Asides: Covers, Cards, and Cocoa

Here is another grouping of recent and not so recent postcard and magazine acquisitions from our favorite era, guaranteed to brighten your day. There are no new faces, but what alluring faces they are.

Click on the images for a larger view.

New Movie 1931 quarterly - Artist: Jules Erbit
This quarterly has photos of the stars, brief bios and autographs. There are 62 actors and actresses pictured.

Screenland magazine, February 1933 - Artist: Charles Sheldon

Photoplay, September 1934 - Artist: Earl Christy

Screenland magazine, August 1934 - Artist: Charles Sheldon

Love that clutch, and the shoes match.

The house she had built in Los Angeles was modeled after the White House, quite a step up from a childhood spent in poverty.

Elegant and alluring as usual.

Anita and Ramon appeared together in 1929's The Flying Fleet.

La Jana's card is one of the "jumbo" cards that the Ross company produced. It's about 25% larger than a standard postcard. La Jana of course, still kept her outfits small.

Yes, yes, yet another postcard of my girl Edwina Booth.

This is an example of a handtinted (painted) card. Tinted cards were not infrequent, but sold for a bit more. This particular card is also oversize, though not from Ross.

Nothing better on a cool evening that a nice mug of cocoa shared with Billie or Bebe.

Asides - Woof! Woof!

W.C. Fields once said, “Never work with children or animals." I guess it's fine to pose with them though, as these cards attest. Not sure if these were actual pets or merely props.

Marion Davies and friend

The dog for lounging around.

The dog for taking a walk and feeling safe.

Brigitte and friend leaving the florist.

A quiet day in the park.

This card is the only one I have seen from a series entitled Film Stars and Their Pets. Therefore there must be more and I guess this is actually her pet.

This is the back of the Miriam's card and it provides a short bio.

The August 20, 1934 text on the card is:
Miss J. Stapley, Butts Villa, Wisborough Green, Billingshurst, Sussex
Chatham, Monday - We have had a nice time here, hope you are having as nice weather as we are. Our dear love to the three of you and Auntie. Try to be good. Love, Missy.

Minus the address it's short enough to be a Twitter message.

Not everyone had dogs.

Asides - Cinco de Mayo

Well, my intentions were good, but a small scanner glitch left me a day late. Anyway, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, commemorating an initial victory of Mexican forces over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, I am posting magazine covers of actresses of Mexican descent who have already appeared on this blog (5/31/06 and 3/19/07). Here gracing the April and June 1934 issues of Movie Classics magazine are two of Hollywood's most alluring actresses, Lupe Velez and Dolores Del Rio. And while I don't have a magazine with a cover of Raquel Torres (6/28/06 post), she was another truly alluring Mexican actresses deserving mention this day.

Both Illustrations are by the artist Marland Stone.

Click on the images for larger views.

Dolores Del Rio - Third of 3 postings

We close our look at Dolores with a few more pieces of information. During her early years she was often referred to as the female Valentino. Marlene Dietrich thought Dolores "the most beautiful woman in Hollywood", and it was reported slept for 16 hours a day to maintain her beauty. That may have been more Hollywood PR than actual fact.

Even after her career was winding down, she remained involved in the the film community as Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957 and Berlin International Film Festival in 1962. Dolores made her last film, The Children of Sanchez, in 1978. In her last years she received accolades because of her work for orphaned children. She died in 1983.

Dolores Del Rio - What do you think? Allure?

Dolores Del Rio - Second of 3 postings

In 1930, after her divorce from Jaime del Rio, Dolores married Cedric Gibbons, one of MGM's leading art directors and production designers. With the advent of talkies she was primarily relegated to exotic and unimportant roles, but did score successes with the lead roles in 1933's Flying Down to Rio (the film that launched the careers of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) and Madame DuBarry in1934.

In 1939 or 1940, a 25 year old Orson Welles fell madly in love with Dolores although he was 10 years her junior. In fact, the affair with Welles was reported to have been the cause of her divorce from Gibbons, though some contend it was Gibson's sexual orientation that caused the split. In 1943 she collaborated with Welles in the film Journey Into Fear.

As mentioned in the previous post, after abandoning Hollywood in the mid-40's, Dolores continued her career in Mexico where she won the Ariel (Mexican Academy Award) three times: on 1946 for Abandonadas, Las (1945); in 1952 for Doña Perfecta (1951) and in 1954 for Niño y la niebla, El (1953).

BTW, on Turner Classic Movies this Friday, March 30 at 7:45 A.M. Eastern, Dolores can be seen in 1932's Bird Of Paradise.

I wonder if Cher ever saw this picture?

Dolores Del Rio - What do you think? Allure?

Dolores Del Rio - First of 3 postings

Born Dolores Martínez Asúnsolo y López Negrete in Durango, Mexico, in April 1905, she was the second cousin of actor Ramón Novarro. Her family lost all their assets during the 1916 Mexican Revolution. Then in 1921, at the age of 16, she married a wealthy Jaime Martinez del Rio, and through a Hollywood friend the couple emigrated to the USA with the plan of establishing show business careers for themselves: as screenwriter and actress, respectively. The marriage ended in divorce, but Dolores retained her married name, continued to pursue a career as an actress, and made her first film appearance in Joanna (1925). Hollywood immediately noticed her appeal and she was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars (search other posts to learn more about the WAMPAS stars) in 1926 along with fellow newcomers Joan Crawford, Fay Wray, Janet Gaynor, and Mary Astor. Her career flourished through the silent era, and continued in Mexican cinema during the 40's and beyond.

Dolores Del Rio - What do you think? Allure?