Jack Palance

Jack Palance (1919-2006) was an American actor and singer who portrayed some of the most intensely despised villains witnessed in Westerns and melodramas of the 1950s. In the late 1950s, he became an international star, who often played in Spaghetti Westerns and in the Nouvelle Vague classic Le Mépris / Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot. He was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning an Oscar for his grizzled, eccentric role in City Slickers (1991).


Spanish postcard by Postalcolor, Hospitalet (Barcelona), no. 107. Photo: Warner Bros.


French postcard, no. 5979. French poster for Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: G. Allard.


Small West German collector card. Jack Palance in City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991).

Alan Ladd's biggest nightmare

Jack Palance was born Vladimir Ivanovich Palahniuk in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, in 1919. He was one of the six children of Ukrainian immigrants, Anna (née Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk, an anthracite coal miner. After his father had died of black lung disease, the sensitive, artistic lad worked in coal mines before becoming a professional boxer in the late 1930s. Fighting under the name Jack Brazzo, Palance reportedly compiled a record of 15 consecutive victories with 12 knockouts before losing a close decision to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi in a Pier-6 brawl. With the outbreak of World War II, Palance's athletic career ended, and his military career began as a member of the United States Air Force. He was honourably discharged from the United States Army Air Forces in 1944.

After the war, he attended Stanford University, leaving one credit shy of graduating to pursue a career in the theatre. During his university years, he worked as a short-order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and a photographer's model. His new last name, Palance, was a derivative of his original name. No one could pronounce his last name, and it was suggested that he be called Palanski. From that, he decided just to use Palance instead. In 1947, Palance made his Broadway debut in 'The Big', playing a Russian soldier, directed by Robert Montgomery.

His acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in 'A Streetcar Named Desire', and he eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski. He debuted on television in 1949 and made his screen debut as a gangster in the Film Noir Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan, 1950). As a plague-carrying fugitive, he stood out among a powerhouse cast including Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas. The same year, he made fine use of his former boxing skills and war experience for the film Halls of Montezuma (Lewis Milestone, 1951) about the United States Marines in World War II. He returned to Broadway for 'Darkness at Noon' (1951), by Sidney Kingsley, which was a minor hit.

Palance was second billed in just his third film, playing opposite Joan Crawford in the thriller Sudden Fear (David Miller, 1952). According to Gary Brumburg at IMDb, Palance found “the right menace and intensity to pretty much steal the proceedings”, and he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated in the same category the following year as well, for his role as the hired gunfighter Jack Wilson in Shane (George Stevens, 1953). Brumburgh again: “arguably his finest villain of the decade, that of creepy, sadistic gunslinger Jack Wilson, who becomes Alan Ladd's biggest nightmare (not to mention others) in the classic Western Shane (1953). Their climactic showdown alone is textbook.“ Shane was a huge hit, and Palance was now established as a film name. He played another villain in Second Chance (Rudolph Maté, 1953) opposite Robert Mitchum and was an Indian in Arrowhead (Charles Marquis Warren, 1953), opposite Charlton Heston.

Palance played the lead in Man in the Attic (Hugo Freegonese, 1953), a remake of The Lodger (1927), the classic silent film by Alfred Hitchcock. Palance was Attila the Hun in Sign of the Pagan (Douglas Sirk, 1954) with Jeff Chandler, and Simon Magus in the Ancient World epic The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954) with Paul Newman. He had the star part in I Died a Thousand Times (Stuart Heisler, 1955), a remake of High Sierra and was cast by Robert Aldrich in two star parts: as a Hollywood star in the Film Noir The Big Knife (1955) based on the play by Clifford Odets; and as a tough WW II soldier in Attack (1956). He was in a Western, The Lonely Man (Henry Levin, 1957), playing the father of Anthony Perkins, and played a double role in House of Numbers (Russell Rouse, 1957). In 1957, Palance won an Emmy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the Playhouse 90 production of Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight.


German postcard by Netter's Verlag, Berlin.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 399. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by Korès 'Carboplane', no. 328.

The meanest guy that ever lived

In the following years, Jack Palance became an international star. He was hired by British Warwick Films to play the hero in The Man Inside (John Gilling, 1958). He was reunited with Robert Aldrich and Jeff Chandler on Ten Seconds to Hell (1959), playing a bomb disposal expert, filmed in Germany. He made the drama Flor de Mayo / Beyond All Limits (Roberto Gavaldón, 1959), with Maria Felix, in Mexico, and Austerlitz (Abel Gance, 1960) in France. Then he did a series of adventure films in Italy: Revak the Rebel / The Barbarians (Rudolph Maté, 1961) with Milly Vitale, Rosmunda e Alboino / Sword of the Conqueror (Carlo Campogalliani, 1961) with Eleonora Rossi-Drago, and I mongoli / The Mongols (Andre DeToth, Leopoldo Savona, 1961) opposite Anita Ekberg.

Next, he appeared in the Commedia all'italiana Il giudizio universale / The Last Judgment (Vittorio De Sica, 1961) with Alberto Sordi, and the religious epic Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961), starring Anthony Quinn. Jean-Luc Godard persuaded Palance to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the Nouvelle Vague classic Le Mépris / Contempt (1963) with Brigitte Bardot. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke mostly English. Palance returned to the US to star in the TV series The Greatest Show on Earth (1963–1964). He played a gangster in Once a Thief (Ralph Thomas, 1965) with Alain Delon.

Palance had a featured role opposite Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster in the Western The Professionals (Richard Brooks, 1966). He guest-starred on The Man from UNCLE and the episodes were released as a film, The Spy in the Green Hat (1967). Palance went to England to do Torture Garden (Freddie Francis, 1967) and did Kill a Dragon (Michael D. Moore, 1968) in Hong Kong. In 1969, Palance recorded a country music album in Nashville, released on Warner Bros. Records. It featured Palance's self-penned song ‘The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived’. His films continued to be international co-productions: They Came to Rob Las Vegas (Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi, 1968), the Zapata Western Il mercenario / The Mercenary (Sergio Corbucci, 1968) with Franco Nero, The Desperados (Henry Levin, 1969), and Justine ovvero le disavventure della virtù / Marquis de Sade: Justine (Jésus Franco, 1969), starring Klaus Kinski.

Palance had an excellent part in the Hollywood blockbuster Che! (Richard Fleischer, 1969) playing Fidel Castro opposite Omar Sharif in the title role, but the film flopped. Palance went back to action films and Westerns like the Macaroni-War film La legione dei dannati / Battle of the Commandos (Umberto Lenzi, 1970), with Curd Jürgens, and the Zapata Western Companeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970) with Franco Nero and Tomás Milián. He had another good role in Monte Walsh (William A. Fraker, 1970), from the author of Shane, opposite Lee Marvin, but the film was a box office disappointment. So too was The Horsemen (John Frankenheimer, 1971) with Omar Sharif.

Palance supported Bud Spencer in Si può fare... amigo / It Can Be Done Amigo (Maurizio Lucidi, 1972) and Charles Bronson in Chato's Land (Michael Winner, 1972) and had the lead in the Spaghetti Western Tedeum / Sting of the West (Enzo G. Castellari, 1972). He returned to Hollywood for Oklahoma Crude (Stanley Kramer, 1973) with Faye Dunaway, and then went to England to star in Craze (Freddie Francis, 1974) opposite Diana Dors. In the late 1970s, Palance was mostly based in Italy. He supported Ursula Andress and Giuliano Gemma in Africa Express (Michele Lupo, 1976), Lee Van Cleef in Diamante Lobo / God's Gun (Gianfranco Parolini, 1976), and Thomas Milian in Squadra antiscippo / The Cop in Blue Jeans (Bruno Corbucci, 1976). Palance was in the exploitation film Eva Nera / Black Cobra Woman (Joe D’Amato, 1976) with Laura Gemser. He travelled to Canada to make the virtual reality film Welcome to Blood City (Peter Sasdy, 1977) and the US for the slasher film Alone in the Dark (Jack Sholder, 1982).


French postcard by P.I., no. 596, 1955. Photo: Paramount.


Spanish postcard by ANMAVI, no. 29.


Belgian postcard by Bromophoto, Bruxelles. Photo: Columbia CEIAD.

Billy Crystal... I crap bigger than him

In 1982, Jack Palance began hosting a television revival of Ripley's Believe It or Not!. The weekly series ran from 1982 to 1986 on the American ABC network. Palance had never been out of work since his career began. But his success on Ripley's Believe It or Not! and the international box-office hit of the German film Bagdad Cafe (Percy Adlon, 1987) resulted in a demand for his services in big-budget Hollywood films. He made memorable appearances as villains in Young Guns (Christopher Cain, 1988), Tango & Cash (Andrei Konchalovsky, 1989) and Batman (Tim Burton, 1989), starring Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne / Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker.

In 1992, four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as cowboy Curly Washburn in the comedy City Slickers (Ron Underwood, 1991). Stepping onstage to accept the award, the 6' 4" (1.93 m) actor looked down at 5' 7" (1.70 m) Oscar host Billy Crystal (also his co-star in the film), and joked, mimicking one of his lines from the film, "Billy Crystal... I crap bigger than him." He then dropped to the floor and demonstrated his ability, at age 73, to perform one-handed push-ups.

In 1993, during the opening of the Oscars, a spoof of that Oscar highlight featured Palance appearing to drag in an enormous Academy Award statuette with Crystal again hosting, riding on the rear end of it. Halfway across the stage, Palance dropped to the ground as if exhausted, but then performed several one-armed push-ups before regaining his feet and dragging the giant Oscar the rest of the way across the stage. His later films include Cyborg 2 (Michael Schroeder, 1993) with Angelina Jolie, Cops & Robbersons (Michael Ritchie, 1994) with Chevy Chase, and City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (Paul Weiland, 1994).

In 2003, he narrated the documentary Between Hitler and Stalin: Ukraine in World War II (Slavko Nowytski, 2003). In 2004, Palance, at the time chairman of the Hollywood Trident Foundation, walked out of a Russian Film Festival in Hollywood. After being introduced, Palance said, "I feel like I walked into the wrong room by mistake. I think that Russian film is interesting, but I have nothing to do with Russia or Russian film. My parents were born in Ukraine: I'm Ukrainian. I'm not Russian. So, excuse me, but I don't belong here." Palance was awarded the title of ‘People's Artist’ by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, but Palance refused the title. His final performance was in the TV film Back When We Were Grownups (Ron Underwood, 2004), opposite Blythe Danner.

Jack Palance was married to his first wife, Virginia Baker, from 1949 to 1968. They had three children: Holly (1950), Brooke (1952), and Cody (1955–1998). On New Year's Day 2003, Baker was struck and killed by a car in Los Angeles. Palance's daughter, Brooke, married Michael Wilding, son of Michael Wilding Sr. and Elizabeth Taylor; they have three children. Cody Palance, an actor himself, appeared alongside his father in the film Young Guns. In 1987, Palance married his second wife, Elaine Rogers. In 2006, Jack Palance died of a sudden stroke at his daughter Holly's home in Montecito, California. He was 87.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3484. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Publicity still for House of Numbers (Russell Rouse, 1957).


Vintage card. Jack Palance in Il mercenario / The Mercenary (Sergio Corbucci, 1968).


Spanish postcard by Soberanas / Sobe, no. 198.


French postcard by BS, no. 31, 2005. French poster for Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) starring Brigitte Bardot. Poster design: Pierre Okley, 1963.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Stars, Screens and Art Deco

In the 1920s, screens or room dividers changed the look of the film star studio portraits. The white and dark backgrounds, the heavy shadows, the grand gestures and melodrama disappeared after the 'Great War'. It was the era of modernity, flappers, and jazz, and this was expressed by the new art style, Art Deco. Art Deco left a powerful mark on theatre and cinema, transforming the way audiences experienced performance and film. The style emphasised modernity, glamour, and spectacle, expressed in booming movie palaces and open-top cars, flappers dressed with feathers and furs, big curvy club chairs and exotic wallpapers, and screens with stripes and circles and parallel lines. This was reflected in the design of the screens on the Ross Verlag postcards of the late 1920s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 363/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Frieda Riess.

Grit Hegesa (1891–1972) was a German dancer and silent film actress. She appeared in seventeen films, including Ewald André Dupont's crime film Whitechapel (1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 2991/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Ruth Taylor (1905-1984) was an American silent film and early talkie actress of the late 1920s. The vivacious blond Mack Sennett comedienne nabbed the most sought-after role in 1928, Lorelei Lee, in the silent film version of Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her son was the writer, comic, and actor Buck Henry.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4944/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Defina / First National.

American actress Colleen Moore (1899-1988) was a star of the silent screen who appeared in about 100 films beginning in 1917. During the 1920s, she put her stamp on American social history, creating in dozens of films the image of the wide-eyed, insouciant flapper with her bobbed hair and short skirts.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4978/3, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Red-haired, cupid-bow-mouthed Nancy Carroll (1903-1965) became a very popular Hollywood star upon the advent of sound film, thanks to her singing and dancing. She was reported to have received more fan mail than any of her Hollywood peers of the same era. As she expanded her acting range from a flaming flapper to a ditzy comedienne to a sensitive heroine, she was nominated for an Oscar for The Devil's Holiday (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5339/1, 1930-1931. Photo: George Hurrell / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Norma Shearer in Let Us Be Gay (Robert Z. Leonard, 1930). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

American actress Norma Shearer (1902-1983) was the 'First Lady of MGM'. She often played spunky, sexually liberated ingenues and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting. Shearer won the Best Actress Oscar for The Divorcee (1930).

A modern design movement for a mass audience

In 1925, Art Deco (an abbreviation of arts décoratifs) made its debut on the world stage at the L’exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industiels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts)s, which was held in Paris from April to October. This exposition highlighted the new style of art, architecture, and design that was emerging throughout the world. The event only exhibited new, modern design. No historical revival styles were permitted. 15,000 exhibitors from 20 countries were present. More than 16 million visitors flocked to see new styles of architecture, sculpture, fashion, and decoration that consciously eschewed 19th-century influences.

There were two philosophical camps at the 1925 Paris Exposition. Decorative artists such as Lalique, Cartier and Ruhlmann whose work required wealthy patrons. Their work used expensive, exotic and rare materials employing traditional craftsmanship, but expressed in entirely new ways and forms. Their work represented luxury, glamour, and exuberance. The other camp was the modernists, who instead preferred machine-made objects without ornaments. These included the architects LeCorbusier, Melnikov, and others of the Bauhaus School. They believed that buildings should be 'machines for living' and that the objects in them should be available to everyone. Relations between the two camps were not cordial. Walter Gropius later blasted the ‘imitators who prostituted our fundamental precepts into modish trivialities’. Nikolaus Pevsner lamented the influence of the 1925 Paris Exposition’s ‘inexhaustible source of sham splendour’, with its ‘freakish angular details’, ‘sickening decoration’ and ‘infections of pseudo-cubism’.

The Art Deco style had first appeared in France just before the First World War, but saw its full expression after 1925. Like any design style, Art Deco fits in the continuum of art history, with antecedents and successors that it helped inform. The Arts and Crafts Movement, Cubism, and the Vienna Secession all influenced its beginnings. From the outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bright colours of Fauvism and the Ballets Russes, and the exoticised styles of art from China, Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt, and the Maya. In its time, Art Deco was tagged with other names such as style moderne, Moderne, modernistic, or style contemporain, and it was not recognised as a distinct and homogeneous style. Art Deco was a way to translate the ideas of the modern movement for a mass audience and came to epitomise the spirit of the Jazz Age. Since ordinary people were not generally to be found on transatlantic cruise ships or hanging out in the lobbies of grand hotels, their principal exposure to the aesthetic was the cinema.

During the exposition, a silent film was lauded for its modern design: the French Sci-Fi drama L’inhumaine (Marcel L’Herbier, 1924). Director Marcel L'Herbier drew the various applied and fine arts together and created a visual feast of modern art. Paul Poiret designed the costumes, Fernand Léger created the laboratory set, René Lalique supplied artwork for the interiors and architect Robert Mallet-Stevens designed the sets. All of L’Herbier’s collaborators figured prominently at the 1925 Paris Exposition as they were important artistic contributors of their era. L’Herbier also cast other artistic luminaries of the period in a 2,000-person mob scene. Reportedly, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Erik Satie, Man Ray and Ezra Pound are in the crowd. The film premiered at the Madeleine Theatre in Paris in November 1924, six months before the Exposition.

After 1925, Art Deco flourished as a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design internationally. Compared to the Bauhaus style, Art Deco was more commercial rather than conceptual. Form followed fashion as much as function. During its heyday till the early 1930s, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress. The movement featured rare and expensive materials such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. It also introduced new materials such as chrome plating, stainless steel, and plastic. In New York, the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and other buildings from the 1920s and 1930s are monuments to the style. The largest concentration of Art Deco architecture in the world is in Miami Beach, Florida. Art Deco has influenced skyscrapers, bridges, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, but also furniture, fashion and everyday objects, including radios and vacuum cleaners. On the silver screen, it influenced the geometric glamour of set designs for musicals and screwball comedies, but crucially, it surrounded the screen as well, in the form and decoration of the movie palaces.


German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 363/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Frieda Riess. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Grit Hegesa (1891-1972) was a German dancer and silent film actress. She appeared in seventeen films, including Ewald André Dupont's crime film Whitechapel (1920).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3807/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount. Louise Brooks holding two stuffed toys from the period – Dismal Desmond and Bonzo. Collection: Jean Ritsema / Ross Verlag Movie Star Postcards.

Legendary American dancer and actress Louise Brooks (1906-1985) set the trend of the bobbed haircut and personified the flapper, the rebellious young woman of the 1920s. She played the lead in three European silent film classics: Die Büchse der Pandora / Pandora's Box (1929), Tagebuch einer Verlorenen / Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), and Prix de Beauté / Miss Europe (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3813/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount.

Projected as wholesome but fun-loving, Maine-born leading lady Esther Ralston (1902-1994) enjoyed a prime silent age career. She appeared in close to 100 films over a nearly 30-year period. At her peak, she was packaged and publicised as 'The American Venus' by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. after appearing as a dazzling beauty queen in the film The American Venus (1926). A decade later, the blonde beauty's career, however, had tapered off.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3859/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Collection: Didier Hanson.

At 17, Austrian actress Eva von Berne (1910-2010) was spotted in Vienna by MGM's second in command, Irving Thalberg and introduced in Hollywood as 'the next Garbo'. However, she was not. After playing the ingénue in the apparently lost silent drama The Masks of the Devil (1928), directed by Victor Sjöström, she returned to Europe. Here she made a few more films. At 20, Eva von Berne was dead for Hollywood, but she lived happily for 80 more years.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 3780/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

American actress Norma Shearer (1902-1983) was the 'First Lady of MGM'. She often played spunky, sexually liberated ingenues and was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting. Shearer won the Best Actress Oscar for The Divorcee (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3802/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Ruth Taylor (1905-1984) was an American silent film and early talkie actress of the late 1920s. The vivacious blond Mack Sennett comedienne nabbed the most sought-after role in 1928, Lorelei Lee, in the silent film version of Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her son was the writer, comic, and actor Buck Henry.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4002/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

American actor Richard Arlen (1899-1976) was a handsome Hollywood star of the late 1920s and early 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4128/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Russian actress Olga Baclanova (1896-1974) achieved prominence during the silent film era and was billed as the ‘Russian Tigress’. The statuesque blonde is best known now as the trapeze artist Cleopatra in the horror classic Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932), which also features a cast of actual carnival sideshow performers.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4327/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Lupe Velez (1908-1944) was one of the first Mexican actresses to succeed in Hollywood. Her nicknames were 'The Mexican Spitfire' and 'Hot Pepper'. She was the leading lady in such silent films as The Gaucho (1927), Lady of the Pavements (1928), and Wolf Song (1929). During the 1930s, her well-known explosive screen persona was exploited in a series of successful films like Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). In the 1940s, Vélez's popularity peaked after appearing in the Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalise on Vélez's well-documented fiery personality. She had several highly publicised romances and a stormy marriage. In 1944, Vélez died of an intentional overdose of the barbiturate drug Seconal. Her death and the circumstances surrounding it have been the subject of speculation and controversy.

Our dancing daughters

In 1925, hundreds of American architects, designers, department store buyers, artists and patrons of the arts came to the Paris Exposition. One of the many visitors enraptured by the striking line work, stark colours, and complex geometric designs of Art Deco was Cedric Gibbons. In 1928, the up-and-coming film designer brought Art Deco to American cinemas with his work on the film Our Dancing Daughters (Harry Beaumont, 1928), starring Joan Crawford, Dorothy Sebastian and Anita Page. The look of the film would proliferate through both cinema and society from there. Today, everybody still knows his work. Gibbons was, for example, the designer of the Oscar statuette. Our Dancing Daughters was only one of more than 15 films he’s credited on as art director in 1928 alone. Gibbons would amass more than 1,500 credits over his nearly four-decade career. His work illustrates the dizzying pace of industrial film production during Hollywood’s golden age.

Beyond being Art Deco’s American film debut, Our Dancing Daughters (1928) was also the breakout role for Joan Crawford as the most notable dancing daughter. The film does not feature spoken dialogue but does have a synchronised soundtrack, making it an early novelty of the burgeoning sound era. The music makes the characters’ partying lifestyle much more vivid and immediate. The film was formative in the image of the flapper. Our Dancing Daughters was a hit, and other studios scrambled to capture the new look of Art Deco. Soon, reality would race to reflect art. Gibbons’s rich clients asked for exact duplications of the settings he had created for the screen. He received requests from newlyweds and engaged couples for blueprints of the dream houses seen at their local movie palace. Movie stars used set designers as interior decorators for their own mansions. Ramon Novarro had Gibbons furnish his Lloyd Wright-designed house in black fur and silver.

From 1920 to 1940, 1 million people moved to Los Angeles. These people needed a place to live, work, shop, and go to the cinema. Architects could hardly keep up. Art Deco buildings began to appear in LA in the late 1920s during a period of considerable business expansion caused by population growth. The earliest buildings were mostly 'zigzag' in style, but soon the stock market crash and the lingering depression caused this exuberant version of the style to give way to the more restrained 'Streamline' and 'WPA Moderne'. After the war, the architectural profession was looking in a completely new direction, and the period of Art Deco was over. Art Deco became more subdued during the Great Depression. A sleeker form of the style appeared in the 1930s called 'Streamline Moderne', featuring curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces.

Art Deco fizzled out after the outbreak of the Second World War. In the 1950s, it lost its dominance to the functional and unadorned styles of modern architecture and the International Style. For years, it was definitely out of vogue. The swinging sixties saw a revival of Art Deco and gave the style its name. Since it encompasses architecture, fashion, interior design, transportation, advertising and more, and since it infiltrated even the most mundane of home appliances such as the toaster and the coffeemaker, it's hard to nail Art Deco down. But it is unmistakable when you see it and easy to recognise once you have seen a few examples. Art Deco left a powerful mark on cinema. The style transformed the way audiences experienced film. It emphasised modernity, glamour, and spectacle, which aligned perfectly with the cultural spirit of the 1920s and the booming movie palaces.

Art Deco cinemas are probably the most enduring type of the old Art Deco buildings. Characterised by bold geometric patterns, lavish ornamentation, dramatic lighting, and the use of luxurious materials such as marble, brass, and glass, Art Deco theatres created an atmosphere of sophistication and escapism. Those movie palaces could be built because film was the most popular form of entertainment during these decades. In New York, the Roxy theatre was built in 1927 to accommodate 6,200 film-goers. It was the greatest cinema in the world until the Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932. In Amsterdam, the Royal Theatre Tuschinski opened in 1921. The cinema, designed by H.L. De Jong in an elaborate Art Deco style, is now a listed building. Inside, the lobby has been beautifully preserved. The decoration was designed by J. Gidding and features colourful ceiling and wall paintings, carpeting with a peacock motif, and wood carvings and decorative ironwork. All over the world, there are still these old cinemas to remind us of the age of the silent film and the first sound films. These cinemas were not just places to watch films. They were immersive environments that elevated entertainment into an event. They symbolised the optimism, luxury, and modernity of the Art Deco age.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4673/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Paramount.

Mary Brian (1906-2002) was an American actress and film star with dark brown curls and blue/grey eyes who made the transition from silent films to sound films. She was dubbed 'The Sweetest Girl in Pictures.'


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4708/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Beautiful Anita Page (1910–2008) was one of the most popular leading ladies of Hollywood during the last years of the silent screen and the first years of the sound era. According to MGM, she received the most fan mail at the time, and her nickname was "the girl with the most beautiful face in Hollywood".


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4734/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Defina / First National.

American actress Colleen Moore (1899-1988) was a star of the silent screen who appeared in about 100 films beginning in 1917. During the 1920s, she put her stamp on American social history, creating in dozens of films the image of the wide-eyed, insouciant flapper with her bobbed hair and short skirts.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4904/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ruth Harriet Louise / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Josephine Dunn (1906-1983) was an American film actress of the 1920s and 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag Berlin, no. 5393/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Paramount.

American actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) rose to stardom as an uninhibited flapper in silent films during the 1920s. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It (1927) brought her global fame and the nickname 'The It Girl'. Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5395/2, 1930-1931, distributed in Italy by Casa Editrice Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (125). Photo: Paramount.

Red-haired, cupid-bow-mouthed Nancy Carroll (1903-1965) became a very popular Hollywood star upon the advent of sound film, thanks to her singing and dancing. She was reported to have received more fan mail than any of her Hollywood peers of the same era. As she expanded her acting range from a flaming flapper to a ditzy comedienne to a sensitive heroine, she was nominated for an Oscar for The Devil's Holiday (1930).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5621/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Dorothy Jordan (1906-1988) was an American film actress who emerged as an actress at the start of the talkies.

Sources: Dan Schindel (Hyperallergic), Stephen Patience (Apollo), Art Deco Society of Los Angeles, Decolish.com, Decorative Cities, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Max Schmeling

Max Schmeling (1905-2005) was a German heavyweight boxer. From 12 June 1930, when Jack Sharkey lost to him by disqualification, until 21 June 1932, when he was outpointed by Sharkey in 15 rounds, he held the world heavyweight boxing title. He was the first European to do so. He was married to film star Anny Ondra and co-starred with her in a film. Although Schmeling was the German heavyweight champ during the height of the Nazi regime, he never joined the Nazi Party. In fact, he risked his own life hiding Jews from the Nazis.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9048/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Ondra-Lamac-Film. Max Schmeling and Anny Ondra in Knockout - Ein junges Mädchen, ein junger Mann / Knock-out (Karel Lamac, Hans H. Zerlett, 1935).


Vintage postcard.

Promoted as an 'Aryan' representative of Nazi ideology

Maximilian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling was born in 1905 in Klein Luckow, in the Prussian Province of Brandenburg. He was the son of Max Sr. and Amanda (née Fuchs) Schmeling. He had a younger brother, Rudolf, and a younger sister, Edith. In 1906, the family moved to Hamburg because his father was employed as a helmsman by the Hamburg-America Line. Max first became acquainted with boxing as a teenager, when his father took him to watch a film of the heavyweight championship match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier.

Impressed with Dempsey's performance in that fight, young Schmeling became determined to imitate his new hero. Max started boxing in 1921 and turned professional three years later. Though he idolised the raging, brawling Dempsey, Schmeling developed a careful, scientific style of fighting that lent itself more to counterpunching. He won the German light heavyweight title in 1926 and added the heavyweight title in 1928. He pursued more challenging fights in the United States, where victories over top heavyweights Johnny Risko and Paolino Uzcudun in 1929 led to the 1930 fight against Jack Sharkey.

The film industry attempted to capitalise on his popularity and gave him a leading role in the sports film Liebe im Ring / Love in the Ring (Reinhold Schünzel, 1930) with Renate Müller and Olga Tschechova. It was originally planned as a silent film, but sound was soon added as it became clear that silents were now unmarketable. Schmeling later appeared in another boxing-themed film, Knockout – Ein Junges Mädchen, ein Junger Mann / Knockout (Karel Lamac, Hans H. Zerlett, 1935). His co-star was Czech film actress Anny Ondra, whom he had married in 1933.

Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took over control in Germany, but Schmeling never joined the Party. That same year, Schmeling lost to Max Baer by a tenth-round technical knockout. The loss left people believing that Schmeling was past his prime. Schmeling’s most notable victory, however, was a 12th-round knockout of Joe Louis on 19 June 1936. While studying slow-motion films of Louis’s fights, Schmeling noticed Louis’s tendency to drop his guard after a series of left jabs. Schmeling took advantage of this weakness to defeat his heavily favoured opponent.

The rematch between Schmeling and Joe Louis became a stage for international politics. After his stunning victory, the Nazi Party attempted to capitalise on Schmeling’s propaganda value. The apolitical Schmeling was promoted as an 'Aryan' representative of Nazi ideology. In fact, both Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt met with their respective fighters before the second bout on 22 June 1938, and the press corps of both nations invested the fight with nationalist and racial implications. Louis was dominant, knocking out Schmeling two minutes into the first round of their rematch. When it became clear that Schmeling would lose, the radio broadcast of the fight was terminated in Germany. Schmeling was hospitalised after the fight with two broken vertebrae and returned to Germany a week later.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4230/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Robertson, Berlin.


German cigarette card by Ross Verlag for Bulgaria Zigaretten-Fabrik, Dresden, no. 340. Photo: Schneider.

Mr. Coca-Cola in Germany

The loss did not ingratiate Max Schmeling with high-ranking Nazi Party members, who had previously expressed concerns about his retention of Jewish American trainer Joe Jacobs as well as his marriage to the Austrian film star Anny Ondra, who worked with several Jews.

In later years, it was revealed that Schmeling had sheltered two Jewish boys in his Berlin hotel room during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 9–10, 1938. He claimed he was sick and permitted no one to enter. Schmeling served as a paratrooper in the German army during World War II and was injured during the invasion of Crete in 1941.

He returned to boxing in 1947–1948, winning three of five fights in Germany before retiring at age 43. In all, he had 70 bouts, winning 55, 38 of them by knockouts. Schmeling became a successful mink, chicken, and tobacco farmer in the early 1950s. Later, influential friends in the United States helped him acquire the Coca-Cola franchise for the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), making him a wealthy man.

In the 1950s, Schmeling visited Louis in the United States, and the two became good friends. Their friendship lasted till Lewis' death in 1981. The American-German film Joe and Max (Steve James, 2002) starring Til Schweiger as Schmeling, tells the true story of their enduring friendship. Schmeling financed Joe Louis's funeral.

Schmeling’s memoirs, 'Erinnerungen', appeared in 1977; the translation, 'Max Schmeling: An Autobiography', was released in 1998. He and Anny Ondra remained married until Ondra died in 1987. Schmeling died in 2005 in Wenzendorf, a sporting hero in his native Germany. At the age of 99, Schmeling was the longest living heavyweight boxing champion in history. For the film Max Schmeling – Eine deutsche Legende / Max Schmeling: Fist of the Reich (Uwe Boll, 2010), another former boxing champion, who moreover had known him, played Max Schmeling: Henry Maske.


German collectors card by Ross Verlag for Cigarettenfabrik Josetti, Berlin, in the series 'Unsere Bunten Filmbilder', no. 226 (of 275). Photo: Ondra-Lamac-Film. Max Schmeling and Anny Ondra in Knockout - Ein junges Mädchen, ein junger Mann / Knock-out (Karel Lamac, Hans H. Zerlett, 1935).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1013/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Ströminger. Anny Ondra and Max Schmeling in Knockout - Ein junges Mädchen, ein junger Mann / Knock-out (Karel Lamac, Hans H. Zerlett, 1935).

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

Dickie Moore

Dickie Moore (1925-2015) was an American child and juvenile actor. He was one of the regulars of Our Gang, gave Shirley Temple her first screen kiss and married Jane Powell.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7262/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Dutch postcard. Photo: a publicity shot of the Little Rascals a.k.a. Our Gang with Dickie Moore in the middle. Caption: "Gelukkig Nieuwjaar" (Happy New Year).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 149/3. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich and Dickie Moore in Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932).

The leader of the gang

Dickie Moore was born John Richard Moore Jr. in Los Angeles in 1925. His parents were John Richard Moore Sr., a banker, and Nora Eileen Moore née Orr.

Dickie already made his screen debut as a baby in the John Barrymore film The Beloved Rogue (Alan Crosland, 1927). Moore was discovered when Joseph Selznick's secretary was picking up his mother to take her to the studio, and impulsively decided that the infant Moore looked like John Barrymore as a child. After his debut, he soon gained notable supporting roles.

He played the little son of Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932). He also appeared with Barbara Stanwyck in So Big (William A. Wellman, 1932), with Walter Huston in Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933) and with Spencer Tracy in Man's Castle (Frank Borzage, 1933).

He was then one of the regulars in the Our Gang comedies for a year (1932-1933). In eight films, he appeared as the leader of the gang. His closest friend on the set was Stymie. He left the Rascals at age 8 to act in feature films. He is perhaps most remembered for his portrayal of the title character in Oliver Twist (William J. Cowen, 1933), based on Charles Dickens's classic novel about an orphan child whose mother died at his birth.

By the time Dickie Moore had turned 10, he was a popular child star and had appeared in 52 films. He acted in five Oscar Best Picture nominees: The Story of Louis Pasteur (William Dieterle, 1936) starring Paul Muni, The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle, 1937), Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941) with Gary Cooper, Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch, 1943) and The Song of Bernadette (Henry King, 1943) starring Jennifer Jones, with The Life of Emile Zola winning Best Picture.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich and Dickie Moore in Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932).


Dutch postcard by JosPe, no. 327, ca. 1932. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still of Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall and Dickie Moore in Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932).


British postcard, distributed in the Netherlands by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, no. 136e. Photo: Paramount. Marlene Dietrich and Dickie Moore in Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932).

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (But Don't Have Sex or Take the Car)

Dickie Moore gave 14-year-old Shirley Temple her first screen kiss - in Miss Annie Rooney (Edwin L. Marin, 1942). He recalled that this much-publicised scene was extremely embarrassing for him, since it was the first time he had ever kissed any girl. Conversely, in her autobiography, Temple cheekily pointed out that it most certainly wasn't her first time, and that she breezed through the scene with her customary professional aplomb. He served in World War II and attended college, majoring in journalism.

One of his last notable film roles was in Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947), in which he portrayed Robert Mitchum's deaf young assistant, 'The Kid'. Moore co-produced, co-directed and acted in a two-reel short subject called The Boy and the Eagle (William Lasky, Dickie Moore, 1949) that earned an Oscar nomination. Then the roles began to dry up, and he made his last films in 1952, The Member of the Wedding (Fred Zinnemann, 1952) with Ethel Waters, Julie Harris and Brandon De Wilde, and the war drama Eight Iron Men (Edward Dmytryk, 1952) with Bonar Colleano. For a few years, he was still in the public eye with guest roles in TV series like Captain Video and His Video Rangers (Steve Previn, a.o., 1954).

At 29, he quit acting after making over 100 films and started a new career in publicity. He became involved with Actors' Equity and became editor of their magazine. In 1957, he accepted the newly designed post of public relations director of Actors' Equity. In 1966, after battling addiction to alcohol and drugs, he founded a public relations firm, Dick Moore and Associates, which he ran until 2010. He edited the journal of AFTRA, produced industrial shows and supervised other accounts.

He was the author of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (But Don't Have Sex or Take the Car)' (1984) in which he interviewed 31 ex-child actors, more than half of whom found their adult lives beset by alcoholism, nervous breakdowns, or failed first marriages. When he was researching his book in 1981, he met film actress Jane Powell for the first time. She became his third and last wife in 1988.

In 2015, Dickie Moore died at the age of 89 at a hospice in Wilton, Connecticut, from complications of dementia. He was cremated. Moore was married three times. His first marriage was to Pat Dempsey from 1948 to 1954. The couple had one child, Kevin Moore. In 1959, he married Eleanor Donhowe Fitzpatrick; they divorced in 1978. Besides his third wife, Jane Powell, Moore was survived by his son Kevin; a stepson, Gearu; two stepdaughters, Lindsay and Suzanne; a sister, Pat Kingsley; and several grandchildren and step-grandchildren.


Dutch postcard, no. 258. Photo: M.G.Mayer. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1933.


Dutch postcard by Croeze-Bosman, no. 509. Photo: Columbia.


Dutch postcard, no. 531. Photo: Meteor Film. Dickie Moore in Oliver Twist (William J. Cowen, 1933).


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 628b. Photo: Paramount.

Sources: Keith Burnage (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.