French postcard “Lumicap” by Compagnie des Arts Photomécaniques, Paris. This card shows Josephine and her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon, with the first nine children they adopted: Aiko, Luis, Janot, Jari, Jean-Claude, Moïse, Brahim, Marianne, and Koffi. Later, three more children were added to the “Rainbow Tribe”: Mara and Noël in 1959 and Stellina in 1962 or 1964 (sources differ). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was well-known as singer and dancer. In 1925 she became an instant success in Paris, because of her erotic dance. She also performed in a handful silent and early sound films, La Sirene des Tropiques (1927), Zouzou (1934) and La princesse TamTam (1935).
Josephine Baker was born Frida Josephine McDonald in 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, US. Her mother, Carrie McDonald, was a laundress, and her father, Eddie Carson, a vaudeville drummer. Josephine dropped out of school at the age of 12, and first danced for the public on the streets of St. Louis for nickels and dimes. At 15, she was recruited for the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville show, and she married a Pullman porter named William Howard Baker. Two years later she left him and ran away from St. Louis, feeling there was too much racial discrimination in the city. She headed to New York City and during the Harlem Renaissance, she performed at the Plantation Club and in the chorus of the popular Broadway revues 'Shuffle Along' (1921) and 'The Chocolate Dandies' (1924). She performed as the last dancer in a chorus line, a position in which the dancer traditionally performed in a comic manner, as if they were unable to remember the dance, until the encore, at which point they would not only perform it correctly but with additional complexity. Josephine Baker was then billed as 'the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville.'
In 1925, Josephine Baker opened in Paris in 'La revue negre' at the Théatre des Champs-Élysées, where she became an instant success for her erotic dancing and for appearing practically nude on stage. After a successful tour of Europe, she reneged on her contract and returned to France to star at the Folies Bergères, setting the standard for her future acts. She performed the 'Danse sauvage', wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. She quickly became a favourite of the French, and her fame grew. Baker performed in a handful of silent and early sound films, including La Sirene des Tropiques/Siren of the Tropics (Henri Étiévant, Mario Nalpas, 1927) at the side of Pierre Batcheff, Zouzou (Marc Allégret, 1934) opposite Jean Gabin, and La princesse Tam Tam/Princess Tam-Tam (Edmond T. Gréville, 1935) with Albert Préjean. At this time she also scored her greatest song hit, 'J'ai deux amours' (1931). In 1937 she renounced her American citizenship and became a citizen of France. During World War II she served in the French Resistance for which she would receive the highest French military honour, the Croix de Guerre.
Josephine Baker had many ups and downs during her career. Although based in France, Baker supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. In 1951 the Stork Club in New York City had refused to serve her because she was black. This led to a confrontation with columnist Walter Winchell. Later, she was falsely accused of being a communist sympathizer, and the FBI started a file on her. During the McCarthy era, she was told that she was no longer welcome in the United States. In France, she was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, France's highest honour, in 1961. In the late 1960s, she began having financial difficulties and stopped performing in 1968. Princess Grace offered her a home in Monaco when she learned of Josephine's financial problems. At the request of Princess Grace, she performed at Monaco's summer ball in 1974 and was a great success. That same year, she staged a week of performances in New York and called the show An Evening with Josephine Baker. Baker had just begun a Paris revue celebrating her half-century on the stage, when on 10 April 1975 she was stricken and went into a coma. She died without regaining consciousness. Her funeral was held in Paris, and she was buried in Monaco. Josephine Baker adopted 12 children, partly because she couldn't have any of her own and partly because she believed in equality for all, no matter what nationality, religion, or race.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht / Uitgeverij Takken, no. AX 5820. Photo: NV Bovema.
Italian-Belgian composer and singer Salvatore Adamo (1943) was a teen idol in the first half of the 1960s. Occasionally he also starred in films.
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Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht / Uitgeverij Takken, no. AX 5826. Photo: NV Bovema.
Italian-Belgian composer and singer Salvatore Adamo (1943) was a teen idol in the first half of the 1960s. Occasionally he also starred in films.
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Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no. 757. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
American singer and actor Dick Powell (1904-1963) was also a film producer, film director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a juvenile lead in the Warner backstage musicals, Powell showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man in Film Noirs. He was the first actor to portray the private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.
Richard Ewing Powell was born in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson. He was one of three brothers. His brothers were Luther and Howard Powell, who ended up as vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad. The family moved to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with local orchestras and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College before he started his entertainment career as a singer and banjo player with the Royal Peacock Band. He then got a gig with the Charlie Davis band and toured with them throughout the mid-west, appearing at dance halls and picture theatres. In 1925, he married Mildred Maund, a model, but she found being married to an entertainer, not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas, and the couple divorced in 1932. He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own, for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s. Powell moved to Pittsburgh, where he found great local success as the Master of Ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater. In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records, which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Dick Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event (Roy Del Ruth, 1932) with Lee Tracy and Mary Brian. He was borrowed by Fox to support Will Rogers in Too Busy to Work (John G. Blystone, 1932). He was a boyish crooner, the sort of role he specialised in for the next few years. Back at Warners, he supported George Arliss in The King's Vacation (John G. Adolfi, 1933). Then he was the love interest for Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), which was a massive hit. Warner let him repeat the role in Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933), which was another big success. Looking rather younger than his actual years, Powell soon found himself typecast as clean-cut singing juveniles. Another hit was Footlight Parade (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), with Keeler, Joan Blondell, and James Cagney. Powell was upped to star for College Coach (William A. Wellman, 1933), then went back to more ensemble pieces including 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), Convention City (Archie Mayo, 1933), and Dames (Ray Enright, Busby Berkeley, 1934). He was top-billed in Gold Diggers of 1935 (Busby Berkeley, 1935), with Joan Blondell. He supported Marion Davies in Page Miss Glory (Mervyn LeRoy, 1935), made for Cosmopolitan Pictures, a production company financed by Davies' lover William Randolph Hearst who released through Warners. Warners gave Dick Powell a change of pace, casting him as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Dieterle, Max Reinhardt, 1935). He did two films with Blondell, Stage Struck (Busby Berkeley, 1936) and Gold Diggers of 1937 (Lloyd Bacon, 1937). Then 20th Century Fox borrowed him for On the Avenue (Roy Del Ruth, 1937) with Madeleine Carroll. Back at Warners, he appeared in Hard to Get (Ray Enright, 1938) with Olivia de Havilland, and Naughty but Nice (Ray Enright, 1939), starring Ann Sheridan. Fed up with the repetitive nature of his roles, Powell left Warner Bros and went to work for Paramount.
At Paramount, Dick Powell and his then-wife, Joan Blondell were in another musical, I Want a Divorce (Ralph Murphy, 1940). Then Powell got a chance to appear in a non-musical and starred opposite Ellen Drew in the sparkling Preston Sturges comedy Christmas in July (1940). I.S. Mowis at IMDb cites Powell saying: "I knew I wasn't the greatest singer in the world and I saw no reason why an actor should restrict himself to any one particular phase of the business". Universal borrowed him to support Abbott and Costello in In the Navy (Arthur Lubin, 1941), one of the most popular films of 1941. He was in a fantasy comedy directed by René Clair, It Happened Tomorrow (1944) then went over to MGM to appear opposite Lucille Ball in Meet the People (Charles Reisner, 1944), which was a box office flop. During this period, Powell starred in the musical program Campana Serenade, which was broadcast on NBC radio (1942–1943) and CBS radio (1943–1944). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "Few actors ever managed a complete image transition as thoroughly as did Dick Powell: in his case, from the boyish, wavy-haired crooner in musicals to rugged crime fighters in films noir." By 1944, Powell felt he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore. Still dissatisfied with lightweight roles, Powell lobbied hard to get the lead in Double Indemnity. He lost out to Fred MacMurray, another Hollywood nice guy. MacMurray's success, however, fueled Powell's resolve to pursue projects with greater range. Instead, he was slotted into more of the same fare, refused to comply and was suspended. Powell tried his luck at RKO and at last, managed to secure a lucrative role: that of hard-boiled private eye Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944). He was the first actor to play Marlowe – by name – in motion pictures. Hollywood had previously adapted some Marlowe novels, but with the lead character changed. Later, Powell was the first actor to play Marlowe on radio, in 1944 and 1945, and on television, in an episode of Climax! (1954). Murder My Sweet was a big hit. Bosley Crowther in the New York Times: " ...and while he may lack the steely coldness and cynicism of a Humphrey Bogart, Mr. Powell need not offer any apologies. He has definitely stepped out of the song-and-dance, pretty-boy league with this performance". Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. His career changed dramatically: he was cast in a series of Films Noirs. On the radio, Powell played detective Richard Rogue in the series Rogue's Gallery beginning in 1945. On-screen, Dmytryk and Powell reteamed to make the film Cornered (Edward Dmytryk, 1945), a gripping, post-World War II thriller that helped define the Film Noir style. For Columbia, he played a detective in Johnny O'Clock (Robert Rossen, 1947) and made To the Ends of the Earth (Robert Stevenson, 1948) with Signe Hasso. In 1948, he stepped out of the brutish type when he starred in Pitfall (André De Toth, 1948), a Film Noir in which a bored insurance company worker falls for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott. He broadened his range appearing in a Western, Station West (Sidney Lanfield, 1948), and a French Foreign Legion tale, Rogues' Regiment (Robert Florey, 1949) with Marta Toren. He was a Mountie in Mrs. Mike (Louis King, 1950). From 1949 to 1953, Powell played the lead role in the NBC radio theater production Richard Diamond, Private Detective. His character in the 30-minute weekly was a likable private detective with a quick wit. Many episodes were written by Blake Edwards and many ended with Detective Diamond having an excuse to sing a little song to his date.
Dick Powell took a break from tough-guy roles in The Reformer and the Redhead (Melvin Frank, Norman Panama, 1950), opposite his new wife June Allyson. Then it was back to tougher movies: Cry Danger (Robert Parrish, 1951), as an ex-con; and The Tall Target (Anthony Mann, 1951), as a detective who tries to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He returned to comedy with You Never Can Tell (Lou Breslow, 1951). He had a good role as best-selling novelist James Lee Bartlow in the popular melodrama, The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli, 1952). His final film performance was in a romantic comedy Susan Slept Here (1954) for director Frank Tashlin. Even when he appeared in lighter fare such as Susan Slept Here (Frank Tashlin, 1954), he never sang in his later roles. It was his final onscreen appearance in a feature film and included a dance number with co-star Debbie Reynolds. By this stage, Powell had turned director. His feature debut was Split Second (1953) with Stephen McNally and Alexis Smith. He followed it with The Conqueror (1956), coproduced by Howard Hughes starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Powell and Wayne. He directed Allyson opposite Jack Lemmon in You Can't Run Away from It (1956). Powell then made two war films at Fox with Robert Mitchum, The Enemy Below (1957) and The Hunters (1958). In the 1950s, Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television, along with Charles Boyer, David Niven, and Ida Lupino. He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Powell played the role of Willie Dante in episodes of Four Star Playhouse, and guest-starred in numerous Four Star programs. Shortly before his death, Powell sang on camera for the final time in a guest-star appearance on Four Star's Ensign O'Toole, singing 'The Song of the Marines', which he first sang in his film The Singing Marine (Ray Enright, 1937). He hosted and occasionally starred in his Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on CBS from 1956–1961, and his final anthology series, The Dick Powell Show on NBC from 1961 through 1963; after his death, the series continued through the end of its second season (as The Dick Powell Theater), with guest hosts. He married three times: Mildred Evelyn Maund (1925-1932), Joan Blondell (1936-1944) and June Allyson ( 1945, until his death in 1963). He adopted Joan Blondell's son from a previous marriage, Norman Powell, who later became a television producer; the couple also had one child together, Ellen Powell. He had two children with Allyson, Pamela (adopted) and Richard 'Dick' Powell, Jr. Powell's ranch-style house was used for exterior filming on the ABC TV series, Hart to Hart. Powell was a friend of Hart to Hart actor Robert Wagner and producer Aaron Spelling. In 1962, Powell acknowledged rumors that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling East to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant tumors on his neck and chest. Powell died at the age of 58 in 1963. His body was cremated and his remains were interred in the Columbarium of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. In The Day of the Locust (1975), Powell was portrayed by his son Dick Powell Jr.
Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Italian postcard. Photo of Titina, Eduardo and Peppino De Filippo.
Neapolitan actor Eduardo De Filippo (1900-1984) was also a playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his plays Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria. He began to direct films in 1940. During the 1950s, he turned out a string of successful light comedies, many based on his plays. In addition to writing and directing his films, he wrote or collaborated on films with such directors as Vittorio De Sica.
Italian comic actor Peppino De Filippo (1903-1980) was a star of theatre, television and cinema in his country. He started his career on stage with his brother Eduardo and their sister Titina. In the 1950s and 1960s, he became the partner of Totó in very popular comedy films and appeared in two classics by Federico Fellini.
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