Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Canadian postcard in the Artists of the Camera series by McKenzie & Marlow, Vancouver. Ruth Chatterton in Once a Lady (Guthrie McClintic, 1931). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
On 5 June 2026, the new La Collectionneuse post at European Film Star Postcards will feature American stage and film actress Ruth Chatterton. She was at her most popular in the early to mid-1930s, and in the same era gained prominence as an aviator, one of the few female pil
Canadian postcard in the Artists of the Camera series by McKenzie & Marlow, Vancouver. Ruth Chatterton in Once a Lady (Guthrie McClintic, 1931). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
On 5 June 2026, the new La Collectionneuse post at European Film Star Postcards will feature American stage and film actress Ruth Chatterton. She was at her most popular in the early to mid-1930s, and in the same era gained prominence as an aviator, one of the few female pilots in the United States at the time. In the late 1930s, Chatterton retired from film acting.
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Vintage British postcard. Lubin, 1910s, No. 45. Photo by Gilbert & Bacon, Philadelphia, 1916.
Eleanor Caines (1870 or 1880-1913) was an American silent film actress. She spent most of her film career at the Lubin Film Company. According to IMDb, Eleanor Caines was born in 1870 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. In 1909, she began her film career at Lubin in the short comedy Blissville the Beautiful (1909) with George Reehm and Harry Myers. In t
Vintage British postcard. Lubin, 1910s, No. 45. Photo by Gilbert & Bacon, Philadelphia, 1916.
Eleanor Caines (1870 or 1880-1913) was an American silent film actress. She spent most of her film career at the Lubin Film Company. According to IMDb, Eleanor Caines was born in 1870 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. In 1909, she began her film career at Lubin in the short comedy Blissville the Beautiful (1909) with George Reehm and Harry Myers. In the following years, she appeared in some 30 Lubin productions. Eleanor Caines died in 1913 in her hometown Philadelphia at the age of 43. The cause of her death was surgery after an accident. She was married to William Robson with whom she had a child, and till her death to Jack Le Faint.
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Vintage British postcard, 1910s. Hepworth Picture Player. P.C. 2. NB IMDb does not list a Alma Taylor film with the title The Girl Who Believed, so it may just be a tagline accentuating what we see.
Alma Taylor (1895-1974) was a British actress, who peeked in the British silent cinema of the 1910s and 1920s. In 1915 readers of Pictures and Picturegoers voted her most popular British performer, beating even Charlie Chaplin. Taylor acted in over 1
Vintage British postcard, 1910s. Hepworth Picture Player. P.C. 2. NB IMDb does not list a Alma Taylor film with the title The Girl Who Believed, so it may just be a tagline accentuating what we see.
Alma Taylor (1895-1974) was a British actress, who peeked in the British silent cinema of the 1910s and 1920s. In 1915 readers of Pictures and Picturegoers voted her most popular British performer, beating even Charlie Chaplin. Taylor acted in over 150 films, among which some prestigious examples like Shadow of Egypt (1924) by Sidney Morgan.
Alma Taylor was born in London, on 3 January 1895. According to Anthony Slide, brunette, blue-eyed Alma Taylor was the Hepworth actress 'par excellence'. Beginning in 1907, she already acted with producer Cecil Hepworth, playing tragic young girls. She then co-starred with Chrissie White in Hepworth's 'Tilly Girl' comic series (1910-1915) about two naughty schoolgirls, as well as in 75 or more short and long subjects by Hepworth, such as the Dickens adaptations Oliver Twist (1912), David Copperfield (Thomas Bentley) and The Old Curiosity Shop (Bentley 1913). In those days , everyone helped out at the studios, so both Alma and Chrissie helped in the processing rooms when the weather was too poor to shoot. During the First World War and soon after Taylor contributed to the war effort by acting in such propaganda films like The Nature of the Beast (Hepworth 1919). Taylor clearly was the producer's favorite, and remained devoted to him for decades, starring opposite Ralph Forbes in the rather old-fashioned British countryside drama Comin' Thro the Rye (1923), a remake of an earlier version by Hepworth. After a temporal absence from the screen, Hepworth relaunched Taylor in his last film, The House of Marney (1926), with John Longden. In 1924, the Daily News named her, along with Betty Balfour, Britain's top star. Alma Taylor only starred in four non-Hepworth films: The Shadow of Egypt (Sidney Morgan, 1924) with Joan Morgan, Quinneys (Maurice Elvey, 1927), A South Sea Bubble (T. Hays Hunter 1928) with Ivor Novello, and Two Little Drummer Boys (G.B.Samuelson, 1928). In the late silent era she did some German films, including her part of Mrs. Barrymore in Der Hund von Baskerville/ The Hound of the Baskervilles (Richard Oswald 1929), a film longtime considered lost but rediscovered in 2009. With the coming of sound, however, Taylor's career dwindled and she had to satisfy with minor, matronly roles, in small number of films, such as Bachelor's Baby (Harry Hughes, 1932), Things Are Looking Up (Albert de Courville, 1935), Lilacs in the Spring (Herbert Wilcox, 1954), and Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (Frank Launder, 1957). Uncredited, she played a box office woman in Hitchcock's second vserion of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). Probably her last part was the uncredited role of an old lady in the Titanic-drama by Rank, A Night to Remember (Roy Ward Baker 1958). Alma Taylor died in London, 23 January 1974. She was the wife of film producer and director Walter West (1885-1958), who in the late 1910s and early 1920s was the regular director of Violet Hopson, first with his company Broadwest (1914-1921) and then for Hopson's own company.
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Vintage card, no. 799.
Demi Moore (1962) is an American actress and film producer who had her breakthrough with the Brat Pack film St. Elmo's Fire (1985). By 1995, Moore was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood thanks to such blockbusters as Ghost (1990), A Few Good Men (1992) and Indecent Proposal (1993).
Demi Moore was born Demi Gene Guynes in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1962. Her father, Air Force airman Charles Harmon, left her then 18-year-old mo
Demi Moore (1962) is an American actress and film producer who had her breakthrough with the Brat Pack film St. Elmo's Fire (1985). By 1995, Moore was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood thanks to such blockbusters as Ghost (1990), A Few Good Men (1992) and Indecent Proposal (1993).
Demi Moore was born Demi Gene Guynes in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1962. Her father, Air Force airman Charles Harmon, left her then 18-year-old mother Victoria (née King) after a two-month marriage and before Demi was born. When Demi Moore was three months old, her mother married Dan Guynes, a newspaper salesman, who she later saw as her real father. The family moved frequently because of her stepfather's work, more than thirty times. Her stepfather committed suicide when Demi was fifteen, two years after divorcing her mother. A year later, she dropped out of school. Her mother, Virginia Guynes, was arrested many times, including for arson and drunk driving. Moore broke off contact with her in 1990 but later reconciled with her shortly before she died of cancer in 1998 at the age of 54. In 1979, three months before her 17th birthday, Demi met the rock musician Freddy Moore, and they married in 1980. The marriage lasted four years. Moore signed with the Elite Modelling Agency and then enrolled in drama classes after being inspired by her next-door neighbour, 17-year-old German actress Nastassja Kinski. She appeared on the cover of the January 1981 issue of the French adult magazine Oui, taken from a photo session in which she had posed nude, and made her film debut with a brief role in the teen drama Choices (Silvio Narizzano, 1981). In 1982, she played an investigative reporter in the hospital soap General Hospital (1982-1983). She celebrated her first cinema success in the romantic comedy Blame It on Rio (Stanley Donen, 1983) opposite Michael Caine. Around the same time, she became addicted to cocaine. Her big break came with the film St. Elmo's Fire (Joel Schumacher, 1985) with Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez, to whom she was engaged for three years. Reportedly, she was fired by Schumacher during filming because of her drug abuse, after which she went to rehab and returned a week later. Interestingly, her character in the film, Jules, was also addicted to cocaine. The film was a huge success, and Moore and her film counterparts were counted among the 'Brat Pack', a group of young actors with a promising future. Moore progressed to more serious material with the romantic comedy About Last Night... (Edward Zwick, 1986), co-starring Rob Lowe. It marked a positive turning point in her career. In 1987, she became even more famous when she married actor Bruce Willis.
In 1990, Demi Moore co-starred with Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg in the highly successful fantasy Ghost (Jerry Zucker, 1990), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. The love scene between Moore and Patrick Swayze that starts in front of a potter's wheel to the sound of 'Unchained Melody became an iconic moment in film history, and the film grossed over US$505 million at the box office. 'The highest-grossing film of that year' earned her a spot on the A-list and offered her many leading roles in films. The following year, she received a great deal of media attention when she appeared naked on the front page of Vanity Fair magazine while seven months pregnant. The front page was frequently imitated and parodied in the years that followed. The next year, she starred in the blockbuster A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992), opposite Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. The following year, she scored another big film hit with the controversial Indecent Proposal (Adrian Lyne, 1993). In this film, a rich businessman (Robert Redford) presents a couple with financial problems (Moore and Woody Harrelson) with a dilemma: he gives the couple a million dollars if he can sleep with the woman. Another blockbuster was the thriller Disclosure (Barry Levinson, 1994) with Michael Douglas. Moore produced and starred in a controversial miniseries for HBO called If These Walls Could Talk (1996), a three-part anthology about abortion alongside Sissy Spacek and Cher. Its screenwriter, Nancy Savoca, directed two segments, including one in which Moore played a widowed nurse in the early 1950s seeking a back-alley abortion. For that role, Moore received a second Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress. At the time, Demi Moore was one of the highest-paid film actresses of all time, and she was the first actress to receive more than $10 million for a film role - $12.5 million for Striptease (Andrew Bergman, 1996).
Demi Moore did not manage to keep up the success. Striptease (Andrew Bergman, 1996) opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews with Moore's performance being criticised and 'won' six Golden Raspberry Awards, including for worst film, worst actress and worst director. However, it was a moderate financial success, grossing US$113 million worldwide. Moore also starred in the thriller The Juror (Brian Gibson, 1996). It was a box office bomb and was heavily panned by critics. Two successes at the time were as the voice of the gypsy woman Esmeralda in Disney's animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Kirk Wise, Gary Trousdale, 1996) and the voice of Dallas Grimes in the animated comedy Beavis and Butt-head Do America (Mike Judge, 1996), alongside her then-husband Bruce Willis. When her long-cherished project, G.I. Jane (Ridley Scott, 1997), for which the actress even shaved her head, turned out to be another flop, Demi Moore took a break in her acting career. As a producer, she did have a few successes with the three Austin Powers films, including Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach, 1997). Moore and Willis separated in 1998 and divorced in 2000. Together with Bruce Willis, she has three children: Rumer Glen Willis (born 1988), Scout LaRue Willis (1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (1994). In 2003, she had a much-discussed relationship with the sixteen-year-younger actor Ashton Kutcher, whom she married in 2005. That same year, she returned to the big screen by playing the villain in the sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (McG, 2005), starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu. Since 2006, Demi has been the face and muse of cosmetics brand Helena Rubinstein. On-screen, she could be seen in the ensemble cast of the drama Bobby (Emilio Estevez, 2006) and the drama Margin Call (J. C. Chandor, 2011) with Kevin Spacey. Moore and Kutcher split in 2011, and their divorce was finalised in 2013. Incidentally, she appeared in films such as the black comedy Rough Night/Girls' Night Out (Lucia Aniello, 2017) starring Scarlett Johansson. In 2019, Moore released her book 'Inside Out' about her life, which reached the top spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. In 2025, Demi made a glorious comeback in the cinema when she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy for her role in the British-French Horror film The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024). The film pokes fun at the American film industry, the ideal of eternal youth and the cosmetics industry. Since early 2022, Demi Moore has been in a relationship with Swiss celebrity chef Daniel Humm (46).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, English and German), and IMDb.
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
British postcard by Paramount. Photo: Paramount. James Spader, Jon Cryer, Mollie Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink (Howard Deutch, 1986).
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
SHANGHAI, June 13 — Chinese actress Xin Zhilei said she was keen for new experiences and did not want to limit herself, as she helped kick off the Shanghai International Film Festival yesterday.Xin, 40, became only the third Chinese woman to win best actress in Venice in September, her first major accolade in Europe after charming audiences at home.She will be part of a festival jury for the first time in Shanghai and joked at a news conference that she had asked
SHANGHAI, June 13 — Chinese actress Xin Zhilei said she was keen for new experiences and did not want to limit herself, as she helped kick off the Shanghai International Film Festival yesterday.
Xin, 40, became only the third Chinese woman to win best actress in Venice in September, her first major accolade in Europe after charming audiences at home.
She will be part of a festival jury for the first time in Shanghai and joked at a news conference that she had asked Doubao, a Chinese AI chatbot, how to prepare for the role.
“I want to try everything I haven’t experienced before,” she later told AFP, adding she doesn’t rule out stepping behind the camera in the future.
“I don’t want to limit myself, nor do I want to box myself into a specific type... Anything is possible.”
Her Venice success came for her role in The Sun Rises on Us All, in which her character tries to make amends with a former lover who was jailed for a crime she committed.
The film was widely praised for the convincing, nuanced chemistry between her and co-star Zhang Songwen.
Asked about the challenges faced by Chinese film makers, Xin said good work would “always find its audience”.
“I truly feel that, whether in film or any other industry, we’ve entered an era where what’s false is being stripped away and only the genuine remains,” she said.
“I believe we each have to bring 100 per cent sincerity to our professions and to the work we love — only then might we have a chance to move the audience.”
Chinese actress Xin Zhilei speaks during an interview with AFP during the 28th Shanghai international film festival in Shanghai on June 12, 2026. Xin said she was keen for new experiences and did not want to limit herself, as she helped kick off the Shanghai International Film Festival yesterday as a jury member. — AFP pic
Desire and drive
Xin’s first international break came in 2016’s Crosscurrent, a mystical romance set along the Yangtze River.
She has also starred in Chinese blockbusters and popular television series — notably 2023’s Blossoms Shanghai, directed by Hong Kong cinema legend Wong Kar-wai.
“When I first watched Crosscurrent back in the day, I didn’t really understand it — even as an actress in it,” she said.
“But years later, when I revisited it, I felt it was a truly great film.”
Xin grew up in China’s far north, near the border with Russia, in a family that struggled financially.
As her success grew, she was labelled online as someone “who wears her ambition and desire right on her face”.
Xin talked in a 2018 speech about the guilt she still feels having refused to buy her paralysed father a computer in the early days of her career, because of the cost.
“I admit I have a desire for money — because I never want to feel that regret again,” she said then.
Asked how her drive had shaped her development as an actress, she said “every person has... their own journey”.
“The reason I am who I am is precisely because I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through. And that has its own purpose.” — AFP
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2113. Photo: Warner Bros.
Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. She was a film and television star, known throughout her 60-year career as a consummate, versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence. By 1944, Stanwyck had become the highest-paid woman in the United States. She was a favourite of her directors, including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank C
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2113. Photo: Warner Bros.
Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. She was a film and television star, known throughout her 60-year career as a consummate, versatile professional with a strong, realistic screen presence. By 1944, Stanwyck had become the highest-paid woman in the United States. She was a favourite of her directors, including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra. After a short but notable career as a stage actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood before turning to television.
Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens in 1907 in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of Catherine Ann (McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens, a bricklayer. Her mother died when she was accidentally knocked off a trolley by a drunk. Her father abandoned his children in grief after the death of his wife. Her elder sister brought up Barbara and was partially raised in foster homes. Later, she went to work at the local telephone company, but she had the urge to enter show business. At seventeen, she went to work as a showgirl. In 1928, Barbara moved to Hollywood and proved to be an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (Frank Capra, 1932) and Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944), also starring Fred MacMurray. She excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (Mitchell Leisen, 1940) and The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941) and in Westerns, such as Union Pacific (Cecil B. DeMille, 1939).
Barbara Stanwyck was also well known for her TV roles as Victoria, the matriarch of the Barkley family in the Western series The Big Valley (1965). In 1983, she also played in the hit mini-series The Thorn Birds (1983), which did much to keep her in the public eye. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson. One of her last roles was in the hit drama series The Colbys (1985). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times, for Stella Dallas (1937), Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944) and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). For her television work, she won three Emmy Awards, for The Barbara Stanwyck Show (1961), The Big Valley (1966) and The Thorn Birds (1983). Her performance in The Thorn Birds also won her a Golden Globe. She received an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1986. She was also the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the American Film Institute (1987), the Film Society of Lincoln Centre (1986), the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (1981) and the Screen Actors Guild (1967). Barbara Stanwyck died in 1990, leaving 93 films and a host of TV appearances as her legacy. She was married twice, to film actors Frank Fay (1928-1935) and Robert Taylor (1939-1952). Her son, Dion Anthony 'Tony' Fay (1932), was adopted. Frank Fay and Stanwyck's marriage and their experience in Hollywood later became the basis of the Hollywood film A Star is Born. Their stormy marriage finally ended after a drunken brawl, during which he tossed their adopted son, Dion, into the swimming pool. Despite rumours of affairs with Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford, Stanwyck wed Robert Taylor, who had gay rumours of his own to dispel. Their marriage started on a sour note when his possessive mother demanded he spend his wedding night with her rather than with Barbara. In 1957, Tony, her adopted son, was arrested for trying to sell lewd pictures while waiting to cash his unemployment check. When questioned by the press about his famous mother, he replied, "We don't speak". She saw him only a few times after his childhood.
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Vintage postcard. Filmex NV. Ed. Takken, Utrecht. Magda Schneider in Robinson soll nicht sterben/ The Girl and the Legend (Josef von Baky, 1957), released in The Netherlands as Droom-eiland (Dream Island).
German singer and actress Magda Schneider (1909-1996) is best known as the mother of film star Romy Schneider, but in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s s she herself starred in some 40 films. First she appeared on the screen as a charming Wiener mädel (
Vintage postcard. Filmex NV. Ed. Takken, Utrecht. Magda Schneider in Robinson soll nicht sterben/ The Girl and the Legend (Josef von Baky, 1957), released in The Netherlands as Droom-eiland (Dream Island).
German singer and actress Magda Schneider (1909-1996) is best known as the mother of film star Romy Schneider, but in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s s she herself starred in some 40 films. First she appeared on the screen as a charming Wiener mädel (Viennese girl) and after the war she often played the understanding mother or aunt.
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
Vintage British postcard, 1910s. Hepworth Picture Player. P.C., 3. NB IMDb does not list a Chrissie White film with the title The Winning Smile, so it may just be a tagline accentuating what we see.
British actress Chrissie White (1895-1989) was one of the most famous and popular stars of British silent cinema.
Blue-eyed and light-haired beauty Chrissie White was born Ada Constance White in Chiswick, London, on 23rd May 1895 – the year film was
Vintage British postcard, 1910s. Hepworth Picture Player. P.C., 3. NB IMDb does not list a Chrissie White film with the title The Winning Smile, so it may just be a tagline accentuating what we see.
British actress Chrissie White (1895-1989) was one of the most famous and popular stars of British silent cinema.
Blue-eyed and light-haired beauty Chrissie White was born Ada Constance White in Chiswick, London, on 23rd May 1895 – the year film was introduced by the Lumière brothers. She started her film career when joining the Hepworth company in 1907 as a 12-year-old girl. Under the name of ‘ Chrissie’ she became one of the first stars in British cinema, often performing in shorts by director Lewin Fitzhamon, in particular the Tilly comedies. When White was teamed with Alma Taylor, they became a popular comic duo as the naughty schoolgirls Tilly and Sally, who create havoc everywhere. The Tilly comedies were a popular series in the years 1910 and 1911. NB White supposedly rode to the studios on a bicycle in her early years as a star.
One by one, White moved from comedy to drama and romance. By 1912 Chrissie White had become Hepworth’s leading lady and the most popular British star of her time. In the same year she married Claude Witten, who also worked for Hepworth. One of her earliest features was a crime film set in the horse racing milieu: The Kissing Cup (1913); it still survives in the Dutch Desmet Collection, as well as the Tilly comedy Tilly in a Boarding House (1911). Other memorable titles were The Vicar of Wakefield (1913), and At the Foot of the Scaffold (1913). Chrissie White’s male partners in her films were mostly Lionelle Howard (from 1914 on); Stewart Rome (between 1914-1917), a.o. in Coward! (1915) and Her Boy (1915); and Henry Edwards (from 1918 on).
Edwards also directed most of their films together, such as Possession (1919), The City of Beautiful Nonsense (1919), The Kinsman (1919), The Bargain (1921) and Lily of the Alley (1923). All in all they did some 22 films together. They were also a couple in real life, as White married Edwards in 1922, and they had a daughter Henrietta, who also became an actress. Edwards and White became real celebrities in Britain, the equivalent of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. White's last silent film with Edwards was the romance The World of Wonderful Reality (1924).
When Hepworth collapsed in 1924, Chrissie White - who had worked only for Hepworth - retired from the screen, to the regret of her fans. She returned in the sound era to play in only two films more, with Edwards as her male partner: The Call of the Sea (Leslie Hiscott 1930) and the comedy General John Regan (Edwards 1933), filmed in Northern Ireland. After that White definitively retired from the screen, and after the death of Edwards in 1952 she withdrew from publicity at all. Estimates are that Chrissie White worked in between 100 and 180 films, shorts and features. Chrissie White died 18/8/1989 in Hollywood, California, and was buried at the Westwood Memorial Park.
Clips of Chrissie White's films can be traced in the BBC/BFI documentary Silent Britain (2006). See also on YouTube Tilly, the Tomboy, Gives to the Poor www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac1dVYaPN8I
Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:
German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as Junta in Das blaue Licht / The Blue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932).
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) was the notorious director of Triumph des Willens (1935), a fascinating propaganda documentary about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, commissioned by the Nazi government. Before she started directing films, she worked as a da
German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as Junta in Das blaue Licht / The Blue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932).
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) was the notorious director of Triumph des Willens (1935), a fascinating propaganda documentary about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, commissioned by the Nazi government. Before she started directing films, she worked as a dancer and, on-screen, became a star in the mountain films directed by Arnold Fanck.
Helene Bertha Amalie 'Leni' Riefenstahl was born in Berlin, German Empire, in 1902. Her family was Lutheran Protestant, and she had a brother, Heinz, who was killed on the Eastern Front in World War II. Her father, Alfred Theodor Paul Riefenstahl, owned a successful heating and ventilation company and wanted his daughter to follow him into the business world. Leni was athletic and, at the age of twelve, joined a gymnastics and swimming club. Without her father's knowledge, she enrolled in dance and ballet classes at the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin in 1918, where she quickly became a star pupil. Riefenstahl later also studied dance with Jutta Klamt, Eugenie Eduardova and Mary Wigman. She became well-known for her self-styled interpretive dancing skills. She travelled across Europe with Max Reinhardt in a show funded by Jewish producer Harry Sokal. She appeared with Wigman in the documentary Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit - Ein Film über moderne Körperkultur / The Way to Strength and Health: a film of modern body culture (Nicholas Kaufmann, Wilhelm Prager, 1925), an artefact of the Naturist fad that swept Germany at this time. Riefenstahl began to suffer foot injuries that led to knee surgery, which threatened her dance career. A poster for the mountain film Der Berg des Schicksals / The Mountain of Destiny (Arnold Fanck, 1924) inspired her to move into film acting. She got in touch with director Arnold Fanck, who was the pioneer of the mountain film genre. Riefenstahl persuaded Fanck to feature her in his next film, Der heilige Ber g/ The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926) with Luis Trenker and Frieda Richard. The film cost 1.5 million Reichsmarks to produce and was released during the 1926 Christmas season. Der heilige Berg / The Holy Mountain was popular in Berlin, where sold-out performances extended its premiere run for five weeks. The film was also screened in Britain, France and the US and was the first international success of its director. Between 1926 and 1931, Leni Riefenstahl starred in five successful films. First, she made Der Große Sprung / The Great Leap (Arnold Fanck, 1927) and Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg / Fate of the House of Habsburg (Rolf Raffé, 1928). The film that brought Riefenstahl into the limelight was Fanck's Die Weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü / The White Hell of Piz Palü (Arnold Fanck, G. W. Pabst, 1929) with Gustav Diessl. Her fame spread to countries outside Germany. Her next two films were Stürme über dem Mont Blanc / Storm Over Mont Blanc (Arnold Fanck, 1930) with Sepp Rist, and Der Weisse Rausch / The White Ecstasy (Arnold Fanck, 1931). From Arnold Fanck, she had learned acting, but also film editing techniques. His use of cinematic technique - filters, special film stock, slow motion - to endow magnificent natural scenery with dramatic stature - provided her with key elements of her towering visual style and fostered her technical skill. Leni Riefenstahl decided to try to produce and direct her own film. It was called Das Blaue Licht / The Blue Light (1932), co-written by Carl Mayer and Béla Balázs. In the film, Riefenstahl played an innocent peasant girl in the Tyrolean mountains who is hated and cast out by the villagers because they think she is diabolic. She is protected by a secret cave of blue crystals. With the blue light, she lures young men to their deaths. The film attracted the attention of Adolf Hitler, who saw talent in Riefenstahl and arranged a meeting. He believed Riefenstahl epitomised the perfect German female.
In 1933, Leni Riefenstahl appeared in the American-German co-productions SOS Eisberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933; German version) and SOS Iceberg (Tay Garnett, 1933; US version). The two versions were filmed simultaneously in English and German and produced and distributed by Universal Studios. Riefenstahl co-starred with Gustav Diessl and Ernst Udet in S.O.S. Eisberg, and with Gibson Gowland and Rod La Rocque in S.O.S. Iceberg. Her part in SOS Iceberg would be her only English-language role in film. Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at the Berlin Sportpalast in 1932, and by her own account, she was mesmerised by his talent as a public speaker. After meeting Hitler, Riefenstahl was offered the opportunity to direct Der Sieg des Glaubens / The Victory of Faith (1933), an hour-long propaganda film about the fifth Nuremberg Rally in 1933. Riefenstahl agreed to direct the movie. She and Hitler got on well, forming a friendly relationship. The propaganda film was funded entirely by the NSDAP. Impressed with Riefenstahl's work, Hitler asked her to film Triumph des Willens / Triumph of the Will (1935), a new propaganda film about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. More than 700,000 Nazi supporters attended the rally. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by Nazi leaders at the Congress, including Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and Julius Streicher, interspersed with footage of massed Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel troops and public reaction. Riefenstahl's techniques — such as moving cameras, aerial photography, the use of long-focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, and the revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography — made Triumph des Willens/Triumph of the Will a prominent example of propaganda in film history. Riefenstahl won several awards, not only in Germany but also in the United States, France, Sweden, and other countries. Despite allegedly vowing not to make any more films about the Nazi Party, Riefenstahl made the 28-minute Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces (1935) about the German Army. Hitler then invited Riefenstahl to film the 1936 Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Berlin. She visited Greece to take footage of the route of the inaugural torch relay and the games' original site at Olympia, where she was aided by Greek photographer Nelly's. This material became the two-part Olympia (Festival Of Nations / Festival Of Beauty) (1938), a hugely successful film which has since been widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements. Riefenstahl began work on the opera film Tiefland / Lowlands. On Hitler's direct order, the German government paid her seven million Reichsmarks in compensation. Sinti and Roma people from the Marzahn detention camp near Berlin were compelled to work as extras. Almost to the end of her life, despite overwhelming evidence that the concentration camp occupants had been forced to work on the film unpaid, Riefenstahl continued to maintain that all the film extras survived and that she had met several of them after the war. In October 1944, the production of Tiefland moved to Barrandov Studios in Prague for interior filming. Lavish sets made these shots some of the most costly of the film. The film was not edited and released until almost ten years later. Tiefland would be her last feature film.
In 1945, after the war, Leni Riefenstahl was arrested at her chalet in Kitzbühel in the Tyrol by US soldiers. Throughout 1945 to 1948, she was held in various Allied-controlled prison camps across Germany. She was also under house arrest for a period of time. She had never been a Nazi party member and was cleared of active involvement by a de-Nazification tribunal. She was declared a Mitläufer or fellow traveller, which disbarred her from ever seeking public office. During the 1950s and 1960s, she tried many times to make more films, but was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism. Triumph des Willens and her other work for the Nazis had significantly damaged her career and reputation. Despite her protests to the contrary, Riefenstahl was considered an intricate part of the Third Reich's propaganda machine. In the 1960s, Riefenstahl discovered Africa and reinvented herself as a still photographer. She published two photo books on the Nuba tribes, 'The Nuba' and 'The Nuba of Kau'. In 1968, she began a lifelong companionship with her cameraman Horst Kettner. She was 60, and he was 20. He assisted her with her photographs. She also photographed the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 1978, Riefenstahl published a book of her sub-aquatic photographs called 'Korallengärten' (Coral Gardens), followed by the 1990 book 'Wunder unter Wasser' (Wonder under Water). Riefenstahl also released the autobiography 'A Memoir' (1995). Leni Riefenstahl died of cancer in 2003 in Pöcking, Germany, at the age of 101. She was buried at Munich Waldfriedhof. Riefenstahl was married twice. From 1944 to 1947, she was married to Peter Jacob. Shortly before her death, she married her longtime companion, Horst Kettner. After Kettner died in 2016, Riefenstahl's former secretary Gisela Jahn became the sole heir of Riefenstahl's estate.
In 1993, Ray Müller made the documentary Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl / The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, for which he won an International Emmy Award. Müller lets the spirited 92-year-old woman speak without interrupting her too much. He observes and makes it clear that she has not the slightest regret about her collaboration with Hitler, but she does regret the fact that it so severely hampered her postwar career. In 2024, Andres Veiel made the documentary Riefenstahl, which does not pass explicit judgment either, but it does tear Riefenstahl’s own victim narrative to shreds.
Sources: Richard Falcon (The Guardian), Rainer Rother (Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius), Berliner Woche (German), DW, Wikipedia and IMDb.
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