Hertha Feiler appeared in many popular films of the 1940s and 1950s

Beautiful Austrian actress Hertha Feiler (1916-1970) was the elegant and charming wife of Heinz Rühmann, off-screen and also on-screen in many popular films of the 1940’s and 1950’s.

Hertha Feiler was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria), in 1916. Her parents were Josef Anton Feiler and his wife Margarethe née Schwarz. Hertha studied at the Realgymnasium. She originally wanted to become a pianist but tendinitis (an inflammation at her arm) prevented this. When she looked for another artistic activity and decided to take acting classes. In 1936 she debuted on stage at the Wiener Scala, and one year later she already made her film debut with Liebling der Matrosen/Favourite of the Sailors (1937, Hans Hinrich) starring the Austrian Shirley Temple, Traudl Stark. In the following years Hertha became a popular actress who knew how to interpret ladylike and cheerful roles with charm. In 1938, when she worked on Heinz Rühmann's debut as a film director, Lauter Lügen/Many Lies (1939, Heinz Rühmann), they fell in love and got married in 1939. In the following years they often made films together like Kleider machen Leute/Fine Feathers Make Fine Birds (1940, Helmut Käutner), Quax in Afrika/Quax in Africa (1944-1947, Helmut Weiss) and Der Engel mit dem Saitenspiel/Angel with a Harp (1944, Heinz Rühmann). Although Hertha Feiler was considered to be ‘one fourth Jew’ by the Nazi regime and was only able to work with a special permission, she and Heinz Rühmann were presented in the press as a model married couple. Their son Peter was born in 1942.

After the end of the war Hertha Feiler took part in Rühmann’s production company Comedia. After this company went bankrupt, her film career halted also. She started to appear more often in stage productions. In the mid-1950's followed more mature film roles in which she often impersonated self-confident and cheerful women who also knew the darker side of life. To her well-known films of that decade belong Pünktchen und Anton/ Punktchen and Anton (1953, Thomas Engel) based on the children’s book by Erich Kästner, Die schöne Müllerin/The Beautiful Miller (1954, Wolfgang Liebeneiner), Charley's Tante/Charley’s Aunt (1955, Hans Quest), Opernball/Opera Ball (1956, Ernst Marischka) opposite Johannes Heesters, and Der Maulkorb/The Muzzle (1958, Wolfgang Staudte) with O.E. Hasse. With Heinz Rühmann she took part in her last and 33rd film Die Ente klingelt um halb acht/ The Duck Rings at Half Past Seven (1968, Rolf Thiele). She had to retire from the film business because she was ill with cancer. Hertha Feiler died in München (Munich), Germany, in 1970.

Gallery for vintage actress Hertha Feiler

Hilde Krahl was one of the most demanded stars of the German cinema of the 1940s and 1950s

Austrian actress Hilde Krahl (1917-1999) was one of the most demanded stars of the German cinema of the 1940’s and 1950’s. She could excell in nearly all genres.

Gallery for vintage acress Hilde Krahl

Joan Crawford 1930s

Joan Crawford March 23, 1905 – May 10, 1977, born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre. Starting as a dancer in travelling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway, Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford began a campaign of self-publicity and became nationally known as a flapper by the end of the 1920s. In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hard working young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well-received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money and by the end of the 1930s she was labelled "box office poison" source

Gallery for vintage actress Joan Crawford

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli (19 June 1932 – 10 September 1971) was an Italian-born television and film actress. Her American cinematographic debut was in the starring role of the 1951 film Teresa, in which she won a Golden Globe Award. Twenty years later, she had been chosen to play a part in The Godfather, but died before filming began. She had romantic relationships with actors Kirk Douglas and James Dean before going on to marry Vic Damone. Born Anna Maria Pierangeli in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Her twin sister is the actress Marisa Pavan. Angeli made her film debut with Vittorio de Sica in Domani è troppo tardi (1950), after being spotted by director Léonide Moguy and Vittorio de Sica. She was discovered by Hollywood, and MGM launched her in her first American film, Teresa (1951). Directed by Fred Zinnemann, this film also saw the joint debuts of Rod Steiger and John Ericson. Reviews for her performance in the film compared her to Greta Garbo, and she won the Golden Globe Award source

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli , originally uploaded by Music2MyEars.

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli , originally uploaded by Music2MyEars.

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli , originally uploaded by Music2MyEars.

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli, originally uploaded by Music2MyEars.

Pier Angeli

Pier Angeli , originally uploaded by Music2MyEars.

James Dean

James Dean, originally uploaded by Music2MyEars.

Playing basketball for the Fairmount High Quakers

Maria-Rosa Rodriguez

Maria-Rosa Rodriguez, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

German postcard by Krüger, nr. 902/334. Photo: Art Messick.

Exotic starlet Maria-Rosa Rodriguez was the sexy leading lady of a dozen French and Italian films of the 1960’s and early 1970’s. Her main claim to fame was the Louis de Funès comedy Le grand restaurant.

There is not much biographical information to be found about Maria-Rosa Rodriguez on the internet. A source suggests she was a Spanish actress, but possibly she is born in Ecuador. In 1960 a Maria-Rosa Rodriguez was crowned Miss Ecuador Mundo 1960. However, there is a bit more information about her film career. IMDB writes that during her film career she was also credited as Maria Rosa Rodrigues, Rosa-Maria Rodrigues, Rosa Rodriguez and Toty Rodriguez. Her first film appearance was an uncredited part as ‘Palma Diamantino’ in the French comedy Pouic-Pouic (1963, Jean Girault) starring Louis de Funès. Soon followed more film parts as a stripper in the kinky cannibal comedy Aimez-vous les femmes?/Do You Like Women? (1964, Jean Léon),co-written by Roman Polanski, and the sexploitation drama L'amour à la chaine/Tight Skirts, Loose Pleasures (1964, Claude de Givray). She appeared again as eye-candy in the spy film Coplan FX 18/FX-18 Superspy (1965, Riccardo Freda), the comedy Les gorilles/The Gorillas (1964, Jean Girault) and the crime comedy La grande frousse/The Big Scare (1964, Jean-Pierre Mocky) starring Bourvil. Other French films of the mid-1960’s in which she appeared were Les enquiquineurs/The pests (1965, Roland Quignon), the comedy anthology Les bons vivants/How to Keep the Red Lamp Burning (1965, Gilles Grangier, Georges Lautner) and the melodrama Le chant du monde/Song of the World (1965, Marcel Camus) starring Hardy Krüger.

1966 must have been a good year for Maria-Rosa Rodriguez. She was the leading lady opposite the immensely popular Louis de Funès in the hit comedy Le grand restaurant/The Big Restaurant (1966, Jacques Besnard). The choleric and energetic De Funès is the chef of Septim's, a very exclusive Paris restaurant. Problems occur when the president of an unnamed country gets kidnapped while having a dinner at Septim's. With police, gangsters and Maria-Rosa Rodriquez behind his back the always gesticularing De Funès tries to find the missing head of state by himself. The highlight of the film is a fabulous scene where a DS Citroen falls into a river and continues its ride as a boat. Maria-Rosa Rodriguez soon followed this up with a role in the fun filled caper Estouffade à la Caraïbe/The Gold Robbers (1967, Jacques Besnard) costarring with swimming champion Frederick Stafford, Jean Seberg and Serge Gainsbourg. She also appeared on tv in Amalia Escudero an episode of Au théâtre ce soir (1966). More tv roles followed in series like Les chevaliers du ciel/The Aeronauts (1967) – about the adventures of the French comic book heroes Tanguy and Laverdure - and Fortune (1969, Henri Colpi). In the early 1970’s she moved to Italy where she appeared in the ‘giallo’ thriller Il coltello di ghiaccio/Knife of Ice (1972, Umberto Lenzi) starring Carroll Baker. Her last film was a Spanish horror production La novia ensangrentada/Blood Castle (1972, Vincente Aranda).

Most of Maria-Rosa Rodriguez’s biographies on the net stop here, but she kept on working as an actress. Under the name of Toty Rodriguez she is now a well known stage actress in Ecuador. In 1989 she appeared in another film, the East-German production Die Besteigung des Chimborazo/The Ascent of the Chimborazo (1989, Rainer Simon) filmed on location in Germany, France, Spain and Ecuador. In this adventure film she appeared briefly as a countess. More recently she was seen in a leading part in the Ecuadorian film Un titán en el ring/A Titan in the Ring (2002, Viviana Cordero). According to Rotten Tomatoes it’s an inspiring drama about the world of masked wrestling, set in a small community in the Andean Mountains.

Sources: IMDb, All Movie Guide, Rotten Tomatoes and Wikipedia.

Mike Mazurki (1950)

Mike Mazurki (1950), originally uploaded by filmwolf.

Born December 25, 1907 in Ternopil, Ukraine, 6'5" Mazurki began his film career in 1934, playing all manner of gangsters, roughnecks and sinister characters, from a Japanese wrestler in the film "Behind The Rising Sun" ('43) to river rat Mike Fink in "Davy Crockett & The River Pirates' ('56) and a wide-variety of TV appearances in the 1960's and 70's (Gilligan's Island, The Beverly Hillbillies and Adam-12, just to name a few.) Toward the end of his career, he even appeared in a music video for the Rod Stewart song "Infatuation", in which he played a gangster's bodyguard who punches Stewart out for following the gangster's girlfriend around. Mazurki later remarked that he received more recognition for that one role than for anything else he'd done in his career.

Horsefeathers (1932)

Horsefeathers (1932), originally uploaded by filmwolf.

Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Groucho Marx), the newly-elected president of Huxley College, begins his tenure by setting out to take care of the main concern of renowned institutes of higher learning everywhere. Namely, trying to recruit a couple of ringers to help the college's football team win the big game against rival Darwin College