downey Jr.

American actor Robert Downey Jr. (1965) played his first small role in his father’s film Pound (1970). In 1987, he made his breakthrough playing the cocaine-addicted Julian in Less Than Zero. He was nominated for Oscars for Chaplin (1992) and Tropic Thunder (2008), and won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Oppenheimer (2023). However, Downey is best known as Iron Man. He starred in over 10 highly successful films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.


Spanish collector card by Accion.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 814. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Robert Downey in Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992).


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 818. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Robert Downey in Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992).


Dutch poster postcard by Boomerang. Image: Seven Productions / Warner Bros. Poster of Robert Downey Jr. in Due Date (Todd Phillips, 2010). Caption: "If there's hell. I'm already in it"Leave your comfort zone.


Dutch Poster postcard by Boomerang, no. P25-11. Photo: Village Roadshow Pictures / Warner Bros. Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows (Guy Ritchie, 2011). Caption: Do you also solve every puzzle? Test it here.

Burying his Brat Pack image in the backyard of his house

Robert John Downey Jr. was born in New York in 1965. He was the second child of director Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey. He grew up with his older sister Allyson in Greenwich Village, New York’s artists’ quarter. The family name was actually Elias, but Robert Downey Sr. took his stepfather’s surname at 15 when he joined the army. Downey Jr. grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s in an unconventional family home, amidst New York’s alternative film scene.

At the age of five, he played his first small role as Puppy in his father’s comedy Pound (1970), in which all the actors played dogs. Two years later, he appeared in his father’s surrealist religious parody Greaser’s Palace (Robert Downey Sr., 1972). His father allowed him to try marijuana for the first time when he was eight years old. According to Downey, drugs became an emotional bond between him and his father. Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades. After his parents divorced in 1978, he moved with his father to Los Angeles, where he attended Santa Monica High School and met some of his future acting colleagues, including Sean Penn.

In 1982, he dropped out of school. He moved back to New York to live with his mother and to embark on an acting career. At the age of 20, Downey showcased his comedy talent on the successful television show Saturday Night Live (1985-1986). Downey made his film debut in a supporting role as Ian in the teen comedy Weird Science (John Hughes, 1985), followed by another teen film, Tuff Turf (Fritz Kiersch, 1985) with James Spader. Downey was seen as a member of the ‘Brat Pack’. In 1987, he made his breakthrough playing the cocaine-addicted Julian in Less Than Zero (Marek Kanievska, 1987), the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel. In1991, in a symbolic attempt to bury his Brat Pack image and begin a new phase of his life and career after filming the biopic Chaplin, he literally buried the clothes he wore in Less Than Zero in his backyard.

For Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992), Downey won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor and was nominated for an Oscar. In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), he appeared as an aspiring film makeup artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits the murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (Michael Hoffman, 1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen. Also that year, he starred opposite McKellen in the brilliantly original William Shakespeare adaptation Richard III (Richard Loncraine, 1995).

Then, his career was undermined by his drug problems. Away from the film set, his behaviour initially mainly resulted in big headlines in the tabloids. An arrest in 1996 for possession of drugs and an unloaded firearm marked the start of a series of run-ins with the law. It culminated in a one-year prison sentence in 1999. Following his release, Downey immediately checked into a rehabilitation centre. He also tried to get back into acting. The first role he took on was that of Larry Paul, Ally McBeal’s love interest, in the television series Ally McBeal. In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson, 2000). In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. Viewers and critics alike embraced him again, and his role in Ally McBeal earned him a Golden Globe. Two months before the awards ceremony, the actor had once again found himself in trouble following another arrest for possession of drugs and firearms. Shortly before the end of the television season, he was arrested again after police officers found him in an alleyway under the influence of drugs. Ally McBeal producer David E. Kelley sacked Downey and rewrote the series’ final episode. An Emmy nomination was little consolation, as it did not look at that time as though Downey would ever be considered for such a role again. In July 2001, Downey was sentenced to a year in a rehabilitation clinic and a three-year suspended prison sentence. He spent a total of 16 months in prison.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 813. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Publicity still for Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992).


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 815. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Publicity still for Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992).


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 816. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Publicity still for Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992).


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 817. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Publicity still for Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992) with Dan Aykroyd as Mack Sennett and Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin between Sennett's Bathing Beauties.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 819. Photo: Tri-Star Pictures. Publicity still for Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992).

His breakthrough as a global star

In 2003, Robert Downey managed to stay clean for good. He began to rebuild his career. In 2011, Downey publicly thanked Mel Gibson for supporting him during that time. In 2003, Gibson personally paid his insurance bond as producer of The Singing Detective (Keith Gordon, 2003) after no insurance company was prepared to cover the risk associated with a film starring Downey in the lead role. Downey next appeared in films such as the thriller Gothika (Mathieu Kassovitz, 2003) alongside Halle Berry. In 2004, he released his first music album, 'The Futurist'.

Following his successful recovery from drug addiction, he regained a foothold in the film industry. Downey played a journalist in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s. In 2008, he made a double whammy. For his satirical portrayal of a Hollywood prima donna in the action comedy Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller, 2008), he received his second Oscar nomination. His role in Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008) marked his breakthrough as a global star. The big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero was both critically acclaimed and a box-office smash.

In Guy Ritchie’s successful mystery Sherlock Holmes (2009), Downey played the eccentric detective opposite Jude Law as his companion Dr. Watson. He won the Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical award at the 2010 Golden Globe Awards. In the following years, he showed his range from character-driven performances to roles in comedies and physically demanding action films. Downey next starred with Zach Galifianakis in the comedy Due Date (Todd Phillips, 2010), in which he plays an expectant father on a road trip racing to be in time for the birth of his first child.

Robert Downey Jr. played Iron Man in several films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For the first Iron Man film in 2008, Downey received a fee of US$500,000. For the second instalment, Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, 2010), this had risen to US$10 million. For his role in The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012), he received a total of US$50 million, including a share of the box-office takings. It was followed by Iron Man 3 (Shane Black, 2013) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon, 2015). Between June 2014 and June 2015, he earned around 80 million US dollars, and in 2015, Downey topped the Forbes list of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors for the third year. He returned to the Marvel Universe in Captain America: Civil War (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts, 2017) in a small role, Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2018), Avengers: Endgame (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2019), The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), Avengers: Doomsday (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2026), and Avengers: Secret Wars (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2027).

At the 2024 Academy Awards, he won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as bureaucrat Lewis Strauss in the historical film Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023) starring Cillian Murphy. Robert Downey Jr. is now regarded by critics as one of the finest actors of his generation and is known for his wide range of roles. In the 1980s, Downey was in a relationship with actress Sarah Jessica Parker for seven years. Downey was married to singer Deborah Falconer from 1992 to 2004, with whom he had a son, Indio Falconer Downey (1993). On the set of the film Gothika (2003), he met producer Susan Levin, whom he married in 2005. They had a son, Exton Elias Downey, in 2012 and a daughter, Avri Roel Downey, in 2014.


Dutch poster freecard by Boomerang Study Cards, Amsterdam, no. P23-00. Poster: Paramount / Warner Bros. Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Katie Holmes and Robert Downey Jr. in Wonder Boys (Curtis Hanson, 2000).


Dutch Poster postcard by Boomerang, no. P25-09. Photo: Village Roadshow Pictures / Warner Bros. Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows (Guy Ritchie, 2011). Caption: Are you a real Sherlock Holmes?


Dutch poster postcard by Boomerang. Image: Seven Productions / Warner Bros. Poster of Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis in Due Date (Todd Phillips, 2010). Caption: Leave Your Comfort Zone.


Dutch poster postcard by Boomerang. Image: Seven Productions / Warner Bros. Poster of Due Date (Todd Phillips, 2010), starring Robert Downey Jr.. Caption: "Dad.... You were like a father to me" Leave your comfort zone.


Dutch poster postcard by Boomerang. Image: Seven Productions / Warner Bros. Poster of Due Date (Todd Phillips, 2010), starring Robert Downey Jr. Caption: "Get that dog out of my face or I'll rip it in half." Leave your comfort zone.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

La Collectionneuse: Claudia Cardinale

Claudia Cardinale passed away one year ago on the 23rd of September 2025. Here is a personal homage to her through several postcards and items from my collection.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1431. Photo: Vides.


Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 3629. Photo: Vides.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1682.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 1029.


German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin Tempelhof, no. 4970. Photo: Fried Agency.

Someone special among Italian actresses

When I was a child, I knew Claudia Cardinale from the entertaining films which were often shown on French TV, such as the swashbuckling adventure yarn Cartouche (1962) with Jean-Paul Belmondo, the circus centered epic Circus World (1964) with John Wayne and Rita Hayworth, or the Western spoof Les Pétroleuses (1971) with Brigitte Bardot. Later, of course, I would see Claudia Cardinale in more demanding offerings, directed by people such as Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Mauro Bolognini or Sergio Leone.

For French-speaking audiences, Claudia Cardinale has always been someone special among Italian actresses. Raised in Tunisia, then a French Protectorate, she only learned Italian much later and spoke perfect French since childhood. This enabled her to star in French films and to appear in popular TV programs such as Les rendez-vous du dimanche, Numéro 1, Champs-Élysées, Le divan, Sacrée soirée, Studio Gabriel, Les enfants de la télé, Tout le monde en parle, Thé ou café, Vivement dimanche, etc. Few people could resist her radiant personality.

In 1977, French producer Léo Carrier convinced her to go disco. So, the single 'Love Affair' was released and was a club hit. The lyrics were no big shakes, to say the least, but who cared? Disco was fun, rhythm, escapism, sensuality and was not made for deep intellectual thinking. I bought the record at the time ... and I still have it.

In 1996, she was chosen to present an honorary César Award to Henri Verneuil, who had directed her in Les lions sont lâchés (1961), Mayrig (1991) and 588, rue Paradis (1992). He declared: "She was 20 years old when I worked with her for the first time. When she smiled, it was as if the sun rose over the palm trees of Tunisia. I’ve found her years later. She had become the international star you all know. And the sun still rises when she smiles. Thank you, Claudia".

In 2017, the official poster of the Cannes Film Festival featured a 1959 photo of Claudia dancing on a rooftop in Rome. In 2019, President Emmanuel Macron promoted her to Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour. She chose to spend the last years of her life in Nemours, in a former tannery transformed into a friendly space, where she could enjoy a simple and happy life. This place also became the seat of the 'Fondazione Claudia Cardinale', dedicated to supporting contemporary art.


German postcard by Kolibri Verlag, no. 1505.


German postcard by Kolibri Verlag, no. 1619.


German postcard by Rüdel Verlag, no. 3561. Photo: PALLAS / Vogelmann. Claudia Cardinale in Cartouche (Philippe de Broca, 1962).


Spanish postcard by Bergas Ind. Graf., no. 870.


Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. C173.


Spanish postcard by Oscarcolor, no. 343. Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon.


German postcard by Kolibri Verlag, no. 2262. Photo: Rank. Claudia Cardinale in Circus World (Henry Hathaway, 1964).


German postcard by Kolibri Verlag, no. 2465.


German postcard by Kolibri Verlag, no. 2544. Photo: Universal International. Claudia Cardinale in Blindfold (Philip Dunne, 1966).


German postcard by Rüdel Verlag, no. 4188. Photo: Bronston / Rank.


German postcard by Rüdel Verlag, no. 4188. Photo: Universal-Film. Claudia Cardinale in The Hell with Heroes (Joseph Sargent, 1968).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.


Spanish postcard by Imprime Graficas Torroba. This postcard is part of a series which was produced in the mid-1970s for the Spanish men’s magazine Divachistes. All of them have one uneven border on the left side. They were bound to the magazine and were tear-off postcards.


Vintage Keyring.


A bit worn-out front cover of my 'Love Affair' single, which I bought in 1977.

Text, postcards and other memorabilia: Marlene Pilaete.