Ludmila Tchérina

Beautiful Ludmila Tchérina (1924-2004) was a legendary prima ballerina, who was also an internationally famous actress, artist and sculptor. She starred in several films, including a quartet by British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger: The Red Shoes (1948), The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955) and Luna de Miel (1959).


French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 116. Photo: Roger Carlet.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 577, offered by Les Carbones Korès. Photo: Sam Lévin.


Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 835. Photo: Universal International.

Prima ballerina

Ludmila or Ludmilla Tchérina was born as Monique Tchemerzine into the Russian aristocracy in Paris, France, in 1924. She was the daughter of Circassian Prince Avenir Tchemerzine, a former general who had escaped from St. Petersburg, and Stéphane Finette, a Frenchwoman. The family had little money, but Monique started ballet around the age of three, eventually studying with some of the greatest names in Paris, the former Maryinsky ballerina Olga Preobrajenska, the former Bolshoi ballet master Ivan Clustine, and the influential French teacher Gustave Ricaux.

Her first teacher, though, was Blanche D'Alessandri, who came from the strict Italian school and instilled technique with the help of taps on the body from a stick. This old-fashioned approach worked wonders. After escaping with her mother to Marseilles at the start of the Second World War, she made her professional début at 15 and was a star dancer at the Opéra de Marseille at 16. In 1943, she transferred to the Nouveaux Ballets de Monte Carlo, where she was spotted by Serge Lifar, then director of the Paris Opéra Ballet. He invented her stage name, Ludmila Tchérina (used next to Ludmilla Tchérina), and choreographed 'Romeo and Juliet', to Tchaikovsky's 'Fantasy Overture', for himself and Tchérina, an extended pas de deux that was premiered at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1943.

In 1945, she was a principal dancer with the Ballet des Champs-Élysées and performed in Paris concerts with Edmond Audran, who became her husband in 1946. She created various roles in Lifar's ballets, including 'Mephisto Waltz' in 1945, 'A la memoire d'un heros' (In Memory of a Hero) in 1946 and in 'Le Martyre de Saint-Sebastian' (The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian) in 1957.

She danced often with the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Kirov Ballet as a guest performer. Tchérina was 21 when she was offered her first film role in the French drama Un revenant / The Lover's Return (Christian-Jaque, 1946), starring Louis Jouvet and Gaby Morlay.

In 1948, she made her English-speaking film debut with the stylised fairy tale classic The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948), featuring Moira Shearer and Marius Goring, but she did not understand what she was saying. She had to memorise her dialogue phonetically.


French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 290. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), no. 621. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 16, offered by Les Carbones Korès. Photo: Victory Films.

Funeral march

Ludmila Tchérina won the French César award for a short film version of Lifar’s ballet A La Mémoire du Hero / In Memory of a Hero (Ray Ventura, 1951). In this film, she portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte, dancing in travesty to the Funeral March of Beethoven's 'Eroica'.

She went on to perform gloriously in The Tales of Hoffman (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1951). Both of these films also featured her husband, Edmond Audran. Shortly after the filming of The Tales of Hoffman, Audran was tragically killed in a road accident at age 33. The car accident left her shattered, and the grief-stricken Tchérina went into seclusion.

She was convinced to return to her art form in 1953 by her second husband, Raymond Roi. He was a renowned French financier and industrialist, who remained her husband until she died in 2004.

Roi's wealth gave her the freedom to form her own experimental company, which existed from 1958 to 1959 and appeared at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt (now Théâtre de la Ville). For this, she commissioned 'Les Amants de Téruel', a dance theatre piece, devised by Raymond Rouleau and choreographed by Milko Sparemblek to a commissioned score by Mikis Theodorakis, and also 'Le Feu aux poudres' (1958), which had a libretto by film director Jean Renoir and a choreography by Paul Goubé.

In 1960, Ludmila Tchérina was the first Western dancer to appear at the Bolshoi Theatre and in 1970, she still enthralled audiences with her dance performance in 'Joan of Arc at the Stake'.


British postcard in the Picture Show Postcard Series.


West German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. V 321. Photo: Unitalia / Vaselli. Ludmila Tcherina in La figlia di Mata Hari / Mata Hari's Daughter (Carmine Gallone, 1954).


West German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. 941. Photo: Vaselli / Unionfilm. Ludmila Tcherina in La figlia di Mata Hari / Mata Hari's Daughter (Carmine Gallone, 1954). The German title was Die Tochter der Mata Hari.

Breathing and movement

The Tales of Hoffman had perked the eyes and ears of Hollywood, and Ludmila Tchérina made her American film début in Sign of the Pagan (Douglas Sirk, 1954), co-starring with Jeff Chandler and Jack Palance. In this film, she performed a straight dramatic role along with an interpretative dance. This marked her first departure from classical ballet.

She also starred in the British Die Fledermaus adaptation Oh...Rosalinda!! (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1955) with Anthony Quayle and Dennis Price, Luna de miel / Honeymoon (Michael Powell, 1959), with Anthony Steel, and the film version of Les amants de Teruel / The Lovers of Teruel (Raymond Rouleau, 1962).

From then on, she performed less and less in films but regularly appeared in television shows. In the theatre, she played 'Anna Karenina' (1975), very dramatic in appearance and manner. On French television, she starred in Salomé (1972), La Dame aux camélias (1974) and La Reine de Saba / The Queen of Sheba (1975).

Ludmila Tchérina had a lifelong passion for painting and exhibited in many major galleries. In an exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, she painted and danced to illustrate her concept of ‘total art’ in which all aspects are born of breathing and movement. She also conceived and executed several monumental sculptures, including 'Europe à Coeur', chosen in 1991 by the EU to symbolise the union of Europe and now located at the European Parliament. In 1994, she created 'Europa Operanda', now installed at the French terminal of Eurotunnel.

In 1980, she was decorated Officier, Legion d'honneur in 1980. She authored two novels in the 1980s: 'L'amour au miroir' (1983) and 'La femme a l'envers' (1986). Ludmila Tchérina died in 2004 after a long illness at her luxurious home in Paris.


Small West German collector card by Druckerei Hanns Uhrig, Frankfurt a.M. Photo: NF. Still from Oh... Rosalinda!! (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1955).


French postcard by Imp. De Marchi Frères, Marseille.


Belgian postcard by Bromofophoto, Bruxelles, no. v 42.


Scene from Fandango (Emil E.Reinert, 1949) with Luis Mariano and Ludmilla Tchérina. Source: ximowb (YouTube).

Sources: Nadine Meisner (The Independent), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Vera Miles

Vera Miles (1930) is an American actress who worked closely with Alfred Hitchcock, most notably as Lila Crane in the classic Psycho (1960), reprising the role in the sequel Psycho II (Richard Franklin, 1983). Other great films in which she appeared include The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956), The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962).


Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. C-1. Photo: Warner Bros.


Vintage postcard. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


West German collector card by Druckerei Hanns Uhrig, Frankfurt a. M. Photo: Warner Bros Pictures, Inc.

Tarzan's love interest

Vera Miles was born Vera June Ralston in 1930 in Boise City, Oklahoma. Her parents were Thomas Albert Ralston and Bernice Goldie (Wyrick) Ralston. Vera grew up first in Pratt, Kansas, and later lived in Wichita, where she worked nights as a Western Union operator-typist and graduated from Wichita North High School in 1948. She was crowned Miss Kansas in 1948 and was placed third in the Miss America contest. Then she made the leap to Hollywood and moved to Los Angeles

Initially, Miles had a film contract with Republic Pictures. Republic's reigning queen was Vera Hruba Ralston, so she adopted the name of her then-husband, the stuntman Bob Miles, as her stage name. At first cast as a bland ingenue, she played a minor role as a chorus girl in Two Tickets to Broadway (James V. Kern, 1951), a musical starring Janet Leigh. Miles's first credited film appearance was in The Rose Bowl Story (William Beaudine, 1952), a romantic comedy in which she played a Tournament of Roses queen. She proved herself capable of conveying neurotic hysteria in the 3-D Western The Charge at Feather River (Gordon Douglas, 1953), playing a white girl kidnapped by Indians who was violently resistant to being returned to her real family.

Her film career was interrupted by the birth of two children. She played Tarzan's love interest in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (Harold D. Schuster, 1954), starring actor and bodybuilder Gordon Scott in his first film as Tarzan, taking over the role from Lex Barker, who had in turn followed Johnny Weissmuller in the series. Tarzan's mate, Jane, does not appear in the film. Tarzan at first seems to show more than casual interest in Miles' character, Jill Hardy, but ultimately, there is no romance. In real life, Miles fell in love with her co-star, divorced Bob Miles and married Scott in 1956.

Miles then had the female lead in the CinemaScope Western Wichita (Jacques Tourneur, 1955) starring Joel McCrea as Wyatt Earp. The film won a Golden Globe Award for Best Outdoor Drama. Till then, Miles had mainly minor roles in rather insignificant films, but then John Ford cast her as Jeffrey Hunter's love interest in the John Wayne Western The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). The film was a critical and commercial success. It became her breakthrough role, and she graduated to big-budget productions.

Six years later, she starred once again under Ford’s direction as the waitress Hallie in another Western epic, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962), a role for which both John Wayne and James Stewart vie for her affections throughout the film. The film is one of Ford's best, and ranks with The Searchers and The Shootist as one of Wayne's best Westerns. Roger Ebert wrote that each of the 10 Ford/Wayne westerns is "... complete and self-contained in a way that approaches perfection", and singled out The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance as "the most pensive and thoughtful". Both The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance became classics and are masterpieces.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. S 510. Photo: RKO Radio Films. Vera Miles and Zippy in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (Harold D. Schuster, 1955). The German title was Tarzan und der schwarze Dämon.


West German postcard by Kunst und Bild, no. I 411. Photo: RKO. Gordon Scott in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (Harold D. Schuster, 1955).

Grace Kelly's potential successor

From 1957 on, Vera Miles was under a five-year contract with Alfred Hitchcock, who was impressed by the 'still waters run deep' element of her performances. After Grace Kelly was no longer available for the film due to her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco, Hitchcock had been on the lookout for a new leading lady for his films. Hitchcock found her in Miles when she played the female lead as Ralph Meeker's emotionally troubled new bride and rape victim in Revenge (1955), the first episode of his TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962).

She subsequently played the female lead as Rose Balestrero, the fragile wife of Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda), a musician falsely accused of a crime in Hitchcock’s drama The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956), based on real-life events. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Her final scene is a knockout!" Hitchcock had already firmly cast Miles in Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), but this was prevented by a pregnancy. Kim Novak had to play the lead role in Vertigo, much to Hitchcock’s dissatisfaction. Hitchcock cast Vera Miles again in his thriller Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), where, in the role of Lila Crane, she seeks to solve the mysterious disappearance of her sister, played by Janet Leigh. She teams up with Marion's boyfriend and a private investigator to find her. She later appeared in two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (in 1962 and 1965).

In 1960, she divorced Gordon Scott and married the actor Keith Larsen in the same year. In the 1960s and 1970s, she appeared in several Walt Disney films, including Follow Me, Boys! (Norman Tokar, 1966) with Fred MacMurray. TV producers regarded her as a 'good luck charm': if she guest-starred in the pilot episode of a potential series, chances were that the series would sell. Among those sold were Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Fugitive (1963) starring David Janssen as Dr. Richard Kimble, I Spy (1965) with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, Cannon (1971) and Owen Marshall, Counsellor at Law (1971). In 1973, she again appeared alongside Peter Falk in the Columbo episode Lovely but Lethal (1973), playing a cosmetics queen who commits murder.

Miles continued to make occasional appearances on TV and in films, including the enjoyable action comedy Into the Night (John Landis, 1985), starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. More than 20 years after Psycho, Miles reprised the role of Lila Crane in the sequel Psycho II (Richard Franklin, 1982), joining Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. Miles and Perkins were the only stars of the original film to appear in this second instalment. Although she refers to herself as Lila Loomis in the film, Lila mentions that her husband, Sam Loomis, played by John Gavin in the first film, has died. In 1995, Miles made her final film appearance in the psychological thriller Separate Lives (David Madden, 1995) alongside James Belushi, after which she retired from public life.

Vera Miles has been married four times. She divorced her third husband, actor Keith Larsen, in 1971. They had one son, Erik. Her fourth marriage, to filmmaker Robert Jones, was from 1973 to 1975. All her marriages ended in divorce. She is the mother of four children: Debra Miles, Kelley Miles, Michael Scott, and Erik Larsen. Miles is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has also been a frequent visitor to Salt Lake City, Utah, and was greatly involved in the Boy Scouts of America. Today, she lives a secluded life in Palm Desert, California, and avoids public appearances. In 2012, Jessica Biel portrayed Miles in the film Hitchcock (Sacha Gervasi, 2012). The film depicts the making of Psycho. In 2025, Vera Miles announced with the utmost regret that she would no longer be able to honour requests for autographs due in part to both her age and failing eyesight. She is the grandmother of actor Jordan Essoe and Joshua Essoe.


German postcard by Cinema. Henry Fonda and Vera Miles in The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956). The German film title was Der Falsche Mann.



Austrian flyer (front) by Neues Film-programm, no. 2073, October 1960. Photo: Afex. Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960).


Austrian flyer (back) by Neues Film-programm, no. 2073, October 1960. Photo: Afex. Alfred Hitchcock in the trailer for Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). Caption: Pst ... Please don't reveal anything about the end of the film.

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Film Reference, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

Harry Langdon

Hollywood comedian Harry Langdon (1884-1944), often called 'Baby Face', had enormous success during his heyday. Early in his film career, he had the good fortune to work regularly with director Harry Edwards, writer Frank Arthur Ripley and the young Frank Capra. They created his unique character of the innocent and helpless man-child who found himself in dramatic and hazardous circumstances with only providence and good luck to survive. At the height of his film career, he was considered one of the four best comics of the silent film era.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5199. Photo: First National Pictures.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 360. Photo: George Frederic Cannons, Los Angeles. Publicity still for Feet of Mud (Harry Edwards, 1924).

Still a cherubic baby face at 40

Harry Philmore Langdon was born in 1884 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. He was the son of a self-employed painter, William Langdon, and his wife, Lavinia, a Salvation Army volunteer. At the age of 12, he joined Dr. Belcher's Kickapoo Indian Medicine Show. This led to years spent doing other medicine shows, small-time circus shows and also vaudeville. Langdon had made his Broadway debut in a 1899 revival of William Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale'. In 1904, Langdon met and married fellow performer Rose Musolff, and the pair began a vaudeville routine.

By 1915, they had evolved their routine into a popular skit called 'Johnny's New Car.' Langdon regularly came up with variations on the sketch, which he performed to great acclaim. While he was perfecting his sketch, a new phenomenon was emerging: the film. In 1922, he signed with producer Sol Lesser of Principal Pictures as a series star, but after two films, he transferred to Keystone in October 1923 when Mack Sennett bought the contract. 

Sennett gave the seasoned vaudeville veteran a great deal of artistic freedom to develop his own style. He was assigned his own production team to make his shorts. Harry was already 40 at the time, but he still had a cherubic baby face. It was perfectly suited to the pantomime style he employed in the films he made with director Harry Edwards and writer Arthur Ripley. In early 1925, Frank Capra began working with the unit as a gag writer, first credited on the short Plain Clothes (Harry Edwards, 1925). The unit slowed down the rhythm of Langdon's shorts and began focusing on Harry's character, a timid, naive soul who hesitated when confronting conflict.

Tammy Stone at Things and other stuff (now defunct): "Harry’s 'schtick' consisted primarily in playing highly hapless, innocent and indecisive characters, and for this, he became a huge star. Most of his approximately 100 films were actually made during this 'early' period; titles include Smile Please, The Cat’s Meow, The Luck of the Foolish, The Hansom Cabman (all 1924), Boobs in the Wood, Plain Clothes, The White Wing’s Bride, Lucky Stars (all 1925), and Fiddlesticks and Ella Soldier Man (both 1926)."

Langdon created a character who was essentially a childlike figure with wide-open eyes, constantly gazing at the adult world with wonder. With only providence and good luck, he manages to come out on top. His character stood out from most of the other comedians who worked for Sennett, who tended to focus more on slapstick. One of his best films from this 'Sennett era' was Saturday Afternoon (Harry Edwards, 1926), in which he played a henpecked husband who comes back after a spree with a buddy and hopes to tell his wife (Alice Ward) off.


Poster postcard, ed. Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé. American poster by Mack Sennett / Pathé for Harry Langdon in The First 100 Years (F. Richard Jones, Harry Sweet, 1924).


French postcard by François Nugeron, Paris. Photo: Collection Snark. Harry Langdon and Joan Crawford in Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (Harry Edwards, 1926), based on a screenplay by Frank Capra. The French film title was Plein des bottes.

Forming his own company

As Harry Langdon's career progressed at Sennett, his box-office success increased, and the unit moved from two- to three-reelers. Langdon, determined to follow the example of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, then made his first feature-length comedy, His First Flame (Harry Edwards, 1927). The film was completed in July 1925, but not copyrighted until February 1926, and released in May 1927. Along the way, it was edited from 5 reels down to 3 reels. Langdon decided to form his own company, the Harry Langdon Corporation, and he immediately got a six-film deal with First National, a big studio at the time. He was able to snag Edwards, Capra and Ripley from Sennett.

His first film with his new company was the feature-length comedy Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (Harry Edwards, 1926), in which he starred opposite a very young Joan Crawford. The film, on which Landon also acted as producer, featured the child-man Harry as the ultimate manifestation of his naive persona, playing himself as his own baby. The film did well but ran over budget, and Harry Edwards was sacked. However, the film did extremely well critically and with audiences.

Langdon followed up this triumph with The Strong Man (Frank Capra, 1926) and Long Pants (Frank Capra, 1927). During the production of Long Pants (1927), Langdon and his director had a falling out. With three big successful films and an ego to match, Langdon fired Frank Capra and took over the directing duties himself. As a result, his next three films were failures. In 1928, First National did not pick up his contract. Harry Langdon Corp. was bankrupt. 

Sound film gained headway, and his popularity had waned. In 1929, Hal Roach gave him a contract, and he did eight short sound films with Harry, but they were disappointments. A decade after he began making pictures, at age 50, Harry signed with Columbia. He largely made short films that were reworkings of his earlier, more popular films. He also wrote for Laurel and Hardy at the Hal Roach Studio, e.g. Block-Heads (John G. Blystone, 1938). He even subbed for Laurel in Zenobia (Gordon Douglas, 1939), as Hardy's sidekick.

Langdon remained active in Columbia shorts and Monogram features until the end of his life. A few weeks before his death, he had delivered his final short film, Pistol Packin' Nitwits (Edward Bernds, 1945), to Columbia Pictures. In 1944, Harry Langdon died in Los Angeles of a cerebral haemorrhage after working all day on a strenuous dance routine for the Republic musical Swingin' on a Rainbow (William Beaudine, 1945). He was 60. Langdon married four times. His only son is the Hollywood photographer Harry Langdon Jr.


Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56553. Photo: First National Pictures Inc. / Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne. Harry Langdon in The Chaser (Harry Langdon, 1928).


Publicity still for Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025. Credit: AMPAS, Margaret Herrick Library, LA. Natalie Kingston and Harry Langdon in Soldier Man (Harry Edwards, 1928).

Sources: Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb),  Kenneth Chisholm (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

Village People: Victor Willis (1951-2026)

On Tuesday 30 June 2026, Victor Willis, lead singer and founding member of the Village People, has died at age 74, one day before his 75th birthday. The American disco group was particularly successful in the late 1970s. The members were well known for their on-stage costumes depicting American masculine cultural stereotypes as well as their catchy tunes and suggestive lyrics. The original line-up was cop Victor Willis, leatherman Glenn Hughes, 'Native American' Felipe Rose, construction worker David Hodo, cowboy Randy Jones and Alex Briley, who started portraying an athlete but eventually took on the soldier persona. The Village People's biggest hits, 'Y.M.C.A.', 'Macho Man', 'Go West', and 'In the Navy', are still frequently played at parties and on film soundtracks.


West German postcard by Top Schlagerheft. Photo: Metronome Records GmbH. With Victor Willis.


German promotion card by Metronome Music GmbH, Hamburg, 1980. Photo: Can't Stop Productions. With Ray Simpson.

The men from Greenwich Village

Village People was created in 1977 in New York by French record producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, along with a young New York entertainment lawyer, Allen Grubman. Together they formed Can't Stop Productions. They wanted to target disco's gay audience by featuring popular gay fantasy personae. The name Village People refers to Greenwich Village on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, a neighbourhood strongly influenced by gay subculture. It is colloquially known simply as The Village.

According to a widely circulated version of the band’s formation, Jacques Morali spotted Felipe Rose in his Native American costume dancing in a crowd in New York’s Greenwich Village. Rose’s outfit gave him the idea of putting together a group of Village icons from various US social groups. When writing the songs for the first album, the songwriting and producing duo thought of places in the US that were shaped by gay life. This led them to Hollywood, San Francisco, Key West (on the second album) and Fire Island. Fire Island is a small island off Long Island, famous for its ‘tea dance parties’ on Sundays at 5 pm, where the best DJs played. During the recording sessions for the first Village People album at the New York branch of Sigma Sound Studios, only Victor Willis was present as lead singer. Professional backing singers were hired. Felipe Rose was invited to the sessions as a ‘mascot’ and also appeared in the first photos for the cover and a newspaper advert.

The album 'Village People' became an underground hit, and demand for performances grew. Once 100,000 copies had been sold, the producers put together a real group around Victor Willis and Felipe Rose. Following an audition, they recruited Glenn Hughes (biker), Alexander Briley (soldier), David Hodo (construction worker) and Randy Jones (cowboy), and toured the clubs. Their second album, 'Macho Man', only made it into the Top 20, but the title track, 'Macho Man', was played by many radio stations, and the band went from being an underground favourite to a mainstream act.

Whilst the producers were working on the songs for the third album, the two were walking down a street. Henri saw the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) sign and asked what it was. Jacques replied that it was a place where lots of men went when they were in town, where they’d make good friends and then go out together. As it was an association for men, it was quite popular amongst gay men. Henri suggested they could write a song about it. That’s how ‘Y.M.C.A.’ came about for the third album, ‘Cruisin’. The musical arrangement was by Horace Ott. The song marked the band’s breakthrough and became a number-one hit worldwide on the charts and in clubs. ‘Y.M.C.A.’ remains one of the most commercially successful pop songs in music history to this day. The album Cruisin’ went platinum and sold five to six million copies worldwide. Fans devised a dance to the song in which the four letters of the title are represented with arms and legs.

The title track of the fourth album, 'Go West', was actually intended to be the lead single. That assumption wasn’t far off the mark, as the track became a global hit in 1993 thanks to the Pet Shop Boys’ cover version. At the time, however, the single failed to catch on, so they decided to try releasing 'In the Navy' instead. The US Navy wanted the song for a television and radio recruiting campaign and offered to fund a music video. Filming took place at one of the world’s largest naval bases, the San Diego Naval Base in California, where a warship (the Reasoner, a Knox-class frigate), five aircraft (Phantoms) and 200 to 300 soldiers were made available. When a New York newspaper condemned the spending of so much public money on a music video, the Navy abandoned the campaign. This scandal generated so much publicity for the Village People that the song immediately shot to the top of the charts. On a major tour with a big band through 52 cities, Village People played twice at the sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York and once at the sold-out Felt Forum in Los Angeles.


German promotion card by Metronome Music GmbH, Hamburg. Photo: Can't Stop Productions. With Victor Willis.


Belgian collector card by Joepie. With Ray Simpson and The Ritchie Family.

Golden Raspberry Awards

At the end of 1979, Victor Willis left the group at the end of an international tour, including a performance with Bob Hope to entertain US troops. Willis was replaced by Ray Simpson, the brother of Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson. He had sung background vocals with the group on their 1979 tour. According to a British music magazine, Willis had become unreliable and full of himself. However, he was reportedly promised a solo career as ‘compensation’. A solo album by Victor Willis is said to have been recorded but never released.

Simpson also replaced Willis for the group's feature film Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980), starring Steve Guttenberg, Valerie Perrine, and Bruce Jenner, later known as Caitlyn Jenner. The film tells a fictionalised biography of the Village People. Two other protégés of Morali and Belolo also appear in this film: David London and The Ritchie Family. In the US, the film and the album were a flop, but in Australia, they reached number one. Belolo believes the film was released too late, when disco was already losing popularity. Others also criticise it for painting a distinctly heterosexual picture of the band, leaving no room for the usual speculation. At the March 1981 Golden Raspberry Awards, the movie was named Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay, and was nominated in almost all the other categories.

In 1981, with New Wave music becoming more popular than disco, Village People replaced its on-stage costumes with a new look inspired by the New Romantic movement and released the album 'Renaissance'. It only attracted minor – mostly negative – attention and produced no hits, except for the group's first hit single in Italy with '5 O'clock in the Morning'. Their last album containing new material, the 1985 dance/Hi-NRG release 'Sex Over the Phone', was not a huge commercial success, but it fared better in sales and club play than 'Renaissance'. Of the original members, only soldier Alex Briley, leatherman Glenn Hughes and Native American Felipe Rose (who sang the title track) remained. The group once again had a new singer (Ray Stephens) and even a stand-in (Py Douglas).

Village People has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Their songs can be heard on the soundtracks of such blockbusters as The Nutty Professor (Tom Shadyac, 1996), As Good as It Gets (James L. Brooks, 1997), Blast from the Past (Hugh Wilson, 1999) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Jonathan Mostow, 2003). Examples of film homages and parody include a mention in the Western comedy City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991), a scene in Wayne's World 2 (Stephen Surjik, 1993), and the animated film Despicable Me 2 (Chris Renaud, Pierre Coffin, 2013). The Village People were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for recording at 6529 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

In 2017, after years of legal battles over royalties and songwriting credits, Victor Willis and Can't Stop Productions settled their differences. Willis acquired the licensing rights to the group name and formed his own Village People. He has been the official owner of the name since 2018. In November 2018, 'A Village People Christmas' was released, their first studio album in 33 years. On New Year's Eve, the group performed a concert in Times Square during Fox's New Year's Eve with Steve Harvey, and the crowd broke the record for the Y.M.C.A. dance. In 2019, Village People co-creator Henri Belolo died aged 82. In 2020, the Village People released a new single, ‘If You Believe’. It became their first top 20 hit in the US in forty years. President Trump used ‘Macho Man’ and ‘Y.M.C.A.’ for his (re-)election campaign. At the end of 2024, Victor Willis alleged to news media that the group's hit song 'Y.M.C.A.' was not a gay anthem and threatened to sue "each and every news organisation" that would refer to the song as such. On 19 January 2025, the day before the inauguration of his second term, President Trump was joined on stage by the Village People to the tune of this very same song.


Vintage photo. Valerie Perrine and Village People in Can't Stop the Music (Nancy Walker, 1980).

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

Vincent Pérez

Soulful, exotic-looking Swiss actor Vincent Pérez (1964) is known for such French films as Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Indochine (1992) and La Reine Margot (1994). His international breakthrough was his role as Ashe Corven in The Crow: City of Angels (1996). He is also known as a director and photographer.


French postcard. Photo: Artificial Eye. Vincent Pérez, Anne Brochet and Gérard Depardieu in Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990).


French postcard by Sonis, no. C. 712. Photo: Bad Bird Productions, Inc. Vincent Pérez in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 765 (Series 2 set of 12). Photos: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 4.


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 766 (Series 2 set of 12). Photos: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 5.


Spanish collector card by Accion. Photo: Vincent Perez in Swept from the Sea (Beeban Kidron, 1997).

A sexy stare and irresistible charm that has swept Gallic women off their feet

Vincent Pérez was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1964. He is the son of a Spanish father and a German mother. His mother was a homemaker, and his father worked in the import-export business. Vincent wanted to be an actor since he saw a film of Charles Chaplin at the age of seven. He began putting on shows at school, which he would star in and direct. Perez eventually dropped out to enter photography school. In Geneva, he enrolled at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, followed by a training at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSAD) and at the experimental school of the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, where he trained under famed theatre and opera director Patrice Chéreau.

While still a student, he made his screen debut in Gardien de la nuit / Night Guardian (Jean-Pierre Limosin, 1986). A part followed by in the Anton Chekhov adaptation Hôtel de France (Patrice Chéreau, 1987), which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. His breakthrough role was the tongue-tied lover Christian de Neuvillette opposite Gérard Depardieu in the comedy-drama Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1990). Critics considered it the definitive film version of the Edmond Rostand play from 1897. For his standout performance, Perez was nominated for a César Award as Most Promising Actor (Meilleur espoir masculin). According to Gary Brumburgh at IMDb, Perez exudes ‘a sexy stare and irresistible charm that has swept Gallic women off their feet‘.

In Italy, he appeared in the title role of the comedy Il viaggio di Capitan Fracassa / Captain Fracassa's Journey (Ettore Scola, 1990) with Emmanuelle Béart. Perez was awarded the prestigious Prix Jean Gabin for his work in the World War II drama La Neige et le Feu / Snow and Fire (Claude Pinoteau, 1991). He landed the romantic lead opposite Catherine Deneuve in Indochine / Indochina (Rëgis Wargnier, 1992), set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. That year, he directed and wrote himself the short film L'échange / The Change (1992). At the Cannes Film Festival, L'échange was nominated for the Golden Palm Award for Best Short Film.

He then co-starred with Sophie Marceau in the romantic comedy Fanfan / Fanfan & Alexandre (1993), written and directed by Alexandre Jardin and based on the director's best-selling 1990 novel. James Travers at Films de France: “Compelling performances from Vincent Perez and Sophie Marceau transform what looks at first like a routine romantic comedy into something far richer, far more compassionate. The second part of the film also contains some moments of artistic brilliance, notably the Cocteau-esque sequence in which the two lovers attempt to make contact through a mirrored partition. Although there are a few unexplained gaps in the narrative — some more backstory about Alexandre might have helped — writer-director Alexandre Jardin succeeds in weaving a tender love story that is both original and hauntingly poetic.“

One of his best films is the French period film La Reine Margot / Queen Margot (Patrice Chéreau, 1994), starring Isabelle Adjani. The film won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and was an international success. It paved the way for Perez to have an international career.


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 759 (Series 2 set of 12). Collage 1. Photo: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 760. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 761 (Series 2 set of 12). Photos: Crowvision. Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 2.


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 762. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 763 (Series 2 set of 12). Vincent Pérez, Thuy Trang and Iggy Pop in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Collage 3.

American supernatural Horror action film

Vincent Pérez was cast next to John Malkovich in the Italian-French-German romance Al di là delle nuvole / Beyond the Clouds (Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders, 1995). Director Antonioni, who was 83 at the time of the film's production, had a stroke that left him severely incapacitated. The film was completed with help from Wim Wenders, who wrote its prologue and epilogue and worked on the screenplay. Perez then played the lead in the American supernatural Horror action film The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996), a sequel to the cult film The Crow (Alex Proyas, 1994) with Brandon Lee, who was accidentally killed on the set during filming by a defective blank, only 8 days before the film would have completed production. The Crow: City of Angels was a minor success.

Pérez then starred in the American drama Swept from the Sea (Beeban Kidron, 1997), based on a story by Joseph Conrad about a doomed love affair between a simple country girl (Rachel Weisz) and a Ukrainian peasant (Pérez) who is swept onto the Cornish shore in 1888 after his emigrant ship sinks on its way to America. Back in France, he co-starred with Daniel Auteuil in the Swashbuckler Le Bossu / On Guard (Philippe de Broca, 1997). For his part as a transsexual in Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train / Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Patrice Chéreau, 1998), he was nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actor (Meilleur second rôle masculin).

His American films were less successful. Talk Of Angels was directed in 1996 by Nick Hamm, but not released by its production company, Miramax, until 1998. The drama I Dreamed of Africa (Hugh Hudson, 2000), starring Kim Basinger, was also not received well and was a huge financial flop. Better received was the French comedy Le Libertin / The Libertine (Gabriel Aghion, 2000), in which Pérez played the philosopher Denis Diderot, one of the modernists of the French 18th-century Age of Enlightenment movement. His next American projects, the period drama Bride of the Wind (Bruce Beresford, 2001), and the vampire Horror film Queen of the Damned (Michael Rymer, 2002) were again critical and box office disappointments. Pérez then directed himself the drama Peau d'Ange / Once Upon an Angel (Vincent Perez, 2002). Derek Elley in Variety: “Vincent Perez makes an interesting behind-the-camera debut with Once Upon an Angel, a smartly put together, well-cast romantic drama that just needed a little more work on the script. Tale of a simple farm girl who loses her virginity to – but not her love for – a more emotionally complex, ambitious young man doesn't add up to a great deal, but features good perfs by leads Morgane More and Guillaume Depardieu.”

His later films include the French-Swiss comedy Bienvenue en Suisse / Welcome to Switzerland (Léa Fazer, 2004), the Russian action film Kod apokalipsisa / The Apocalypse Code (Vadim Shmelyov, 2007), the Franco-Portuguese epic war film Linhas de Wellington / Lines of Wellington (Raúl Ruiz, 2012) and the romantic drama Ce que le jour doit à la nuit / What the Day Owes the Night (Alexandre Arcady, 2012). On television, he starred in Paris enquêtes criminelles / Paris Criminal Investigations (2007-2008), the French remake of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Pérez starred as Lieutenant Vincent Revel. He has exhibited his photographic work during festivals and in art galleries. His exhibition 'Face to Face', which included photographs of Carla Bruni, Johnny Hallyday and Gérard Depardieu, was unveiled at Rencontres d'Arles, an annual photography festival in Arles, France.

Pérez appeared in Claude Lelouch’s ensemble film Chacun sa vie / Everyone's Life (2017) and the biopic Dalida (Lisa Azuelos, 2016), in which he played French record producer Eddie Barclay. He also played in the Australian romantic dramedy Ladies in Black (Bruce Beresford, 2018) with Julia Ormond and the American action adventure The Aeronauts (Tom Harper, 2019) starring Eddie Redmayne. He also had a supporting part in Roman Polanski's legal drama about the notorious Dreyfuss Affair, J'accuse / An Officer and a Spy (Roman Polanski, 2019), starring Jean Dujardin and Louis Garrel. Recently, he acted in La venue de l'avenir (Cédric Klapisch, 2025). Since 1998, Vincent Pérez has been married to Senegalese model/actress/writer Karine Silla. They have three children together: Iman (1999) and the twins Pablo and Tess (2003). 


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 764. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 768. Photo: Crowvision Inc., 1996. Publicity still for The Crow: City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996).


British postcard by London Postcard Company, no. PR 767 (Series 2 set of 12). Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner in The Crow - City of Angels (Tim Pope, 1996). Caption: Collage 6.


Vintage poster postcard, no. 6244. Vincent Pérez and Rachel Weisz in Swept from the Sea (Beeban Kidron, 1997).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), James Travers (Films de France - Now defunct), Derek Elley (Variety), Anne D'Arminio (AllMovie - Page now defunct), Vincent Perez.com, Wikipedia and IMDb.

La Collectionneuse: Vera Reynolds

Vera Reynolds was one of the Wampas Baby Stars of 1926. At the time, she was professionally linked to famous director Cecil B. De Mille. At the beginning of the 1930s, she could only find work at Poverty Row studios and retired in 1932. Later, she made headlines for her complicated marital history.


French postcard by J.R.P.R., Paris, no. 53. Photo: Film Erka Prodisco.


British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 250.


Mexican postcard by CIF, no. 1584. Vera Reynolds and Ricardo Cortez in Feet of Clay (Cecil B. DeMille, 1924).

Comedy shorts

Vera Reynolds was born on the 25th of November 1899 in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.

She made her film debut in 1917 and appeared in comedy shorts, working, for example, for Mack Sennett or Al Christie.

In 1921 and 1922, she was Eddie Barry’s leading lady in a series of comedies distributed by Arrow Pictures.

She also played opposite Stan Laurel in The Pest (1922).

Her first feature film was Prodigal Daughters (1923), as Gloria Swanson’s sister.


Italian postcard by G.B. Falci-Editore, Milano. Vera Reynolds and Ricardo Cortez in Feet of Clay (Cecil B. DeMille, 1924).


British embossed postcard, no. 94.

Cecil B. DeMille

Vera Reynolds was then professionally linked to Cecil B. DeMille for several years.

Under his direction, she played in Feet of Clay (1924), which had her making a round trip to the afterworld, and The Golden Bed (1925), as vamp Lillian Rich’s gentle and decent sister. She was also featured in The Night Club (1925), adapted from a 1913 play by Cecil B. DeMille and his brother, William C. de Mille.

In 1925, the famous director left Paramount and founded his own production unit, the DeMille Pictures Corporation, whose films would be distributed by P.D.C. His first personally directed release through this new partnership was The Road to Yesterday (1925), in which Vera co-starred with Jetta Goudal, Joseph Schildkraut and William Boyd.

Under the De Mille Pictures Corporation banner, she also starred, under various directors’ helm, in Silence (1926), Sunny Side Up (1926), Risky Business (1926), Corporal Kate (1926), The Little Adventuress (1927), Almost Human (1927) and The Main Event (1927).

In August 1927, it was reported that she had attempted suicide by taking poison. She denied it, claiming that it was accidental and that she simply had suffered from food poisoning.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5130. Photo: P.D.C. / Sascha Verleih.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5130. Photo: P.D.C. / Sascha Verleih. Vera Reynolds in Sunny Side Up (Donald Crisp, 1926).

Decline

From 1928 on, Vera Reynolds' career began to decline.

Her last silents were Golf Widows (1928) for Columbia, The Divine Sinner (1928) for Trem Carr Pictures and Jazzland (1928) for Carlos Productions.

She made her talkie debut in a Madge Bellamy vehicle, Tonight at Twelve (1929), and was then Buck Jones’ leading lady in the western The Lone Rider (1930).

Afterwards, she got leading roles in films distributed by Poverty Row studios such as Tiffany, Chesterfield, Sono Art-World Pictures, Action Pictures or Mayfair, where her name could still have some marquee value. She was featured in, for example, Borrowed Wives (1930), The Lawless Woman (1931), Neck and Neck (1931), Dragnet Patrol (1931) and Gorilla Ship (1932).

Her filmography ended with Tangled Destinies (1932).


Romanian postcard. Photo: Kawa-Film. Vera Reynolds in Sunny Side Up (Donald Crisp, 1926).


Romanian postcard. Photo: Kawa-Film. Vera Reynolds and Kenneth Thompson in Risky Business (Alan Hale, 1926).

A complicated private life

Vera Reynolds had a rather complicated private life. In 1919, she married comedian Earl Montgomery. After their divorce, she married actor, director and future screenwriter Robert Ellis in 1926.

In September 1937, it was reported that she had filed a breach of promise suit against Ellis. In March 1938, the suit was called off after a month’s hearing. Vera claimed that she had married Ellis in Greenwich Village in 1926 and that, after the ceremony was found to be invalid, he had promised to remarry her. Both testified that they had lived together as man and wife ever since, but Ellis contended they never were married. A settlement was found when the couple agreed to a legal marriage ceremony. An attorney quite prophetically pointed out that this agreement didn’t necessarily mean an immediate reconciliation.

Time Magazine announced their (re)marriage in April 1938. In December, Vera filed for divorce but very quickly dismissed the action. In late 1941, she was back in the news when she contested the terms of a separation agreement allowing her to receive monthly payments from Ellis. He maintained she had full knowledge of the deal when signing it and that, therefore, she was not in a position to litigate. Vera Reynolds and Robert Ellis finally divorced for good.

In 1943, Ellis married Helen Logan. On the marriage certificate, he listed himself as 'divorced' and mentioned three previous marriages. His former wives were all actresses: Irene Fenwick, May Allison and Vera Reynolds. Helen Logan had been Ellis’ collaborator since 1935. Together, they had penned numerous screenplays for 20th Century Fox.

Vera Reynolds passed away on the 22nd of April 1962 in Los Angeles.


Mexican postcard, no. 64.


British postcard by Picturegoer, no. 250a.


Fan photo.

Text and postcards: Marlene Pilaete.