French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 401. Photo: Roman Freulich. Norman Kerry in Merry-Go-Round (Rupert Julian, Erich von Stroheim, 1923). Norman Kerry's surname is misspelled on the card as Keery.

Norman Kerry (1894–1956) was an American actor of the silent era, who peaked in the Lon Chaney films The Hunchback of the Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Unknown (1927).

Of German origin, and born Arnold Kaiser in Rochester in New York State on June 16, 1894, Kerry changed his name to Norman Kerry during the First World War. Kerry began working as a clerk in the New York fur trade, but felt that he had no aptitude for this type of work, he left everything and became a theatrical agent. In 1916, he met Rudolph Valentino, and the two soon became friends and it was Kerry who advised the Italian to try his hand at the young film industry. Kerry played his first part in the Douglas Fairbanks film Manhattan Madness (Allan Dwan, 1916), but immediately after he had an important lead in the Mary Pickford film A Little Princess (Marshall Neilan, 1917). A second success followed with the Constance Talmadge film Up the Road with Sallie (William Desmond Taylor, 1918).

Norman Kerry became a matinee idol with his slicked-back hair and thin, waxed mustache. His popularity peaked in 1923, when he acted as the dashing Captain Phoebus in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), starring Lon Chaney and Patsy Ruth Miller, and as the aristocrat posing as a salesman in Merry-Go-Round (Erich von Stroheim, Rupert Julian, 1923), with Mary Philbin as his love interest. Kerry was again paired with Philbin in another Lon Chaney classic, The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925). The third get-together with Chaney happened with the bizarre horror film The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927), starring Chaney and Joan Crawford. Kerry plays Chaney's rival as a strongman, risking to be ripped apart in a circus act when Chaney's character takes revenge for having needlessly removed his both own arms. Kerry continued to appear in several films and alongside the leading actresses of the moment, including Lillian Gish in Annie Laurie (John S. Robertson, 1927), Bebe Daniels, Irene Rich, Eleanor Boardman, Corinne Griffith, Pauline Starke, Aileen Pringle, and many others.

Norman Kerry was not so lucky in his personal life as he married three times. With the advent of sound cinema, he did not have the desired success, and after 1931 he stopped. Having acted in 1928 in the film Foreign Legion, Kerry drew his conclusions and joined the real French Foreign Legion. He returned to the United States only in 1940, when France was invaded by Hitler's Nazi army and acted in one last film. Norman Kerry died in Los Angeles in 1956, at the age of 61, the victim of liver disease.

Sources: Wikipedia (English and Italian ), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Norman Kerry Norman Kerry American Actor Hollywood Movie Star USA Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vedette Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Briefkarte Briefkaart Postkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Sepia Cinémagazine-Edition Cinémagazine Freulich Roman Freulich Uniform Merry-go-round 1923

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French postcard. Europe, France, No. 257. Films Paramount.

Suave and debonair American actor Adolphe Menjou (1890-1963) with his trademark waxy black moustache was one of Hollywood's most distinguished stars and one of America's 'Best Dressed Men'. He started as a matinée idol in the silent cinema in such classics as Charles Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923) and Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle (1924). His sound films included Morocco (1931) with Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, A Star is Born (1937), and Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) with Kirk Douglas. In 1931, he was nominated for an Oscar for The Front Page (1931).

Tags:   Europe French France Français Française Hollywood AMerican USA 1920s 1930s silent sound sepia Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine Carte Postale Card Celebrity Costume Film Film Star Movies Movie Star Muet Muto sonore sonoro Tonfilm Stummfilm Screen Star Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte Actor Acteur Attore SChauspieler Darsteller Adolphe Menjou Paramount

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German postcard. Ross Verlag, Berlin, No. 43/5. Photo Karl Schenker. Robert Leffler as Albrecht von Roon in Bismarck, II (Ernst Wendt, 1925). Von Roon was a Prussian general, who made a career in the military and despite resistance to his imposing of a three-year draft plus the constitution of a Landwehr, as Minister of War he provided Prussia with several military victories. In 1871 he was made count.

Robert Leffler (9 January 1866 – 15 March 1940) was a German actor, film director and opera singer. He was most active in German silent cinema of the 1920s.

Leffler was trained as a singer in Berlin. He began his career in 1889 as a singer and actor at the Stadttheater in Basel, where he remained until 1891. Leffler first appeared mainly as a bass-voiced singer at various opera houses such as in Nuremberg, Meiningen, Lübeck, Riga, Moscow and Düsseldorf, where he was the head of the theatre and opera director at the Stadttheater for 17 years. Leffler was already in his fifties when he debuted in cinema, performing mostly in supporting parts as aristocrats, generals, priests, fathers and uncles, old servants and police commissioners. He appeared in 52 silent films from 1919 to 1929, including the first silent film adaptation of Buddenbrooks, as well as many silent films in which he acted together with Hans Albers. He also directed 15 films himself. After sound had set in, he only played in two more films in the 1930s. His elder brother Hermann (1864-1929) was also an actor. His brother's wife, his sister-in-law, was the opera singer Martha Leffler-Burkhard (1865-1954).

Source: German WIkipedia.

Tags:   Roon Karl Schenker Ross Verlag Ross Bismarck Weimar Historical Costume Historical film 1920s Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine Carte Postale Card Celebrity Costume Film Film Star Movies Movie Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Sepia SChauspieler Stummfilm Darsteller DEutsch Deutschland Drama German Germany Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte Actor Acteur Attore Uniform Schnurrbart moustache military general Prussia Albrecht von Roon

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French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 7. Photo: Charles Vandamme, Paris.

Dynamic Zappy Max (1921-2019) was one of the most popular radio hosts in France and Belgium from the 1950s till the 1970s. He worked for Radio Luxembourg (now RTL) and Radio Monte Carlo (RMC), and his partner was Mr. Champagne. He also appeared in several French films, often as himself.

Zappy Max is the pseudonym of Maxime Doucet, who was born in Paris in 1921. His father gave him a passion for the music-hall. There he began his career as a singer at the orchestra of Jacques Hélian, with whom he remained for three years. He then went to the radio, where he hosted many games such as Quitte ou double (Double or Nothing) and Crochet radiophonique for Radio Circus. With Radio Circus, he travelled all over France and Belgium. He made several radio serials: Vas-y Zappy (Go Zappy), Ça va bouillir (It will boil) and C'est parti mon Zappy (It’s gone My Zappy). His presence at Radio Luxembourg ended in 1966 when it became RTL. He continued his radio career at Radio Monte Carlo (RMC) by hosting the game Quitte ou double (Double or Nothing) again from 1974 until 1982/1983.

Zappy Max performed in plays and in several films. He made his film debut with a bit part in
The anthology film Souvenirs perdus/Lost Souvenirs (Christian Jacque, 1950). He appeared as himself in Quitte ou Double/Double or Nothing (Robert Vernay, 1952). He had his first leading part in the comedy Faites-Moi Confiance/Trust me (Gilles Grangier. 1954). Other films include Les Chiffoniers d'Emmaüs/The Chiffoniers Emmaus (Robert Darène, 1955) with Dany Carrel, Les lumières du soir/The Evening Lights (Robert Vernay, 1956) with Gaby Morlay, and Printemps à Paris/Spring in Paris (Jean-Claude Roy, 1957) starring Dominique Boschero. During the following decades he did a few more performances in films and TV series. His last film appearance was in the drama Outremer/Overseas (Brigitte Roüan, 1990) with Nicole Garcia.

Zappy Max published his memoires in Ça va bouillir/It will boil! (2000) and in L'âge d'or de la radio/ The Golden Age of Radio (2004). He was awarded with the Prix Jean Nohain in 2005. A comic entitled Zappy Max: ça va bouillir/Zappy Max: it's going to boil was designed by Maurice Tillieux for the journal Pilote in 1959, but it was republished in 2010 by Editions de l'Élan. That year Max also published a new book about his passion for the music-hall: Mes GEANTS du music-hall/My GIANTS of the Music-Hall. Indefatigable, he announced a new book, Mes Z d'or... Mémoires d'un cinéphile My Golden Z ... Memoirs of a film buff, with portraits of his favorite actors. Zappu Max passed away in 2019 in Paris. He was 97.

Sources: Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Zappy Max Zappy Max French Actor European Film Star Cinema Theatre TV Film Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Postkarte Briefkarte Briefkaart Postkaart Ansichtkaart Radio Host Charles Vandamme Vandamme Moustache P.I.

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Spanish collectors card by Chocolates Amatller, Barcelona, in the 'Artistas de cine' series, no. 38: Snub Pollard. Image: Martinez Surroca.

Australian-born comedian Snub Pollard (1889-1962) with his walrus moustache was one of the well-known faces of the Hal Roach company during the 1910s.

Fulgencio Martínez Surroca (1902-1967) was a cartoonist, illustrator and publicist, born in Cieza, Murcia, Spain.

From its first issues, he was one of the illustrators who most often published his drawings in the children's magazine Alegría, founded in Terrassa by Magdalena Rossell. He was an art teacher at the School of Artistic Arts and Crafts of Barcelona. In 1929, the jury of the poster contest of the Barcelona Exhibition recommended the acquisition of the original that bore the number 70, entitled Carmen, and which was his work. This is how this author began his long and personal career in Catalan poster design. A few years later, together with Helios Gómez (1905-​​1956), Lluís Muntané i Muns (1899-​​1987) and Joaquim Martí Bas (​​1910-1966), he founded the Associació de Cartellistes de Catalunya.

Among Martínez Surroca's most outstanding works as a poster artist are the graphic propaganda of the Assegurança Obligatòria de Maternitat (1935), that of the Maternal Work of the Caixa de Pensions (1934) and, especially, the poster entitled Barcelonins: Compreu les vostres flors a la Rambla. Spring Festivities. April 1934 (1934), for which he won the contest called by Amics de la Rambla. He is also the author of the Aurigemma Festivals at the Novedades Theater (1935) and Tárrega. IV Provincial Contest of Agricultural Products (1944), as well as those published in 1937 -in the height of the Civil War- by the Barcelona City Council with the titles 10 mesos de desordre: the one that produced the feixisme and Obeeix l´agent de tràfic: ell vetlla per la teva vida, of which the National Library of Madrid conserves individual copies.

Martínez Surroca was the brother of soccer player Salvador Martínez Surroca (1901-1974), who played for FC Barcelona between 1920 and 1926 and, later, for FC Lleida, CE Manresa and FC Tàrrega. Another of his brothers, Antonio Martínez Surroca (1908-?), was an industrial chemist and trade unionist and, after the Civil War, he went into exile in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Panama.

Source: www.tebeosfera.com/autores/martinez_surroca_fulgencio.html

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