Colin Firth

English actor Colin Firth (1960) had his breakthrough in Another Country (1984). He received a European Film Award for his role in Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and a BAFTA for his role in A Single Man (2009). For this role, he was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. In 2011, he won the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Actor for The King’s Speech (2010).


Dutch freecard by Boomerang, Amsterdam, no. P23-04. Colin Firth in Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason (Beeban Kidron, 2004). Caption: Do you fancy going to the cinema? Same Bridget. Brand new diary.


French postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 634. Spanish poster for Another Country (Marek Kanievska, 1984).


British promotion card by Lumière for the London Film Festival. Photo: Artificial Eye. Colin Firth and Meg Tilly in Valmont (Miloš Forman, 1989).


British postcard. Photo: Universal. Colin Firth in Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003).


British postcard. Colin Firth in The King's Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010).

A homosexual public-schoolboy-turned-spy

Colin Andrew Firth was born in 1960 in Grayshott in the English county of Hampshire. His mother, Shirley Jean (Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at the Open University, and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, lectured on history at Winchester University College (formerly King Alfred's College) in Winchester and worked on education for the Nigerian government. His sister, Katie Firth (1962) and younger brother, Jonathan Firth (1967), also became actors. As a child, Colin lived in many parts of the world due to his parents’ frequent relocations. His family lived in Nigeria, where his grandparents worked as missionaries, and for a year in the United States. Firth's first acting experience came in infant school when he played Jack Frost in a Christmas pantomime. Firth began attending drama workshops at age 10, and by 14 had decided to be a professional actor.

He took odd jobs at the National Youth Theatre and the National Theatre. After attending the Montgomery of Alamein School in Winchester and Barton Peveril College, he trained as an actor at the Drama Centre in London. There he was 'discovered' whilst playing Hamlet during his final term. His career began in 1983 when he appeared as Guy Bennett, a homosexual public-schoolboy-turned-spy in the West End production of Julian Mitchell’s play 'Another Country'. A year later, he co-starred as Judd, Bennett's Marxist best friend in the film adaptation, Another Country (Marek Kanievska, 1984), alongside Rupert Everett as Bennett. Another Country is loosely based on the life of the spy and double agent Guy Burgess, named Guy Bennett in the play and film. It explores his homosexuality and exposure to Marxism from a friend, while examining the hypocrisy and snobbery of the English public school system. Firth's almost 20-year public feud with Rupert Everett began then. Their different personas didn't get along, with Everett publicly branding Firth "boring". In Everett's autobiography, he admitted that he felt threatened by Firth's talent, but the two eventually settled their differences in 2004. Firth claims that "there's nobody I love more in the business now", and they have frequently worked together since.

After his debut, he starred with Beatie Edney and Sir Laurence Olivier in Lost Empires (Alan Grint, 1986), a TV adaptation of J.B. Priestley's novel about a travelling magic show on the eve of World War One. The series was nominated for six Television BAFTA Awards. He acted in several well-known and lesser-known films, including as a repressed cinema-owner in Buenos Aires in the homoerotic psychological thriller Apartment Zero (Martin Donovan, 1987), and the war drama A Month in the Country (Pat O' Connor, 1987). In 1987, Firth and other rising young actors such as Tim Roth, Bruce Payne and Paul McGann were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'. For his portrayal of Robert Lawrence, a terribly injured soldier returning from the Falklands War, in the TV production Tumbledown (Richard Eyre, 1988). He received the Royal Television Society Best Actor award and also a BAFTA nomination in 1989.

Colin Firth starred as the Machiavellian seducer Valmont in the prestigious box-office failure Valmont (Miloš Forman, 1989), an adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel 'Les Liaisons dangereuses' (Dangerous Liaisons). The film was pre-empted and overshadowed by Stephen Frears' rival version. After it, Firth went to live with his Valmont co-star, Meg Tilly, in rural British Columbia. Their son was born in 1990. He starred in another interesting flop, Wings of Fame (Otokar Votoček, 1991) with Peter O’Toole.

He had a spectacular comeback as the aloof, haughty aristocrat Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy in the TV series Pride and Prejudice (Simon Langton, 1995). The series, based on the novel by Jane Austen, was a huge success and unexpectedly elevated Firth to international stardom. This was in some part due to a scene not from the novel, in which he emerges from a lake swim in a wet shirt. According to Firth, when he was first offered the role of Darcy, his brother Jonathan incredulously remarked, "Darcy? But isn't he supposed to be sexy?" Whilst filming the BBC series, he fell in love with his co-star Jennifer Ehle. He received a BAFTA nomination for his role. Then supporting roles followed in popular films such as The English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996) and Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998). Whilst filming the television series Nostromo (Alastair Reid, 1996) in Colombia in 1996, Firth met the Italian production assistant Livia Giuggioli, whom he married in Rome in 1997. Giuggioli later became a documentary filmmaker. He next played the lead role as a school teacher and obsessed Arsenal F.C. football fan in Fever Pitch (David Evans, 1997), the adaptation of Nick Hornby’s million-selling autobiographical essay 'Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life'.


British postcard.


British postcard.


British postcard.


British postcard.


British postcard.


British postcard.


British postcard.

Mad about Mr. Darcy

In 2000, Colin Firth returned to the stage in 'Three Days of Rain' at the Donmar Warehouse in London. This was followed by the Bridget Jones films, in which he once again played Mr (Mark) Darcy opposite Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant. Helen Fielding, the author of the Bridget Jones books, was mad about Pride and Prejudice, and particularly about Mr Darcy (or rather, Firth). So the fact that Firth accepted the role of Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001) was a nice bonus. The film was very successful, and Firth's droll performance as the stuffy human rights lawyer Mark Darcy was well-liked by critics. On TV, he had a more serious role as Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart in Conspiracy (Loring Mandel, 2001), concerning the Nazi Wannsee Conference involving the 'Final Solution of the Jewish question' during World War II. For this role, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

He starred in The Importance of Being Earnest (Oliver Parker, 2002), based on Oscar Wilde's classic 1895 comedy of manners. The British-American co-production also starred Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Judi Dench. He then starred in another comedy hit, Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003), which featured various renowned British actors such as Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson and Liam Neeson. In 2003, Firth also played the role of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring (Peter Webber, 2003) with a young Scarlett Johansson in the title role. The film received mostly favourable reviews, was moderately successful and earned several awards and nominations. He played the role of Mark Darcy on three further occasions in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Beeban Kidron, 2004), Bridget Jones’s Baby (Sharon Maguire, 2016) and Bridget Jones: Mad About Him (2025).

In 2005, he starred alongside Emma Thompson and Thomas Sangster in the fantasy Nanny McPhee (Kirk Jones, 2005) and played one of his darker, more intense roles in the thriller Where the Truth Lies (Atom Egoyan, 2005), which included a notorious drug-fueled bisexual orgy with Kevin Bacon and Rachel Blanchard. Firth also acted in the ABBA jukebox musical Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008) with Meryl Streep and its sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Ol Parker, 2018). Mamma Mia became the highest-grossing British-made film of all time, taking in over $600 million worldwide. In The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oliver Parker, 2009), he played the degenerate Lord Henry Wotton. He was George Falconer, a secretly gay college professor grappling with solitude after the death of his longtime partner, in A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2010). His role in this film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel earned him a tsunami of awards. He won the 2009 Venice Film Festival and the British BAFTA Award, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar.

In The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010), Colin Firth starred as the British monarch George VI, who attempts to overcome his stammer as monarch of the United Kingdom at the end of 1936. For his commanding role, he won the Oscar the following year as well as the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics’ Associations, the British Independent Film Award, the European Film Award, his first Golden Globe Award and his second BAFTA Award. The film grossed $414,211,549 worldwide. In 2011, he was also appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. Firth appeared as senior British secret agent Bill Haydon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011), co-starring Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and John Hurt. Firth played the role of secret agent Harry Hart in Kingsman: The Secret Service (Matthew Vaughn, 2014) with Samuel L. Jackson, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (Matthew Vaughn, 2017) with Julianne Moore. He co-starred with Rupert Everett in The Happy Prince (2018), a biographical drama about Oscar Wilde, written and directed by Everett in his directorial debut. He also appeared as William Weatherall Wilkins in the musical fantasy film Mary Poppins Returns (Rob Marshall, 2018), starring Emily Blunt in the title role. His other films include The Railway Man (Jonathan Teplitzky, 2013), Before I Go to Sleep (Rowan Joffe, 2014), both with Nicole Kidman, 1917 (Sam Mendes, 2019), and Operation Mincemeat (John Madden, 2021), recounting the British Operation Mincemeat during the Second World War.

Firth and Livia Giuggioli have two sons, Luca Firth (2001) and Matteo Firth (2003). He also has a son, actor William Joseph Firth (1990), from a previous relationship with actress Meg Tilly (1989-1995). In 2017, Colin Firth also took Italian citizenship. His two youngest sons, who were born in Rome, hold both British and Italian citizenship. In 2019, Firth and Giuggioli announced that they were ending their marriage after 22 years. He has campaigned for the rights of Indigenous peoples and is a member of Survival International. He has also campaigned on issues of asylum seekers, refugees' rights and the environment. At BFI Online, Sheila Johnston writes: "Long viewed as a master of the stiff-upper-lip, a polished light-comic leading man and - thanks to his Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (BBC, 1995) - an upper-class sex-god, Colin Firth has quietly built up a portfolio of much wider range, which finally led to definitive recognition with A Single Man (d. Tom Ford, 2009) and The King's Speech (d. Tom Hooper, 2010) as the actor turned 50." Colin Firth's films have grossed more than $3 billion from 42 releases worldwide.


French poster postcard by Editions Mercuri, no. 163. Photo: Artificial Eye. Colin Firth and Meg Tilly in Valmont (Miloš Forman, 1989).


British postcard.


Vintage autograph card.


Dutch postcard by Universal. Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried in Mama Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008). Caption: Take a trip down the aisle you'll never forget.


British postcard.


Belgian poster freecard by Boomerangjack, 2010. Image: Cinéart. Colin Firth and Julianne Moore in A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009).


British postcard.

Sources: Sheila Johnston (BFI Online), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

Cléo de Mérode

Cléo de Mérode (1875-1966) was a French dancer of the Belle Époque. She has been referred to as the 'first real celebrity icon' and the 'first modern celebrity '. De Mérode was also the first woman whose photographic image, thanks in particular to photographers Nadar and Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, was distributed worldwide.


French postcard. Photo: Nadar, Paris, 1895. Sent by mail in 1901.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. serie 51e. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. serie 69e, no. 11. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

The talk of Parisian women

Cléo de Mérode was born in Paris, France, in 1875. She was the illegitimate daughter of Viennese Baroness Vincentia Maria Cäcilia Catharina de Mérode. Vincentia was estranged from Cléo's father, who was the Austrian judge, lawyer, and pioneer of tourism Theodor Christomannos. Cléo met her father as a young adult at a train station in Merano, and upon seeing him, jokingly exclaimed, "I really hope that you are wealthy, because I am used to luxury and the good life." Upon Christomannos' death in 1911, de Mérode left an inscription on his grave in German which reads, "The man who wanted everything for others and nothing for himself".

She was raised Catholic and affectionately called 'Lulu' by her family. At the age of eight, she was sent to study dance with the Sisters of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, and she made her professional debut at the Paris Opéra at age eleven. De Mérode became renowned for her glamour even more than for her dancing skills. Her image began appearing on postcards and playing cards. At 16, she debuted her signature hairstyle, a 'chignon', which became the talk of Parisian women and was quickly adopted as a popular style for all. The 'Cléo de Mérode hairdo' remained popular for decades. In 1895, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edgar Degas did her portrait. She was sculpted by Alphonse Mucha. Her picture was taken by illustrious photographers of the day, including Nadar and his son and successor Paul Nadar, Léopold-Émile Reutlinger and his son Jean Reutlinger, Charles Ogerau, Henri Manuel, and Otto Sarony.

In the autumn of 1895, a rumour began that Cléo de Mérode was King Leopold II's latest mistress, and the two were dubbed 'Cléopold' by the media. De Mérode's reputation suffered, and she was labelled a 'courtesan' or 'demimondaine'. In an attempt to settle the rumours, de Mérode's mother wrote a letter to the editor of Le Figaro. De Mérode wrote in her autobiography: "I was completely bewildered by the dimensions that this story took on. The tale of my liaison with Léopold sped along, across France, throughout Europe, and around the world. Caricatures, gossip columns, songs, skits showed the king and me, snuggling, sharing a restaurant table, cracking open champagne at Maxim's, on a cruise, in a Pullman, and so on.... I did not know what to make of such inordinate publicity; it stunned me."

Michael Garval, de Mérode's biographer, said that although de Mérode posed as a courtesan to increase her fame, she never worked as one. In the spring of 1896, a second scandal erupted due to the exhibition of the sculpture 'La Danseuse' by Alexandre Falguière at the Salon des Artistes Française. The sculpture was a life-size nude in white marble that was carved from a plaster cast of de Mérode's body. Despite the grain of skin visible on the plaster, proving a live cast, de Mérode accused Falguière of having fabricated a scandalous work by moulding the body of the statue on another female model, whereas she posed only for the head. The scandal followed her throughout her career.

Despite the two scandals, de Mérode became an international star, performing across Europe and in the United States. In Germany, she danced at Hamburg's Hansa-Theater and Berlin's Wintergarten, and in France she appeared in the plays 'Les Deux Pigeons', 'La Korrigane', and 'Étoile'. Gustave Charpentier engaged her for the role of La Beauté in 'Le Couronnement de la Muse'. In 1897, she arrived in New York City, where she appeared for a month at Koster and Bial's in the play 'Faust'. During her stay in New York, she was besieged by reporters and followed down the street by girls begging for her autograph. de Mérode's performance was heavily anticipated, but was disappointing, and though the press praised her beauty, they said she could not dance.


French advertising postcard for Cristal Mont-Pilat (mineral water, alas, not champagne) with caricatures of Sarah Bernhardt, Cléo de Mérode, Carolina 'la belle' Otéro, and Yvette Guilbert. The black gloves were usually a part of Guilbert’s costume. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


French postcard by S.I.P. Photos: Reutlinger, Paris. Caption: Otéro (Caroline Otéro), A. Held (Anna Held), C. de Mérode (Cléo de Mérode).

Doing something other ballet divas had never done before

In 1900, Cléo de Mérode caused a sensation at the Exposition Universelle when she performed traditional Javanese and Khmer dances. She also appeared in two films, one of which was hand-tinted in colour. Both films showed her dancing. 50 years later, both films were included in Paris mil neuf cent (Nicole Védrès, 1947), a documentary limning the life of Paris and its citizens during 'La Belle Époque ', the years between 1900 and 1914. The film begins with the Paris Exposition of 1900. In 1901, Édouard Marchand organised for de Mérode to dance at the Folies Bergère in a three-act pantomime titled 'Lorenza'. She took a risk doing something other ballet divas had never done before. Her performance further increased her popularity. In 1904, she reprised her role as Phryne at the Olympia. That same year, she performed alongside dancer Paul Franck in 'Tanagra', a dance in Ancient Greek style.

In 1906, it was reported that 50,000,000 photographs of de Mérode had been sold and that a single Berlin firm produced 4,000,000 a year. In 1908, she portrayed Phoébe in 'Endymion et Phoébe' at the Opéra-Comique alongside Régina Badet. In 1912, de Mérode appeared in the opera 'La Danseuse de Pompeii' as part of the corps de ballet at the Opéra-Comique. The following year, she appeared in the revue 'Come Over Here' at the London Opera House. During World War I, she entertained wounded soldiers. After the war, she toured in the French provinces with Serge Peretti, reluctant to accept engagements abroad. She continued to dance until her late forties.

Throughout the early 1920s, Cléo de Mérode performed at galas and benefit concerts. The first was a fundraiser for Benoît-Constant Coquelin's old actors' home in Couilly-Pont-aux-Dames. She retired in 1924 to the seaside resort of Biarritz in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département of France. At the request of theatre director Henri Varna, she reappeared on stage at the Alcazar in 1934 in 'Viens poupoule' alongside the dancer George Skibine and the actress and singer Cassive. She did four routines: one in a Norman peasant costume, the traditional Khmer dance she had first performed at the Exposition Universelle in 1900, a Second Empire scene, and 'la Valse 1900'.

She then taught ballet before retiring in 1965. She was 90. As a hobby, she crafted figurines of dancers, shepherds, and shepherdesses in the classical style, which she then sold. The character 'Cleo of Paris', played by Mae Murray in the American silent film Peacock Alley (Robert Z. Leonard, 1922), was a parody of her. The film was one of the biggest box office hits of 1922. De Mérode unsuccessfully sued the film owners for 100,000 francs in damages, alleging that the film injured her reputation by burlesquing incidents in her career. She was portrayed by Fern Andra in the lost German silent film Frauen der Leidenschaft / Women of Passion (Ralf Randolf, 1926). Upon learning of the film and its portrayal of her as a courtesan, she protested in an open letter in the theatrical daily Comœdia, saying, "I lead and have always led the quietest of lives, I do not seek any publicity, and I really do not wish to be given any against my will, especially that sort of publicity."

In 1950, Cléo de Mérode sued Simone de Beauvoir for libel, claiming five million francs in damages. De Beauvoir had "wrongly described her as a prostitute who came from peasant stock and had taken an aristocratic-sounding stage name as self-promotion" in her book 'The Second Sex'. De Mérode won the lawsuit, and the passage was removed from the book. However, de Mérode only received one franc in damages because "the judge found that Cléo had permitted the rumours during the course of her career for their publicity value". In 1955, she published her autobiography, 'Le Ballet de ma vie' (The Dance of My Life). She never married or had children, which has led some biographers to categorise her as a lesbian.


French postcard in the Collection artistique du Vin Désiles by S.I.P. Photo: Reutlinger. Caption: Au délicieux Vin Désiles qui donne la santé et la gaité (To the delicious Vin Désiles that gives health and cheerfulness).


French postcard, no. 1188.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 825/1, 1925-1926. Photo: British-American-Films A.G. (Bafag). Mae Murray in Peacock Alley (Robert Z. Leonard, 1922).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Tom Drake

American actor Tom Drake (1918–1982) was a popular Hollywood co-star of Wallace Beery, Lassie and Deanna Durbin in the 1940s. He is fondly remembered as the wholesome 'boy next door ' that Judy Garland sings about in the classic musical, Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Until the late 1970s, he appeared in around 130 films and TV productions.


Dutch postcard by Van Leer's Fotodrukindustrie N.V., Amsterdam. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 249. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W 689. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

Judy Garland's boy next door

Tom Drake was born Alfred Sinclair Alderdice in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918. He was known as 'Buddy' to family and friends. He attended Iona Preparatory School and graduated from Mercersburg Academy. Billed as Alfred Alderdice, Drake gained his first acting experiences on Broadway in 'Run Sheep Run' (1938) and 'Clean Beds' (1939). It was the success of the latter in particular that brought him to Hollywood’s attention. From 1940 onwards, he was cast in mostly minor supporting roles in MGM films.

He made his debut in The Howards of Virginia (Frank Lloyd, 1940) billed as Richard Alden. In 1942, he had his break starring in the Broadway smash 'Janie'. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer offered him a full contract. The 24-year-old was excused from serving in World War II when his medical exams diagnosed a heart disease. Despite this limitation, he did act in British training films. MGM gave Drake first a supporting role in Two Girls and a Sailor (Richard Thorpe, 1944).

He was third billed in a 'B', Maisie Goes to Reno (Harry Beaumont, 1944), starring Ann Sothern. Then he had small roles in some 'A' pictures: Marriage Is a Private Affair (Robert Z. Leonard, 1944) starring Lana Turner, and Mrs. Parkington (Tay Garnett, 1944) with Greer Garson. Drake was more prominently featured as Judy Garland's leading man in Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944). He played John Truitt, the 'boy next door'. The film was a box-office hit and introduced Drake to a wider audience.

MGM promoted him to leading roles with This Man's Navy (William A. Wellman, 1944), co-starring Wallace Beery. MGM gave Drake the star role in the drama The Green Years (Victor Saville, 1946), which was a huge hit. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Drake managed to keep his head above water despite such formidable supporting acting talent as Hume Cronyn, Charles Coburn, Jessica Tandy and Gladys Cooper." It was followed by Courage of Lassie (Fred M. Wilcox, 1946), another big hit, and Faithful in My Fashion (Sidney Salkow, 1946), which lost money.

Universal borrowed him to play Deanna Durbin's leading man in I'll Be Yours (William A. Seiter, 1947). Back at MGM, Drake was a supporting player in The Beginning or the End (Norman Taurog, 1947) and Cass Timberlane (George Sidney, 1947) starring Spencer Tracy. Drake was teamed with Beery again in Alias a Gentleman (1948). He did another Lassie film, Hills of Home (Fred M. Wilcox, 1948). He played composer Richard Rodgers in the loosely based biography Words and Music (Norman Taurog, 1948) alongside Mickey Rooney as Lorenz Hart. Cass Timberlane was popular, but the other films all lost money. Fox borrowed Drake to play the romantic lead in Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (Elliott Nugent, 1949), opposite Clifton Webb and Shirley Temple. Then MGM borrowed him for the Film Noir Scene of The Crime (Roy Rowland, 1949) with Van Johnson. He made the comedy The Great Rupert (Irving Pichel, 1950) for George Pal.


Dutch postcard by J.S.A. Photo: Universal M.P.E. Deanna Durbin and Tom Drake in I'll Be Yours (William A. Seiter, 1947).


Dutch postcard by J.S.A. Photo: Universal M.P.E. Deanna Durbin, William Bendix, Tom Drake and Adolphe Menjou in I'll Be Yours (William A. Seiter, 1947).


Belgian collector card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 165. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Dorothy Patrick and Tom Drake in Alias a Gentleman (Harry Beaumont, 1948).

A deeply closeted gay guy

In the 1950s, film offers for Tom Drake noticeably dried up. He went to Columbia for the Film Noir Never Trust a Gambler (Ralph Murphy, 1951) and to Allied Artists for the musical Disc Jockey (Will Jason, 1951). He also appeared with Audrey Totter in the Film Noir F.B.I. Girl (William Berke, 1951), and with Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl in the 3D-drama Sangaree (Edward Ludwig, 1953).

Drake turned his attention primarily to guest appearances in television series. He appeared in episodes of TV shows such as The Ford Theatre Hour, Suspense, Lights Out, Tales of Tomorrow, and The Unexpected. After television jobs for actors transitioned from live telecasts from New York to shows that were filmed in California, Drake had roles in the series Lassie, Cimarron City, Sunset Strip, The Rebel, Perry Mason, Combat!, Land of the Giants, Adam-12, The Streets of San Francisco and Wagon Train.

In the cinema, he continued to appear in smaller roles in the Horror film The Cyclops (Bert I. Gordon, 1957) and in the drama Raintree County (Edward Dmytryk, 1957). Drake had a rare lead as the honest owner of a second-hand car business in the English film Date with Disaster (Charles Saunders, 1957). Back in Hollywood, he played against type the leader of a gang of criminals in the Western Warlock (Edward Dmytryk, 1959). During the 1960s, he had minor roles in the films The Sandpiper (Vincente Minnelli, 1965) and The Singing Nun (Henry Koster, 1966), playing Ed Sullivan's producer Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Hal Erickson: "Never able to fulfil his potential, Drake continued into the '70s playing subordinate roles in 'A' pictures, the occasional lead in low-budget films, and secondary TV parts in such productions as Marcus Welby MD and The Return of Joe Forrester. A classic example of how talented people could fall between the tracks of the studio contract system." For financial reasons, he took on a second job as a second-hand car dealer. His final film role was the character Dr. Adam Forrest in The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (Mohy Quandour, 1974) with Cesar Romero. His last acting credit was in the TV series Project U.F.O. (1978), but as his health slipped, he had to give up working altogether.

Tom Drake’s only marriage, to Isabelle Eilenberger, ended in divorce in 1946 after just one year. The actor was homosexual. Elisa Rolle at Queer Places: "Tom Drake was a deeply closeted gay guy, and he was easily given to despair. He was never known to have had a serious romance, although he bedded both Rock Hudson and James Dean. As an adult, he lived with a profound drinking problem, and he lived a life of fear of having his gayness found out." In 1982, Tom Drake was taken by pneumonia, alone and mostly forgotten in a tiny apartment in Torrance, California. Later that year, he died of lung cancer at Torrance Memorial Hospital. He was 64. His body is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.


British postcard in "The People" Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P 1144. Photo: Universal-International.


Belgian collector card by Kwatta, Bois d'Haine, no. C. 165. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


Belgian collector card by Kwatta. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.


Spanish postcard. Sent by mail in 1950.

Sources: Elisa Rolle (Queer Places), Hal Erickson (AllMovie at Wayback Machine), Dimos I (IMDb), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Directed by Paul von Woringen

Dutch-born, German film director Paul von Woringen (1859-1928) was the screenwriter-producer-director of the Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph (DMB). He made the Autorenfilm Die Landstrasse (1913), but also directed several films with Lotte Neumann in her own series of melodramas for DMB.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2168. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film. Lotte Neumann in Die Ehe der Charlotte von Brakel / The Marriage of Charlotte von Brakel (Paul von Woringen, 1918).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2095. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film. Lotte Neumann in Die Richterin / The Judge (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2103. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Der Geigenspieler / The Violin Player (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2968. Photo: Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph GmbH, Berlin. Magda Madeleine in Die einsame Frau / The Lonely Woman (Paul von Woringen, Willy Zeyn, 1918).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 359/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph.

Artistic director of Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph

Ernest Guillaume Paul von Woringen was born in 1859 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He was the son of German parents. Thanks in part to his wife, the variety artist Nora Gilis, he started his film career as artistic director of the Berlin film company Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, as the German subsidiary of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. The trademark of the company, usually referred to simply as Deutsche Mutoskop or DMB, was ‘DB’ within a circle. DMB distributed and produced several hundred films between 1898 and 1924. From the early 1910s, Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph shifted its focus increasingly towards film production, though it remained active in the distribution business until 1919. The company’s first large film studio was built at 10 Zietenstraße in Berlin-Lankwitz: a glass hall measuring approximately 700 m² on a multi-storey base.

In January 1911, Von Woringen became the company's general manager. He directed the production of feature films, mainly comedies and film dramas, and maintained the company in a time of rapidly evolving public taste for fictional action films. Von Woringen also quickly made the transition to long feature films. He was responsible for the prestigious and ambitious historical production Theodor Körner (1912), typical of the wave of nationalist, anti-French films from just before the First World War, in this case about the fight against Napoleon's marauders in Germany. The film was directed by Franz Porten and Gerhard Dammann, with Friedrich Feher in the title role and 300 soldiers in historical costumes.

From 1913, Paul von Woringen was active behind the camera as director of his own films. His directorial debut was Die Landstrasse / The Country Road (1913), in which an escaped convict commits a murder in a small village. The murder is blamed on a passing beggar, played by Carl Goetz. The original screenplay was written by renowned author Paul Lindau and used a short story by Duke Ernst of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as the basis for the film. The story was thematically based on the Rannersdorf murder trial, which attracted considerable attention at the time.

In 1915, Von Woringen started to make films with Lotte Neumann (1896-1977). Neumann was one of the most successful actresses in the early days of the German silent cinema and the female star of the Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH, such as the Detective film Der rote Faden / The Common Thread (1915) with Rudolf Klein-Rhoden as Detective Barker Swift. Lotte Neumann also worked as a screenwriter and a producer. In 1917-1918, Von Woringen directed Neumann in films for her own company, Lotte Neumann-Film, founded within DMB.

The first film Neumann produced herself with Lotte Neumann-Film was Der Mut zum Glück / The Courage to Happiness (Paul von Woringen, 1917). The film was shot at the Mutoskop studio in Berlin-Lankwitz and co-starred Erich Kaiser-Titz and Heinrich Schroth. It passed censorship in July 1917 and then soon premiered at the Berliner Sportpalast. The Neue Kino-Rundschau (September 1917): "A very excellent film that met with undivided applause from those appearing in it. It is particularly characterised by the excellent interaction between Lotte Neumann and Erich Kaiser-Tietz [sic!]. A truly rare pleasure to immerse yourself in the performance by these two, where one is forced to wonder how much an artist can do from a role that he grasps and thinks through with all his soul! The direction also has its share in the completed whole and must be lauded."


German poster by DMB (Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph) for Die Landstrasse / The Country Road (Paul von Woringen, 1913). Design: A. Hubert. Collection: Eye Filmmuseum.


Gertman postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2089. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann as Eveline, Heinrich Schroth as her father and Franz Ramharter as Baron von Sanden in Der Mut zum Glück / The Courage to Happiness (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2091. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Der Mut zum Glück / The Courage to Happiness (Paul von Woringen 1917). This was the first film Neumann produced herself with her company, Lotte Neumann-Film.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin. no. K. 2094. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Die Richterin / The Judge (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, K. 2096. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann and Ernst Rückert in Hinter verschlossenen Türen / Behind Closed Doors (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, K. 2097. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann and Ernst Rückert in Hinter verschlossenen Türen / Behind Closed Doors (Paul von Woringen, 1917).

Left by Lotte Neumann

Paul von Woringen directed for Lotte Neumann-Film such melodramas as Die Richterin / The Judge (1917), Hinter verschlossenen Türen / Behind Closed Doors (1917), Die Ehe der Charlotte von Brakel / The Marriage of Charlotte von Brakel (1917), and the two-parter Das Schweige im Walde / The Silence in the Woods (1918, 2 parts).

In Die Richterin / The Judge (Paul von Woringen, 1917), Carl Clewing plays Fritz, a businessman who falls in love with his neighbour's daughter (Lotte Neumann), who was brought up in strict order by her father. The girl agrees to marry him. Since Fritz does not want to go into marriage with a lie, he admits to a misstep from a long time ago: in his youth, he falsified a check and went to jail. The strict paternal principles have turned the girl into a moral judge, and she lets the upcoming marriage burst at the last moment. The script was by Hans Land, a pseudonym of Hugo Landsberger. Die Richterin was shot at the Mutoskop studio in Berlin-Lankwitz. In October 1917, it was presented to the German Board of Censorship, and quite soon after, it was released.

Lotte Neumann also starred in Der Geigenspieler / The Violin Player (1917), a psychological crime movie which Von Woringen wrote and directed. Other actors were Johannes Müller, Paul Otto, Elisabeth Hruby, Marga Köhler, and Wilhelm Huch. It is not known when exactly the film premiered, but in August 1917 it was shown at the Berlin Passagetheater. In 1918, Lotte Neumann decided to continue her film career at Maxim Film, and she left DMB and Paul von Woringen.

In 1919-1920, Von Woringen made several films at DMB starring two new discoveries, Hilde Wolter and Magda Magdeleine. Magdeleine had debuted at Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph in Das Licht in der Nacht / The Light in the Night (Emil Albes, 1917). After that, she had played leads in her own film series, often directed by Willy Zeyn. In 1918, Paul von Woringen directed her in Die einsame Frau / The Lonely Woman (Willy Zeyn, Paul von Woringen, 1918), Wenn Freunde zu Rivalen werden / When Friends Become Rivals (Paul von Woringen, 1919), Die Lüge der Pia Mahren / Pia Mahren’s Lie (Paul von Woringen, 1919), and Das Rätsel der Unbekannten / The Mystery of the Unknown (Paul von Woringen, 1919). Often, she was paired with actor Karl Beckersachs. Between late 1917 and early 1920, Madeleine made 16 films at Deutsche Mutoskop und Biograph. Hilde Wolter had the female leads or supporting parts in 9 films directed by Von Woringen between 1919 and 1920, such as Eine tolle Kiste / A Brilliant Box (1919), Wie das Schicksal spielt / How Fate Works (1920) and Sybill Morgan (1920). In 1921, she switched to Orplid-Film.

The emergence of the UFA in 1917 created formidable competition for DMB. Due to the declining success of his films, Paul von Woringen gave up his post at Deutsche Mutoskop und Biograph in 1921. After the DMB studio had remained largely unused for a time, it was bought by Muto-Großatelier für Filmherstellung GmbH in 1922. This was a joint venture between Flora-Film GmbH, Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph GmbH (DMB), Fern Andra Film-Atelier, Georg Bluen & Co. and Lixie Film-Atelier Weißensee GmbH. Von Woringen made only one more film with DMB, Im Schatten der Anderen / In the Shadow of Others (Paul von Woringen, 1924), again with Magda Magdeleine, before retiring completely. For Madeleine, it also meant her last leading role and her second-to-last film. Paul von Woringen died in Poortugaal near Rotterdam in 1928. Only a few of his films have survived, including the crime drama Der rote Faden. His first film, Die Landstrasse, is now part of Eye Filmmuseum's Desmet collection.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2099. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Hinter verschlossenen Türen / Behind Closed Doors (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2100. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann and probably Paul Otto in Der Geigenspieler / The Violin Player (Paul von Woringen, 1917). The first of a series of four cards.


German postcard. Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2101. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Der Geigenspieler / The Violin Player (Paul von Woringen, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2167. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Die Ehe der Charlotte von Brakel / The Marriage of Charlotte von Brakel (Paul von Woringen, 1918). Her co-stars were Bruno Kastner and Frieda Richard. The man collapsing is Rudolf Lettinger.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 359/4. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph Film-Ges.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 400/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Deutsche Mutoskop & Biograph Film-Ges. Hilde Wolter.

Sources: Michael Wedel (The Encyclopedia of Early Cinema), Early German Film Database, Filmportal, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.