I like this German postcard, 'Filmschauspieler aus aller Welt'. The caption translates as 'Film actors from around the world'. Photos of film stars posing glamorously in front of airplanes was a well known phenomenon in the 1950s, that 'Golden Age Of Travel'. Famous is a series created by Air France. But how was it really to fly during the 1950s? Dangerous, I guess, smoky, boozy, boring and very, very expensive.


German postcard by Kunst und Film Verlag H. Lukow, Hannover, no. L2/1042.

Married in 1954
Who are these film stars on this postcard, posing on the stairs of an airplane or standing nearby? And from which side of the world were they coming?

The pictured film actors are from top left to down right:
Linda Darnell (USA), Tyrone Power (USA),  Elizabeth Taylor (UK/USA),
Robert Taylor (USA) and his wife Ursula Thiess (Germany), Gina Lollobrigida (Italy) and her husband, the  physician Milko Škofič (Slovenia), Audrey Hepburn (UK) and husband Mel Ferrer (USA),
Mona Baptiste (Trinidad), Mara Lane (UK/Austria) and Gloria DeHaven (USA).

So this curious postcard must date from the mid 1950s. Ursula Thiess and Robert Taylor married in 1954, and Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer also became a couple in 1954.

Below I selected 10 dazzling pictures of these 'Filmschauspieler aus aller Welt' for you. When there was no postcard of a film actor in our collection available (yes, we try to specialise in European stars), I selected an image from that wonderful picture source Flickr. As an extra, I added a postcard with an Air France picture.


German postcard by ISV, no. B 28. Photo: MGM.

Italian actress and photojournalist Gina Lollobrigida (1927), was one of Europe’s most prominent film stars of the 1950s. ‘La Lollo’ was the first European sex symbol of the post war years and she paved the way into Hollywood for her younger colleagues Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale.


Collection: Playboy75UK @ Flickr.

American film actress Linda Darnell (1923-1965) progressed from modeling as a child to acting in theatre and film as an adolescent. At the encouragement of her mother, she made her first film in 1939, and appeared in supporting roles in big budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. She rose to fame with co-starring roles opposite Tyrone Power in adventure films, and established a main character career after her role in Forever Amber (1947). She won critical acclaim for her work in Unfaithfully Yours (1948) and A Letter to Three Wives (1949).


German postcard by Wilhelm Schulze-Witteborg Grafischer Betrieb, Wanne-Eickel. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Beloved Hollywood star Tyrone Power (1914-1958) may have been all-American, but he sure loved European ladies - he was married to both French Annabella and half-Dutch Linda Christian. 'Ty' was one of the great romantic film stars.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/20.

British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) is considered one of the great actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. She began her career as a child star, and as an adult she became known for her acting talent and beauty. 'Liz' had a much publicised private life, including eight marriages and several near death experiences.


Collection: Maria @ Flickr. Photo: Robert Taylor in 1943.

American film actor Robert Taylor (1911-1969) was one of the most popular leading men of his time. Taylor began his career in films in 1934 when he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His popularity increased during the late 1930s and 1940s with appearances in A Yank at Oxford (1938), Waterloo Bridge (1940), and Bataan (1943). Taylor married actress Ursula Thiess in 1954, and they had two children. He died of lung cancer at the age of 57.


Mexican collectors card, no. 160. Photo: publicity still for The Iron Glove (1954).

German film star Ursula Thiess (1924–2010) was dubbed by Life magazine as the ‘most beautiful woman in the world’. Howard Hughes offered her a long-term contract to RKO, but five years later she gave up her acting career after marrying Robert Taylor. The glamorous, luscious looking actress had only starred in a handful of Hollywood movies.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-5. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Paramount Film.

Elegant, talented and funny Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) was a Belgian-born, British-Dutch actress and humanitarian. After a start in the European cinema she became one of the most successful Hollywood stars of the 1950s and 1960s.


Collection: Fred Baby @ Flickr. Photo: Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn.

Mel Ferrer (1917-2008) was an American actor, film director, and film producer. He made his screen acting debut in Lost Boundaries (1949), and is best remembered for his roles as the injured puppeteer in the musical Lili (1953), as the villainous Marquis de Maynes in Scaramouche (1952) and as Prince Andrei in War and Peace (1956), co-starring with his then-wife, Audrey Hepburn.


German postcard by UFA, no. CK-200. Photo: Klaus Collignon / UFA.

British-Austrian actress Mara Lane (1930) was considered one of the most beautiful models in Great Britain during the early 1950s. She appeared in more than 30 English and German language films of the 1950s and early 1960s, but seems completely forgotten now.


British postcard in the Celebrity Autographs Series, no. 192. Photo: Universal-International. Publicity still for So This Is Paris (Richard Quine, 1954).

Gloria DeHaven (1925-2016) was an American musical actress, with mostly supporting roles or leading lady in B movies. In Hollywood, she started as a child star then worked as a juvenile actress and finially became a leading-lady. During her long and varied career she would also perform as nightclub singer, as stage actress in Broadway and the West End and as a TV actress and hostess.


French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, Star 134. Photo: Air France / Distribution VU. Caption: Jacques Brel, 20 Novembre 1964.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.



Source: John Brownlee (Terminal Velocity), IMDb and Wikipedia.

Our guest today is my colleague-collector Meiter from the city of Groningen in the north of the The Netherlands. Regularly I buy film star postcards from her e-shop at the Dutch site Marktplaats. We started to correspond about the beauty of postcards, about our passion for collecting, film, our children and what they like to eat, about life. Thus I invited her to write at EFSP about her favorite European film star postcards, and she accepted. Meiter: "I like postcards so much, because they resemble (and when old, often are) real photos. They tell a story and represent a certain era. Because they are cards of filmstars, you can read a lot about them in books, magazines and on the internet. You can also make up your own story."
So, here's the Choice of.... Meiter.


Lilli Palmer. German postcard by UFA, Berlin. Collection: Meiter.
Meiter: "This is one of my favourite cards of Lilli Palmer. She seems relaxed and even laughs. On most of her photos she comes across as an elegant and beautiful woman, but remote. On this one she wears her Sunday dress with, what looks like, an apron. Her husband is out hunting and she just finished cleaning the house and enjoys a well deserved rest in the garden. I like the kitschiness and colours."


Sophia Loren. French postcard by Éditions Hazan, Paris. Collection: Meiter.
"Oh, oh, how beautiful. It is not a very old card (I am sure there must be an original somewhere), but it was one of the first cards of which I thought ‘I must have it’. What first struck me was the thing on which she is sitting: is it a chair? It looks like a retro 1960’s design chair, but you only see a curved leg. Sophia manages to sit quite elegantly on it and has a stylish, yet coquettish air. And still, she has this rather innocent look. (And why is she pointing at her knee?) I love it."


Marilyn Monroe. Vintage postcard, no. PU 13. Collection: Meiter.
"I know Marilyn is a Hollywood Filmstar, not a European Star. But this card is My Pride. It is a card I have not seen before. (Now some people will say, of course, it is quite common). On the back it only says “Nr. PU 13”. I assume PU stands for Pin Up and perhaps it is part of a series pin-up cards, Marilyn being number 13 (the unlucky number..). She represents the optimistic 1950’s and 60’s and plays those funny roles in her movies. Yet, she herself led this tragic life and had to play a role both in her movies and her own life. Nevertheless, I am just very proud of this card and like to boast about it."


O.W. Fischer. German postcard by IRMA-Verlag, Stuttgart. Collection: Meiter.
"O.W. Fischer loved cats and, as we can see on this card, cats loved him. I never understood this man. That makes him interesting. He seemed to lead a life of opposites. This photo represents an example: although at he end of his life he lived for and with his cats, he left half of his money to a dogs’ home. This cat is ignorant of the fact that she will not inherit any money. She just adores him."


Caterina Valente. German postcard by UFA, Berlin. Collection: Meiter.
"I don’t have anything with Caterine Valente and her music, but I love her cards. A very photogenic lady, and the more kitsch the better."


Jester Naefe. German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Collection: Meiter.
"Jester Naefe was also called the German Marilyn Monroe. She had a promising future as an actress. Unfortunately she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died, after an agressive progression of this disease, 8 years later, only 37 years old."


Jeanne Moreau. East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb. Collection: Meiter.
"BEAUTIFUL. This card reminds me of a picture of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn never had her prom photo taken. In 1956, when she was 30 (!) years old, she asked Milton Greene if he could photograph her as a ‘prom-girl’. The picture Greene made, looks just like this photo of Jeanne Monroe..uh..Moreau."


Gina Lollobrigida. French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 55. Collection: Meiter.
"This card is not a cliché picture of La Lollobrigida. I like the colours in it. It is not kitschy, yet colourful. It is as if Gina happens to pass by and accidentally had her picture taken. She seems rather young, but frankly I have no idea. Rather mysterious. But then again I do not know much about her, and it might be a scene in one of her most famous films."


Claudia Cardinale. German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Collection: Meiter.
"Claudia once signed a contract which forbade her to marry, gain weight and cut her hair. She already had given birth to a son when she was 17 years old. The family pretended that Claudia was a (much older) sister. When he was 19, he was told his older sister was his mother. How much are you willing to give up to be a filmstar? Claudia Cardinale apparently quite a lot. Originally she did not want to be a moviestar at all. She wanted to be a teacher in her home country Tunisia. Which would have made her happier..."


And last but not least: Anny Ondra. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6847/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Lothar Stark-Film. Collection: Meiter.
"I hesitated between Sybille Schmitz and Anny Ondra. But I saw that an extensive article already had been written about the androgyne, alcoholic, drug-addicted, bisexual Sybille Schmitz (I just wanted to use all these descriptions in connection with Sybille Schmitz), so the last card is of pretty, pretty Anny Ondra. When I read about pretty Anny Ondra, I have to think of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ where a silent movie is transformed into a musical with real sound. Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) appears to have a rather shriekish and screaming voice and it is decided that her voice will be dubbed over. Something similar happened to Anny Ondra, not because she was loud-voiced, but because her thick accent was considered unacceptable. I think she sounded lovely, but it is true that she did not sound like a London born girl.. She looks lovely and was married to the same man, a German boxer, for 54 years. Quite romantically. Yet, I am sure there must be more to this story."

Thanks Meiter, bedankt Carla!

The Choice of... is an irregularly appearing series. Earlier guests were Egbert Barten, Véronique3, Didier Hanson, Asa, Bunched Undies, Miss Mertens, and Manuel Palomino Arjona.