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Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2497. Photo: Paramount. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

On 5 July 2025, our blog European Film Star Postcards will present a new La Collectionneuse post with rare and vintage postcards of American film star Gail Patrick!

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit. (Casa Editr. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze), no. 2844. Photo: Minerva Film.

Italian diva Silvana Pampanini (1925-2016) enjoyed enormous popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. In the early 1950s, before Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida reached stardom, Pampanini was one of the most well-known symbols of Italian beauty.

Born in Rome to a family that had moved there from the Veneto some three centuries ago, Silvana Pampanini got her law degree during the war and visited the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, where she got a degree in piano and song. As a singer, the young Pampanini made a career in entertainment music; not only were her songs widespread on unique records, but she also got an audience with Pope Pio XII. Over the years, she was also a frequent visitor to the opera seasons. Her cousin was the soprano Rosetta Pampanini. When the war was over, her singing master inscribed her for the Miss Italia contest in Stresa in September 1946, which she won ex aequo with Rossana Martini, thanks to a fierce audience reaction after the jury had originally chosen Martin. Her Miss Italia title was her introduction to a career in cinema, and from the film L’Apocalisse (Giuseppe Maria Scottese, 1946), Pampanini performed in various films, often musicals. She also became the toast of weeklies and film magazines. Her father, who originally had been against his daughter having a career as an actress, became her agent. Even if she was dubbed in her first roles, Pampanini became a star, performing with all the great actors of postwar cinema: Totò, Peppino De Filippo, Alberto Sordi, Vittorio De Sica, Marcello Mastroianni, Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, Walter Chiari, Amedeo Nazzari, Renato Rascel, Raf Vallone, Nino Taranto, Massimo Girotti, Ugo Tognazzi, Carlo Dapporto, Paolo Stoppa, Rossano Brazzi, Massimo Serato, Folco Lulli, Aroldo Tieri, Carlo Campanini. Among her foreign film partners were Jean Gabin, Henri Vidal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Raymond Pellegrin, Pierre Brasseur, Curd Jurgens, Pedro Armendariz and even Buster Keaton.

In the 1950s, Silvana Pampanini played in one film after another, and many of her films were distributed worldwide. Well known was, for instance, the Dino de Laurentiis production I pompieri di Viggiù (Mario Mattoli 1949), which Ennio Flaiano considered rather a series of vaudeville acts than a film, and thus preceding TV vaudeville. With the Quo vadis?-parody OK Nerone (Mario Soldati 1951), Pampanini had her first international success as Empress Poppea, opposite Gino Cervi as Nero, and Walter Chiari and Carlo Campanini as two American sailors who dream they are in Nero’s Rome. In the romantic comedy Bellezze in bicicletta (Carlo Campogalliani, 1951), she formed a pair with Delia Scala and sang one of the most beloved songs of the time: 'Bellezza in bicicletta'. In the following year, Pampanini performed in the much-awarded Processo alla città (Luigi Zampa, 1952), starring Amedeo Nazzari; La presidentessa (Pietro Germi, 1952), based on a French pochade; and La tratta delle bianche / White Slave Trade (Luigi Comencini, 1952). The latter also cast Eleonora Rossi-Drago, Tamara Lees and (in a smaller part) Sophia Loren. Still, the leading men, Vittorio Gassman and Marc Lawrence, both have set their eyes on Silvana. In 1953, Pampanini played in an episode of Un giorno in pretura / A Day in Court (Steno, 1953) for which her makeup man transformed her into a lady 30 years older. That year, she was also the title character Anna Zaccheo in Giuseppe de Santis’ Un marito per Anna Zaccheo (1953), which costarred Nazzari and Massimo Girotti. In 1955, Pampanini performed in the comedy La bella di Roma by Luigi Comencini, which co-starred Alberto Sordi and Paolo Stoppa, and she played in the box office hit Racconti Romani (Gianni Franciolini), based on a story by Alberto Moravia, and starring Franco Fabrizi. Finally, Pampanini played in La strada lunga un anno (1958) by Giuseppe De Santis, an Italian-Yugoslav coproduction, an Oscar candidate in 1959 and a Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Picture.

Even if she went to America, Silvana Pampanini refused to act in Hollywood, presumably because her English was not good enough, but she did play in France, where she was known as Niní Pampan. Examples are La tour de Nesle (Abel Gance, 1955) in which she played Marguerite de Bourgogne opposite Pierre Brasseur as Jehan Buridan, and La loi des rues (Ralph Habib, 1956), with Raymond Pellegrin. She also played in films in Spain, Germany, Greece, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Argentine, and in particular Mexico, where she played in some films that never were released in Italy, such as Sed de amor (Alfonso Corona Blake, 1959) with Pedro Armendariz, and Napoleoncito (Gilberto Martinez Solares, 1964). In the meantime, the yellow press published photos of Pampanini with Prince Ahmad Shah Khan, Tyrone Power, William Holden, George DeWitt, Omar Sharif, Orson Welles, King Faruq of Egypt and others. Pampanini herself told how her one true love, a man ten years older than she, not involved in the cinema and never identified, died of a disease one month before their wedding. After some short experience as a director and screenwriter in 1958, Pampanini slowed down her film career and focused on radio and TV, where she worked as an announcer and host of manifestations. In 1964, Dino Risi directed her in Il Gaucho, a partly autobiographical film in which Silvana played a declining diva who pathetically searches for her lost glory and for a millionaire to marry. In 1966, after twenty years of career, Pampanini quit cinema to assist her ageing parents, whom she took care of till their death. She returned for one last role as a prostitute in an episode of Mazzabubù... Quante corna stanno quaggiù? (Mariano Laurenti, 1971). After that, she was only visible once more as herself in Tassinaro (1983) by Alberto Sordi.

Silvana Pampanini regularly appeared on television from 1951 on, so from the very first emissions on. In 1956, she launched the debuting wizard Silvan, to whom she gave his stage name. Her only piece of television prose for RAI was a comedy by Gustave Flaubert in 1971. In the Mediaset mini-series Tre stelle (1999), she had a bit part as the old mother of Alba Parietti, and in Fall 2002, she was part of the cast of Domenica In for two months. Pampanini is devoted to Padre Pio and San Antonio; she never married nor had any children, though she was proud that once Totò proposed to her, on the set of 47 morto che parla (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1950), even if he asked in vain. For decades, Pampanini claimed the torch song 'Malafemmena' was dedicated to her, but in reality, it was inspired by the divorced wife of the Neapolitan comic, as has been indicated by Toto’s daughter and a document of the SIAE. Though living in Monaco, Pampanini was nominated “Grande ufficiale dell'ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana” in 2003 by president Ciampi. In September 2009, she returned to the Venice Film Festival for the projection of the restored version of Noi cannibali (Antonio Leonviola,1953), a film inserted in the section Questi fantasmi 2, dedicated to Italian films to be reconsidered. Silvana played a chorus line girl who was pestered by men making passes at her. In the same year, 2009, the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar declared in an interview that Pampanini was one of the Italian actresses with whom he’d like to do a film. In her roaring years, Pampanini was not very beloved by the critics, and she did not receive important awards, which caused her in her autobiography of 1996, 'Scandalosamente perbene', to compare herself with Greta Garbo. Pampanini never was afraid to keep still, so in December 2006, she publicly mocked Gina Lollobrigida for marrying a man much younger than she, and in 2008, when Mayor Walter Veltroni did not invite her to the Festa del Cinema in Rome, she started a serious polemic. In 2007, she participated in the festivities of 70 years of Cinecittà, and in 2009, she hosted the Mostra del Cinema dello Stretto, which brought a warm welcome and recognition of her career.

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian and English) and IMDb.

“Ma dove vai bellezza in bicicletta,
così di fretta pedalando con ardor?
Le gambe snelle tornite e belle
m'hanno già messo la passione dentro al cuor!”

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

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Editore, no. 2682. Photo: M.G.M. (Metro Goldwyn Mayer).

American actor and singer Howard Keel (1919-2004), was one of MGM's great musical stars, known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He was the hero in such musicals as Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Kismet (1955). After a period of B-Westerns and alcoholism, he gained fame again for his role as oil baron Clayton Farlow in the TV series Dallas (1981- 1991).

Harold Clifford Keel was born in Gillespie, Illinois, in 1919. He was the younger of two sons born to Navyman-turned-coalminer Homer Keel and his wife, Grace Margaret (née Osterkamp). Howard's elder brother was Frederick William Keel. His childhood was unhappy. His father was a hard-drinking coal miner, and his mother a stern, repressed Methodist homemaker. When Keel was 11, his father died, and Keel and his mother moved to San Diego in California. He graduated from Fallbrook High School at age 17. He then held a variety of jobs until he finally got permanent employment with the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was his landlady who pointed out to 20-year-old Keel that he had a good singing voice. On her advice, he took singing lessons to improve himself. In 1941, he played the role of Samuel the Prophet in 'Saul', an oratorio by Handel. He got more roles and started specialising in musicals. In 1945, he sang in 'Carousel' and 'Oklahoma!' He performed for some time with 'Oklahoma!' with great success in England, where he also used his stage name ‘Howard Keel’ for the first time. Keel also made his film debut in England with the Film Noir The Small Voice (Fergus McDonell, 1948), starring Valerie Hobson. He played an escaped convict holding a playwright and his wife hostage in their English country cottage. The film received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Film in 1949. After his successes in London, Keel returned to the US.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was looking for an answer to Warner Bros.' Gordon MacRae and contracted Howard Keel. The studio cast him as Frank Butler in the film version of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun (George Sidney, 1950), co-starring Betty Hutton. The film was a big hit, and Keel became one of MGM's major musical stars. The studio put him with Esther Williams in Pagan Love Song (Robert Alton, 1950), which was successful, but not as profitable as most Esther Williams films because it went over budget. Keel had a third hit in a row with the comedy Three Guys Named Mike (Charles Walters, 1951), supporting Van Johnson and Jane Wyman. Even more popular was Show Boat (George Sidney, 1951), where Keel played the male lead with Kathryn Grayson and Ava Gardner. He played lead roles in Kiss Me Kate (George Sidney, 1953) with Kathryn Grayson, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954) starring Jane Powell, and Kismet (Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, 1955) with Ann Blyth. Other studios were also interested, and Keel was hired by Warner Bros. to play Wild Bill Hickok opposite Doris Day in Calamity Jane (David Butler, 1953). After his contract with MGM expired, Keel returned to his first love, the stage. In 1957, he was in a short-lived revival of 'Carousel'. With changing tastes of American audiences, there was less and less work for him. In Great Britain, he made the thriller Floods of Fear (Charles Crichton, 1959) with Anne Heywood. He returned to Hollywood to play Simon-Peter in the Biblical epic The Big Fisherman (Frank Borzage, 1960).

Howard Keel went to Europe to make the low-budget war drama Armored Command (Byron Haskin, 1961) with Tina Louise. In England, he starred in the Sci-Fi Horror film The Day of the Triffids (Steve Sekely, Freddie Francis, 1962). Back in the United States, Keel performed in nightclubs and acted in B-movies, mostly Westerns. The best known is The War Wagon (Burt Kennedy, 1967) with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. It featured Keel as a wisecracking Indian. Howard Keel started drinking, which eventually cost him his second marriage. In the early 1970s, he married Judy Magamoll, twenty-five years younger, who helped him fight his alcoholism. He even played another role in the musical 'Ambassador', but the production flopped. His health had been affected by the drink, though, and in 1986 he underwent double bypass surgery. Meanwhile, he had also become involved in the medium of television. After an appearance in an episode of the TV series The Love Boat, he was asked for the television series Dallas after the death of Jim Davis. In 1981, he got the role of oil baron Clayton Farlow, Miss Ellie's second husband, in the fourth season. Keel quickly became popular with the role and would stay on until Dallas disappeared from the screen in 1991. In later years, he continued to appear in concerts. As a result of this renewed fame on TV, Keel landed his first solo recording contract with 'And I Love You So' in 1983. He returned to the screen as one of the hosts of the compilation film That's Entertainment! III (Bud Friedgen, Michael J. Sheridan, 1994), which was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 70th anniversary. It was the third and final series of retrospectives that began with the first That's Entertainment! (1974) and That's Entertainment, Part II (1976). Howard Keel married three times. In 1943, he met and married actress Rosemary Cooper. They divorced in 1948. During the London run of 'Oklahoma!, Keel met Helen Anderson, a member of the show's chorus, and they married in January 1949. Keel and Helen divorced in 1970. Keel married airline flight attendant Judy Magamoll in 1970. In 1994, Keel and Magamoll moved to Palm Desert, California. There, Howard Keel died of colon cancer in 2004. Keel had four children: three with Helen Anderson (two daughters, Kaija Liane and Kirstine Elizabeth; and a son, Gunnar Louis) and one by his third wife, Judy Magamoll (a daughter, Leslie Grace), and 10 grandchildren.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

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

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 3511. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Due on 31 May 2025: a new post by La Collectionneuse about US actress Virginia Bruce.

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (B.F.F.), no. 3766. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Due on 31 May 2025: a new post by La Collectionneuse about US actress Virginia Bruce.

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 3512. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Due on 31 May 2025: a new post by La Collectionneuse about US actress Virginia Bruce.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3329. Photo: Universal International.

Ruggedly handsome American actor George Nader (1921-2002) was a Universal star of second features in the 1950s. Was the muscular beefcake star then sacrificed to the tabloids to save Rock Hudson's heterosexual reputation? During the 1960s, Nader’s career had a second life in the European cinema as FBI agent Jerry Cotton.

George Nader was born in Pasadena, California, USA, in 1921 (1932 according to some sources). He was the second son of Alice (née Scott) and George G. Nader, vice-president of a grocery chain. During World War II, he served in the US Navy as a communications officer in the Pacific Theatre of Operations. After the war, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in theatre arts at Occidental College and appeared in productions at the Pasadena Playhouse. In 1947, he met Mark Miller, who had one of the lead roles in a Pasadena Playhouse production of Oh, Susannah! Nader was in the chorus. The two fell in love and established a household together. Miller had intended to go to New York to study opera, but abandoned his plans to stay in California and help Nader launch his career. Nader got small parts in the Western Rustlers on Horseback (Fred C. Brannon, 1950) and other B-movies. He got the lead role as Roy, the hero who saves the world from the clutches of ‘Ro-man’ in the low-budget 3d thriller Robot Monster (Phil Tucker, 1953). The film, shot in only four days for a mere sixteen thousand dollars, took in over a million dollars in its first run. In the 1980s, the Medved brothers listed it among the ‘50 worst films of all time’ and became a cult classic. The tall and muscular Nader also had a sonorous voice and was offered a contract by Universal Pictures. He usually played parts that emphasised his ‘beefcake’ and frequently appeared in swimsuits with his chest hair intact. In the mid-1950s, he played in several popular films, like the Western Four Guns to the Border (Richard Carlson, 1954) with Rory Calhoun, the crime drama Six Bridges to Cross (Joseph Pevney, 1955) opposite Tony Curtis, and the WWII actioner Away All Boats (Joseph Pevney, 1956), co-starring with Jeff Chandler. In 1954, he even won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Unfortunately, the studio already had such good-looking and athletic stars as Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis on its roster. Nader often found himself being cast in such second features as the Film Noirs Appointment with a Shadow (Richard Carlson, 1957) and The Female Animal (Harry Keller, 1958), with Hedy Lamarr in her final appearance.

At the end of the 1950s, George Nader tried his hand at TV series, including the NBC adventure offering The Man and the Challenge (1959–1960) and Shannon (1961-1962), and then relocated to Europe. In Italy, he played musketeer D’Artagnan in Il colpo segreto di d'Artagnan/The Secret Mark of D'Artagnan (Siro Marcellini, 1962) with Magali Noël. In Portugal, he appeared in the Eurospy film Misión Lisboa/Mission Lisbon (Federico Aicardi, Tulio Demicheli, 1965). But he found his biggest success in West Germany as G-man Jerry Cotton in the crime thriller Schüsse aus dem Geigenkasten/Operation Hurricane: Friday Noon (Fritz Umgelter, 1965). FBI agent Cotton was Germany's answer to James Bond. Murph-15 at IMDb: “In comparison to the Bond films, the Jerry Cotton movies are not as 'posh', but they are better stories. Operation Hurricane is the first and best of the series. The story is very interesting, with a few turns to keep the viewer going up to the end.” In the following years, Nader enjoyed a modest career revival as Jerry Cotton in a series of such Eurospy films and he became the number two most popular film star in Germany behind Lex Barker. His eight Cotton films include Die Rechnung - eiskalt serviert/Tip Not Included (Helmut Ashley, 1966), Der Tod im roten Jaguar/Death in the Red Jaguar (Harald Reinl, 1968), and finally Todesschüsse am Broadway/Broadway's Deadly Gold (Harald Reinl, 1969), with Heinz Weiss. He returned to the US, where he played in a TV series and a final film, the fantasy Beyond Atlantis (Eddie Romero, 1973) starring Patrick Wayne. Nader retired completely from acting in 1974 because an eye injury made him particularly sensitive to the bright lights of movie sets. According to an interview with the German fanzine Splatting Image, his eye injury was the result of an accident during the production of the never-released movie Zigzag (Albert Zugsmith, 1963), when a blank pistol round exploded too early next to his eyes. Filming took place in the Philippines, and no adequate treatment was taken in time, resulting in the partial loss of his eyesight.

George Nader turned to writing and dabbled in real estate. His Sci-Fi novel Chrome (1978) told the story of forbidden love between a human and a robot, a metaphor about the place of gay men in society. Nader and Mark Miller collaborated on a second novel, The Perils of Paul. It is about gays in Hollywood with names camouflaged and was published privately in hardcover in 1999. In 1985, Nader was named one of the beneficiaries of Rock Hudson's $27M estate when the star died of AIDS. Nader came out of the closet in 1986. Timothy Sexton at Yahoo! and IMDb both suggest that “Nader's career was sacrificed to (tabloid) Confidential to save Rock's much more lucrative heterosexual reputation". In the mid-1950s, rumours about Nader's homosexuality had begun to surface. Nader and Miller were living together, but neither publicly acknowledged his homosexuality. Universal arranged for Nader to be seen on dates with beautiful stars as Martha Hyer and Piper Laurie. Linda Rapp at glbtq: “One publicist even went so far as to suggest that to avoid being outed by Confidential. Nader should marry and then get a divorce a few years later. A female secretary was willing to participate in the scheme. Nader and Miller discussed the possibility, but Nader could not bring himself to take part in such a sham.” Nader, many years later, in an interview: “We lived in fear of an exposé, or even one small remark, a veiled suggestion that someone was homosexual. Such a remark would have caused an earthquake at the studio. Every month, when Confidential came out, our stomachs began to turn. Which of us would be it?” However, such a tabloid article about Nader is not known (Confidential did publish an outing story about Tab Hunter). Nader and Hudson were lifelong friends, and Mark Miller was even Hudson's secretary for nearly 13 years. In 2002, George Nader died at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, of a cardiac pulmonary failure, pneumonia and multiple cerebral infarctions. He was 80 and was survived by Mark Miller, with whom he had spent 55 years, and by two cousins and his nephew, actor Michael Nader.

Sources: Linda Rapp (glbtq), Army Archerd (Variety), Timothy Sexton (Yahoo!), Strange Words, The New York Times, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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

Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 793. Photo: Fox Film, Roma. Helena D’Algy and Buck Jones in The Cowboy and the Countess (Roy William Neill, 1926). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

The d'Algy siblings, Helene and Tony, will star in a new La Collectionneuse post at our blog European Film Star Postcards on 30 April 2025!

Fratini - Maremma toscana

All rights reserved - copyright © Giancarlo Gabbrielli

Fratini - Maremma toscana

All rights reserved - copyright © Giancarlo Gabbrielli

Fratini - Maremma toscana

All rights reserved - copyright © Giancarlo Gabbrielli

Italian postcard by Casa Editr. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (B.F.F.), no. 2784. Photo: Universal International.

Richard Conte (1910-1975) was an American actor, who often appeared in Film Noirs and crime dramas of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Two decades later, he returned to the screen as gangster boss Don Barzini in The Godfather (1972).

Nicholas Peter Conte was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1910. He was the son of Pasquale Conte, an Italian-American barber and his wife, Giulia Fina, a seamstress. Before becoming an actor, he held a series of jobs, from truck driver to shoe salesman to messenger on Wall Street. In 1935, he was discovered by Elia Kazan and John Garfield, director and actor respectively of New York City's Group Theatre Company, at a resort in Connecticut, where Conte had a job as a singing waiter. Through them, he gained access to the theatre world. With Kazan's help, he earned a scholarship to study at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York, where he became a standout student. He made his Broadway debut in 'My Heart's in the Highlands' (1939) for the Group Theatre. Also for the Group, he was in Clifford Odets' 'Night Music' (1940). He also performed in the road company of 'Golden Boy'. On Broadway, he was in 'Heavenly Express' (1941) and 'Walk Into My Parlor' (1941). He was a hit in 'Jason' (1942) and then was in 'The Family' (1943). In 1939, he also made his film debut in Heaven with a Barbed Fence (Ricardo Cortez, 1939), written by Dalton Trumbo. He played Tony, a hobo who meets up with Joe (Glenn Ford who was also making his film debut) and Anita (Jean Rogers). The three of them make their way west hopping trains. During World War II, Conte served in the United States Army, but he was discharged because of eye trouble. Conte's film career took off during the war period. Many actors had been recruited and were serving in the military. In 1943, Conte signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox and changed his name from Nicholas Conte to Richard Conte. Ironically, he was promoted as the 'New John Garfield', the man who helped discover him. His first Fox film was the War film Guadalcanal Diary (Lewis Seiler, 1943), where he was billed fourth. He followed it with another war drama, The Purple Heart (Lewis Milestone, 1944) in which he was billed second, beneath Dana Andrews. Conte had a smaller part in Captain Eddie (Lloyd Bacon, 1945), a biopic about Eddie Rickenbacker (Fred MacMurray), and played an Italian POW in A Bell for Adano (Henry King, 1945) starring Gene Tierney. Conte had the star role in another war film for Milestone, A Walk in the Sun (Lewis Milestone, 1945), again with Dana Andrews.

After the war, Richard Conte alternated roles in minor films with major productions. Fox promoted Conte to top billing with the Film Noir The Spider (Robert D. Webb, 1945). Although a B film for the studio, it was successful enough to establish Conte in Film Noir. Soon followed supporting roles in Somewhere in the Night (Joseph Mankiewicz, and the spy film 13 Rue Madeleine (1946), directed by Henry Hathaway. In Film Noir and gangster roles his stern face and powerful physique put him centre stage, even in supporting roles. His best work includes the innocently captured man in Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1947) with James Stewart and the lead role as a truck driver in Thieves' Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949). Heco-starred with Gene Tierney in Otto Preminger's Film Noir Whirlpool (1950). In the 1950s, his contract at Fox was terminated. He then starred mainly in B-movies such as The Blue Gardenia (Fritz Lang, 1953) and Highway Dragnet (Nathan Juran, 1954) with Joan Bennett. He then went to England to make Mask of Dust (Terence Fisher, 1954) for Hammer Films. Back in the U.S., Conte played a vicious but philosophical gangster in the Film Noir classic The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955) and had the second lead in I'll Cry Tomorrow (Daniel Mann, 1955), an MGM biopic about Lillian Roth starring Susan Hayward. Conte also appeared frequently on television, in such series as The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It culminated in a starring role in the series The Four Just Men (1959-1960). As interest in Film Noir waned in the 1960s, Richard Conte's career seemed to stall. He appeared with Frank Sinatra in the Heist film Ocean's Eleven (Lewis Milestone, 1960). Sinatra gave him the role of Lt. Dave Santini in his crime film Tony Rome (Gordon Douglas, 1967) and its sequel Lady in Cement (Gordon Douglas, 1968). Eventually, he left for Europe, where he starred in the Spaghetti Western Sentenza di more / Death Sentence (Mario Lanfranchi, 1968) and directed Operation Cross Eagles (Richard Conte, 1969), filmed entirely in Yugoslavia. He returned to the US in the early 1970s to play the role of Don Emilio Barzini, Don Vito Corleone's chief rival in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). Conte himself was briefly in the running to play the role of Don Corleone, but that role eventually went to Marlon Brando. After The Godfather, he returned to Europe, appearing in several Italian films, including Anastasia mio fratello / My Brother Anastasia (Steno, 1973) with Alberto Sordi and the Poliziottesco Roma violenta / Violent Rome (Marino Girolami, 1975). The second was a huge box office hit in Italy and launched the career of Maurizio Merli. In 1975, Conte died of a heart attack in Los Angeles. He was 65 years old. Richard Conte was married twice, to actress Ruth Storey from 1943 to 1962 and to Shirlee Garner from 1973 until he died in 1975. Together with Storey, he had an adopted son, Mark Conte, who would later become an editor. Richard Conte is buried in Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Sources: Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, Italian and English) and IMDb.

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

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 3258. Photo: Minerva Film. Elsa Martinelli in La risaia / The Rice Girl (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1956).

Glamorous Italian actress and former fashion model Elsa Martinelli (1935-2017) showed her beautiful curves in many European and Hollywood productions of the 1950s. Somehow she never became the star she was destined to become in the mid-1950s.

Elsa Martinelli was born Elsa Tia in Grosseto, Tuscany, in 1935. Soon after her birth, her large and very poor family moved to Rome. Elsa had to earn her keep from the age of twelve, delivering groceries. In 1953, while working as a barmaid, she was discovered by designer Roberto Capucci who introduced her to the fashion world. She became a model and began playing small roles in films. She appeared uncredited in Le Rouge et le noir/Scarlet and Black (Claude Autant-Lara, 1954) starring Gérard Philipe. Her first important film role came the following year with the American Western The Indian Fighter (André De Toth, 1955), in which she played the Native American heroine opposite Kirk Douglas. Douglas claims to have spotted her on a Life magazine cover and hired her for his production company, Bryna Productions. She returned to Rome and starred in the Carlo Ponti production La risaia/Rice Girl (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1956) with Folco Lulli and Rik Battaglia. The melodrama was an obvious attempt to recapture the success of Riso Amaro/Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949) with Silvana Mangano as the sexy rice field worker in hot pants. The attempt worked quite well.

In 1956 Elsa Martinelli won the Silver Berlin Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival. She won this prestigious award for playing a modern Cinderella in the comedy Donatella (Mario Monicelli, 1956) with Gabriele Ferzetti. From then on, she divided her time between Europe and the US and appeared in such films as Four Girls in Town (Jack Sher, 1956) with George Nader, Manuela/The Stowaway Girl (Guy Hamilton, 1957) with Trevor Howard, the historical drama I Battellieri del Volga/Prisoner of the Volga (Victor Tourjansky, 1959) with John Derek and the romance Un amore a Roma/Love in Rome (Dino Risi, 1960). Highlights were the excellent drama La notte brava (Mauro Bolognini, 1959), based on a novel by Pier Paolo Pasolini and the haunting and surreal horror film Et mourir de plaisir/Blood and Roses (Roger Vadim, 1960). The latter was an attempt to retell the classic Sheridan Le Fanu vampire tale Carmilla, co-starring the director's wife Annette Vadim (or Annette Stroyberg). In 1957 Elsa married wealthy Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito. Her mother-in-law, Countess Margherita Manicineli Scotti di San Vito, reportedly expelled her son from their Rome palace because the marriage was against her wishes. Finally, she fired her son from his job as manager of the family estate.

One of Elsa Martinelli’s most interesting films is Orson Welles’ adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Trial, Le Procès (Orson Welles, 1962). Anthony Perkins played Joseph K, a man condemned for an unnamed crime in an unnamed country. Seeking justice, he is sucked into a labyrinth of bureaucracy. Along the way, he becomes involved with three women - Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and Martinelli - who in their ways are functions of the System that persecutes him. In the action and adventure comedy Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962), she played a freelance wildlife photographer on a Tanganyika game farm. Martinelli was the eye candy in a star cast with John Wayne, Gérard Blain, Red Buttons and Hardy Krüger. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Wayne's men-only contingent is reduced to jello when Elsa enters the scene, but in tried and true Howard Hawks fashion, she quickly becomes ‘one of the guys’." In the comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (Melville Shavelson, 1962) she starred opposite Charlton Heston, and in The V.I.P.’s (Anthony Asquith, 1963) she was the protegee of Orson Welles. In the South Seas adventure Rampage (Phil Karlson, 1963) she co-starred with Robert Mitchum, and in the episodic sex comedy Sette Volte Donna/Woman Times Seven (Vittorio De Sica, 1967) with Lex Barker. In the big-budget adaptation of Terry Southern's satiric sex farce Candy (Christian Marquand, 1968), she played Candy’s mother in a cast with Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, and Richard Burton. In Italy she made the near surrealist western Il mio corpo per un poker/Belle Starr (Piero Cristofani, Lina Wertmuller, 1968), and a stylish erotic thriller, Una sull'altra/One on Top of the Other (Lucio Fulci, 1969), with Marisa Mell and Jean Sorel.

In the 1970s, the film career of Elsa Martinelli somehow halted. She only appeared incidentally in European films. She starred opposite Robert Hossein in the French caper film La Part des Lions/The Lions' Share (Jean Larriaga, 1971), and she played a supporting part in the political drama Garofano Rosso/The Red Carnation (Luigi Faccini, 1976) with Marina Berti. On TV she appeared as a guest star in The Return of the Saint (1979) with Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar. Meanwhile, she had started a new, successful career as an interior designer, but she continued to accept incidental parts in films and TV series. After Sono Un Fenomeno Paranormale/I'm a Paranormal Phenomenon (Sergio Corbucci, 1985) with Alberto Sordi, she made unheralded return appearances in the international productions Arrivederci Roma (Clive Donner, 1990) and the inconsequential all-star comedy Once Upon a Crime (Eugene Levy, 1992). Most recently she was seen in the short film Cabiria, Priscilla e le altre/Cabiria, Priscilla and the Others (Fabrizio Celestini, 1999) and the TV series Orgoglio (2005). Elsa Martinelli was married from 1957 to 1964 to Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito, by whom she has a daughter, actress Cristiana Mancinelli (1958). In 1968 she married Paris Match photographer and 1970s furniture designer Willy Rizzo, with whom she had a son. In 2017, Elsa Martinelli passed away in Rome, Italy. She was 82. Her husband Willy Rizzo had died in 2013.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Marlène Pilaete (Les Gens du Cinéma - French), Kimberly Lindbergs (Cinebeats), Gerald A. DeLuca (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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