1960s Most loved Swedish actress Bibi Andersson
The name of Bibi Andersson – inherently associated with a number of other major actors in the Swedish cinema – Ingrid Tulin, Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow, and Gunara Bjernstrand. However, Bibi Andersson in this constellation of “equal values” is somehow especially loved by the Swedish public. It’s no accident that the directory of the cinematographic names of Sweden wrote about her: “… perhaps the best actress of her generation”. There is, apparently, something in her appearance and in the peculiarity of the talent, which makes compatriots treat her with that “home” tenderness. And no accident, that people call her simply “Bibi” and understand who behind two letters “BA” is.

Interviewers of the actress assure the audience that Bibi, like many other actors, sensitively perceives every nuance in the reviews, and reasonably enough determines the value of each review. She joyfully and gratefully responds to real warmth and excitement. According to them, “Bibi is simply too smart to become complacent.”

Indeed, Bibi Andersson herself is able to soberly and critically evaluate herself. “I must admit that my appearance does not correspond to the standards used by the international film industry. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that it is better to cherish those qualities that are inherent in me.” However, her participation in the films of Italy, Denmark, Yugoslavia, and finally Hollywood did not bring her creative satisfaction. Actors Bibi Andersson entirely belongs to the Swedish cinema and in this her national identity becomes the property of the world screen.

Bibi Andersson has that human depth and importance that allow her to be called an artist, and in the same way does not have those “non-national” attributes of purely external “seductiveness” profitablely used by the film market.
In live communication Bibi Andersson has nothing “actor”, although the artistry of her nature comes out very quickly. That special sensitivity, emotional mobility, which, apparently, her profession requires. All this, combined with intellectual liveliness and acuity, a little bit removed by the coldness of the mind.

Only this “coldness” is from the desire for deep, clear awareness. Therefore, even in images filled with open, clear emotionality, there is always something captivating. Looking at the faces of the characters she has played, in the end you will always focus on the sad concentration of her gaze, behind which the actress hides the search for something most important.

Andersson studied at the studio of the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm. Worked in the same theater, as well as in the municipal theaters of Malmo and Uppsala. She started working in the cinema in 1953, in the episode in the film by Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night.” Then she played the main role in the film “Last Pair Out” by Alf Sjöberg. Nevertheless, her cinematic debut is considered to be 1956, when she starred in Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal, and then in his Wild Strawberries (1957).

Perhaps, it was these two films that determined the love of the Swedish audience for the actress, which she then carried through many years later. Her heroines were that humanistic value, that bright and pure source, to which the heroes of Bergman, tormented by spirit and intelligence, come.

In connection with his film The Seventh Seal, Bergman said: “Whenever I feel doubt and insecurity, I find refuge in the spectacle of simple and pure love. I seek this love in those immediate women who themselves … the embodiment of purity. ” Bibi Andersson herself said that she treats Mia from the “Seventh Seal” with absolute special tenderness, as an unattainable ideal, a man of dreams.

Perhaps this image inspired Bergman to create the next film “Wild Strawberries (1957)”. In this movie, the actress plays two roles at once. Sara from the dreams of Professor Isak Borg, appears against the background of a strawberry meadow. In this meadow Sarah-Bibi Andersson scattered carefully collected for her uncle strawberries. This Sarah was so real in her human concreteness, still quite a girl, troubled by her sensual love, and already a woman aware of her attractiveness, determined in her desires.

In a much more controversial, even defiantly conflicting attitude to society, there is another heroine of Bibi Andersson – Charlotte from the film “My Sister, My Love.” The actress plays a passion that gives both happiness and suffering, love, full and all-consuming, which young Charlotte is ready to defend at any cost. Charlotte dies in the final.

In fact, the acting range of Bibi Andersson is very wide. She performed in the plays “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” by Olbi (Hackney), “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams (Laura), “Cave” Anuya (maid), “Fraken Julia” Strindberg (Julia), and “Three Sisters” A. P. Chekhov (Irina).

As one of the researchers of Bibi Andersson creativity Eva Muberg wrote, “the strongest aspects of Bibi’s acting talent lie in the ability to portray insecurity in its various forms. She can create the illusion of the “Child of the human” thrown into a ruthless and incomprehensible world. ” And further: “And she herself in life can produce a touching impression of a being both sensitive and brave. But in fact Bibi is much stronger, more healthy than many others. ”

In the creative biography of Bibi Andersson in the 1970s, there were two major achievements: in cinema, the central role in Bergman’s “Touch” and the premiere at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm “The Dollhouse” by Ibsen, directed by Frank Shundström.

In her interviews, Bibi Andersson said that she is independent in her thoughts and actions. According to Eva Muberg, there is no role that Bibi Andersson could not play, except for those roles that have absolutely nothing in common with her.”

Indeed, the actress herself specifies that her the “child’s faith in human reason and solidarity” is ineradicable. She explains her position: “There is no other way to live, as if believing that people can change. I think that everyone can contribute to this. I think it matters for the future, which each of us does every day, because even by our attitude towards work and the closest environment, we can contribute to the improvement of the world. ”

1960s Most loved Swedish actress Bibi Andersson

Hungarian-born actress and Marchioness of Bath Anna Gael
Born 27 September 1943 in Budapest as Anna Abigél Gyarmathy, she grew up in the family of a mathematician Laszlo Izsak Gyarmathy (father), and a poet mother. Already in 1960s she became known as a French film actress and model. Also a journalist, and in particular, war correspondent in Vietnam, South Africa and Northern Ireland. Besides, she became Marchioness of Bath, after she married Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath on 9 May 1969. Their two children – daughter Lady Lenka (born 1969), a fashion model and a son Ceawlin Thynn, Viscount Weymouth.

She led an acting career as Anna Gael during the 1960s before deciding in 1970 to pursue a respected career as war correspondent in Vietnam, South Africa and Northern Ireland.

She first appeared in the movie in 1962, as Valeria’s girlfriend in the film by Eriprando Viconti “Una storia milanese”. Mother of two children, Anna Gael published the book “La guerre est plutôt malsaine pour les enfants” (The war is rather unhealthy for children, 1982).

Hungarian-born actress and Marchioness of Bath Anna Gael

Beautiful Hollywood actress Virginia Mayo
Traditionally, Hollywood is a great forge of actors and actresses. Among them – a lot of great ones, who made their way through talent, and a lot of mediocrities, who received roles through connections and money. However, the long-established system of stars always provided its success. And to become a part of this constellation of stars could people only with a bright personality. Undoubtedly, Virginia Mayo was one of the brightest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood …

Born on November 30, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, Virginia Mayo enjoyed dancing since childhood. Later, she began to participate in vaudeville. As a pseudonym, she used the name of her colleague Andy Mayo, who invited her to participate in his performances.

A young fair-haired beauty with a magnificent voice and a brilliant sense of tact won the audience and critics. In the 1940s, she established herself as an excellent performer of supporting roles in such films as “The Best Years of Our Life” and “The White Fever”. Virginia continued to work actively in the 1950s, but after that, her appearance on the screen was not so frequent. Her last role was in 1997.

Virginia continued her career as a dancer, performing with Eddie Cantor on Broadway in 1941 in the play Banjo Eye. Then Benny Goodman invited her to perform in a cabaret. Next, in 1942, the actress signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in several of his films. The first significant role she played in the comedy “The Princess and the Pirate” (1944), where she was paired with Bob Hope. Her heroine traveled to the southern seas incognito, wishing to marry for love, and not at the will of her father, the king. However, she fell into the hands of ridiculous pirates, from whom a comic loser saved her.

In the second half of the 1940s, Virginia played four times with Danny Kaye. And in 1945 she played in the musical comedy “Miracle Man”. The film became the debut for the dancer Vera-Ellen. “The Kid of Brooklyn” (1946) – a musical remake of the comedy of 1936 “The Milky Way” with Harold Lloyd showed Danny Kay, Virginia Mayo and Vera-Ellen appeared together. Meanwhile, the role in the movie “The best years of our life” (1946), where Mayo plays a mercantile woman who abandons her husband, who returned from the war, brought her great success.

Then the actress again played with Danny Kaye in the comedy “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1947). Her latest film with him was the musical comedy “The Birth of a Song” (1948), a remake of the comedy “With a Fire”.

But, also, at that time she began to play roles in the image of “femme fatale”. For example, in the noir movies “Flaxy Martin”, “Red Light” (both – 1949). In the western “Territory of Colorado” (1949), she played a half Indian girl, dying with her bandit friend under police bullets.

Also, she played the supporting role in the musical film “Always Leave Them Laughing” (1949) with Milton Burl. The actress also played in musicals: “West Point Story” (1950) with Doris Day and James Cagney, “Painting the Clouds with Sunshine” (1951), “With the Stars on Board” (1951). There she appeared in the role of herself and performed the dance number “Caribbean Night”, “She’s Working Her Way Through College” (1952) with Henry Fonda. There she again played with Ronald Reagan and “She’s Back on Broadway”- her last musical. However, despite the excellent dance training, she didn’t sing there herself. Instead, for her heroines always sang professional singers.

Since the 1960s, the actress began to star in the movies less often, having played in her last film in 1997. In total, Virginia Mayo has played in more than 50 films.

Meanwhile, in 1947, Virginia married actor Michael O’Shea, from whom in 1953 she gave birth to their daughter Mary Catherine. The couple lived together until December 1973, when Michael died of a heart attack.

According to one of the film bosses, Virginia Mayo is the personification of voluptuous Hollywood beauty. She looks like a playful goddess descended from the Renaissance paintings. Critics said that men go to her films only because they want to see a carefree beautiful girl.

But it was this type that proved to be in demand in the movies during the hard years of the Second World War and in the post-war decade. And that determined the place of Virginia Mayo in the sky of Hollywood.

During her career in film, Virginia was awarded a personal star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and also on the Walk of Fame in her native St. Louis. Once in an interview she said: “Let’s be frank: I’ve never been a great actress like Susan Hayward, and played what they gave me to play. Perhaps, I would play better if I received other roles. But now it’s too late to judge this. ”

The star of the Golden Age of Hollywood Virginia Mayo died in 2005 from pneumonia in her country house in California, surrounded by a large loving family. In particular, her daughter, son-in-law, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Hollywood actress Virginia Mayo

Spanish-French actress Maria Casares
In the film of Jean Cocteau “Orpheus” Casares played Death, initially appearing in the guise of a mysterious, businesslike stranger in a black radio-fuzzy limousine (fiction for those days!). She is able to enter the depth of the mirror, leading the dead, and is able to return life, and gently, sacrificially love. Maria Casares plays Death, sent to Orpheus in the guise of a mysterious Princess.

According to the symbolist-poetic concept of Cocteau, Death was at the same time the embodiment of higher Love, and Maria Casares finally got the role she deserved. The searing blackness of her hair and clothes, the tragic Spanish temperament, the hypnotic gaze of the light eyes, suddenly replaced by black ones (painted by Cocteau on the eyelids of the actress) – this image is unforgettable.

Casares not only became a visual symbol of the style of this film, but also gave it her divine voice.
“… Maria Casares speaks, screams, her voice trembles, she trembles, falling into a state of trance, which already made the audience tremble … . Tears flow down her cheeks, she is sobbing. Jean Cocteau goes off shaken … “What an actress!” – he whispers.”

The episode refers to 1949 – the poet films the final scene of his “Orpheus” in the ruins of an old officer’s school, destroyed by German bombers.

Remembering the impression made by the image of Death performed by Maria Casares, critics compared her play with the poetry of Federico García Lorca. The comparison is not accidental. It’s not just that the low, strange timbre of her voice, rhythms and plastic movements remind of the fierce passion of the poems of the great Spaniard. The image that the actress created is multidimensional. In it, the folklore traditions of the Spanish theater, and the belief in a miracle peculiar to its people, into the reality of myth.

Maria Casares was born on November 22, 1922 in La Coruna, a port city on the Atlantic coast. During the Civil War in Spain, her father, Santiago Casares Quiroga, held a ministerial post in the government of the Republic. The entry into Madrid of the Franco troops compelled him to flee with his family to Paris. Here the future actress met the Second World War, and survived the fascist invasion.

To see her homeland, she happened only many years later, when in Spain, with the death of General Franco, the political regime changed. In 1976, the “great Spaniard”, as Casares now called, appeared on the stage of the Reina Victoria Theater in Rafael Alberti’s play The Black Scarecrow. Her arrival to her homeland and the appearance in the play of an emigre poet, whose work was until recently banned, perceived in the democratic circles of today’s Spain as an important and hopeful event. Magazines reported that at the first performance of the play, which ended with a political demonstration, Maria Casares got a standing ovation. This great success, according to theater critics, made us recall the atmosphere of pre-war performances by Margarita Xsirgu – the famous tragic actress, the first performer of roles in the plays of Lorca and Alberti.

In 1940, when the Nazis occupied Paris, Maria Casarez was a student of the drama department of the Paris Conservatoire. She had to finish her studies with the occupants: graduated from the Conservatory in 1942, during the most tough period of Hitler’s rule. The same year, the twenty-year-old Maria made her debut in a small theater “Mathuren” in the tragedy of the Irish playwright John M. Singh “Deirdre – the daughter of sorrows,” written before the First World War. The performance immediately showed her acting abilities. During the war she will play the main roles in the plays of Ibsen (“The Builder Solnes”), Camus (“Misunderstanding”), and Turgenev (“Provincial”) on the stage of Matyuren. But even earlier she appeared in the film of Jacques Prever and Marcel Carne “Children of Paradise” (1943-1945).

The cinematic debut of Maria Casares seemed at first as promising as her debut in the theater. True, this time the scale of success was due primarily to the circumstances of the performance. “Children of Paradise” – one of the most famous films in the world cinema. It went around all the countries of the world, twice demonstrated at international film festivals and in France had an unusually long, happy fate.

Filming “Children of Paradise” began in August 1943. By June 1944, the film was almost ready, but the director managed to keep it in production until the liberation of Paris. The premiere took place two months before the end of the war, on March 9, 1945, in a solemn, festive atmosphere.
Participation in the “Children of Paradise” was enough to make Maria Casares one of the recognized actresses of “prestigious cinema.” A few months later, when Bresson’s film “Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne” comes out, the name of the recent debutante is already widely known. Soon, she will appear in André Cayatt’s melodramas “Roger-la-Ont” and “Revenge of Roger-la-Onta” (1946). Also, in a highly publicized, sensationally controversial “La Chartreuse De Parme” (The Charterhouse of Parma) by Christian Jacques (1948).

In 1946-1950 she played several of these roles – their indispensable element was a combination of insidiousness, vindictiveness and the elements of dark passion. More interesting was the offer to play a movie one of the heroines of Stendhal in the film “The Charterhouse of Parma”.

Maria Casares was snake-elegant at balls, majestic in the scenes with the prince, businesslike, frantic, blazing with lightning in anger. She was able to express “active suffering”, the violent mental rhythm of her restless and energetic heroine, without compromising against artistic taste.

Christian-Jacques was still assembling his film when the joint performance of Gerard Filip and Maria Casares in the play “Revelations” by Henri Pichet took place in the theater “Noctambules”. Philip played Poet, Casares – his Beloved. They brought the idea of ​​this production from Rome, from the filming of The Charterhouse of Parma. Gerard, who had a difficult time meeting people, communicated between the filming only with Maria Casares, whom he had known since Theatre des mathurins. A few months spent in Rome made them real friends. In the cinema, they no longer meet. But in the theater will often play together.

Ahead are the years of their work with Jean Vilar: Avignon festivals, the Parisian performances of National Folk Theater in the huge hall of the Chailo Palace, tours around the provinces and abroad. So far, after the “Revelations”, their paths will disperse for a while. Maria Casarez will play in the company of Madeleine Reno – Jean-Louis Barro, in the theaters “Eberto”, “Madeleine”, then for two seasons will become an actress of “Comedy France”. In her repertoire of these years – Camus and Sartre, Don Giovanni Moliere, The Carriage of the Sacred Gifts by Prosper Merimee, the role of Joan of Arc in the Mystery of Charity of Joan of Arc by Charles Pegu, played with great success at the Lyon Theater Festival 1952.

In the cinema for Casares, perhaps the most fruitful was the year 1949. In addition to “Orpheus”, where she played her best cinematographic role, came out on the screen a short film by Alain Rene “Guernica” – according to the famous work of Picasso. Maria Casare read in it behind the scenes the melodious and sorrowful poems of Paul Eluard – a poetic requiem to the two thousand dead in Guernica on a sunny day on April 26, 1937. Guernica, the ancient Basque capital, in the 20th century – a small provincial town on the slopes of the Pyrenees Mountains, was destroyed in a few hours by German bombers. All the inhabitants, among them many women and children, killed under the ruins of houses.

Pablo Picasso wrote his tragic canvas immediately after the Nazis’ atrocity, which shook the whole world with its senseless cruelty. Guernica was the first defenseless victim of totalitarianism, the beginning of the era of mass “unmotivated” murders. The artist expressed this exploded, horror-stricken agony of torn objects, forms, the silent cry of fantastic figures – the image of the universal nightmare.

The voice of Maria Casares – a melancholy and quiet voice of sorrow, of slow meditation, led the main theme of the film – memory and pain. This sad, quivering and measured voice, uttering the stanzas of Eluard, then retreating before the documentary phonogram of falling bombs, the barking of dry barking machine guns, then again arose from the silence that had come. Close-ups of the muzzle of an enraged bull, tilted, distorted faces, beating convulsions of an iron horse – fragments of Picasso’s canvas – were “assembled” with a voice reading verses accompanied by a piano. Recalling musical phrases, the voice of Maria Casares introduced into the violent visions of the artist the call of prophecy that had come true, and the memory that calls for hope.

Reading poetic text in the film “Guernica” – the last significant cinematographic work of Maria Casares. In 1950, she starred in a very mediocre film “Shadow and Light,” after which there was a long break – to the “Testament of Orpheus” (1959), where the seventy-year-old Jean Cocteau, playing himself – Orpheus, meets in one of the episodes with the Princess-Death. With this lyrical touch, the screen career of one of the best theater actresses in France ended. In the films of the following years, Maria Casares did not appear.

How to explain the departure of the actress from the movie?
In part, it was caused, probably, by her growing theatrical fame and directly proportional employment in the theater. Maria Casarez played her most significant roles on the National folk theater scene in the 1950. In particular, Lady Macbeth, Maria Tudor in the romantic drama of Hugo, Fedra in the tragedy of Racine, and a Spartan princess in Marivaux’s comedy “The Triumph of Love”. Together with Jean Vilar and Gerard Filip, she participated in the Avignon festivals, and went on tour.

Spanish-French actress Maria Casares

But there was another, deeper reason: the changed situation in the cinema. The end of the 40’s – the beginning of the 50’s – the time of the triumphs of Italian neo-realism, greedy audience interest in the document, the prose of the day. By 1959, when Maria Casares again meets with Cocteau on the set of “Testament of Orpheus,” a “new wave” is raging in the cinema. Dozens of new, young names, and new trends in the aesthetics of cinema push back into the past the epoch of Casares.

Maria Casares entered the history of French art primarily as a theatrical actress. In the cinema, she did not work long and was not a star of the first magnitude. And yet her screen life has developed happily: she worked with the greatest masters, and became known to the whole world. Since her retirement from the cinema, decades have passed, but these films continue their journey through the cinema halls.

1950-1960s Beautiful Italian actress Antonella Lualdi
Antonietta De Pasquale, better known as Antonella Lualdi – Italian actress, whose fame in 1950s was no less than Lucia Bose’s or Gina Lollobrigida’s.

Born 6 July 1931 in Beirut, her father was an Italian engineer, and her mother a Greek. She spoke fluently three languages ​​- Arabic, French and Italian. At the beginning of the war, her parents moved to Milan, but before the age of 16 the girl studied in Florence. There, in addition to study at the theater school, the beautiful girl began working as a model, posing for various fashion magazines.

Once, young Antonietta got into the footage of the documentary chronicle (1947). Here, the film director Mario Mattoli saw her and invited to the main role in his musical film “The Young Girl” (1949).
A romantic naive look will be the visiting card of the young actress at the beginning of her rapid career. Particularly, in the films of Luigi Zampa, Mario Landi, Augusto Genina, and Mario Bonnard. And one of the best works of this period will be the role of Vittoria, the daughter of the mayor in Alberto Lattuada’s 1952 film “Overcoat”.

Excellent reviews that the young actress received will not go unnoticed – the French film director Christian Jacques will invite her to his film “Delightful Creatures” (1952).

Returning to Italy, Antonella (her creative pseudonym), will perform small roles in many second-rate films, which didn’t add anything to her film career.

In 1953, alongside with young Marcello Mastroianni, she starred in one of the best films of that period “The Tale of the Poor Lovers” directed by Carlo Lizani. Then followed the film of the French director Claude Autant-Lara “Red and Black” (1954). The actress starred in screen version on the novel by Stendhal, playing the impulsive Matilda de La Mole, and her partner was the brilliant Gerard Philip.

Meanwhile, in the 1970s, Antonella Lualdi works more on television, starring in television series. Interestingly, 48-year-old Lualdi will become a naked model for the Italian edition of the famous Playboy magazine (July issue), having demonstrated her beautiful body.

Private life
At the beginning of her career in cinema, on the set of the film “Songs on the Streets” (1950), the actress met a young actor Franco Interlinga (debuted another fifteen-year-old in Vittorio De Sica’s Shusha, 1946). Together they form the most enviable pair of Italian cinema of the 1950s, both in life and on the screen. Officially, the couple will register their relationship in the mid-1950s (different sources cite different years – 1953, 1954, 1955).

In this marriage, two daughters were born – Antonellina Interlinga (at the beginning of her film career – in the 1980s) and Stella Interlinga. Antonellina followed the footsteps of her parents, becoming one from the famous Italian actresses (starred in the role of Sasha in Gleb Panfilov’s film “Mother”, 1990). Stella appeared only once in the movie, in the film Top Crack (1967).

Although Antonella Lualdi and Franco Interlinge parted in 1972, they didn’t officially break their relationship, and continued to live together, untill his death in 2015.

Beautiful Italian actress Antonella Lualdi

English actress Dame Judith Olivia Dench
Perhaps the earliest work of Dench is the role of Juliet in the production of the Shakespeare Royal Company. In 1960, Miss Dench only began her theatrical career, which earned her a reputation of the best and beloved by the audience actress of her generation. But even then, at the beginning of her theatrical path, her Juliet turned out to be a bright personality, possessing features that distinguished the artistic skill of the actress.

However, Judy Dench’s career began in 1957, when fate presented her with the gift that all the actresses dream of. She was 22 years old, had just graduated from the London School of Theatrical Art and came to audition for the famous Old Vic Theater, which was truly a Shakespearean shrine. Judy was stunned when she was immediately offered the role of Ophelia in Hamlet … For the next 4 years she played 10 different roles in Shakespeare’s plays.

Noteworthy, for the first time she became a member of the Shakespeare Royal Company in 1961 and many of her successful roles she created precisely in this theater.

Despite the role of the tragic actress, many theatergoers associate her with the genre of comedy. The actress has a sharp, somewhat hoarse voice, her quick mind and killing wit.

In 1980, the actress won the most prestigious for the British actress theatrical prize. And the Evening Standard newspaper proclaimed her the best actress of the year for the role of the main character of the play Juno and the peacock. According to critics, her work shook the audience with realism.

English actress Dame Judith Olivia Dench

Based on the article in the magazine “Anglia”, February 1984

Melodrama Queen, beautiful actress Sara Montiel
Who is she, this favorite of the public, who has won fame on two continents, the notorious “Chauntecleer Queen”? One of the stars of not the first magnitude on the horizon of the commercial screen? A beautiful woman who demonstrates her exotic charm in bright outfits against the backdrop of gilded interiors and oleographic landscapes? An actress, whose talent may seem problematic if you confine yourself to the criteria worked out in contacts with high-quality cinematography.

Biographical information about Sara Montiel is contradictory and confusing: serious movies almost never mentioned her, and mass magazines took little care about reliability. The date of birth was 10 March 1929. Place of birth – Spain, Campo de Criptana.

Severe poverty of the Spanish village. Gloomy atmosphere of the Catholic family, where the daughter since childhood was prepared for the monastery. Early musicality (aged three she sang folk songs, at seven – learned all parts of three operas by heart). The flight of an eleven-year-old schoolgirl to Madrid for a children’s song contest and a victory in this contest. For the first time she became known as a singer. She studied at the music academy, played in the theater, and sang on the radio.

When film director Vicente Kasanova began to look for young talents, she was among the few lucky ones. No wonder, she played in fims since the age of fifteen. “I never had to study my profession anywhere,” – we read in one of Sarita’s interviews.

Sara Montiel – pseudonym of María Antonia Alejandra Vicenta Elpidia Isidora Abad Fernández. Why she abandoned her real name, it is clear: in the Spanish language, Fernandez meets too often. Anyway, Alexandra Fernandez appeared on the screen only once, giving way to the victorious Sara Montiel.

Of the first films of Sarita worthy of mention is the serial historical insurgent “Madness of Love” (directed by Hias de Orduña, 1948), stands out for its spectacular grandeur.

“My fame came to Spain from Mexico,” says Montiel. In Mexico, Sarita sang and danced in countless films. And according to the classification of the magazine “Films and Filming” she was a “quickie”, which means hastily made art production.

In the pipeline stream of more or less professionally worked “Why do not you love me, dark-skinned?”, “I do not believe men”, “Violet seller”, “The last song” and so on, there was an uncomplicated formula of “film with Sarah Montiel”. In particular, at least four – five songs, and around in various combinations all the same elements of the same melodrama, with a particular set of features. Among them – honest poverty, a small loving heart, jealousy by mistake, fidelity against temptations, broken hopes, realized dreams, fatal accident and rewarded virtue.

She also starred in Hollywood: Aldrich (Vera Cruz, 1954), Fuller (The Flight of the Arrow, 1957), Serenade by Anthony Mann (1955). Most notably, her appearance in the western Aldrich, where she was in a good company with Gary Cooper and Bert Lancaster; but here she did not manage to break out of the stereotypes foreseen by the genre of “passionate fatal Spanish”.

Hollywood polished her screen image, giving it the corresponding Spanish-Mexican charm. In the Hollywood period, Sarita earned well, then married (for director Anthony Mann); but on Hollywood soil, she still did not get accustomed, rushing from there to Mexico, “where the audience understands the words of her songs.”

Again Mexico, again on the screen in various versions of “violetera”, a saleswoman of violets, a girl who, as a result, gets the fabulous congenial “happy end” as a prize for kindness, a pleasant voice and beauty.

Meanwhile, in 1959, Sarita went to Spain to shoot in the film “My Last Tango”. This is her final return to her homeland, and the return was triumphant. In Spain, with her Mexican films, she defeated all the favorites of the audience, including Carmen Sevilla and Marisol. The press speaks of her as an idol, comparing her to Brigitte Bardot. According to press, Montiel’s popularity in Spain is difficult to imagine: she is a “national Sarita”, a spoiled child of spectators of various categories. The Spaniards are grateful to her for exporting national rhythms with her color films, reminding Europe of the existence of the country turned by the Francoists into the backwoods. Noteworthy, films with Sarita in Spain provided the highest box office.

Sarita appeared next to Mario Lanza and Joan Fontaine in “Serenade”, with Rod Steiger in “The Flight of the Arrow”, with Mark Michel in “The Sin of Love”. Also, with Frank Willard, Fernand Grave, Magoli Noel and Gabriel Ferzetti in “Lovely Lola”, and with Raf Vallone in “The Saleswoman of Violets.” In addition, three times her partner was Maurice Ronet (“Carmen from the Main Square”, “My Last Tango”, and “The Nights of Casablanca”).

The desire to become a star of international scale led to the need for equalization with world standards. Besides, now she does not need to obey the absolute power of the producers – she is the producer herself. The actress invested her money into the production of films – and turned out to be a good business woman.

She made a film about the main “pop street” in Spain – “Tuset Street”. There she plays with Patrick Bosho, portraying the “star” of the stage Violetta, the character is more “European” and “authentic” than her previous Martha or Charito. Her ideal is Claude Lelouch.

Actress, producer. Well, what is Sarah Montiel – not a screen Sarita, but a woman? Do not try to get an idea of ​​her personality based on the impressions of journalists and the interviews she gives. A Bulgarian journalist writes that she is “intelligent, serious and well-versed in classical Spanish literature”. And French – that from this typical inhabitant of the Iberian peninsula “hears the sin of Andalusia”. According to some sources, she would like to play in the film without songs, for how to tell about the deep emotions of the heroine, if so many have to sing? While another source states that she can not live without the songs in which her soul is poured …

Most likely, Sara-Sarita says what they want to hear, while retouching and modifying her image. But the ability to catch the expectations of the interlocutor and the viewer – isn’t it a talent?

Queen of melodrama, beautiful actress Sara Montiel

Based on the article in the magazine ‘Actors of Foreign cinema’, 8-1973.

Beauty Icon Italian actress Lucia Bose
First, her film career lasted seven years: beginning at nineteen, she left the movie at twenty-six. And when Lucia Bose announced her intention to resume film career, the general reaction of the press was bewilderment.
Thirteen years given to the family, and how she decided to return to the set after such a break? To start all over again – not a young prize-winner of beauty contests, but on the eve of her forties?

Since 1955, Bose has ceased to act. Newspapers that have married “Miss Italy” with the “great torero” Miguel Luis Domingin as a sensation of medium caliber, have since firmly forgotten about the actress. Her name only rarely flashed in the columns of the society chronicle – until, after the divorce, she decided to return to the cinema. The surging wave of a new interest in the former celebrity also brought out some realities, together with the inevitable husk of gossip and speculation in such cases.

On one of her photographs of 1969 – Bose with her three children. They are very similar to the mother, beautiful, dark-haired – sixteen-year-old Miguel, twelve-year-old Lucia, and ten-year-old Paola. It is difficult to recognize in the new Bose, a soft, happy mother, that star of the Italian screen of the fifties, which fascinated us with her refined, slightly chilly beauty, proud manner and enigmatic detachment …

But a year later the Italian magazine Epoca wrote: “Despite the thirteen-year break, Lucia Bose managed to occupy a leading position in the cinema.” The question that varied criticism in connection with Bose’s new appearance was resolved. She is a professional, an actress, and not just an asterisk, a model entirely dependent on appearance, a passive object for a movie camera.

The actress returned to the cinema. Among the works of Bose are variously diverse roles in the Felini’s Satirecone, in the adaptation of Pratolini’s novel Metello (directed by Bolognini), and in the Taviani Brothers’ Parable film “Under the Sign of Scorpio”. Also, in “The Morning Star” (“Winter in Mallorca”) – a biographical film about Chopin, in a pair with the English actor Christopher Sandford. There, she played George Sand. Finally, one more thing: Bose will be Emma Bovary. A happy event, luck, recognition? After all, she received a proposal flattering for any first-class actress.

To say that Bose “played”, it is possible only conditionally. Not having received a professional education, minimally armed with skills of acting technique, she, finding support in her intuition, lived in each film, pieces of time, pieces of life. Bose sought victory, where her appearance, her psychophysical nature, and her human being naturally fit into the film.

Her fortunes grew on the basis of some special naturalness of existence in front of the camera, “which sees everything”. … One of the most exquisite beauties of the European screen came to the cinema from the counter of the Milan bakery. The beginning of the way promised Bose a classic Hollywood version of the star.
One fine morning, Lucia wakes up the most beautiful and, accordingly, the happiest girl in Italy. Noteworthy, in the same national competition in 1947, Gina Lollobrigida also took the third place. The rest was taken for granted: a certain cinematic Santa Claus, the producer (director), would see her and skyrocketing, to triumphs and fabulous fees. Bose recalls the beginning of her career: indeed, soon after the contest a famous director approached her and said: “Listen, why not to try your hand at the cinema?”

For the first time the “beauty queen” appeared on the screen by no means in the royal guise: in a worn skirt, an old sweater, and rough homemade shepherd shoes. The debut of Bose was the role of a peasant girl in the film by De Santis “No peace under the olive trees.” Lucia Bose naturally becomes one with Anna Magnani, Silvan Mangano, Raf Vallone, and Massimo Girotti.

Later criticism will say that it was Antonioni who discovered Bose’s dramatic talent, in the film “The Chronicle of One Love”, where she starred in the 1950’s. Immediately after the movie appeared, the Avanti magazine wrote that Antonioni “made from the charming Lucia Bose an excellent actress who far outscored all the” femme fatale “of Hollywood.”

She starred in Antonioni’s films again, playing in the “Lady Without Camellias” (1953) drama girl, a former saleswoman, who got into the cinema by chance, but dreams of creativity. All her efforts are vain, hopes are illusory.

Acting “texture” of Bose, naturally, attracted directors of “hard style” – from Bardem, Bunuel (“Lovers of Tomorrow”, 1955) to Francesco Mazelli (“Defeated”, 1955). But, surprisingly enough, she was often invited to comedy roles in simple films about “beautiful but poor,” “poor, but happy,” and a small dream to marry a good guy. We saw her once in a similar film by Luciano Emmer “Girls with the Spaces of Spain” (1952). However, her comedy roles didn’t bring her real success.

Bose was the first to express the Antonionian theme of “total loneliness” of a person in a bourgeois environment. But if Bose’s meeting with neo-realism was too late, then the meeting with Antonioni was too early. And the worldwide success of this director, who came a decade later, he had to share with another actress – Monica Vitti.

Meanwhile, in 1956, when the “Death of a Bicyclist” made a triumphant march across the screens of Italy, the magazine “Cinema Nuovo”, citing the movie stars, noted that the national cinema obviously does not really need Lucia Bose. By this time Italian cinema began to become more and more frankly commercial. Its symbol became the “star for export” – Gina Lollobrigida. She was the head of the list of “Cinema Nuovo”, ahead of even Sophia Loren and Alberto Sordi.

Bose could not compete with Gina, although she was neither more talented, nor younger, nor more beautiful. And remember at the contest “Miss Italy”, where both actresses participated, Bose was the winner and Gina took 3rd place. Unfortunately, Bose didn’t fit the idols of commercial cinema: her peculiar, too serious, and human nature, apparently, was not too malleable. In fact, in the mid-fifties, “demand” for Bose was already small.

In 1999, in the city of Segovia, under Madrid, Lucia Bose, along with her daughter Paola and her son, the famous singer and actor Miguel Bose opened the Museum of Angels. The exposition of the museum is successfully demonstrated all over the world. Currently Lucia Bose lives in Spain.

Beauty Icon Italian actress Lucia Bose

Actors of foreign cinema, 8-1973.

Ideal of intellectual femininity actress Jeanne Moreau

As a star, a woman, and a national figure, Jeanne Moreau exemplified the ideal of the French film actress in the post–New Wave era. According to film critic Ginetta Vincando, “while Brigitte Bardot symbolized sensuality, and Catherine Deneuve – elegance, Jeanne Moreau embodied in the movie the ideal of intellectual femininity.” And Orson Welles called her the best actress of our time.

In fact, Moreau asked the audience and critics a riddle. Awarded, honored, and loved, Uncrowned “Queen Moreau” – la reine Moreau, “great Moro” – la grande Moreau, she rose to the heights of popularity. But the secret mystery of Moreau stubbornly escapes from the daring to comprehend it. The roles she played are full-blooded characters given a wealth of feelings, a sharp thought, and whimsical surprises of female psychology. Like all living things, they are obstinate to rational analysis. These roles outlined by a sharp, sometimes paradoxical drawing. In them there is no vagueness and uncertainty. At the name of Moreau, often appears an image of the most mysterious heroine of the screen – Greta Garbo.
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