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George Robey British postcard by K LTD. Photo: Hana, London. In 1902 Robey created the character The Prehistoric Man . He dressed as a caveman and spoke of modern political issues, often complaining about the government "slapping another pound of rock on his taxes". The character was received favourably by audiences, who found it easy to relate to his topical observations. That year he released The Prehistoric Man on a shellac disc using the early acoustic recording process.
George Robey (1869-1954) was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a comedian, Robey mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the 'Pantomime dame' roles. He only had modest success in the cinema.
George Robey was born as George Edward Wade in London in 1869. He came from a middle-class family. His father, Charles Wade, was a civil engineer who spent much of his career on tramline design and construction. Robey's mother, Elizabeth Mary Wade née Keene, was a housewife. After schooling in England and Germany and a series of office jobs, he made his debut on the London stage, at the age of 21, as the straight man to a comic hypnotist. He soon developed his act and appeared at the Oxford Music Hall in 1890, where he earned favourable notices singing The Simple Pimple and He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now. In 1892, Robey appeared in his first pantomime, Whittington Up-to-date in Brighton, which brought him to a wider audience. With Robey's popularity came an eagerness to differentiate himself from his music hall rivals, and so he devised a signature costume when appearing as himself: an oversized black coat fastened from the neck down with large, wooden buttons; black, unkempt, baggy trousers and a partially bald wig with black, whispery strands of unbrushed, dirty-looking hair that poked below a large, dishevelled top-hat. He applied thick white face paint and exaggerated the redness on his cheeks and nose with bright red makeup; his eyeline and eyebrows were also enhanced with thick, black grease paint. He held a short, misshaped, wooden walking stick, which was curved at the top. Robey later used the costume for his character, The Prime Minister of Mirth. The outfit helped Robey become instantly recognisable on the London music hall circuit. More provincial engagements followed in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and he soon became a mainstay of the popular Christmas pantomime scene. By the start of the new century, Robey was a big name in pantomime, and he was able to choose his roles. Pantomime enjoyed wide popularity until the 1890s, but by the time Robey had reached his peak, interest in it was on the wane. A type of character he particularly enjoyed taking on was the pantomime dame, which historically was played by comedians from the music hall. Robey was inspired by the older comedians Herbert Campbell and Dan Leno, and, although post-dating them, he rivalled their eccentricity and popularity, earning the festive entertainment a new audience. Robey's music hall act matured in the first decade of the 1900s, and he undertook several foreign tours. He starred in the Royal Command Performance in 1912 and regularly entertained before the aristocracy. Robey had made his film debut in 1900, according to IMDb. The short comedy The Rats (N.N., 1900) offered a brief glimpse of some of the greatest entertainers from the late Victorian and early Edwardian stage, Dan Leno, Herbert Campbell and George Robey. In 1913, Robey appeared in two early sound shorts: And Very Nice Too (Walter R. Boots, 1913) and Good Queen Bess (Walter R. Boots, 1913), made in the Kinoplasticon process, where the film was synchronised with phonograph records. The next year, he tried to emulate his music hall colleagues Billy Merson and Charlie Austin, who had set up Homeland Films and found success with the Squibs series of films starring Betty Balfour. Robey met filmmakers from the Burns Film Company, who engaged him in a silent short entitled George Robey Turns Anarchist, in which he played a character who fails to blow up the Houses of Parliament. George Robey's Day Off (1919) showed the comedian acting out his daily domestic routines to comic effect, but the picture failed at the box office. Producers did not know how best to apply Robey's stage talents to the film. He continued to appear sporadically in film throughout the rest of his career, never achieving more than a modest amount of success. By the First World War, music hall entertainment had fallen out of favour with audiences. Revue appealed to wartime audiences, and Robey decided to capitalise on the medium's popularity. He achieved great success in The Bing Boys Are Here (1916). He was cast as Lucius Bing opposite Violet Loraine, who played his love interest Emma. The couple duetted in the show's signature song If You Were the Only Girl (In the World), which became an international success. Robey raised money for many war charities and was appointed a CBE in 1919. From 1918, he created sketches based on his Prime Minister of Mirth character and used a costume he had designed in the 1890s as a basis for the character's attire.
George Robey starred in the revue Round in Fifty in 1922, which earned him still wider notice. He returned to the cinema a further four times during 1923. The first two films were written to showcase his pantomime talents: One Arabian Night (Sinclair Hall, 1923) was a reworking of Aladdin and co-starred Lionelle Howard and Edward O'Neill. Harlequinade (A.E. Coleby, 1923) visited the roots of pantomime. One of Robey's more notable film roles was Sancho Panza in Don Quixote (Maurice Elvey, 1923), for which he received a fee of £700 a week. The amount of time he spent working away from home led to the breakdown of his marriage, and he separated from Ethel in 1923. Except for his performances in revue and pantomime, he appeared as his Prime Minister of Mirth character in all the other entertainment media including variety, music hall and radio. In the late 1920s Robey wrote and starred in two Phonofilm sound-on-film productions, Safety First (Hugh Croise, 1928) and Mrs. Mephistopheles (Hugh Croise, 1929). In 1932 Robey appeared in his first sound film, The Temperance Fête (Graham Cutts, 1932). It was followed by Marry Me (Wilhelm Thiele, 1932), starring German actress Renate Müller, which was one of the most successful musical films of his career. The film tells the story of a sound recordist in a gramophone company who romances a colleague when she becomes the family housekeeper. Robey continued to perform in variety theatre in the inter-war years and, in 1932, he starred in Helen!, his first straight theatre role. His appearance brought him to the attention of many influential directors, including Sydney Carroll, who signed him to appear on stage as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1935, a role that he later repeated in Laurence Olivier's film, Henry V (1944). Robey starred opposite Fritz Kortner, and Anna May Wong in a film version of the hit musical Chu Chin Chow (Walter Forde, 1934). The New York Times called him 'a lovable and laughable Ali Baba'. In the summer of 1938, Robey appeared in the film A Girl Must Live (Carol Reed, 1939) in which he played the role of Horace Blount. A journalist for The Times opined that Robey's performance as an elderly furrier, the love interest of both Margaret Lockwood and Lilli Palmer, was 'a perfect study in bewildered embarrassment'. During the Second World War, Robey raised money for charities and promoted recruitment into the forces. Robey starred in the film Salute John Citizen (Maurice Elvey, 1942), co-starring Edward Rigby and Stanley Holloway, about the effects that the war had on a normal British family. A further four films followed in 1943, one of which promoted war propaganda while the other two displayed the popular medium of cine-variety. By the 1950s, his health had deteriorated, and he entered semi-retirement. George Robey was knighted a few months before his death at his home in Saltdean, East Sussex, in 1954. He was 85. Robey was married Twice. In 1898, Robey married his first wife, Ethel Hayden, the Australian-born musical theatre actress. Ethel accompanied him on his tours and frequently starred alongside him. They had two children, a son Edward (1900) and a daughter Eileen. After his divorce from Ethel in 1938, he married Blanche Littler, who was more than two decades his junior.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
George Robey British postcard. Photo: Wrather & Buys.
George Robey (1869-1954) was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a comedian, Robey mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the dame roles. He only had modest success in the cinema.
George Robey was born as George Edward Wade in London in 1869. He came from a middle-class family. His father, Charles Wade, was a civil engineer who spent much of his career on tramline design and construction. Robey's mother, Elizabeth Mary Wade née Keene, was a housewife. After schooling in England and Germany and a series of office jobs, he made his debut on the London stage, at the age of 21, as the straight man to a comic hypnotist. He soon developed his act and appeared at the Oxford Music Hall in 1890, where he earned favourable notices singing The Simple Pimple and He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now. In 1892, Robey appeared in his first pantomime, Whittington Up-to-date in Brighton, which brought him to a wider audience. With Robey's popularity came an eagerness to differentiate himself from his music hall rivals, and so he devised a signature costume when appearing as himself: an oversized black coat fastened from the neck down with large, wooden buttons; black, unkempt, baggy trousers and a partially bald wig with black, whispery strands of unbrushed, dirty-looking hair that poked below a large, dishevelled top-hat. He applied thick white face paint and exaggerated the redness on his cheeks and nose with bright red makeup; his eye line and eyebrows were also enhanced with thick, black grease paint. He held a short, misshaped, wooden walking stick, which was curved at the top. Robey later used the costume for his character, The Prime Minister of Mirth. The outfit helped Robey become instantly recognisable on the London music hall circuit. More provincial engagements followed in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and he soon became a mainstay of the popular Christmas pantomime scene. By the start of the new century, Robey was a big name in pantomime, and he was able to choose his roles. Pantomime enjoyed wide popularity until the 1890s, but by the time Robey had reached his peak, interest in it was on the wane. A type of character he particularly enjoyed taking on was the pantomime dame, which historically was played by comedians from the music hall. Robey was inspired by the older comedians Herbert Campbell and Dan Leno, and, although post-dating them, he rivalled their eccentricity and popularity, earning the festive entertainment a new audience. Robey's music hall act matured in the first decade of the 1900s, and he undertook several foreign tours. He starred in the Royal Command Performance in 1912 and regularly entertained before the aristocracy. Robey had made his film debut in 1900, according to IMDb. The short comedy The Rats (N.N., 1900) offered a brief glimpse of some of the greatest entertainers from the late Victorian and early Edwardian stage, Dan Leno, Herbert Campbell and George Robey. In 1913, Robey appeared in two early sound shorts: And Very Nice Too (Walter R. Boots, 1913) and Good Queen Bess (Walter R. Boots, 1913), made in the Kinoplasticon process, where the film was synchronised with phonograph records. The next year, he tried to emulate his music hall colleagues Billy Merson and Charlie Austin, who had set up Homeland Films and found success with the Squibs series of films starring Betty Balfour. Robey met filmmakers from the Burns Film Company, who engaged him in a silent short entitled George Robey Turns Anarchist, in which he played a character who fails to blow up the Houses of Parliament. George Robey's Day Off (1919) showed the comedian acting out his daily domestic routines to comic effect, but the picture failed at the box office. Producers did not know how best to apply Robey's stage talents to the film. He continued to appear sporadically in film throughout the rest of his career, never achieving more than a modest amount of success. By the First World War, music hall entertainment had fallen out of favour with audiences. Revue appealed to wartime audiences, and Robey decided to capitalise on the medium's popularity. He achieved great success in The Bing Boys Are Here (1916). He was cast as Lucius Bing opposite Violet Loraine, who played his love interest Emma. The couple duetted in the show's signature song If You Were the Only Girl (In the World), which became an international success. Robey raised money for many war charities and was appointed a CBE in 1919. From 1918, he created sketches based on his Prime Minister of Mirth character and used a costume he had designed in the 1890s as a basis for the character's attire.
George Robey starred in the revue Round in Fifty in 1922, which earned him still wider notice. He returned to the cinema a further four times during 1923. The first two films were written to showcase his pantomime talents: One Arabian Night (Sinclair Hall, 1923) was a reworking of Aladdin and co-starred Lionelle Howard and Edward O'Neill. Harlequinade (A.E. Coleby, 1923) visited the roots of pantomime. One of Robey's more notable film roles was Sancho Panza in Don Quixote (Maurice Elvey, 1923), for which he received a fee of £700 a week. The amount of time he spent working away from home led to the breakdown of his marriage, and he separated from Ethel in 1923. Except for his performances in revue and pantomime, he appeared as his Prime Minister of Mirth character in all the other entertainment media including variety, music hall and radio. In the late 1920s Robey wrote and starred in two Phonofilm sound-on-film productions, Safety First (Hugh Croise, 1928) and Mrs. Mephistopheles (Hugh Croise, 1929). In 1932 Robey appeared in his first sound film, The Temperance Fête (Graham Cutts, 1932). It was followed by Marry Me (Wilhelm Thiele, 1932), starring German actress Renate Müller, which was one of the most successful musical films of his career. The film tells the story of a sound recordist in a gramophone company who romances a colleague when she becomes the family housekeeper. Robey continued to perform in variety theatre in the inter-war years and, in 1932, he starred in Helen!, his first straight theatre role. His appearance brought him to the attention of many influential directors, including Sydney Carroll, who signed him to appear on stage as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1935, a role that he later repeated in Laurence Olivier's film, Henry V (1944). Robey starred opposite Fritz Kortner, and Anna May Wong in a film version of the hit musical Chu Chin Chow (Walter Forde, 1934). The New York Times called him 'a lovable and laughable Ali Baba'. In the summer of 1938, Robey appeared in the film A Girl Must Live (Carol Reed, 1939) in which he played the role of Horace Blount. A journalist for The Times opined that Robey's performance as an elderly furrier, the love interest of both Margaret Lockwood and Lilli Palmer, was 'a perfect study in bewildered embarrassment'. During the Second World War, Robey raised money for charities and promoted recruitment into the forces. Robey starred in the film Salute John Citizen (Maurice Elvey, 1942), co-starring Edward Rigby and Stanley Holloway, about the effects that the war had on a normal British family. A further four films followed in 1943, one of which promoted war propaganda while the other two displayed the popular medium of cine-variety. By the 1950s, his health had deteriorated, and he entered semi-retirement. George Robey was knighted a few months before his death at his home in Saltdean, East Sussex, in 1954. He was 85. Robey was married Twice. In 1898, Robey married his first wife, Ethel Hayden, the Australian-born musical theatre actress. Ethel accompanied him on his tours and frequently starred alongside him. They had two children, a son Edward (1900) and a daughter Eileen. After his divorce from Ethel in 1938, he married Blanche Littler, who was more than two decades his junior.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
George Robey British postcard in the. Philco Series, no. 3180 a.
George Robey (1869-1954) was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a comedian, Robey mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the dame roles. He only had modest success in the cinema.
George Robey was born as George Edward Wade in London in 1869. He came from a middle-class family. His father, Charles Wade, was a civil engineer who spent much of his career on tramline design and construction. Robey's mother, Elizabeth Mary Wade née Keene, was a housewife. After schooling in England and Germany and a series of office jobs, he made his debut on the London stage, at the age of 21, as the straight man to a comic hypnotist. He soon developed his act and appeared at the Oxford Music Hall in 1890, where he earned favourable notices singing The Simple Pimple and He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now. In 1892, Robey appeared in his first pantomime, Whittington Up-to-date in Brighton, which brought him to a wider audience. With Robey's popularity came an eagerness to differentiate himself from his music hall rivals, and so he devised a signature costume when appearing as himself: an oversized black coat fastened from the neck down with large, wooden buttons; black, unkempt, baggy trousers and a partially bald wig with black, whispery strands of unbrushed, dirty-looking hair that poked below a large, dishevelled top-hat. He applied thick white face paint and exaggerated the redness on his cheeks and nose with bright red makeup; his eye line and eyebrows were also enhanced with thick, black grease paint. He held a short, misshaped, wooden walking stick, which was curved at the top. Robey later used the costume for his character, The Prime Minister of Mirth. The outfit helped Robey become instantly recognisable on the London music hall circuit. More provincial engagements followed in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and he soon became a mainstay of the popular Christmas pantomime scene. By the start of the new century, Robey was a big name in pantomime, and he was able to choose his roles. Pantomime enjoyed wide popularity until the 1890s, but by the time Robey had reached his peak, interest in it was on the wane. A type of character he particularly enjoyed taking on was the pantomime dame, which historically was played by comedians from the music hall. Robey was inspired by the older comedians Herbert Campbell and Dan Leno, and, although post-dating them, he rivalled their eccentricity and popularity, earning the festive entertainment a new audience. Robey's music hall act matured in the first decade of the 1900s, and he undertook several foreign tours. He starred in the Royal Command Performance in 1912 and regularly entertained before the aristocracy. Robery had made his film debut in 1900, according to IMDb. The short comedy The Rats (N.N., 1900) offered a brief glimpse of some of the greatest entertainers from the late Victorian and early Edwardian stage, Dan Leno, Herbert Campbell and George Robey. In 1913, Robey appeared in two early sound shorts: And Very Nice Too (Walter R. Boots, 1913) and Good Queen Bess (Walter R. Boots, 1913), made in the Kinoplasticon process, where the film was synchronised with phonograph records. The next year, he tried to emulate his music hall colleagues Billy Merson and Charlie Austin, who had set up Homeland Films and found success with the Squibs series of films starring Betty Balfour. Robey met filmmakers from the Burns Film Company, who engaged him in a silent short entitled George Robey Turns Anarchist, in which he played a character who fails to blow up the Houses of Parliament. George Robey's Day Off (1919) showed the comedian acting out his daily domestic routines to comic effect, but the picture failed at the box office. Producers did not know how best to apply Robey's stage talents to the film. He continued to appear sporadically in film throughout the rest of his career, never achieving more than a modest amount of success. By the First World War, music hall entertainment had fallen out of favour with audiences. Revue appealed to wartime audiences, and Robey decided to capitalise on the medium's popularity. He achieved great success in The Bing Boys Are Here (1916). He was cast as Lucius Bing opposite Violet Loraine, who played his love interest Emma. The couple duetted in the show's signature song If You Were the Only Girl (In the World), which became an international success. Robey raised money for many war charities and was appointed a CBE in 1919. From 1918, he created sketches based on his Prime Minister of Mirth character and used a costume he had designed in the 1890s as a basis for the character's attire.
George Robey starred in the revue Round in Fifty in 1922, which earned him still wider notice. He returned to the cinema a further four times during 1923. The first two films were written to showcase his pantomime talents: One Arabian Night (Sinclair Hall, 1923) was a reworking of Aladdin and co-starred Lionelle Howard and Edward O'Neill. Harlequinade (A.E. Coleby, 1923) visited the roots of pantomime. One of Robey's more notable film roles was Sancho Panza in Don Quixote (Maurice Elvey, 1923), for which he received a fee of £700 a week. The amount of time he spent working away from home led to the breakdown of his marriage, and he separated from Ethel in 1923. Except for his performances in revue and pantomime, he appeared as his Prime Minister of Mirth character in all the other entertainment media including variety, music hall and radio. In the late 1920s Robey wrote and starred in two Phonofilm sound-on-film productions, Safety First (Hugh Croise, 1928) and Mrs. Mephistopheles (Hugh Croise, 1929). In 1932 Robey appeared in his first sound film, The Temperance Fête (Graham Cutts, 1932). It was followed by Marry Me (Wilhelm Thiele, 1932), starring German actress Renate Müller, which was one of the most successful musical films of his career. The film tells the story of a sound recordist in a gramophone company who romances a colleague when she becomes the family housekeeper. Robey continued to perform in variety theatre in the inter-war years and, in 1932, he starred in Helen!, his first straight theatre role. His appearance brought him to the attention of many influential directors, including Sydney Carroll, who signed him to appear on stage as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1935, a role that he later repeated in Laurence Olivier's film, Henry V (1944). Robey starred opposite Fritz Kortner, and Anna May Wong in a film version of the hit musical Chu Chin Chow (Walter Forde, 1934)). The New York Times called him 'a lovable and laughable Ali Baba'. In the summer of 1938, Robey appeared in the film A Girl Must Live (Carol Reed, 1939) in which he played the role of Horace Blount. A journalist for The Times opined that Robey's performance as an elderly furrier, the love interest of both Margaret Lockwood and Lilli Palmer, was 'a perfect study in bewildered embarrassment'. During the Second World War, Robey raised money for charities and promoted recruitment into the forces. Robey starred in the film Salute John Citizen (Maurice Elvey, 1942), co-starring Edward Rigby and Stanley Holloway, about the effects that the war had on a normal British family. A further four films followed in 1943, one of which promoted war propaganda while the other two displayed the popular medium of cine-variety. By the 1950s, his health had deteriorated, and he entered semi-retirement. George Robey was knighted a few months before his death at his home in Saltdean, East Sussex, in 1954. He was 85. Robey was married Twice. In 1898, Robey married his first wife, Ethel Hayden, the Australian-born musical theatre actress. Ethel accompanied him on his tours and frequently starred alongside him. They had two children, a son Edward (1900) and a daughter Eileen. After his divorce from Ethel in 1938, he married Blanche Littler, who was more than two decades his junior.
George Robey British postcard in the Rotary Photographic Series by Rotary Photo EC., no. 125 G. Sent by mail in 1906.
George Robey (1869-1954) was an English comedian, singer and actor in musical theatre, who became known as one of the greatest music hall performers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a comedian, Robey mixed everyday situations and observations with comic absurdity. Apart from his music hall acts, he was a popular Christmas pantomime performer in the English provinces, where he excelled in the dame roles. He only had modest success in the cinema.
George Robey was born as George Edward Wade in London in 1869. He came from a middle-class family. His father, Charles Wade, was a civil engineer who spent much of his career on tramline design and construction. Robey's mother, Elizabeth Mary Wade née Keene, was a housewife. After schooling in England and Germany and a series of office jobs, he made his debut on the London stage, at the age of 21, as the straight man to a comic hypnotist. He soon developed his act and appeared at the Oxford Music Hall in 1890, where he earned favourable notices singing The Simple Pimple and He'll Get It Where He's Gone to Now. In 1892, Robey appeared in his first pantomime, Whittington Up-to-date in Brighton, which brought him to a wider audience. With Robey's popularity came an eagerness to differentiate himself from his music hall rivals, and so he devised a signature costume when appearing as himself: an oversized black coat fastened from the neck down with large, wooden buttons; black, unkempt, baggy trousers and a partially bald wig with black, whispery strands of unbrushed, dirty-looking hair that poked below a large, dishevelled top-hat. He applied thick white face paint and exaggerated the redness on his cheeks and nose with bright red makeup; his eye line and eyebrows were also enhanced with thick, black grease paint. He held a short, misshaped, wooden walking stick, which was curved at the top. Robey later used the costume for his character, The Prime Minister of Mirth. The outfit helped Robey become instantly recognisable on the London music hall circuit. More provincial engagements followed in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and he soon became a mainstay of the popular Christmas pantomime scene. By the start of the new century, Robey was a big name in pantomime, and he was able to choose his roles. Pantomime enjoyed wide popularity until the 1890s, but by the time Robey had reached his peak, interest in it was on the wane. A type of character he particularly enjoyed taking on was the pantomime dame, which historically was played by comedians from the music hall. Robey was inspired by the older comedians Herbert Campbell and Dan Leno, and, although post-dating them, he rivalled their eccentricity and popularity, earning the festive entertainment a new audience. Robey's music hall act matured in the first decade of the 1900s, and he undertook several foreign tours. He starred in the Royal Command Performance in 1912 and regularly entertained before the aristocracy. Robery had made his film debut in 1900, according to IMDb. The short comedy The Rats (N.N., 1900) offered a brief glimpse of some of the greatest entertainers from the late Victorian and early Edwardian stage, Dan Leno, Herbert Campbell and George Robey. In 1913, Robey appeared in two early sound shorts: And Very Nice Too (Walter R. Boots, 1913) and Good Queen Bess (Walter R. Boots, 1913), made in the Kinoplasticon process, where the film was synchronised with phonograph records. The next year, he tried to emulate his music hall colleagues Billy Merson and Charlie Austin, who had set up Homeland Films and found success with the Squibs series of films starring Betty Balfour. Robey met filmmakers from the Burns Film Company, who engaged him in a silent short entitled George Robey Turns Anarchist, in which he played a character who fails to blow up the Houses of Parliament. George Robey's Day Off (1919) showed the comedian acting out his daily domestic routines to comic effect, but the picture failed at the box office. Producers did not know how best to apply Robey's stage talents to the film. He continued to appear sporadically in film throughout the rest of his career, never achieving more than a modest amount of success. By the First World War, music hall entertainment had fallen out of favour with audiences. Revue appealed to wartime audiences, and Robey decided to capitalise on the medium's popularity. He achieved great success in The Bing Boys Are Here (1916). He was cast as Lucius Bing opposite Violet Loraine, who played his love interest Emma. The couple duetted in the show's signature song If You Were the Only Girl (In the World), which became an international success. Robey raised money for many war charities and was appointed a CBE in 1919. From 1918, he created sketches based on his Prime Minister of Mirth character and used a costume he had designed in the 1890s as a basis for the character's attire.
George Robey starred in the revue Round in Fifty in 1922, which earned him still wider notice. He returned to the cinema a further four times during 1923. The first two films were written to showcase his pantomime talents: One Arabian Night (Sinclair Hall, 1923) was a reworking of Aladdin and co-starred Lionelle Howard and Edward O'Neill. Harlequinade (A.E. Coleby, 1923) visited the roots of pantomime. One of Robey's more notable film roles was Sancho Panza in Don Quixote (Maurice Elvey, 1923), for which he received a fee of £700 a week. The amount of time he spent working away from home led to the breakdown of his marriage, and he separated from Ethel in 1923. Except for his performances in revue and pantomime, he appeared as his Prime Minister of Mirth character in all the other entertainment media including variety, music hall and radio. In the late 1920s Robey wrote and starred in two Phonofilm sound-on-film productions, Safety First (Hugh Croise, 1928) and Mrs. Mephistopheles (Hugh Croise, 1929). In 1932 Robey appeared in his first sound film, The Temperance Fête (Graham Cutts, 1932). It was followed by Marry Me (Wilhelm Thiele, 1932), starring German actress Renate Müller, which was one of the most successful musical films of his career. The film tells the story of a sound recordist in a gramophone company who romances a colleague when she becomes the family housekeeper. Robey continued to perform in variety theatre in the inter-war years and, in 1932, he starred in Helen!, his first straight theatre role. His appearance brought him to the attention of many influential directors, including Sydney Carroll, who signed him to appear on stage as Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 in 1935, a role that he later repeated in Laurence Olivier's film, Henry V (1944). Robey starred opposite Fritz Kortner, and Anna May Wong in a film version of the hit musical Chu Chin Chow (Walter Forde, 1934)). The New York Times called him 'a lovable and laughable Ali Baba'. In the summer of 1938, Robey appeared in the film A Girl Must Live (Carol Reed, 1939) in which he played the role of Horace Blount. A journalist for The Times opined that Robey's performance as an elderly furrier, the love interest of both Margaret Lockwood and Lilli Palmer, was 'a perfect study in bewildered embarrassment'. During the Second World War, Robey raised money for charities and promoted recruitment into the forces. Robey starred in the film Salute John Citizen (Maurice Elvey, 1942), co-starring Edward Rigby and Stanley Holloway, about the effects that the war had on a normal British family. A further four films followed in 1943, one of which promoted war propaganda while the other two displayed the popular medium of cine-variety. By the 1950s, his health had deteriorated, and he entered semi-retirement. George Robey was knighted a few months before his death at his home in Saltdean, East Sussex, in 1954. He was 85. Robey was married Twice. In 1898, Robey married his first wife, Ethel Hayden, the Australian-born musical theatre actress. Ethel accompanied him on his tours and frequently starred alongside him. They had two children, a son Edward (1900) and a daughter Eileen. After his divorce from Ethel in 1938, he married Blanche Littler, who was more than two decades his junior.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
Lilli House - Franklin, TN This neat house in Franklin is located in the Hincheyville historic district on the National Register of Historic Places, but also goes all out for Halloween decorations. The home was built by Joshua Bates Lillie, the founder of Lillie Mills.
Here are the details on the National Register of Historic Places form:
ca. 1886, Queen Anne influenced, weatherboard, irregular shape, one story, hip and gable roof, circular porch wraps around circular corner turret with conical roof, central single-leaf door with rectangular transom, 1/1 light rectangular windows, decorative bargeboard and gable fish scale ornamentation.
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Ducato van conversion 54062215035_d313336af8_b
Ducato van conversion 54060882772_bdd3aa9ae2_b
Come on, let's play a prank on dad says Lilli - My four naughty kids Canon Eos R50 + Sigma EF 18-200mm f3.5-6.3
Hans Nielsen in Die blaue Stunde (1953) West German card. Photo: Komet / Panorama / Ewald. Hans Nielsen in Die blaue Stunde/The Blue Hour (Veit Harlan, 1953).
Hans Nielsen (1911-1965) was a German actor and assistant director. He was known for such films as Titanic (1943), Nachtwache/Keepers of the Night (1949) and Town Without Pity (1961). He appeared in more than 130 films between 1937 and 1965
Hans Albert Nielsen was born on 30 November 1911 as the son of a merchant in Hamburg, Germany. After attending secondary school he took an apprenticeship as a merchant,. He only completed it for the sake of his parents, because he took acting lessons with Albrecht Schoenhals and Erich Ziegel and also trained in singing. In 1932, Nielsen made his theatre debut at the Hamburger Kammerspiele. Further engagements took him to Augsburg, Kiel and Leipzig in the following months. Many actors and performing artists fled Nazi Germany, but Nielsen remained. In 1938, Nielsen went to Berlin and performed at various theatres. The talented actor had already attracted the attention of the film industry in the mid-1930s and Nielsen made his screen debut with a small part in the romantic comedy Daphne und der Diplomat/Daphne and the Diplomat (Robert A. Stemmle, 1937) in the same year he appeared as pilot Billy Sefton in the melodrama Tango Notturno (Fritz Kirchhoff, 1937). A year later, he took on the role of Max von Wendlowsky in the Zarah Leander film Heimat (Carl Froelich, 1938), based on the play by Hermann Sudermann. Productions such as the initially banned historical drama Preußische Liebesgeschichte/A Prussian Love Story (Paul Martin, 1938), the adventure Aufruhr in Damaskus/Uproar in Damascus (Gustacv Ucicky, 1939), and the crime thriller Alarm auf Station III/Alarm at Station III (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1939) followed until the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Nielsen appeared in the euthanasia drama Ich klage an/I Accuse (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1941) as Dr Höfer, which is still considered a ”reserved film’ today. In the drama Titanic (Herbert Selpin, 1943) about the sinking of the luxury liner RMS Titanic in 1912, Nielsen played the German first officer Petersen. Titanic was commissioned by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels with the intent of showing not only the superiority of German filmmaking but also as a propaganda vehicle which would depict British and American capitalism as being responsible for the disaster. The addition of an entirely fictional heroic German officer, Petersen, to the ship's crew, was intended to demonstrate the superior bravery and selflessness of German men as compared to the British officers. The film's original director, Herbert Selpin, was arrested during production after making disparaging comments about the German army and the war in the East. He was found hanged in prison, and the film was completed by Werner Klingler, who was not credited. Although the film had a brief theatrical run in parts of German-occupied Europe starting in November 1943, it was not shown within Germany by order of Goebbels, who feared that it would weaken the German citizenry's morale instead of improving it, as heavy Allied bombing raids made a film depicting mass panic and death unappealing. Goebbels later banned the playing of the film entirely, and it did not have a second run. Until the end of the war, Nielsen appeared in productions including the drama Der große König/The Great King (Veit Harlan, 1942) starring Otto Gebühr. The comedy Dr. Phil. Döderlein (1945) remained unfinished.
After the end of the Second World War, Hans Nielsen was able to continue his earlier successes on the big screen with mostly high-profile supporting roles, but also leading roles. He appeared, for example, as King Peter Petroni in the comedy of mistaken identity Herzkönig/King of Hearts (Helmut Weiss, 1947) and as Wolfgang Grunelius in the episodic film In jenen Tagen/In Those Days (1947) directed by Helmuth Käutner. It was one of the Rubble films made in the wake of Germany's defeat during World War II. In 1949, he shone alongside Luise Ullrich and Dieter Borsche in the drama Nachtwache/Keepers of the Night (Harald Braun, 1949). He impressively portrayed the pastor Johannes Heger, who finds himself in a conflict of conscience. In 1950, he was seen in the role of chief inspector Thomsen in Kurt Hoffmann's crime thriller Fünf unter Verdacht/Five Suspects (1950), based on the novel ‘Thomas verhört die Prima’ by Herbert Moll and Rudolf Becker. He often played good-natured, likeable and elegant roles, like the presiding judge in the satire Hokuspokus/Hocuspocus (Kurt Hoffmann, 1953). He usually appeared older in his roles than he was, often playing the benevolent head of the family. However, many of the productions in which Nielsen appeared were successful not least because of him. In the criminal melodrama Teufel in Seide/Devil in Silk (Rolf Hansen, 1955) with Lilli Palmer and Curd Jürgens, he was the committed defence lawyer, as well as in the legal drama Gestehen Sie, Dr. Corda!/Confess, Doctor Corda! (Josef von Báky, 1958) with Hardy Krüger and Kriegsgericht/Court Martial (Kurt Meisel, 1959), based on the story ‘Kreuzer Pommern’ by Willi Berthold with Karlheinz Böhm, Christian Wolff and Klaus Kammer as three shipwrecked German marines. In Wolfgang Liebeneiner's romanticised historical film Königin Luise/Queen Luise (1957), he lent character to Minister Karl August von Hardenberg alongside Ruth Leuwerik as Queen Luise. His role as Max Mertens in Anders als du und ich/Different from You and Me (Veit Harlan, 1957) is rather negligible. As Filmdienst.de notes: ‘The film by no means sees homosexuality as a positive alternative to life, and also defames abstract painting and atonal music, which it portrays as the expression of such an ‘attitude to life’.’ Nielsen did not become a real screen star in German post-war films, probably because he was confined to the type of dignified grand seigneur, the ‘actor of sober businessmen and grumpy but spirited clergymen’, as one critic once described him.
Hans Nielsen founded a cabaret group, ‘Die Außenseiter’ (The Outsider) after the war, and appeared in revues by Günter Neumann. Engagements took him to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, the Renaissance Theatre and the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, among others. One of his most important theatre roles was that of the Cardinal in the 1963 premiere of Rolf Hochhuth's play ‘Der Stellvertreter’, directed by Erwin Piscator at Berlin's Theater am Kurfürstendamm, with Dieter Borsche as Pope Pius XII. During the 1960s, he also appeared in films like Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes/Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (Terence Fisher, 1963) with Christopher Lee, Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse/Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse or Scotland Yard vs. Dr Mabuse (Paul May, 1963) starring Peter van Eyck, and Das indische Touch/The Indian Scarf (Alfred Vohrer, 1963). His only Hollywood film was Town Without Pity (Gottfried Reinhardt, 1961) with Kirk Douglas. In addition to his extensive acting work for theatre and film, Hans Nielsen was also a sought-after dubbing actor. He was the German voice of Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Trevor Howard, James Stewart, Fred Astaire and Spencer Tracy. His final film was the Western Die Hölle von Manitoba/The Hell of Manitoba (Sheldon Reynolds, 1965) starring Lex Barker and Pierre Brice. Hans Nielsen died in 1965 in West Berlin at the age of just 53. He had previously been admitted to hospital with back problems and was diagnosed with leukaemia on examination. The popular act or was laid to rest in the Heerstraße Cemetery in the Berlin district of Westend. The actor had been married to Anna Katharina Elisabeth Novian since 1937; despite having a daughter together, the marriage failed. After the divorce, Nielsen married his second wife Annemarie Giersch, who brought a son into the marriage. Wife number 3 was Jutta Jusseit. The couple married a few months before his death in 1965. In 2023, film historian Thomas Barthol published a biography of the artist entitled ‘Hans Nielsen: Der charmante Kavalier’, who never played in the top league of film stars, but ‘knew how to convince with his acting and vocal skills’.
Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-Line), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
Hans Nielsen German postcard by F.B.Z. Photo: Camera Film / Kurt Julies (Julius).
Hans Nielsen (1911-1965) was a German actor and assistant director. He was known for such films as Titanic (1943), Nachtwache/Keepers of the Night (1949) and Town Without Pity (1961). He appeared in more than 130 films between 1937 and 1965
Hans Albert Nielsen was born on 30 November 1911 as the son of a merchant in Hamburg, Germany. After attending secondary school he took an apprenticeship as a merchant,. He only completed it for the sake of his parents, because he took acting lessons with Albrecht Schoenhals and Erich Ziegel and also trained in singing. In 1932, Nielsen made his theatre debut at the Hamburger Kammerspiele. Further engagements took him to Augsburg, Kiel and Leipzig in the following months. Many actors and performing artists fled Nazi Germany, but Nielsen remained. In 1938, Nielsen went to Berlin and performed at various theatres. The talented actor had already attracted the attention of the film industry in the mid-1930s and Nielsen made his screen debut with a small part in the romantic comedy Daphne und der Diplomat/Daphne and the Diplomat (Robert A. Stemmle, 1937) in the same year he appeared as pilot Billy Sefton in the melodrama Tango Notturno (Fritz Kirchhoff, 1937). A year later, he took on the role of Max von Wendlowsky in the Zarah Leander film Heimat (Carl Froelich, 1938), based on the play by Hermann Sudermann. Productions such as the initially banned historical drama Preußische Liebesgeschichte/A Prussian Love Story (Paul Martin, 1938), the adventure Aufruhr in Damaskus/Uproar in Damascus (Gustacv Ucicky, 1939), and the crime thriller Alarm auf Station III/Alarm at Station III (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1939) followed until the end of the 1930s. In the 1940s, Nielsen appeared in the euthanasia drama Ich klage an/I Accuse (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1941) as Dr Höfer, which is still considered a ”reserved film’ today. In the drama Titanic (Herbert Selpin, 1943) about the sinking of the luxury liner RMS Titanic in 1912, Nielsen played the German first officer Petersen. Titanic was commissioned by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels with the intent of showing not only the superiority of German filmmaking but also as a propaganda vehicle which would depict British and American capitalism as being responsible for the disaster. The addition of an entirely fictional heroic German officer, Petersen, to the ship's crew, was intended to demonstrate the superior bravery and selflessness of German men as compared to the British officers. The film's original director, Herbert Selpin, was arrested during production after making disparaging comments about the German army and the war in the East. He was found hanged in prison, and the film was completed by Werner Klingler, who was not credited. Although the film had a brief theatrical run in parts of German-occupied Europe starting in November 1943, it was not shown within Germany by order of Goebbels, who feared that it would weaken the German citizenry's morale instead of improving it, as heavy Allied bombing raids made a film depicting mass panic and death unappealing. Goebbels later banned the playing of the film entirely, and it did not have a second run. Until the end of the war, Nielsen appeared in productions including the drama Der große König/The Great King (Veit Harlan, 1942) starring Otto Gebühr. The comedy Dr. Phil. Döderlein (1945) remained unfinished.
After the end of the Second World War, Hans Nielsen was able to continue his earlier successes on the big screen with mostly high-profile supporting roles, but also leading roles. He appeared, for example, as King Peter Petroni in the comedy of mistaken identity Herzkönig/King of Hearts (Helmut Weiss, 1947) and as Wolfgang Grunelius in the episodic film In jenen Tagen/In Those Days (1947) directed by Helmuth Käutner. It was one of the Rubble films made in the wake of Germany's defeat during World War II. In 1949, he shone alongside Luise Ullrich and Dieter Borsche in the drama Nachtwache/Keepers of the Night (Harald Braun, 1949). He impressively portrayed the pastor Johannes Heger, who finds himself in a conflict of conscience. In 1950, he was seen in the role of chief inspector Thomsen in Kurt Hoffmann's crime thriller Fünf unter Verdacht/Five Suspects (1950), based on the novel ‘Thomas verhört die Prima’ by Herbert Moll and Rudolf Becker. He often played good-natured, likeable and elegant roles, like the presiding judge in the satire Hokuspokus/Hocuspocus (Kurt Hoffmann, 1953). He usually appeared older in his roles than he was, often playing the benevolent head of the family. However, many of the productions in which Nielsen appeared were successful not least because of him. In the criminal melodrama Teufel in Seide/Devil in Silk (Rolf Hansen, 1955) with Lilli Palmer and Curd Jürgens, he was the committed defence lawyer, as well as in the legal drama Gestehen Sie, Dr. Corda!/Confess, Doctor Corda! (Josef von Báky, 1958) with Hardy Krüger and Kriegsgericht/Court Martial (Kurt Meisel, 1959), based on the story ‘Kreuzer Pommern’ by Willi Berthold with Karlheinz Böhm, Christian Wolff and Klaus Kammer as three shipwrecked German marines. In Wolfgang Liebeneiner's romanticised historical film Königin Luise/Queen Luise (1957), he lent character to Minister Karl August von Hardenberg alongside Ruth Leuwerik as Queen Luise. His role as Max Mertens in Anders als du und ich/Different from You and Me (Veit Harlan, 1957) is rather negligible. As Filmdienst.de notes: ‘The film by no means sees homosexuality as a positive alternative to life, and also defames abstract painting and atonal music, which it portrays as the expression of such an ‘attitude to life’.’ Nielsen did not become a real screen star in German post-war films, probably because he was confined to the type of dignified grand seigneur, the ‘actor of sober businessmen and grumpy but spirited clergymen’, as one critic once described him.
Hans Nielsen founded a cabaret group, ‘Die Außenseiter’ (The Outsider) after the war, and appeared in revues by Günter Neumann. Engagements took him to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, the Renaissance Theatre and the Theater am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, among others. One of his most important theatre roles was that of the Cardinal in the 1963 premiere of Rolf Hochhuth's play ‘Der Stellvertreter’, directed by Erwin Piscator at Berlin's Theater am Kurfürstendamm, with Dieter Borsche as Pope Pius XII. During the 1960s, he also appeared in films like Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes/Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (Terence Fisher, 1963) with Christopher Lee, Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse/Scotland Yard Hunts Dr. Mabuse or Scotland Yard vs. Dr Mabuse (Paul May, 1963) starring Peter van Eyck, and Das indische Touch/The Indian Scarf (Alfred Vohrer, 1963). His only Hollywood film was Town Without Pity (Gottfried Reinhardt, 1961) with Kirk Douglas. In addition to his extensive acting work for theatre and film, Hans Nielsen was also a sought-after dubbing actor. He was the German voice of Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Trevor Howard, James Stewart, Fred Astaire and Spencer Tracy. His final film was the Western Die Hölle von Manitoba/The Hell of Manitoba (Sheldon Reynolds, 1965) starring Lex Barker and Pierre Brice. Hans Nielsen died in 1965 in West Berlin at the age of just 53. He had previously been admitted to hospital with back problems and was diagnosed with leukaemia on examination. The popular act or was laid to rest in the Heerstraße Cemetery in the Berlin district of Westend. The actor had been married to Anna Katharina Elisabeth Novian since 1937; despite having a daughter together, the marriage failed. After the divorce, Nielsen married his second wife Annemarie Giersch, who brought a son into the marriage. Wife number 3 was Jutta Jusseit. The couple married a few months before his death in 1965. In 2023, film historian Thomas Barthol published a biography of the artist entitled ‘Hans Nielsen: Der charmante Kavalier’, who never played in the top league of film stars, but ‘knew how to convince with his acting and vocal skills’.
Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-Line), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards .
People's Orientation The Radical Organizing and Activism Resource (ROAR) Center at the University of Oregon hosted the People's Orientation on October 6, 2024. The tour started at the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater before moving towards the former site of the Pioneer Mother and Father statues, which were toppled by protesters in June 2020. The tour then visited Johnson Hall, the site of many protest movements including the recent encampment-related Palestine protests, gave a history of 13th Avenue, which used to be open to traffic before students successfully demonstrated for a car-free campus in 1970, and concluded at the Lillis Quad, the original site of the Gaza encampment in the spring.
People's Orientation The Radical Organizing and Activism Resource (ROAR) Center at the University of Oregon hosted the People's Orientation on October 6, 2024. The tour started at the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater before moving towards the former site of the Pioneer Mother and Father statues, which were toppled by protesters in June 2020. The tour then visited Johnson Hall, the site of many protest movements including the recent encampment-related Palestine protests, gave a history of 13th Avenue, which used to be open to traffic before students successfully demonstrated for a car-free campus in 1970, and concluded at the Lillis Quad, the original site of the Gaza encampment in the spring.
People's Orientation The Radical Organizing and Activism Resource (ROAR) Center at the University of Oregon hosted the People's Orientation on October 6, 2024. The tour started at the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater before moving towards the former site of the Pioneer Mother and Father statues, which were toppled by protesters in June 2020. The tour then visited Johnson Hall, the site of many protest movements including the recent encampment-related Palestine protests, gave a history of 13th Avenue, which used to be open to traffic before students successfully demonstrated for a car-free campus in 1970, and concluded at the Lillis Quad, the original site of the Gaza encampment in the spring.