French postcard by Edition Delta-Productions, Saint Jean-De-Vedas, no CP-24.

The legendary idol of the French cinema Gérard Philipe (1922–1959) was adored for his good looks, but he was also a very talented actor. He played roles as diverse as Faust and Modigliani and he was sought out by France's preeminent directors for his versatility and professionalism.

Gérard Philipe (sometimes written as Philippe) was born Gérard Philip in Cannes, France in 1922. In 1940, Gérard left school and his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. His mother noticed that he was only interested in acting, but his father was against the idea. Gérard's father, a successful businessman, was a right-wing extremist and collaborated with the Nazis. After the war, he was forced to exile to Spain to escape a death sentence. Gérard himself was his whole life a staunch social liberal politically wise. Actor Claude Dauphin introduced the young Philipe in 1942 to the stage. One of his first parts was as the angel in 'Sodome et Gomorrhe' by Jean Giraudoux in 1943. Director Marc Allégret decided that he showed some promise and gave him a small part in his film Les petites du quai aux fleurs/The Girls From the Quai aux Fleurs (Marc Allégret, 1944) starring Odette Joyeux. With the support of his admirer Jean Cocteau, he entered the Paris Conservatory where under the tutelage of Georges Le Roy he discovered his passion for live theatre. In 1945 he received rave reviews for his performance in the stage production of Albert Camus’ 'Caligula'. This success further opened the doors to the cinema. His first leading part in Le pays sans étoiles/Land Without Stars (Georges Lacombe, 1946) opposite Jany Holt got so many favourable reviews that he became a star.

In 1947, Gérard Philipe exploded upon the European film scene in Le diable au corps/Devil in the Flesh (Claude Autant-Lara, 1947), playing Francois Jaubert, a callow youth in love with much older and very married Micheline Presle. Superstardom followed almost immediately: female filmgoers doted upon Philippe's sensitive, handsome features and strapping physique, while men identified with his soulfulness and introspection. Next, he would take on prominent roles in such classic films as Une si jolie petite plage/Such a Pretty Little Beach (Yves Allégret, 1949), and La beauté du diable/Beauty and the Devil (René Clair, 1950) as Faust. He was an international success as the tongue-in-cheek titular swashbuckler Fanfan la Tulipe/Fan-Fan the Tulip (Christian-Jaque, 1952), one of the most popular historical-adventure films made in France. At Films de France, James Travers reviews: "Not only is the film impeccably made, with lavish production values, stunning cinematography and impressively choreographed fight scenes, but it has a timeless quality which will no doubt ensure it will remain a popular classic for years to come. Philipe excels in this film in what is regarded by many as his finest film role, the indefatigable womaniser and agile swordsman Fanfan la Tulipe. Philipe is simply brilliant in the role, tackling the numerous swordfights and Henri Jeanson’s sparkling dialogue with equal relish." He appeared with such great stars of the European cinema as Italian beauty Gina Lollobrigida in Les belles de nuit/Beauties of the Night (René Clair, 1952), with Michèle Morgan in both Les orgueilleux/The Proud Ones (Yves Allégret, 1953) and Les grandes manœuvres/The Grand Maneuver (René Clair, 1955). In 1956, Philipe starred in and directed a filmization of the old folk tale Till Eulenspiegel, Les Aventures de Till L'Espiègle/Bold Adventure (Gérard Philipe, Joris Ivens, 1956). The French-East-German coproduction was not a success. He simultaneously pursued his stage career, with a keen involvement in the Théatre National de Paris, which would endure up until his death. Whilst working at the TNP, Philipe, a strong believer in egalitarianism, would draw exactly the same salary as junior actors. He would also become president of the French actors union, actively promoting the rights of actors.

Gérard Philipe continued his string of film successes throughout the 1950s. Among these films were the Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation Le joueur/The Gambler (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) with Liselotte Pulver, and Les liaisons dangereuses/Dangerous Liaisons (Roger Vadim, 1959) opposite Jeanne Moreau. In 1959 doctors told Philippe that he had liver cancer. On 25 November that year, while working on Luis Buñuel's Le Fievre Monte a El Pao/Fever Mounts at El Pao (Luis Buñuel, 1959), he died at the peak of his popularity. He was just 36 years old. The news provoked an immediate and intense outpouring of grief. His early death elevated him to a near-legendary status in France. Since 1951, Philipe was married to actress and writer Nicole Fourcade, with whom he had two children, writer and actor Anne-Marie Philipe (1954) and Olivier Philipe (1957). Nicole adopted the pseudonym Anne Philipe and wrote two books about her husband, Souvenirs (1960) and Le Temps d'un soupir (1963, No Longer Than a Sigh). In 1961, Gérard's portrait appeared on a French commemorative postage stamp. There is a film festival named in his honour as well as a number of theatres, schools and colleges in various parts of France. He was also very popular in Germany, and a Berlin theatre has been named after him.

Sources: James Travers (Le Film Guide), AllMovie, Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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

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French postcard by Delta Productions, Montpellier, no. CP152. Orson Welles in Casino Royale (Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, 1967).

American actor, director, writer and producer Orson Welles (1915-1985) worked in theatre, radio and film, both in the US and in Europe. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three media, most notably Caesar (1937), a groundbreaking Broadway adaptation of Julius Caesar and the debut of the Mercury Theatre; The War of the Worlds (1938), one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio; and Citizen Kane (1941), ranked as one of the all-time greatest films. His other films include The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Touch of Evil (1958) and Le Procès/The Trial (1962).

George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1915. He was the second son of Beatrice (née Ives) and Richard Hodgdon Head Welles. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. His brother ‘Dickie’ was institutionalised at an early age because he had learning difficulties. Welles's mother, a beautiful concert pianist, had to support her son and herself. In 1924, Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital, just after Welles's ninth birthday. He was taken in by Dudley Crafts Watson. At the age of ten, Orson ran away from home with Watson's third daughter, Marjorie. They were found a week later, singing and dancing for money on a street corner in Milwaukee. Welles' father died when Orson was 15. Maurice Bernstein, a physician from Chicago, became his guardian. His school teacher Roger Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to perform and stage theatrical experiments and productions. Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University, but he chose to travel to Europe instead. In Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of Gate, Hilton Edwards, was impressed by his brashness and an impassioned quality in his audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate in 1931, appearing in 'Jew Suss' as the Duke. He acted to great acclaim, word of which reached the United States. On returning to the United States he wrote the immensely successful 'Everybody's Shakespeare'. In 1933, he toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company, including two roles in 'Romeo and Juliet'. In 1934, he shot his first film, an eight-minute short titled The Hearts of Age, and he married Chicago actress Virginia Nicholson. By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theatre as a radio actor, working with many actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre.

In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theatre performers and employees to work. Orson Welles was hired by John Houseman and assigned to direct a play for the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Theatre Unit. His production of Macbeth was set in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe, with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters. The play was received rapturously and later toured the nation. At 20, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. A few minutes of Welles’ ‘Voodoo Macbeth’ was recorded on film in the documentary We Work Again (1937). Welles rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's political operetta, The Cradle Will Rock, but because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was cancelled. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, twenty blocks away. Some cast, crew and audience members walked the distance on foot. Lacking the participation of the union members, The Cradle Will Rock began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received and played at the Venice for two more weeks. Welles and Houseman then formed the Mercury Theatre, of which Welles became the executive producer and whose repertory company eventually included the actors Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Río, Everett Sloane, and Erskine Sanford. The first Mercury Theatre production was William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar, set in a contemporary frame of fascist Italy. The production was widely acclaimed. In the second year of the Mercury Theater, Welles shifted his interests to the radio. He adapted, directed and played Hamlet for CBS and Les Misérables for Mutual with great success. CBS gave the Mercury Theatre a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. In 1938, their adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners from the rival more popular Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy program was later reported in the media to have created widespread confusion. Wikipedia: “Panic was reportedly spread among listeners who believed the news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech some months later. The 1975 docudrama The Night That Panicked America was based on events centering on the production of, and events that resulted from the program.”

Orson Welles's growing fame drew Hollywood offers, lures that the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered him complete artistic control and signed Welles in a two-picture deal, although Welles had a budget limit for his projects. In Hollywood, Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project. RKO rejected Welles's first two movie proposals but agreed on the third offer, Citizen Kane (1941), for which Welles co-wrote, produced, directed and performed the lead role. Co-scriptwriter Joseph Mankiewicz based the original outline on an exposé of the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially and came to hate, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Kane's megalomania was modelled loosely on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes and Joseph Pulitzer as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. On Welles's instruction, John Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of The March of Time newsreels. Autobiographical allusions to Welles were worked in, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood and particularly, regarding his guardianship. Once the script was complete, Welles attracted cinematographer Gregg Toland, and actors from his Mercury Theatre. After gossip columnist Hedda Hopper saw a preview screening of Citizen Kane, the attempted suppression of Citizen Kane started. Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film. They exerted enormous pressure on Hollywood, but RKO gave the film a limited release. The film was well-received critically and garnered nine Academy Award nominations. Welles was nominated as a producer, director, writer and actor, but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared with Mankiewicz. Today, the film is considered by most film critics and historians to be one of the classics in film history.

Orson Welles's second film for RKO was The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. At RKO's request, Welles worked also on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, Journey into Fear (Norman Foster, 1943), co-written with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was the producer. Changes throughout RKO caused re-evaluations of both projects. RKO took control of The Magnificent Ambersons and ordered to edit the film into a ‘commercial’ format. They removed fifty minutes of Welles's footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and added a happy ending. It resulted in an expensive flop for RKO, although The Magnificent Ambersons received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead. Welles found no studios interested in him as a director after the disaster of The Magnificent Ambersons and worked on radio. In 1943, he married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other films. He starred in the film adaptation of Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson, 1944), trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He had a cameo in the wartime salute Follow the Boys (A. Edward Sutherland, 1944), in which he performed his magic act ‘sawing’ Marlene Dietrich in half. In 1946, Sam Spiegel produced The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946), starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles. The film follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in the United States. Although disputes occurred during editing between Spiegel and Welles, the film was a box office success and it helped his standing with the studios. He then filmed The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947) for Columbia Pictures, in which his then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-starred. Cohn disliked Welles's rough-cut and ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. Approximately one hour of Welles's first cut was removed, including much of a climactic confrontation scene in an amusement park funhouse. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release, though the closing shootout in a hall of mirrors has since become a touchstone of film noir. Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of Macbeth (Orson Welles, 1948). Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents and held up general release for almost a year after the early negative press reaction. In the late 1970s, a fully restored version of Macbeth was released that followed Welles's original vision.

Orson Welles left Hollywood for Europe. In Italy, he starred as Cagliostro in Black Magic (Gregory Ratoff, 1948) with Akim Tamiroff. His co-star impressed Welles so much that Tamiroff would appear in four of Welles's later productions. Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949), alongside Joseph Cotten. The film was an international smash hit. Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the Italian film Prince of Foxes (Henry King, 1949), and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in The Black Rose (Henry Hathaway, 1950), both with Tyrone Power. Welles was channelling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play Othello. From 1949 to 1951, Welles filmed Othello (1952) on location in Europe and Morocco. Suzanne Cloutier co-starred as Desdemona. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but the film did not receive a general release in the United States until 1955. Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith, restored Othello in 1992 for a wide re-release. Welles played the murdered victim in Trent's Last Case (Herbert Wilcox, 1952) and the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of Three Cases of Murder (George More O'Ferrall, 1954). Herbert Wilcox cast Welles as the antagonist in Trouble in the Glen (1954) opposite Margaret Lockwood, and John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in Moby-Dick (1956), starring Gregory Peck. Welles's next turn as director was Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles, 1955), filmed in France, Germany, Spain and Italy on a very limited budget. Welles played a billionaire who hires a man (Robert Arden) to delve into the secrets of his past. The film co-starred Welles's third wife, Paola Mori. Frustrated by his slow progress in the editing room, producer Louis Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished the film without him as Confidential Report. In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood and guest-starred on radio and television shows. His next film role was in Man in the Shadow (Jack Arnold, 1957) for Universal Pictures, starring Jeff Chandler. Around this time period, Welles began to suffer from weight problems that would eventually cause a deterioration in his health. Welles stayed on at Universal to co-star with Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958). Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal at the insistence of Heston. He reunited with many actors and technicians with whom he had worked in the 1940s including Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich and Akim Tamiroff. Filming proceeded smoothly, but after the end of production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. In 1978, a longer preview version of the film was discovered and released. Next, Welles filmed his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project. Welles continued acting, notably in The Long, Hot Summer (Marin Ritt, 1958) and Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959), but soon he returned to Europe.

In Italy, Orson Welles directed his own scenes as King Saul in David e Golia/David and Goliath (Ferdinando Baldi, Richard Pottier, 1959). In Hong Kong, he co-starred with Curt Jürgens in Ferry to Hong Kong (Lewis Gilbert, 1959). In Paris, he co-starred in Crack in the Mirror (Richard Fleischer, 1960). In Yugoslavia, he starred in I tartari/The Tartars (Richard Thorpe, 1962) and Bitka na Neretvi/Battle of Neretva (Veljko Bulajić, 1969). In 1962, Welles directed Le Procès/The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962), based on the novel by Franz Kafka and starring Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider. The film failed at the box office, but during the filming, he met Oja Kodar, who became his muse, star and mistress for the rest of his life. Welles played a film director in La Ricotta (1963)—Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the anthology film Ro.Go.Pa.G. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming Campanadas a medianoche/Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles, 1966). Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff (Welles) and his relationship with Prince Hal (Keith Baxter). Then followed Histoire immortelle/The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968) with Jeanne Moreau, which had a successful run in French theatres. He appeared as Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966) for which he won considerable acclaim. Welles began directing The Deep, based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Oja Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1969, Welles played a supporting role in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter. Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles moved back to America in 1970.

In Hollywood, Orson Welles continued to self-finance his own film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on television talk shows. His primary focus during his final years was The Other Side of the Wind, an unfinished project that was filmed intermittently between 1970 and 1976. Written by Welles, it is the story of an ageing film director (John Huston) looking for funds to complete his final film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed, and disputes still prevent its release. Welles portrayed Louis XVIII of France in Waterloo (Sergey Bondarchuk, 1970), and narrated the historical comedy Start the Revolution Without Me (Bud Yorkin, 1970). He appeared in La décade prodigieuse/Ten Days' Wonder (Claude Chabrol, 1971), co-starring with Anthony Perkins. Wikipedia: “That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary award "For superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures". Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles, even while they refused to give Welles any work.” Welles played Long John Silver in Treasure Island (John Hough, 1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. He completed F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1973), a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving, and his documentary Filming Othello (Orson Welles, 1979). During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as The Dreamers, based on two stories by Isak Dinesen. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's Someone to Love (1987), released after his death. Welles had three daughters: Chris Welles Feder (1938), with Virginia Nicholson; Rebecca Welles Manning (1944–2004), with Rita Hayworth; and Beatrice Welles (1955), with Paola Mori. His only known son, British director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (1940), is from Welles's affair with Irish actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, then the wife of Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 4th baronet. On 10 October 1985, Orson Welles appeared in his final interview on The Merv Griffin Show. He died several hours later of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles. His estranged wife Paola Mori refused to allow most of Welles's friends to attend the funeral, limiting the mourners to just nine: herself, Welles's three daughters, Roger Hill, and three of Welles's friends, as well as the doctor who had signed Welles's death certificate. Welles's companion for the last 20 years, Oja Kodar, was not invited, nor were either of his ex-wives. Welles's ashes were taken to Ronda, Spain, where they were buried in an old well covered by flowers, within the rural property of a long-time friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez.

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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French postcard by Delta Productions, Montpellier, no. CP153.

American actor Charles Bronson (1921-2003) was the archetypal screen tough guy with weatherbeaten features. He was a man of few words but much action in hits like Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Dirty Dozen (1967). But our favourite is the iconic Spaghetti Western C'era una volta il West/Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Charles Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky, in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, in 1921. He was one of 15 children of struggling parents. His mother, Mary (Valinsky), was born in Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian parents, and his father, Walter Buchinsky, was a Lithuanian immigrant coal miner. He completed high school and joined his father in the mines and then served in WW II. After his return from the war, Bronson used the GI Bill to study art, then enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. One of his teachers was impressed with the young man and recommended him to director Henry Hathaway, resulting in Bronson making his film debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951). He appeared on screen often early in his career, though usually uncredited. However, he made an impact on audiences as the evil assistant to Vincent Price in the 3-D thriller House of Wax (Andre de Toth, 1953). His sinewy yet muscular physique got him cast in action-type roles, often without a shirt to highlight his manly frame. He received positive notices from critics for his performances in Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich, 1954), Target Zero (Harmon Jones, 1955) and Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller, 1957) with Rod Steiger and Sara Montiel. Indie director Roger Corman cast him as the lead in his well-received low-budget gangster flick Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), then Bronson scored the lead in his own TV series, Man with a Camera (1958-1960).

The 1960s proved to be the era in which Charles Bronson made his reputation as a man of few words but much action. Director John Sturges cast him as half Irish/half Mexican gunslinger Bernardo O'Reilly in the smash hit Western The Magnificent Seven (1960) with Yul Brynner, and hired him again as tunnel rat Danny Velinski for the WWII POW big-budget epic The Great Escape (1963), starring Steve McQueen. Several more strong roles followed, then once again he was back in military uniform, alongside Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in the testosterone-filled The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967). European audiences had taken a shine to his minimalist acting style, and he headed to the Continent to star in several action-oriented films, including La bataille de San Sebastian/Guns for San Sebastian (Henri Verneuil, 1968), the cult western C'era una volta il West/Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) opposite Claudia Cardinale, Le passager de la pluie/Rider On The Rain (René Clément, 1970) with Jill Ireland, the Western Soleil rouge/Red Sun (Terence Young, 1971) alongside Japansese screen legend Toshirô Mifune and Ursula Andress, and The Valachi Papers (Terence Young, 1972) with Lino Ventura and Jill Ireland, who had become his wife in 1968.

Charles Bronson returned to Hollywood in the early 1970s to take the lead in the revenge Western Chato's Land (Michael Winner, 1972) and the crime film The Mechanic (Michael Winner, 1972). After nearly 25 years as a working actor, he became an 'overnight sensation'. Bronson and British director Michael Winner made more highly successful urban crime thrillers, such as The Stone Killer (1973). He then scored a solid hit as a Colorado melon farmer-done-wrong in the Elmore Leonard adaptation Mr. Majestyk (Richard Fleischer, 1974). However, the film that proved to be a breakthrough for both Bronson and Winner was the controversial Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1974). IMDb: "The US was at the time in the midst of rising street crime, and audiences flocked to see a story about a mild-mannered architect who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter by gunning down hoods, rapists and killers on the streets of New York City. So popular was the film that it spawned four sequels over the next 20 years." Possibly his best role was the Depression-era street fighter Chaney in Hard Times (Walter Hill, 1975) alongside James Coburn. That was followed by the Western Breakheart Pass (Tom Gries, 1975) with Jill Ireland, the light-hearted romp From Noon Till Three (Frank Gilroy, 1976) and as Soviet agent Grigori Borsov in the Cold War thriller Telefon (Don Siegel, 1977) with Lee Remick. Bronson remained busy throughout the 1980s, with most of his films taking a more violent tone. Bronson jolted many critics with his forceful work as murdered United Mine Workers leader Jock Yablonski in the TV movie Act of Vengeance (John Mackenzie, 1986) opposite Ellen Burstyn, and gave an interesting performance in The Indian Runner (Sean Penn, 1991) starring David Morse and Viggo Mortensen. He surprised many as compassionate newspaper editor Francis Church in the family film Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (Charles Jarrott, 1991). Ill health began to take its toll; Charles Bronson suffered from Alzheimers disease for the last few years of his life, and finally passed away from pneumonia at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 2003.

Source: IMDb.

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French postcard by Edition Delta-Productions, Saint Jean-de-Vedasm, no. CP 159. Alain Cuny and Arletty in Les visiteurs du soir (Marcel Carné, 1942).

French actor Alain Cuny (1908-1994) worked in both France and Italy. Among his most notable films are Les Visiteurs du soir (1942), Les Amants/The Lovers (1958), La dolce vita (1960) and Satyricon (1969).

Blessed with a combination of charisma, good looks and impressive acting ability, Arletty (1898–1992) portrayed several femme fatales, vamps, and prostitutes in French films and stage plays of the 1930s and 1940s. Her characters were down-to-earth, earthy, slightly comical female types, usually complex characters with a tough outer shell which concealed an inner vulnerability. She is best remembered as ethereal and mysterious Garance in Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis (1944). When the Second World War ended, Arletty's career was marked with controversy. During the occupation of France she had fallen in love with a German officer, and after the liberation she was jailed as a collaborator. Her career would continue after a suspension but never reached the same level as before and during the war.

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French postcard by Edition Delta-Productions, Saint-Jean-De-Vedas, no. CP 207.

Film and stage actor Francis Huster (1947) is one of French cinema's most recognizable faces. With his dark good looks, he is adept at drama and comedy and played classic heroes and amiable sidekicks.

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