Mara Lane

Mara Lane, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

British-Austrian actress Mara Lane (1930) was considered one of the most beautiful models in Great Britain during the early 1950’s. She appeared in more than 30 English and German language films of the 1950’s and early 1960’s, but seems completely forgotten now.

Dany Saval

Dany Saval, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

Gorgeous French actress Dany Saval (1942) was the lithe and lovely leading lady in both fluffy comedies and thrillers of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Dany Saval was born as Danielle Nadine Suzanne Savalle in 1942 in in a slum area of Paris, France. The Germans had just before released her father, a factory worker, from a prisoner-of-war camp. Dany started her career at 8, as a child-dancer. Later she became a Can-Can girl at the Moulin Rouge. Her first film appearance was a small part in L'eau vive/The Girl and the River (1958, François Villiers) starring Pascale Audret. The film, based on a screenplay by pacifist writer Jean Giono, won a Golden Globe as Best Foreign-Language Film in 1959. She then appeared in the French answer to Rebel Without A Cause, Les Tricheurs/The Cheaters (1958, Marcel Carné), as the fiancée of Pierre Brice. Les Tricheurs tells the story of disaffected Parisian youth who have lost their way in an atmosphere of existentialism, sexual liberation and disrespect for traditional and religious values. On the huge success of Les Tricheurs followed bigger roles in such films as Asphalte/Asphalt (1959, Hervé Bromberger) with Francoise Arnoul, La verte moisson/Green Harvest (1959, François Villiers) and the supernatural thriller Pleins feux sur l'assassin/Spotlight on a Murderer (1961, Georges Franju) starring Pierre Brasseur.

Suddenly one of Disney’s talent scouts saw Dany Saval on a magazine cover and after a screentest Walt Disney signed her to a six-film contract. In her first film, Moon Pilot (1962, James Neilson), she played a mysterious extraterrestrial opposite astronaut Tom Tryon. Hal Erickson of All Movie Guide likes the film: “Moon Pilot is an engaging Disney sci-fi comedy that manages to shoot off a few neat and surprisingly satirical barbs at the hypertense US/Russia ‘space race’ of the era.” On IMDB, reviewer San Diego comments: “Watch it for Dany Saval... (she) makes the film worth watching.” Despite these positive reviews, the film bombed and Dany Saval would make only one more American film. Today she is probably best known as one of the lovely airline stewardesses being shuffled around by Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis in the slapstick comedy Boeing Boeing (1965, John Rich). IMDB reviewer Moonspinner55 writes: “Perky Dany Saval (as ‘Air France’) is the stand-out amongst the lovely ladies, none of whom gets an actual character to play.” In between she appeared in several fluffy French comedies opposite such comedians as Louis de Funès and Darry Cowl. She also appeared opposite Michele Morgan in the crime thriller Constance Aux Enfers/Web of Fear (1964, François Villiers). In 1965 she married distinguished composer Maurice Jarre, with whom she had a daughter, Stéfanie Jarre. She then retired temporarily from the screen to raise her child.

In 1970, Dany Saval made a come-back on TV in the popular comedy series Les saintes chéries/The Sweet Saints starring Micheline Presle. More TV work and films followed. She was the leading lady in the spaghetti western Si può fare... amigo/Saddle Tramps (1972, Maurizio Lucidi) starring Bud Spencer and Jack Palance. In the popular action comedy L’Animal/The Animal (1977, Claude Zidi), she appeared opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch. And she played a supporting part in the detective comedy Inspecteur la Bavure/Inspector Blunder (1980, Claude Zidi) starring Coluche and Gérard Dépardieu. Her last (TV) film was La baleine blanche/Children and the White Whale (1987, Jean Kerchbron). Then, Dany Saval retired from the film and entertainment business. She married three times. Her first marriage was with pr-man Roger Chaland in 1958. Her second marriage with Maurice Jarre ended in a divorce in 1967. Since 1973, she is married to host and journalist Michel Drucker, with whom she resides in Paris.

Sources: Lloyd Shearer (The Modesto Bee), Hal Erickson (All Movie Guide), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Lil Dagover was actress whose career spanned nearly six decades

Lil Dagover was a German stage, film and television actress whose career spanned nearly six decades, Lil Dagover made her screen debut in a 1913 film by director Louis Held. During her brief marriage to Fritz Daghofer, she was introduced to several notable film directors; among them Robert Wiene and Fritz Lang. Lang would cast Dagover in the role of 'O-Take-San' in the 1919 exotic drama Harakiri which would prove to be Dagover's breakout role. The following year, she would be directed by Robert Wiene in the German Expressionist horror classic Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, from a script by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz opposite actors Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt.[4] Lang would direct Dagover in three more films: 1919's Die Spinnen (English title: Spiders), 1921's Der Müde Tod (English release titles: Destiny and Behind The Wall), and 1922's Dr. Mabuse der Spieler. Dagover (left) with actors Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (center) and Friedrich Fehér (right) on the German Expressionist set of Robert Wiene's 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. By the early 1920s, Dagover was one of the most popular and recognized film actresses in the Weimar Republic, appearing in motion pictures by such prominent directors as F. W. Murnau, Lothar Mendes and Carl Froelich. In 1925 she made her stage debut under the direction of Max Reinhardt. In the following years she played in Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater in Berlin and also at the Salzburg Festival.[5] In 1926 she married film producer Georg Witt, who would produce many of Dagover's future films. The couple would remain married until Witt's death in 1972. Lil Dagover's film career in German cinema through the 1920s was prolific, making over forty films and appearing opposite such actors as Emil Jannings, Nils Olaf Chrisander, Aud Egede-Nissen, Lya De Putti, Bruno Kastner and Xenia Desni. She would also make several films in Sweden for directors Olof Molander and Gustaf Molander and appear in several French silent films – her last film appearance of the 1920s was in the 1929 Henri Fescourt-directed French silent film adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas, père novel The Count of Monte Cristo, opposite Jean Angelo and Marie Glory. In 1962, Lil Dagover was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis. In 1964, she was awarded the Bambi annual television and media award from Hubert Burda Media, and the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1967.[7] In 1979, she published her autobiography, Ich war die Dame (English: I Was The Lady). Lil Dagover died at the age of 92, on January 24, 1980, in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and was buried at the Waldfriedhof Grünwald cemetery, in Munich

 Gallery for vintage actress Lil Dagover

Dolly Haas was popular in the 1930s as a vivacious red haired gamine

Stage and screen actress Dolly Haas (1910-1994) was popular in the 1930’s as a vivacious, red-haired gamine often wearing trousers in German and British films.

Gallery for vintage actress Dolly Haas

Carroll Baker

Carroll Baker, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

Annabella

Annabella, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

French film star Annabella (1909-1996) was France's most popular actress during the mid 1930’s, but she also achieved some success in Hollywood films of the late 1930’s.

Simone Simon

Simone Simon, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

Kittenish French actress Simone Simon (1910-2005) was one of the most seductive and brilliant stars of the French cinema of the 1930’s and 1950’s. Publicity dubbed her ‘La Sauvage Tendre’ (The Tender Savage).

Charles de Rochefort

Charles de Rochefort, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.

Charles d’Authier de Rochefort (1887-1952) was born in Port-Vendres, France. In 1910 he started to play in film, most of all in the Pathé comedies of Max Linder (8 films between 1910 and 1914), but also in Pathé dramas by Georges Denola, Albert Capellani and Abel Gance. In 1918 he performed in the serial Impéria (12 episodes) by Jacques Durand, with Jacqueline Forzane. After the films Marthe (Gaston Roudès 1919), Fille du peuple (Camille de Morlhon 1920), L’empire du diamant (Léonce Perret 1920) and Roi de Camargue (André Hugon 1921) – for which film this postcard might have been – De Rochefort again appeared in two serial films: Gigolette (Henri Pouctal 1921, 4 episodes) and L’empereur des pauvres (René Leprince 1921, 6 episodes). In 1922 Rochefort played in several films: in Antoine’s L’Arlésienne, two films by Hugon: Notre dame d’amour and Le diamant noir, L’homme qui pleure by Louis d’Hée, and the co-production The Spanish Jade/Sous le soleil d’Espagne by John S. Robertson and starring Evelyn Brent. After two more French films in 1923: La dame au ruban de velours (Giuseppe Guarino) with Arlette Marchal, and La faute des autres (Jacques Olivier) with Mary Thay, Charles de Rochefort went to Hollywood.

There, in 1923, he played in The Marriage Maker by William C. DeMille, with Mary Astor; he briefly appeared in Holywood/Joligud by James Cruze; he also played in The Cheat by George Fitzmaurice, with Pola Negri; The Law of the Lawless by Victor Fleming, with Dorothy Dalton; and The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille, with Rod La Rocque. In the subsequent year 1924 followed 4 more American films: Love and Glory by Rupert Julian; Shadows of Paris by Herbrt Brenon; The White Moth by Maurice Tourneur; and Madame Sans-Gêne by Léonce Perret, a super-production around Gloria Swanson. In 1925 Roochefort left Hollywood and returned to France, where he played in one film: La princesse aux clowns (Hugon) with Huguette Duflos. Rochefort then stayed away from film for four years. When he returned in 1929 it was not as actor but as director at the Parisian Paramount sound studios, first with Une femme a menti (1929) with Louise Lagrange and scripted by Henri Koster [Hermann Kosterlitz], then in 1930 with the French, Italian, Czech and Rumanian version of Paramount on Parade, starring resp. Maurice Chevalier, Carmen Boni, Jiri Voskovec and Pola Illéry. Rochefort also directed the mulitilingual Le secret du docteur (1930), with Marcelle Chantal in the French and Eugenia Zoffoli in the Spanish version. In 1931 Rochefort acted once more in the film La croix du sud (Hugon), for which he also did the photography, and he directed Televisione, the Italian version of the Paramount multilingual Television. He also directed the short Dorville chauffeur (1930) and Un bouquet de flirts (1931) with Josette Day. Charles de Rochefort died in Paris in 1952.

Joë Hamman

Joë Hamman, originally uploaded by Truus, Bob & Jan too!.