German cigarette card in the series 'Filmstars der Welt' by Greiling Sammelbilder, Series C, no. 135. Photo: Paramount.

American actress Joan Caulfield (1922-1991) started as a fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a successful stage career in 1943. Paramount signed her and she starred in romantic comedies such as Dear Ruth (1947) and Film Noirs like The Unsuspected (1947). She was hailed in her time as one of the screen's great beauties, many of her cameramen said she was one of the few women in Hollywood whom it was virtually impossible to photograph badly.

Beatrice Joan Caulfield was born in 1922 in West Orange, New Jersey. She was one of three daughters to Henry R. Caulfield, an aircraft company administrator based in Manhattan. She attended Miss Beard's School in Orange, New Jersey. During her teenage years, the family moved to New York City, where she attended Columbia University in late 1940. Her early forays into acting with the Morningside Players acting troupe did not appear to suggest any special talents in that direction, so she turned her ambitions towards a modelling career. Joan's exceptional looks and demure personality soon secured her top fashion shoots through the Harry Conover Agency, including a Life magazine cover in 1942. This caught the attention of renowned Broadway producer George Abbott who asked her to audition for a small part as Veronica, a dumb blonde in his upcoming production of 'Beat the Band'. While the musical was poorly received, critics singled out for praise of Joan's "decidedly winsome" looks and her budding comedic talent. Abbott stuck with her and cast her as the female lead in his 1943 comedy 'Kiss and Tell', co-starring as her brother a young Richard Widmark. This time, Joan attracted rave reviews for her "natural and endearing" performance and was voted most promising actress in the New York Drama Critics annual poll. After fourteen months and 480 shows, Joan quit the cast of 'Kiss and Tell' in early 1944. She was replaced by her sister Betty Caulfield. The play went on for 962 performances, was filmed twice and turned into a TV and radio series as Meet Corliss Archer (1954). Though initially reluctant to forsake the stage for motion pictures, Joan Caulfield succumbed to an offer from Paramount in early 1944. Her contract even included a special clause permitting her to work on Broadway for six months each year. Paramount put Caulfield in a lead role in her first film: Miss Susie Slagle's (John Berry, 1946) with Veronica Lake. During her tenure with the studio (1944-1950), she appeared in eleven films including a couple of loan-outs to Warner Brothers and Universal, respectively. As a leading lady, she was genteel, cultured and alluring, without exuding too much overt sex appeal. Often, she was merely decorative. As love interest to both Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby in Blue Skies (Stuart Heisler, Mark Sandrich, 1946), Bosley Crowther of the New York Times considered her "most lovely and passive". Nevertheless, the picture was a huge hit and Joan found herself in number ten spot on Variety's list of 1946 top-grossing actresses, despite the inescapable fact, that, as a dancing partner to Astaire, she was barely adequate. In the course of her later films, it also transpired that she was not particularly convincing as a dramatic actress. Joan did, however, come into her own in breezy comedy roles such as a chambermaid in Monsieur Beaucaire (George Marshall, 1946) opposite Bob Hope. Crowther called her performance "delightfully nimble". The highlight of her Hollywood career was a starring role opposite William Holden in the wholesome family comedy Dear Ruth (William D. Russell, 1947). From the play by Norman Krasna allegedly based on the household of Groucho Marx, the picture was box office gold. Joan was to be typecast in peaches and cream roles thereafter.

Joan Caulfield was loaned out to Warner Brothers for the mystery thriller Perfect Alibi (Michael Curtiz, 1947). I.S. Mowis at IMDb: "A victory of style over content, thanks mainly to taut direction by Michael Curtiz". Warner also cast her in the all-star musical jamboree Variety Girl (George Marshall, 1947), getting rather lost among the more extrovert performers. Her other loan-out was to Universal for Larceny (George Sherman, 1948), in which she played a naive widow, conned by a hustler (John Payne) out of a large sum of money for erecting a bogus monument to her late husband. Dear Wife (Richard Haydn, 1949) was also a sequel to Dear Ruth, chiefly enjoyable for the histrionics of that excellent character actor, Edward Arnold. By this time, Joan had come to reject her wholesome image, referring to George Abbott who had once quipped that "she looked better on a tennis court than in bed". Increasingly dissatisfied with her assignments, Joan later claimed to have been poorly advised by drama coaches, agents and studio executives alike. She also blamed herself for some of her choices. Her contract was not renewed in 1949 and Joan freelanced from then on, but the choice of roles in films remained elusive. The Petty Girl (Henry Levin, 1950), The Lady Says No (Frank Ross, 1951) and The Rains of Ranchipur (Jean Negulesco, 1955) were all decidedly trite, lacklustre affairs, later to be followed by a trio of dismal low-budget Westerns. Television anthologies offered her some relief from typecasting. Joan starred in her own NBC comedy series, Sally (1957). It was produced by her then-husband, Frank Ross, and boasted an impressive supporting cast, including Gale Gordon, Arte Johnson and Marion Lorne who received an Emmy nomination. As fortunes would have it, the series fared poorly in the ratings because of its unfortunate time slot which put it up against top-ranking shows like Maverick (1957) and Bachelor Father (1957). She had the occasional role in a feature, such as Cattle King (Tay Garnett, 1963) with Robert Taylor, Red Tomahawk (R. G. Springsteen, 1967) and Buckskin (Michael D. Moore, 1967) with Barry Sullivan. Yet another setback to her career was the 1963 play 'She Didn't Say Yes' which folded before making it to Broadway. In the end, Joan Caulfield reinvented herself as a businesswoman with considerable financial acumen on the stock exchange, becoming vice president of Lustre Shine Co. Inc., a company which produced and installed self-polishing machines in airports and hotels. There were also two divorces and several lawsuits which kept her name in the public consciousness. In 1971, she received some good notices for performing in Neil Simon's play 'Plaza Suite' at the Showboat Dinner Theatre in Florida. Joan made several more guest appearances on television, her last in an episode of Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 1971, she fittingly commented in The Evening Independent on her show business career: "Before 1952, I was just playing myself, then I learned to be an actress". Joan Caulfield was married Twice. In 1950, she married director Frank Ross. They had a son, Caulfield Kevin Ross (1959), and divorced in 1960. That year, she married Dr. Robert Peterson. They had another son, John Caulfield Peterson (1962), and divorced in 1966. Joan Caulfield died in 1991, two weeks after cancer surgery in Los Angeles. Her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.

Sources: I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Joan Caulfield Joan Caulfield American Actress Pin-up Beachwear Girl Woman Sexy Swimwear Swimsuit Hollywood Film Star Movie Star Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Film Star Glamour Allure Vintage Filmstars der Welt Greiling Greiling-Sammelbilder Paramount Bikini White Bikini Beach

© All Rights Reserved

Small German collectors card in the 'Film Stars der Welt ' series by Greiling-Sammelbilder, series E, no. 152. Photo: RKO.

American actress Janet Leigh (1927-2004) starred in more than 50 films, but will always be remembered for the 45 minutes that she was on the screen in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Her shower scene became a film landmark. She was nominated for an Oscar and received a Golden Globe. Also unforgettable are her roles in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962), in which she starred with Frank Sinatra. Leigh and Tony Curtis were married from 1951 to 1962.

Janet Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison in 1927 as the only child of a very young married couple, Helen Lita (née Westergaard) and Frederick Morrison in Merced, California. She spent her childhood moving from town to town due to her father's changing jobs. A bright child who skipped several grades in school, Leigh took music and dancing lessons, making her public debut at age 10 as a baton twirler for a marching band. Her favourite times were the afternoons spent at the local cinema, which she referred to as her "babysitter." After high school, she studied music and psychology at College of the Pacific in Stockton. In the winter of 1945, she stayed at Sugar Bowl, a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains, with her parents. Leigh's mother was working at a ski lodge where actress Norma Shearer was vacationing. Shearer was impressed by a photograph of then-eighteen-year-old Leigh taken by the ski club photographer over the Christmas holiday. Shearer brought Leigh to the attention of MGM talent agent Lew Wasserman who offered the girl a contract. Leigh left the College of the Pacific to take acting lessons from Lillian Burns. Her prior acting experience consisted only of a college play. One year later Leigh was at MGM, playing the ingenue in the film Romance of Rosy Ridge (Roy Rowland, 1947), a big-screen romance in which she starred opposite veteran Hollywood actor Van Johnson. The studio changed her name into Janet Leigh. The Romance of Rosy Ridge was a box-office success and the same year Leigh was cast for the film If Winter Comes (Victor Saville, 1947) with Walter Pidgeon and Deborah Kerr. The young actress became one of the busiest contractees at the studio, building her following with solid performances in such films as Little Women (Mervyn LeRoy, 1949), The Doctor and the Girl (Curtis Bernhardt, 1950) as Glenn Ford's love interest, and the Swashbuckler Scaramouche (George Sidney, 1952), starring Stewart Granger.

Janet Leigh caught the eye of RKO Radio's owner Howard Hughes, who hoped that her several RKO appearances on loan from MGM would lead to something substantial in private life. Instead, Leigh married Tony Curtis who became her third husband at 25. During her final year of high school, Leigh married eighteen-year-old John Kenneth Carlisle in Reno in 1942. The marriage was annulled five months later. Her second marriage to Stanley Reames (1946-1948) lasted two years. Curtis and Leigh became the darlings of fan magazines and columnists, as well as occasional co-stars in such films as Houdini (George Marshall , 1953), The Black Shield of Falworth (Rudolph Maté, 1954), and The Vikings (Richard Fleischer, 1958) with Kirk Douglas. Even as this 'perfect' Hollywood marriage deteriorated in the late 1950s, Leigh's career prospered. In the Film Noir Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958), she starred opposite Charlton Heston and Orson Welles. Among her significant roles in the 1960s were that of Frank Sinatra's enigmatic lady friend in The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962), and Paul Newman's ex-wife in the mystery Harper (Jack Smight, 1966). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "and, of course, the unfortunate embezzler in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), who met her demise in the nude (actually covered by a moleskin) and covered with blood (actually chocolate sauce, which photographed better) in the legendary 'shower scene'." The part of Marion Crane would become her most famous role and she received an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for it.

Meanwhile, Janet Leigh had become the mother of two daughters, Kelly (1956) and Jamie-Lee (1958) and had divorced Tony Curtis in 1962. In the same year, she remarried stockbroker Robert Brandt, with whom she would remain for the next 42 years. In order to spend more time with her family, Leigh began to put her career on hold. She mainly played roles in television productions such as Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1964-1966), The Red Skelton Show (1969), and Tales of the Unexpected (1982-1984). Notable were her appearances in the feature-length television film The House on Greenapple Road (Robert Day, 1970) and her role as a forgotten film actress in 'Forgotten Lady' (1975), an episode of the series Columbo. She made her Broadway debut in 1975 in a production of 'Murder Among Friends'. In the cinema, she starred in the supernatural horror film The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980) with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. In the 1980s, Leigh curtailed her film and TV appearances, though her extended legacy as both the star/victim of Psycho and the mother of actress Jamie Lee Curtis still found her a notable place in the world of cinema even if her career was no longer "officially" active. She co-starred with Jamie Lee again in the slasher Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (Steve Miner, 1998). Leigh wrote an autobiography 'There Really Was a Hollywood' (1984), and a non-fiction 'Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller' (1995, co-authored with Christopher Nickens), as well as two novels 'House of Destiny' (1996) and 'The Dream Factory' (2002). Janet Leigh died of vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, in 2004, at home in Beverly Hills in the presence of her family. She was 77. Leigh was cremated and her ashes were entombed at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in the Westwood Village neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Janet Leigh Janet Leigh American Actress Hollywood Movie Star Film Cinema Kino Cine Picture Screen Movie Movies Glamour Allure Star Vintage Collectors Card Carte Cartolina Tarjet Sammelkarte Verzamelkaart Film Stars der Welt Greiling-Sammelbilder Greiling RKO

© All Rights Reserved

Small German collectors card in the 'Film Stars der Welt ' series by Greiling-Sammelbilder, series E, no. 150. Photo: Monogram.

Blonde and beautiful Irish actress Peggy Cummins (1925-2017) was unforgettable as the trigger-happy femme fatale who robs banks with her lover in the Film Noir classic Gun Crazy (1949).

Peggy Cummins was born Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller in Prestatyn, Wales in 1925. Her Irish parents happened to be in Wales at the time of her birth and a storm kept them from returning to their home in Dublin. Peggy lived most of her early life in Dublin where she was educated and later in London. Her mother was the actress Margaret Cummins who played the small but effective role of Anna the maid in Smart Woman (1948) and played Emily in the Margaret Ferguson film The Sign of the Ram. In 1938 actor Peter Brock noticed Peggy Cummins at a Dublin tram stop and introduced her to Dublin's Gate Theatre Company. She then appeared on the London stage in the title role of Alice in Wonderland and in the title role of Junior Miss at age 12 at the Saville Theatre. Cummins made her film debut at 13 in the British drama Dr. O'Dowd (Herbert Mason, 1940). The film was received positively by critics, and especially Peggy got good reviews. Her first major film was English Without Tears/Her Man Gilbey (Harold French, 1944) with Michael Wilding and Lilli Palmer. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “ a gentle satire of the temporary relaxation of class barriers in wartime England.’ According to Erickson, as a precocious teenager she ‘stole’ Welcome, Mr. Washington (Leslie Hiscott, 1944), a sometimes amusing, sometimes poignant dramatization of what happened when American troops ‘invaded’ England during WW II.

Amidst a shower of publicity, Peggy Cummins was brought to Hollywood in 1945. Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, wanted her to play Amber in Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber (Otto Preminger, 1947). However, she was soon replaced by Linda Darnell because she was "too young." As compensation, she went on to make six films in Hollywood. In Hollywood, Cummins had several suitors. She briefly dated both Howard Hughes, and the future American president John F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, she starred with Victor Mature in the Film Noir Moss Rose (Gregory Ratoff, 1947), and with Rex Harrison in the thriller Escape (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1948). The highlight was her part as a psychopathic Bonnie Parker-type criminal in Gun Crazy/Deadly Is the Female (1949) directed by B-movie specialist Joseph H. Lewis. The script about a couple of star-crossed lovers (Cummins and John Dall) shooting their way across the modern west was co-written by MacKinlay Kantor and the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, who was ‘fronted’ by his friend Millard Kaufman. The stylish and gritty Gun Crazy was made for a measly $400,000 in 30 days. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “The definitive Joseph H. Lewis-directed melodrama, Gun Crazy is the "Bonnie and Clyde" story retooled for the disillusioned postwar generation. John Dall plays a timorous, emotionally disturbed World War II veteran who has had a lifelong fixation with guns. He meets a kindred spirit in carnival sharpshooter Peggy Cummins, who is equally disturbed - but a lot smarter, and hence a lot more dangerous. Beyond their physical attraction to one another, both Dall and Cummins are obsessed with firearms. They embark on a crime spree, with Cummins as the brains and Dall as the trigger man. As sociopathic a duo as are likely to be found in a 1940s film, Dall and Cummins are also perversely fascinating. As they dance their last dance before dying in a hail of police bullets, the audience is half hoping that somehow they'll escape the Inevitable.”

During a brief stay in Italy in 1948, she filmed That Dangerous Age/If This Be Sin (Gregory Ratoff, 1949) with Myrna Loy and Roger Livesey. She returned to London in 1950 to marry and work in British films. In 1952 she starred in the comedy Who Goes There! (Anthony Kimmins, 1952) with Nigel Patrick, and a year later she appeared in the Ealing comedy Meet Mr. Lucifer (Anthony Pelissier, 1953) with Stanley Holloway. She later starred in the horror film Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) with Dana Andrews as an American psychologist investigating a satanic cult. Patrick Legare at AllMovie: “a frightening, fast-paced, and unrelenting chiller that only gets better with passing years and repeated viewings. Directed by Jacques Tourneur from the M.R. James story Casting the Runes, Curse stars Dana Andrews as a psychologist out to disprove the black magic of co-star Niall MacGinnis. Peggy Cummings also stars as the daughter of a scientist killed by the title creature during the shocking opening. Tourneur was a master at scaring an audience by the power of suggestion, and Curse accomplished this with one exception: the director didn't care for the studio's decision to show the demon in the beginning.” In the thriller Hell Drivers (Cy Endfield, 1957), her co-stars were Stanley Baker, Patrick McGoohan and Herbert Lom. Cummins's last film was In the Doghouse (Darcy Conyers, 1961) alongside Leslie Phillips. After her film career had ended, she lived in retirement in Hampshire, England. During the 1970s Cummins was very active in a national charity, Stars Organisation for Spastics, raising money and chairing the management committee of a holiday centre for children with disabilities in Sussex. Peggy Cummins was married to London businessman Derek Dunnett from 1950 until his death in 2000. Peggy Cummins passed away in 2017 in London at the age of 92.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Patrick Legare (AllMovie), Michael Adams (Movieline), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Peggy Cummins Irish British Actress European Film Star Hollywood Movie Star Cinema Film Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Collectors Card Cartolina Carte Tarjet Sammelkarte Verzamelkaart Film Stars der Welt Greiling-Sammelbilder Greiling Monogram Peggy Cummins

© All Rights Reserved

Small German collectors card in the 'Film Stars der Welt ' series by Greiling-Sammelbilder, series E, no. 101. Photo: Super-Film. Lea Padovani in Atto di accusa/The Accusation (Giacomo Gentilomo, 1950).

Lea Padovani (1923-1991) was an Italian stage and film actress. She appeared in 60 films between 1945 and 1990. She starred in the French crime film Le Dossier noir/Black Dossier (André Cayatte, 1955) which was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.

Lea Padovani was born in Montalto di Castro, in 1923. Against her father's advice, Lea enrolled at L'Accademia d'arte Drammatica, the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome, which she left in 1944. She made her debut as a soubrette in Garinei and Giovannini's revue 'Cantachiaro'. The following year, she was part of Erminio Macario's company in 'Febbre azzurra'. She demonstrated excellent acting skills and enjoyed great success. Her meeting with Macario lead to work in the film industry. She made her film debut with the female leading role in the comedy L'innocente Casimiro/The Innocent Casimiro (Carlo Campogalliani, 1946) starring Erminio Macario. In 1946 she began her long and successful career as a theatre actress with Armand Salacrou's 'Un uomo come gli altri' and with Jean Cocteau's 'I parenti terribili' in Luchino Visconti's Milanese revival. In 1953, she was alongside Ruggero Ruggeri in a tour of London and Paris with 'Enrico IV' and 'Tutto per bene'. In 1954 she was awarded a special Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon award) for her theatrical performances.

From 1947 Lea Padovani appeared in international films, such as Una lettera al Alba/Letter at Dawn (Giorgio Bianchi, 1948) and the British social drama Give Us This Day (Edward Dmytryk, 1949) with Sam Wanamaker. Orson Welles originally cast Lea as Desdemona in his 1952 film production of Othello back in 1948. After Welles began the filming in Venice, producer Montatori Scalera informed Welles that he wanted to make Verdi's opera, not the Shakespearean play, so the money ran out and the movie was shelved. By the time the movie was made years later Lea had been replaced by Suzanne Cloutier. A big hit was the comedy Pane, amore e...../Scandal in Sorrento (Dino Risi, 1955) in which she co-starred with Sophia Loren and Vittorio De Sica. In the 1950s, Padovani also took part in several TV dramas, including Piccole done (Anton Giulio Majano, 1955), Il romanzo di un giovane povero (Silverio Blasi, 1957) and Ottocento (Anton Giulio Majano, 1959-1960). During the 1960s, the stage and television became more important than her film career. In 1990, she made her last film, La putain du roi/The King's Whore (Axel Corti, 1990) with Timothy Dalton and Valeria Golina. Shortly before her death, the actress told writer Renzo Allegri about her encounters with Padre Pio in the late 1950s, asking for help for one of her lovers, who was terminally ill with cancer. She died in 1991 of a heart attack. In 2006, director Oliver Parker directed the film Fade to Black, based on the novel Fade to Black by Davide Ferrario, inspired by a fictional story involving the actress, played in the film by Paz Vega, and the director Orson Welles, played by Danny Huston. In 2012, the theatre named after Lea Padovani was inaugurated in Montalto di Castro by Mayor Sergio Caci and culture councillor Eleonora Sacconi.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian and English) and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Lea Padovani Lea Padovani Italian Actress Actrice European Film Star Film Cine Kino Cinema Movie Movies Picture Screen Filmster Star Vintage Collectors Card Cartolina Carte Tarjet Sammelkarte Verzamelkaart Film Stars der Welt Greiling-Sammelbilder Greiling Super-Film Atto di accusa 1950

© All Rights Reserved

German collectors card in the series E - Filmstars der Welt 2. Band by Greilings-sammelbilder, no. 162. Photo: Hamann / Meyerpress.

Petite and glamorous Sonja Henie (1912-1969) was one of the greatest figure skaters in history, the ‘Pavlova of the ice’. She won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater. At the height of her acting career, the Norwegian figure skater and film star was one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. She had a shrewd business sense and was immensely successful next with a series of ice revues.

Sonja Henie was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway in 1912. She was the only daughter of Wilhelm Henie, a Norwegian fur wholesaler and his wife Selma Lochmann-Nielsen. In addition to the income from the fur business, both of Henie's parents had inherited wealth. Wilhelm Henie had been a one-time World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. As a girl, Henie was ranked Norway's third best tennis player, and she was also a skilled swimmer and equestrienne. She initially showed talent at skiing, and then followed her older brother Leif to take up figure skating. She received her first skates from her father on the Christmas after her sixth birthday. Once Henie began to train seriously as a figure skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world to transform his daughter into a sporting celebrity. She studied ballet with Tamara Karsavina a former teacher of Anna Pavlova, and eventually she combined skating and ballet on ice. She won the children's figure skating championship of Oslo when she was 8, and two years later, in 1923, she won the figure skating championship of Norway. She then placed eighth in a field of eight at the 1924 Winter Olympics, at the age of eleven. Henie won the first of an unprecedented ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 at the age of fourteen. That year she also made her film debut with a small part in the romantic comedy Syv dager for Elisabeth/Seven Days for Elizabeth (1927, Leif Sinding). Henie went on to win first of her three Olympic gold medals the following year. She defended her Olympic titles in 1932 and in 1936, and her World titles annually until 1936. She also won six consecutive European championships from 1931 to 1936. Henie's unprecedented three Olympic gold medals haven't been matched by any ladies single skater since; neither are her achievements as ten-time consecutive World Champion. Henie was the first figure skater to adopt the short skirt costume in figure skating, wear white boots, and make use of dance choreography. Henie also had great spinning ability. She incorporated 19 different spins into her programs, and she could spin nearly 80 revolutions. Her innovative skating techniques and glamorous demeanor transformed the sport permanently and confirmed its acceptance as a legitimate sport in the Winter Olympics. Towards the end of her career, she began to be strongly challenged by younger skaters. However, she held off the competition and went on to win her third Olympic title at the 1936 Winter Olympics. Henie travelled widely and was much in demand as a performer at figure skating exhibitions in both Europe and North America. She became so popular that police had to be called out for crowd control on her appearances in various cities.

After the 1936 World Figure Skating Championships, Sonja Henie gave up her amateur status and took up a career as a professional performer in acting and live shows. As a girl, Henie had decided to try to become a movie star when her competitive days were over. In 1936, following a successful ice show in Los Angeles orchestrated by her father to launch her film career, Hollywood studio chief Darryl Zanuck signed her to a long term contract at Twentieth Century Fox. It made her one of the highest-paid actresses of the time. Her first film, One in a Million (1936, Sidney Lanfield) with Adolphe Menjou, was a box-office smash. She continued to make profitable light comedies throughout the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. Each film had several ice skating sequences. These films included Thin Ice (1937, Sidney Lanfield) with Tyrone Power, Second Fiddle (1939, Sidney Lanfield) again with Power, and Sun Valley Serenade (1941, H. Bruce Humberstone) with John Payne and the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Henie became increasingly demanding in her business dealings with Zanuck, and insisted on having total control of the skating numbers in her films. In addition to her film career at Fox, Henie formed a business arrangement with Arthur Wirtz, who produced her touring ice shows under the name of ‘Hollywood Ice Revue’. Wirtz also acted as Henie's financial advisor. At the time, figure skating and ice shows were not yet an established form of entertainment in the United States. Henie's popularity as a film actress attracted many new fans and instituted skating shows as a popular new entertainment. Throughout the 1940’s, Henie and Wirtz produced ice skating musicals with lavish costumes and spectacular routines at Madison Square Garden, attracting millions of ticket buyers. At the height of her fame, her shows and touring activities brought Henie as much as $2 million per year. She also had numerous lucrative endorsement contracts, and deals to market skates, clothing, jewelry, dolls, and other merchandise branded with her name. These activities made her one of the wealthiest women in the world in her time. In 1948 she made her last film, The Countess of Monte Cristo (1948, Frederick De Cordova). Henie broke off her arrangement with Wirtz in 1950 and for the next three seasons produced her own tours under the name ‘Sonja Henie Ice Revue’. It was an ill-advised decision to set herself up in competition with Wirtz, whose shows now featured the new Olympic champion Barbara Ann Scott. Since Wirtz controlled the best arenas and dates, Henie was left playing smaller venues and markets already saturated by other touring ice shows such as Ice Capades. The collapse of a section of bleachers during a show in Baltimore, Maryland in 1952 compounded the tour's legal and financial woes. In 1953 Henie formed a new partnership with Morris Chalfen to appear in his European Holiday On Ice tour. This was a great success. She produced her own show at New York's Roxy Theatre in January 1956. However, a subsequent South American tour in 1956 was a disaster. Henie was drinking heavily at that time and could no longer keep up with the demands of touring, and this marked her retirement from skating.

Sonja Henie's connections with Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials made her the subject of controversy. During her amateur skating career, she performed often in Germany and was a favourite of German audiences as well as of Hitler personally. As a wealthy celebrity, she moved in the same social circles as royalty and heads of state and made Hitler's acquaintance as a matter of course. Controversy appeared first when Henie greeted Hitler with a Nazi salute during an exhibition in Berlin some time prior to the 1936 Winter Olympics; she was strongly denounced by the Norwegian press. She did not repeat the salute at the Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but after the Games she accepted an invitation to lunch with Hitler at his resort home in nearby Berchtesgaden. Hitler presented Henie with an autographed photo with a lengthy inscription. After beginning her film career, Henie kept up her Nazi connections, for example personally arranging with Joseph Goebbels for the release of her first film, One in a Million, in Germany. During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, German troops saw Hitler's autographed photo prominently displayed in the Henie family home. As a result, none of Henie's properties in Norway were confiscated or damaged by the Germans. Henie became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1941. Like many Hollywood stars, she supported the U.S. war effort through USO and similar activities, but she was careful to avoid supporting the Norwegian resistance movement, or making public statements against the Nazis. For this, she was condemned by many Norwegians and Norwegian-Americans. After the war, Henie was mindful that many of her countrymen considered her to be a quisling. However, she made a triumphant return to Norway with the Holiday on Ice tour in 1953 and 1955. Her autobiography Mitt livs eventyr/Wings on My Feet (1938-1940) was republished in a revised edition in 1954. Henie was married three times, to Dan Topping (1940 - 1946), Winthrop Gardiner Jr. (1949 - 1956) and the wealthy Norwegian shipping magnate and art patron, Niels Onstad (1956 - 1969). After her retirement in 1956, Henie and Onstad (nicknamed ‘the Onassis of Norway’) settled in Oslo and accumulated a large collection of modern art. In 1968 they opened the Henie Onstad kunstsenter (Henie-Onstad Art Centre) at Høvikodden, about 10 km from Oslo. At the time of her death, Henie was planning a comeback for a television special that would have aired in January 1970. In the mid 1960’s, Henie was diagnosed with leukemia. She died of the disease in 1969 during a flight from Paris to Oslo. She was 57, and one of the ten wealthiest women in the world when she died. Sonja Henie is buried with her husband in Oslo on the hilltop overlooking the Henie-Onstad Art Centre. After her death her brother Leif published with Raymond Strait the biography ‘Queen of Ice, Queen of Shadows: The Unsuspected Life of Sonja Henie’ (1990). According to her brother, Henie was obsessed with money and sex, had a vile temper when crossed, and used her family and others shamelessly to advance her own ends. However, Henie is inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1976) and the International Women's Sport Hall of Fame (1982), and the signature of her ice skate blades adorns the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Sources: Jone Johnson Lewis (Women’s History Guide), The New York Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Tags:   Sonja Henie Sonja Henie Norvegian Actress Ice Skater Iceskating Champion Hollywood European Film Star Film Screen Movie Movies Cine Cinema Kino Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Briefkarte Postkaart Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Swimsuit Swimwear Beachwear Pin-up Pool Collectors Card Sammelkarte Greiling Sammelbilder Filmstars der Welt Hamann Meyerpress

© All Rights Reserved