Karen Morley

Karen Morley (1909-2003) was an American film actress who appeared in such MGM films as Scarface (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1932). Her career was broken in 1947 by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 849. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


British postcard by Foto-Roff in the Black & Whites Gallery, London, no. 1198. Photo: Kobal Collection. Karen Morley and boyfriend Robert Young, 1932.


British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: M.G.M. Franchot Tone and Karen Morley in Gabriel over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933).


British Art Photo postcard, no. 127. Photo: Paramount Pictures.

Rehearsal replacements for Greta Garbo

Karen Morley was born Mildred Linton in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1909. As a child, she was adopted by a well-to-do family who moved to California during the 1920s. She attended Hollywood High School and studied for a career in medicine at UCLA, but a class in theatre changed her career ambitions. Karen dropped out of college to join the Los Angeles Civic Repertory Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse.

At the Pasadena Playhouse, she was discovered by director Clarence Brown when he was looking for rehearsal replacements for Greta Garbo. He cast her alongside Garbo and Robert Montgomery in the drama Inspiration (Clarence Brown, 1931).

Howard Hughes chose her for the role of blond moll Poppy in Scarface (Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson, 1932) starring Paul Muni. She received a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931. That year, she married director Charles Vidor and had a son with him, Michael Karoly.

Her other films included The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932) with Boris Karloff, the mystery Arsene Lupin (Jack Conway, 1933) starring John Barrymore, the political fantasy Gabriel Over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933), and the all-star comedy drama Dinner at Eight (George Cukor, 1933).

In 1934, Morley left MGM after arguments about her roles and private life, including her intention to start a family. King Vidor entrusted her with the leading role in his New Deal propaganda film Our Daily Bread (1934). She continued to work as a freelance performer and appeared in Michael Curtiz's Black Fury (1935) with Paul Muni and The Littlest Rebel (David Butler, 1935) with Shirley Temple. She only appeared in a few films from this time onwards, as it was difficult to make a film career at that time without the backing of a major film studio.


Dutch postcard, no. 472. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Karen Morley and Charles Starrett in The Mask of Fu Manchu (Charles Brabin, 1932).


Dutch postcard, no. 510. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Nils Asther and Karen Morley in Washington Masquerade (Charles Brabin, 1932). The card holds the stamp of the Dutch National Board of Censors. The Dutch title of the film was Hoog Spel (High Stakes).


British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: M.G.M. Walter Huston, Karen Morley and Franchot Tone in Gabriel over the White House (Gregory La Cava, 1933).


Dutch postcard by Loet C. Barnstijn. Photo: United Artists. Barbara Pepper, Tom Keene and Karen Morley in Our Daily Bread (King Vidor, 1934).

Blacklisted by Hollywood

Karen Morley played Charlotte Lucas, Mr. Collins' wife, in Pride and Prejudice (Robert Z. Leonard, 1940). The film was critically well-received, but it did not advance her career. Morley turned her attention to the stage and acted in three plays on Broadway in 1941 and 1942. In 1943, she divorced Charles Vidor to marry actor Lloyd Gough. The couple remained married to him until he died in 1984.

In 1947, she was called to the HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities) because she was suspected to be a member of the Communist Party of the United States. She refused to answer questions and, as a result, ended up blacklisted by Hollywood. Her final films were the Film Noir M (1951) directed by Joseph Losey, who was also blacklisted, and the Western Born to the Saddle (William Beaudine, 1953).

Later, she made brief appearances in the TV series Kung Fu (1973), Kojak (1973) and Police Woman (1975). Morley did not manage to get any more film roles, but she remained active in politics. In 1954, she ran for lieutenant governor of New York for the American Labor Party but was unsuccessful.

In 1993, she appeared in The Great Depression, a documentary TV series. In the series, she talked about how helpless she felt as a privileged Hollywood actress in the face of all the poverty and suffering that surrounded her. She also spoke of her experience making Our Daily Bread and working for King Vidor, whom she described as a conservative who thought that people should willingly help each other without government interference.

In December 1999, at the age of 90, she appeared in Vanity Fair in an article about blacklist survivors, and she was honoured at the San Francisco Film Festival. In 2003, Morley seemed to make a comeback when she was offered a role in the black comedy Duplex (Danny DeVito, 2003) starring Drew Barrymore. However, Karen Morley died of pneumonia at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, at 93.


British postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures.


British postcard in the Film-Kurier Series, London, no. 10, Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, no. 56.


Dutch postcard, no. 247. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga Phot., Bruxelles, no. 76. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German, French and English) and IMDb.

Photo by Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg

Freiherr (Baron) Wolff von Gudenberg (1890-1961 or 1964) was a photographer who was noted and fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s in Berlin. Wolff von Gudenberg is the name of an old Hessian noble family that was raised to the rank of baron in 1873. He photographed actors like Marlene Dietrich and Fritzi Massary, dancers like Marianne Winkelstern and La Jana, and international celebrities such as Josephine Baker and Anna May Wong. His photos appeared in magazines such as Die Dame, newspapers like Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung (BIZ), and on countless postcards by Ross Verlag and other publishers. To commemorate this forgotten photographer, we selected 20 postcards with his portraits. Marlene Pilaete added three special cigarette cards of Marlene Dietrich to the post.


Dutch postcard by JSA, no. 230. Photo: Frhr. W. von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) was the first German actress who succeeded in Hollywood. Throughout her long career, she constantly reinvented herself. In 1920s Berlin, she started as a cabaret singer, chorus girl, and film actress. In the 1930s, she became a Hollywood star, then a World War II frontline entertainer, and finally, she was an international stage show performer from the 1950s till the 1970s. Now we remember her as one of the icons of the 20th century.


Dutch postcard by JSA, no. 232. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg.

The Austrian actor Willi Forst (1903-1980) was a darling of the German-speaking public. He was also one of the most significant directors, producers, writers and stars of the Wiener Filme, the light Viennese musical comedies of the 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3977/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Frhr. v. Gudenberg, Berlin.

German actress Käthe Dorsch (1890-1957) was a famous stage actress in Vienna and Berlin. She also made several silent and sound films.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4869/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Gudenberg, Berlin.

Hungarian film actress (Gräfin) Agnes Esterhazy (1891-1956) worked mainly in the silent cinema of Austria and Germany. The countess appeared in more than 30 films between 1920 and 1943.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5167/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Gudenberg, Berlin.

Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was the first Chinese American movie star and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe, where she starred in such classics as Piccadilly (1929).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5230/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin. Elisabeth Bergner in Der Geiger von Florenz (Paul Czinner, 1926).

The profoundly sensitive acting of Austrian-British actress Elisabeth Bergner (1897-1986) influenced the German cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. She specialised in the bisexual type that she portrayed in Der Geiger von Florenz and other film and stage roles. Nazism forced her to go into exile, but she worked successfully in the West End and on Broadway.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5304/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin.

French actor and singer Albert Préjean (1894-1979) was a former WWI flying ace. He is best known for playing heroes in the silent films of René Clair, and for playing George Simenon's detective Maigret.


German postcard by Verlag Piek, Postdam, no. 855. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg. Max Hansen, Alfred Jerger and Siegfried Arno in the play 'Die drei Musketiere' (The Three Musketeers, 1929) at the Grosse Schauspielhaus.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5555/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Freiherr von Gudenberg, Berlin.

Danish cabaret artist, actor, comedian, and singer Max Hansen (1897-1961) was known as 'The Little Caruso'. During the 1920s, he was one of the most popular stars in Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5844/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin.

German singer/actress Charlotte Ander (1902-1969) was a star in the silent era before making the transition to sound. The Nazis broke her successful career because she was not of 'pure blood'.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6760/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg. Trude Marlen in Spiel mit dem Feuer/Playing with Fire (Ralph Arthur Roberts, 1934).

Trude Marlen (1912-2005), was a curly-locked Austrian leading lady of the 1930s. From 1933 until the 1940s, she made mostly light entertainment films as a Ufa star, in which Willi Forst was often her partner. The Ufa traded her as the German answer to Jean Harlow, but for the most part, she was the Viennese equivalent of the 'girl next door', engaging and uncomplicated.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6799/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Freiherr v. Gudenberg.

Hungarian-born singer and actress Márta Eggerth or Martha Eggerth (1912-2013) maintained a global career for over 70 years. She was the popular and talented star of 30 German and Austrian films of the 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7049/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg Phot.

Hungarian-born Gitta Alpár (1903-1991) was a Jewish actress, opera and operetta singer, and dancer, whose successful career in Germany was broken by the Nazis.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7762/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg.

Smart German actor Gustav Fröhlich (1902-1987) played Freder Fredersen in the classic Metropolis (1927) and became a popular star in light comedies. After the war, he tried to escape from the standard role of a charming gentleman with the part of a doomed painter in Die Sünderin (1951), but the effort went down into a scandal.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8294/12, 1933-1934. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg / Ufa.

Jovial, pleasantly plump Hans Albers (1891-1960) was a superstar of German cinema between 1930 and 1945. He was also one of the most popular German singers of the twentieth century. His song Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins (On the Reeperbahn at half past midnight) is the unofficial anthem of Hamburg’s neighbourhood of St. Pauli, famous for its brothels, music and nightclubs.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8419/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg.

The Austrian-German actor Wolf Albach-Retty (1906-1967) is nowadays best known as the father of Romy Schneider, but during the 1930s he was a popular leading man of German cinema.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8469/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg.

Willy Fritsch (1901-1973) was the immensely popular ‘Sunny Boy’ of the Ufa operettas of the 1930s and 1940s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8611/2, 1933-1934. Photo: Freiherr von Gudenberg / Ufa.

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8638/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg / Ufa.

Blonde Austrian actress and singer Gretl Theimer (1911-1972) arrived in the German cinema with the sound film and had an impressive career in the 1930s.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8806/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Frhr. von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Hungarian actress Käthe von Nagy (1904-1973) started as the ‘Backfish’ of German films of the late 1920s. In the early 1930s, she became a fashionable and charming star of German and French cinema.


Borg Cigarette card in the Film-u. Bühnen-Lieblinge series, Serie B, Bild 86. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


Borg Cigarette card in the Film-u. Bühnen-Lieblinge series, Serie B, Bild 112. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.


Borg Cigarette card in the Film-u. Bühnen-Lieblinge series, Serie B, Bild 89. Photo: Freiherr Wolff von Gudenberg. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Sources: Un regard oblique, ArtNet and RKD (Dutch).

Warner Baxter

Warner Baxter (1889-1951) was an American film actor from the 1910s to the 1940s. Baxter is known for his role as the Cisco Kid in the film In Old Arizona (1928), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Academy Awards. He played the Cisco Kid or a similar character throughout the 1930s. Baxter frequently played womanising, charismatic Latin bandit types in Westerns, but had many other roles throughout his career.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 165.


British postcard in the Picturgoer Series, London, no. 165a.


British Valentine's postcard, no. 5904 G. Photo: Fox Films. Caption: Warner Baxter - A Fox Film Star, he received his education in Ohio State University. he made his debut as a screen actor with the Paramount Company in 1921. Talkies gave him the opportunity and he achieved fame with the Fox Films, starring in Daddy Long Legs, and other famous plays. He is 42 years of age and was born at Columbus, Ohio. Married Winifred Bryson.


British postcard in the Famous Film Stars series by Valentine's, no. 7123 M. Caption: Warner Baxter - This popular film star began life as a salesman before he found his life-work on the stage and on the films. He has starred in several popular pictures such as 42nd Street and Paddy the Next Best Thing. He was born in Columbus, Ohio on 20th March 1892, and is 5 feet, 11 inches in height.


British postcard in the Film Partners Series, London, no. PC3. Photo: Fox. Warner Baxter and Janet Gaynor in One More Spring (Henry King, 1935).

A matinee idol

Warner Leroy Baxter was born in 1889, in Columbus, Ohio. Edwin F. Baxter, a cigar stand operator, and Jennie (Jane) B. Barrett were his parents. His father died before Warner was five, and he and his mother went to live with her brother. Baxter claimed to have an early pre-disposition toward show business: "I discovered a boy a block away who would eat worms and swallow flies for a penny. For one-third of the profits, I exhibited him in a tent."

Mother and son later moved to New York City, where he became active in dramatics, participating in school productions and attending plays. In 1898, the two moved to San Francisco, where he graduated from Polytechnic High School. Both survived the severe earthquake of 1906 but lost all their belongings. They lived in a tent for two weeks "in mortal terror of the fire" and returned to Columbus in 1908.

After selling farm implements for a living, Baxter worked for four months as the partner of Dorothy Shoemaker in an act on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit. In 1910, he joined a theatre group and played vaudeville. This led him to New York City, where he enjoyed his first successes on Broadway. Baxter became a member of The Lambs, a professional theatrical club in NYC, in 1918.

Baxter began his film career as an extra in 1914. His first starring role was in the silent drama Sheltered Daughters (Edward Dillon, 1921) opposite Justine Johnston. In the same year, he acted in First Love (Maurice Campbell, 1921), The Love Charm (Thomas N. Heffron, 1921) with Wanda Hawley, and Cheated Hearts (Hobart Henley, 1921) opposite Herbert Rawlinson.

He soon became a matinee idol. Baxter starred in 48 features during the 1920s. His most notable silent film roles were in the comedy The Awful Truth (Paul Powell, 1925) with Agnes Ayres, and The Great Gatsby (Herbert Brenon, 1926), the first film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary classic. He played the title role of Jay Gatsby opposite Lois Wilson as Daisy. Baxter played an island love interest opposite dancer Gilda Gray in Aloma of the South Seas (Maurice Tourneur, 1926) and an alcoholic doctor in West of Zanzibar (Tod Browning, 1928) with Lon Chaney.


Spanish collectors card by La Novela Femenina Cinematogràfica, no. 120.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 575. Photo: Fanamet Film.


Italian postcard by B & G., B, no. 150. Photo: Metro Pictures. Caption: Linguacciuta!... (Big-mouth/ Sharp tongue). Viola Dana and Warner Baxter in the comedy In Search of a Thrill (Oscar Apfel, 1923). With thanks to Steve Massa for the identification.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 1058. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5758. Photo: Fox-Film.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6138/1, 1931. Photo: Fox. On the back: Dutch-written title: Zijn mooiste weerwraak (His best revenge). It refers to Such men are dangerous (Kenneth Hawks, 1930).

The Cisco Kid

Warner Baxter's most notable starring role was as The Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona (Irving Cummings, 1929), the first all-talking Western. For his role, he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor. He played the Cisco Kid again in the ensemble short film The Stolen Jools (William C. McGann, 1931). Baxter also starred in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933), Grand Canary (Irving Cummings, 1934) and Broadway Bill (Frank Capra, 1934).

Many consider his best role, that of the doctor who treated Abraham Lincoln's assassin, in John Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936). Other notable sound films were Slave Ship (Tay Garnett, 1937) with Wallace Beery and Kidnapped (Otto Preminger, 1938) with Freddie Bartholomew.

When not acting, Baxter was an inventor who co-created a searchlight for revolvers in 1935. This allowed a shooter to more clearly see a target at night. He also developed a radio device that allowed emergency crews to change traffic signals from two blocks away, providing them a safe passage through intersections.

By 1936, Baxter was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, but by 1943, he had slipped to B movie roles. He was then known as Dr. Robert Ordway in the Crime Doctor series of 10 films which began with Crime Doctor (Michael Gordon, 1943). However, Baxter was now more comfortable, with his career and life with his wife, actress Winifred Bryson: "It's wonderful. I make two of them (the Crime Doctor films) a year. Columbia has juggled it so I can make two in a row. That takes about eight weeks of my time. The rest of the year I relax. I travel. I enjoy life."

Warner Baxter suffered from arthritis for several years. In 1951, he underwent a lobotomy as a last resort to ease the chronic pain and later that year, he died of pneumonia at age 62. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion-picture industry.


British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Warner Bros. Bebe Daniels and Warren Baxter in the musical 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933).


British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: MGM. Warner Baxter in Penthouse/Crooks in Clover (W.S. Van Dyke, 1933).


Dutch postcard for Metropole Palace, Den Haag (The Hague). Photos: 20th Century Fox. Fredric March, June Lang, Warner Baxter, Lionel Barrymore, and Gregory Ratoff in The Road to Glory (Howard Hawks, 1936). Caption: We, 5 stars, are represented in the overwhelming Fox 20th Century millions-film work The Way to Glory. European premiere in the new glorious Metropole Palace, Laan van Meerdervoort, telephone 39.22.44.


British Art Photo postcard, no. 6.


Dutch postcard by JosPe, Arnhem, no. 436. Photo: Fox Film.


French postcard, no. 729.


Czechoslovakian postcard by Josef Doležal, Červený Kostelec. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Caption: Warner Baxter, famous character actor.

Sources: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.