Beauty will save

German dancer and actress Camilla Martha Horn
Born April 25, 1903, in Frankfurt am Main, Camilla Martha Horn is a famous German dancer and theater and film actress. Icon of beauty, she was especially popular in 1930-1940s, playing in Hollywood, and European cinema. The daughter of a railway employee, trained in sewing, she undertook a variety of jobs to pay for acting lessons from Lucie Höflich and dance art from Rudolph von Laban.

For some time she worked as an extrasist in the theater and cinema. And in 1925 German film director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau invited her to the role of Gretchen in his adaptation of Faust. Thanks to the success of this film, Camilla Horn received a contract at United Artists in Hollywood. There, her partners on the set were Ernst Lubich and John Barrymore, but she had to play all the same roles of naive girls. In 1929, Camilla Horn returned to Germany, and starred in diverse roles in Britain and France.

After the war, Camilla Horn, who spoke English, first worked as an interpreter, then returned to the cinema and theater. Camilla Horn’s last work fell on 1988. In 1985, Camilla Horn released her memoir “In Love with Love.”

Camilla Horn was married four times. She died at Gilching, where she had lived during the last year of her life, buried at the cemetery in Hershing Am Ammersee.

German dancer and actress Camilla Martha Horn

Popular in 1950-1960s French actress Marie-Jose Nat
Born Marie-José Benhalassa 22 April 1940, Marie-Jose Nat is a French actress, whose popularity fell on the late 1950-1960s.

The creative fate of the actress is not like the noisy rise of many modern movie stars, accompanied by scandalous press attention. This is rather a persistent and long climb to the top of the skill. The girl, who lived in Corsica and was the fifth child in the family, was creative and artistic since childhood. As a school girl, she performed in school plays. Aged fifteen, Marie won a writer’s contest for young movie lovers. In particular, contest organized by the illustrated magazine Femmes d’Aujourd’hui (Woman Today).

Besides, the same year, 1955, Marie-José Nat won the competition organized by the journal “Lectures d’Aujourd’hui” (Today’s Readings). And the award to the winner – trip to Paris as a model for Jean-Claude Pascal’s photo-novel “Love is a dream”. Noteworthy, during the filming, she got her pseudonym “Nat”. The reason was a long braid that tied her head.

Meanwhile, after such a “success”, the whole family, believing in the talent of their daughter, moved to Paris.
Difficult years began: they lived in a hotel, and her father worked as a night watchman. And Marie herself to pay for study at the drama courses had to work as a photo model for fashion magazines. Gradually, she began to receive small roles in the cinema and television.

The debut in the movie took place in the film adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment (1956, directed by Georges Lampin), Marie-José Nat played the episodic role of the girl at the ball. Noteworthy, the 16 year-old girl played with such stars of French cinema as Jean Gabin and Marina Vlady.

In 1959, director Denis de La Patayer entrusted the actress to play a major role in the film “Street Prairie” with Jean Gaben. Since then, the career of the actress has developed quite successfully and sedately.

Marie-José created convincing images of Frenchwomen, accurately conveying the everyday and psychological details of the characters. In particular, Odette in the Rue des prairies (1959, directed by Denys de La Patelliere), Claude Savage in “The Diary of a Woman in White” (1965, dir Claude Autant-Lara), Eliza in the film of her husband Michel Drach “Elise, or Real Life” (1970) and many others. Marie-José Nat performed perhaps, her best role in the film by Andre Cayatte “Married Life”. According to critics, Marie-José Nat showed herself as a very emotional actress with strong inner content.

On the set of the film “Amelie or The Time to Love” (1961), she met the director Michel Drach, who becomes her second husband. The first marriage with Roger Dumas ended in divorce in a year (12 July 1960-61). Together with Michel Drach they created a film “Elise, or Real Life” dedicated to the fate of the Algerians in France during the colonial struggle. With Michael Drach they lived for 17 years (1964-1981) and brought up three children, but divorced.

In 1974 at the festival in Cannes, she received the golden palm branch for the best performance of the female role in the film “Violins at the Ball” (1974).

From 1956 to 2015, Marie-José Nat played more than 60 roles, and the last film in the list of actresses dates back to 2015.

Popular in 1950-1960s French actress Marie-Jose Nat

Hollywood Diva Orchidaceous Adrienne Ames

Undoubtedly, Ames was one of the most beautiful actresses of the time recognized as the most well-dressed actresses in the US. Unfortunately, Adrienne Ames lived short life. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1907, Adrienne Ames was Hollywood star in the late 1920s – 1930s. For example, only in 1932 she appeared in four films, such as Guilty as Hell, The Death Kiss, Sinners in the Sun, and Merrily We Go to Hell. However, her film career lasted only 10 years. Died of cancer on May 31, 1947 in New York, 39-year-old Adrienne Ames was buried in “Oakwood Cemetery” next to her younger sister Gladys McClure. The last, just like her, died in her youth 14 years before her.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1907, Adrienne Ames hit Hollywood in the late 1920s. Although her career only lasted about 10 years, she crammed a lot of living into it, with high-profile marriages (and divorces) and her reputation as a clothes horse and glamor queen par excellence far outshone her reputation as an actress.

In 1931 she married actor Bruce Cabot after leaving her second husband, a rich New York City stockbroker, but that marriage only lasted six years. Divorced, she told that the main reason she left him was that he was a violent in his uncontrollable drunk. In 1938 the pair appeared before a US Tax Appeals Board to explain why she wreote off more than $9000 on wardrobe and jewelry in her 1934 tax form. However, she claimed it was necessary for “professional reasons”. In addition, she claimed that her “daily expenses” included flowers, massages, taxis and beauty work.

Her career lasted from 1929 to 1940, during which she appeared in about 30 films. The best-known of her movies would probably be “You’re Telling Me!” (1934) with W.C. Fields. After her film career ended she worked as a radio commentator.

1930s Hollywood Diva Orchidaceous Adrienne Ames

 

Forever young British actress Belinda Lee
She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. In 1954, she signed a contract with the film company Rank Studios. At the beginning of the acting career she performed several serious dramatic roles. Later, she basically switched to the role of spectacular, fluffy blondes. Noteworthy, one of such roles was in the 1956 comedy “Who did this?” in partnership with the British comedian Benny Hill.

Meanwhile, in 1954 she married photographer Cornel Lukas. After the divorce in 1959, she moved to Italy, where she continued to play temptresses in low-budget Italian films. Also, she occasionally performed more serious roles – including the dramas – “Knitters” by Francesco Rosi and “Long night of the forty-third year” by Florestano Vanchini.
Tragically died in a car accident in California near the city of San Bernardino on the way from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where she starred in the next film. Buried in a non-catholic cemetery in Rome.

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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