Disgraced Minor Female Celebs

[VintageKell]

Pola Negri (born Barbara Apolonia Chałupiec) was a Polish stage and film actress, who achieved fame for her tragedienne and femme fatale roles from the 1910's right through to the 1940's ...... technically she isn't a 'minor' celeb, being a 'A' lister in her day, but she certainly is largely forgotten these days. She is possibly best known today for being one of the most popular stars of the silent film era, but her long career career included movies in both the silent and talking eras, as well as theater, and vaudeville work. She also was a singer and recording artist, as well as an author and a dancer / ballerina. Due to her lengthy and varied career, any full biography would be extensive indeed, so by necessity I will be abbreviating her life somewhat.

Her father was arrested for revolutionary activities and sent to Siberia, and she and her mother lived in extreme poverty. But poverty makes for slim girls and she was accepted for training in Imperial Ballet academy. Starting in the chorus (do ballerina's sing?), and working her way up to solo roles, a bout of tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing. While in a sanatorium recovering, she adopted the pseudonym 'Pola Negri', after the Italian poetess Ada Negri. She then retrained as an actress with success in Berlin on the stage, and having already made her movie debut in 1914 in 'Slave to her Senses'. She was a popular actress in Europe, and in 1918, the director Ernst Lubitsch convinced the German film studio 'UFA' to let him create a large-scale film with Negri as the main character .... the film, 'The Eyes of the Mummy Ma' made in 1918 was a success, and their third collaboration 'Madame DuBarry' became a huge international success, and broke the American embargo on German films, making Negri a star in the US. Paramount Pictures mogul Jesse Lasky brought Negri to Hollywood, making Negri the first ever Continental star to be imported into Hollywood.

Initially Paramount utilized Negri as a mysterious European femme fatale and staged an ongoing feud with Gloria Swanson, which actor Charlie Chaplin remembered in his autobiography as "a mélange of cooked-up jealousies and quarrels." .. she was only moderately successful during the silent era, with mixed successes. In 1928, Negri made her last film for Paramount Pictures, 'The Woman From Moscow', and she claimed in her autobiography that she opted not to renew her contract with Paramount, choosing instead to retire from films and live as a wife and expectant mother with her new husband, Georgian prince Serge Mdivani. They lived in the Château de Rueil-Séraincourt in Vigny, France, which she owned at the time ... other reports say that Paramount chose not to renew her contract.

Negri then found that her husband was gambling her fortune away on speculative business ventures, straining their relationship more than a bit, and she made one more silent movie, 'The Way Of Lost Souls' (aka 'The Woman He Scorned'), in 1929, and returned to Hollywood in 1931. She sang the song "Paradise" in a movie, which became a radio hit ... Negri went on a successful vaudeville tour to promote the song. She then returned to France and made a number of normal movies for UFA (now controlled by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels), but left when war broke out in 1939 and the Germans conquered France. Back in Hollywood, Negri was hired in a supporting role as the temperamental opera singer Genya Smetana for the 1943 comedy 'Hi Diddle Diddle', which was a hit. A final vaudeville tour in 1944, and an appearance in a Boston supper club engagement in 1945 for a repertoire centered around the song "Paradise", saw her finally retire from showbiz. Negri came out of retirement just once to appear in the Walt Disney film 'The Moon-Spinners' in 1964.

She made a number of personal appearances and attended awards after retirement but late in life she suffered a brain tumor which she declined to have treated. She lived two additional years and died of pneumonia on 1 August 1987, at the age of 90. As you might expect, her life was not without the odd incident or two that didn't necessarily reflect well on her reputation .....

Negri's mother was allegedly a member of the Polish aristocracy, and consequently her first marriage was with Count Eugeniusz Dambski, making her Countessa Apolonia Dambska-Challupiec ... they divorced after a long separation in 1922. She was the mistress of German industrialist Wolfgang George Schleber, whom she called "Petronius" for most of her stay in Germany until she left for Hollywood.

In Hollywood she began making headlines and gossip columns with a string of celebrity love affairs with fellow stars such as;

• Charlie Chaplin: Negri had met Chaplin while in Germany, and what began as a platonic relationship there became a well-publicized affair and marriage speculation which received the headline, "The Queen of Tragedy To Wed The King of Comedy".
• Rod La Rocque: the relationship with Chaplin soured, and Negri became involved for a time with actor Rod La Rocque, who also appeared opposite her in Forbidden Paradise (1924), and
• Rudolph Valentino: Negri met Rudolph Valentino at a costume party held by Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst, and was Valentino's lover until his death in 1926.

Her initial silent career foundered with the poor publicity surrounding her behavior at her former lover Rudolph Valentino's New York funeral, and her rebound marriage to Georgian prince Serge Mdivani, both of which were unpopular with fans. Negri caused a media sensation at this New York funeral in August 24, 1926, at which she "fainted" several times, and, according to actor Ben Lyon, arranged for a large floral arrangement, which spelled out "P-O-L-A", to be placed on Valentino's coffin. The press dismissed her actions as a publicity stunt. The marriage to Mdvani was unpopular in the US because it happened so quickly after Rudolph Valentino's death.

While residing at the Ambassador Hotel in New York in April 1932, Negri was romantically involved with singer Russ Columbo and performed with him (as well as for him one presumes ).

In 1935, when she went to Germany to appear in the film 'Mazurka', the film became one of Adolf Hitler's favorite films, a fact that gave birth to a rumor in 1937 about Negri having had an affair with Hitler. There was no truth to the rumor. Pola sued a French magazine, Pour Vous, that had circulated the libelous rumor and won her case.

From 1957 she lived with oil heiress and ex vaudeville actress Margaret West and would live with West until the latter's death in 1963 ... there is nothing more known about the nature of their relationship

Trivia:

• While in Hollywood, she started several ladies' fashion trends, some of which are still fashion staples today, including red painted toenails, fur boots, and turbans.
• During the time that Negri was filming The Moon-Spinners in London, she made a sensation by appearing before the London press at her hotel in the company of a feisty cheetah on a steel chain leash.
• Pola Negri has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard.
• Negri was offered the role of 'Norma Desmond' in the film, 'Sunset Boulevard' in 1950. Negri declined which went to Gloria Swanson, her former "rival" at Paramount.
• At the time of Valentino's death and for the remainder of her life, Negri would state that Valentino was the love of her life.

Pictures:

She has a small thread here already ... one of Mr Spades, so hopefully no dupes, or misattributions, and just a few illustrative pictures only. And as usual any follow ups to her thread please

[VintageKell]

Mimi Pollak was a Swedish actress and theatre director who was trained in the performing arts at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school in Stockholm 1922-24. Pollak worked in the 1920's and 1930's as a film actress and stage actress and became in 1948, the first contracted female director at the Dramatic Theatre with the production of 'The Maids', and she went on to become a successful director at Dramatic Theatre, and staged altogether 60 plays on the national stage over the years.

She also had a successful film career with a 1922 debut including notable supporting parts in Ingmar Bergman's 'Autumn Sonata' (starring Ingrid Bergman) as the piano teacher, in 'Flight of the Eagle' in 1982, starring Max von Sydow, and she appeared in occasional TV and Movies until 1991 with about 30 film and TV productions .... she had retired from the stage in 1975, but made a brief stage comeback in 1991, age 87, in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.

Her point of interest for this thread relates to her theatre school days in Stockholm, Sweden where she was with fellow actress Greta Garbo from 1922 to 1924. The two had a lesbian affair during this period. However as Garbo moved to the US in 1925 and Mimi remained in Sweden the affair ended. There was also the fear of being exposed, as Sweden was no more accepting of lesbianism than anywhere else at the time. Garbo in particular wanted to keep her lesbian affairs a secret so as not to afffect her career.

Pollak married in 1927 and later had children, but she and Garbo maintained close contact for over 60 years. Garbo kept her bisexuality a secret and Mimi never outed her ex-lover. It was Garbo's personal writings, which were released in Sweden in 2005 that exposed the affair, and in them Garbo affirmed that she had remained in love with Pollak until her death in 1990. Their relationship and love letters were published in parts in the Swedish book 'Djävla älskade unge!' (Bloody Beloved Kid), written by Pollak's personal friend Tin Andersén Axell in 2005.

Pictures:

Not many I am afraid, as she is really rather a minor celeb .... associated to an 'A' lister, who definitely isn't forgotten or minor.

[VintageKell]

Bridget Hall is an American model, who started as a child model in Dallas but who later moved to New York to pursue her modeling career. She was successful and by age 18, she was being listed in Forbes as one of the "best ten" moneymaking supermodels, along with Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington Formerly with Ford Models, she signed with IMG Models and has appeared in fashion magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE and Allure and in fashion shows in New York City, Paris and Milan. She was included in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues from 2002-2005. She was the object/subject of Joanne Gair body painting works in several editions .... and has appeared in at lease one movie 'Death Toll' in 2007.

She also drinks, then gets in to her car and endangers the rest of the public by driving, and then ignores the court sentences by driving with a suspended licence ..... In 2007 she was caught driving a Lexus GS3 sedan which was reportedly also unregistered and without insurance. Then in 2010 she was arrested for driving while intoxicated and was suspended from driving, pending final sentence.

Finally in March this year,she was arrested again after being stopped for having windows that were tinted too dark, and found to be driving whilst still suspended. She reportedly admitted to police that she didn't have a license due to the DWI (Driving While Intoxicated). "She stated she was on her way to community service and paying for taxis was too expensive" her arrest report said.

Police confirmed the suspension with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicle, and found there were actually two suspensions on her license -- one for the DWI, and one for something else, perhaps not answering a summons, according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Jerry Larsen. Hall was charged with two counts of aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in second and third degrees, which are misdemeanors, and four violations for unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, driving an unregistered and uninsured motor vehicle, and having windows that are too dark. She was processed and released on her own recognizance at 10:30 a.m.

She was given an appearance ticket for East Hampton Town Justice Court that coincides with her exisitng DWI case sentencing .... things may not go well

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Vera Kholodnaya (born Vera Levchenko), was a Russian actress, who was the first star of Russian silent cinema ... at the time before WWI and during the Russian Revolution/Civil War, the Russians had a large film industry. Her beginnings were as you might expect rather humble ...Born in Poltava, in the then Russian Empire, (now part of Ukraine) she went to live in Moscow with her widowed grandmother at the age of two. As a girl she was enrolled at the Bolshoi Theatre ballet school .... however a chance visit to the cinema in 1908 caused her plans to change and she auditioned and a got a minor role in a production of 'Anna Karenina'. This led to a contract and she started appearing in larger parts in movies.

In 1910, she married Vladimir Kholodny a playboy racing driver and sports newspaper editor .. she was said to accompany him to races and the distraction of her presence caused accidents. She also (unusually in Russia, where its not the tradition), adopted his surname. he was drafted to fight in the war in 1914 and she signed with a rival Khanzhonkov studio. Her fists movie with them 'The Song of the Triumphant Love (after Turgenev)' which was a major box-office hit.

Her acting style at this time was often compared with that of Asta Nielsen but had gradually developed her own style. By 1916, she was the biggest star in Imperial Russia, and brought her the title ‘the Queen of Screen’. Unfortunately for her and Russia, while she was starting the making of a new film 'Pierrot' in late 1916 (which was never completed) .... the first shots of the Revolution were fired. However with Russia being so vast, films were still being made, and even while the civil war replaced the revolution, a new Kholodnaya film was released every third week.

In 1917, the newly established Soviet authorities had (in the name of the proletariat ) instructed film companies to produce less melodrama and more adaptations of Russian classics .... so she embarked on a film of Tolstoy's 'The Living Corpse' which appeared to great critical acclaim. Her last commercial hit was 'Be silent, sorrow...be silent' (Molchi, grust... molchi) was in 1917. Her company decided to move to Odessa, which may have been under foreign or White Russian control around this time (she may have been preparing to flee Russia), but when they got there and were filming, she caught a throat infection during a performance in Odessa, which turned in to a serious flu infection during the great flu pandemic of 1918 -1920 and died in 1919. A director with whom she had worked for several years filmed her large funeral. Ironically, this seems to be her best known film today.

Her personal life, or rather her death, is what brings her to life again on this page. Her death may not have been as the authorities described it. While official Russian records state that she died of the flu in 1919. There was also much gossip and speculation around her death. There were stories circulating that she was having an affair with the French ambassador (The French were the foreign power controlling Odessa for periods of the Russian Civil War) and that she was poisoned by the Ambassador after he found that, or believed that, she was a spy for the Bolsheviks. Another legend says she was poisoned by the Soviets because she was planning to leave Russia. Or alternatively, that he killed her by sending a bouquet of poisoned white lilies, because she was going to end the affair .... these various theories have never been proved, but they appear as footnotes in many of her biographies, and if she was a Bolshevik spy its a little stain on her reputation.

Trivia:

• Its said that later, many took it that her surname, which translates to "the cold one" was a well chosen pseudonym. Although whether this is because of her personality or tragic death is not clear.
• In 1924 the communists film censors ordered that most of her movies be destroyed ... even her biggest commercial success to-date 'At the Fire Side', which had been playing to huge audiences for some time. Her films were now deemed to be counter revolutionary .. .. as a consequence, all but five of her movies are considered lost.
• A documentary on her life was filmed in 1992. A year later, her image was depicted on a postage stamp, and in 2003 a life-size bronze statue of her was erected in Odessa .... rehabilitation can be a little ironic at times.
• She died in the hotel Bristol in Odessa

Pictures:




Video:

You can see this Russian icon in action (so to speak) here

[VintageKell]

Whilst I am strongly opposed to the inclusion of high level Nazis or Communists, or those over whom the cloud of suspicion of personal culpability hangs (the reasoning is given here, and two examples discussed) ... there are many ordinary Germans and Russians, who were simply born into, or caught up in, the systems that were in force in their countries at that time. They were not super apologists for mass murders, death camps, or the creed that underpinned those systems, and simply reacted to the cards they were being dealt ..... such as Olga Chekhova (born Born Olga Knipper) who was a Russian-German actress of the interwar years. Her parents were some of those millions of Germans who had lived outside of the German borders, and after a standard schooling in Imperial Russia, she saw the actress Eleonora Duse, and promptly joined the Moscow Art Theatre's studio (or maybe not ... at least one biographer has indicated that she was lying when she claimed this honour).

There she met the actor Mikhail Chekhov (the writer Anton Chekhov's nephew) ... some reports suggest that they married secretly in 1914, with Olga taking his surname as her own (not usual in Russia) and that Olga became pregnant the next year. 'Officially', they married in 1915 and their child also named Olga, was born in 1916, but whatever the truth of the dates, this childbirth failed to curtail Misha's heavy drinking, which had blighted their marriage. In 1919 she divorced her husband but kept his name .... obviously it was a good one for the stage

Now came the first of many mysterious or unexplained events:

• According to one version of the story, for some unknown reason, the Soviet authorities granted her a passport (a very rare event), and even provided a Soviet Agent to escort on the journey to Vienna. In this version, its suggested that she had somehow 'cooperated' with the Soviets and they were happy for her to travel abroad.
• However, there are other versions (mainly propagated by her, in her biographies), in which, with the worsening of conditions in Moscow during the 'Civil war', and the anti German sentiments, she disguised herself as a peasant woman and hid under her tongue a diamond ring, which she planned to convert into cash. If questioned, she would have pretended to be semi-mute .... the issue of the passport is evaded in this version. This story often changed slightly each time she recounted it, and one biographer (Antony Beevor), noted that "In another version of her own story (the ring) was sewn into her coat."
• There is yet another version in which in reality, she married an Austro-Hungarian officer, Friedrich Jaroshi, and took a train from the Moscow Belorussky station to Vienna, Austria, having been issued travel documents from the Russian government Commissar of Culture, and helped by the NKVD in exchange for later cooperation.

Anyway, once in Vienna (or where ever), she soon made her way to Berlin, and her first cinema role was in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau silent movie 'Schloß Vogelöd' in 1921. She played in Max Reinhardt's productions at UFA, and she made the successful transition from silent film to talkies. In the 1930's, she later became one of the brightest stars of the Third Reich cinema, and was supposedly much admired by Adolf Hitler who, seeing her movies in the 1920's, admired her cold and Aryan appearance. Whatever the truth of this, she quickly became a huge star in Europe as well, and played in more than 40 silent films during the 1920's (well before Hitler had risen to power), and was a star of the liberal Wiemar Republic. Strangely (if she was still married to the Austrian), during this period of success she was joined by her ex-husband Mikhail Chekhov in several films, including 'The Fool of Love'' (Der Narr Seine Liebe) in 1929, which she directed .... she made one Hollywood movie 'Mary', directed by Hitchcock in 1931, but she wasn't a hit, because of her accent.

In the 1930's her career in Germany was successful, and allegedly senior Nazis vied for the chance to try and escort her around Berlin. Her fame as both a movie star, and as a baroness, was irresistible to the gauche Nazis elite, and she was publicly courted in the 1930's by both Hermann Göring and her UFA boss Josef Goebbels. Goebbels was known to have visited Olga's home on several occasions and invited Olga to several Nazi Party receptions and introduced her to Adolf Hitler in April 1933. In 1936 Olga Chekhova was honored with the title of "State Actress" of the Third Reich and was made a German citizen. When she married a wealthy Belgian businessman Marcel Robyns, Hitler gave Olga the permission to retain her German citizenship. Two years later she was divorced again and returned to her high society life in Berlin.

When the Germans and Russians signed a pact, she was much in demand at official dinners and receptions, being known to both the Nazi and Soviet political elite. She remarked that Josef Goebbels, had for "propaganda purposes took away my car... so that the people would see that even celebrities have to walk". It was at this time that a famous picture was published of her sitting beside Hitler at a reception, and supposedly gave the leaders of the Soviet intelligence service the impression that she had close contacts with Hitler. In fact she was far closer to Joseph Goebbels, who referred to her in his diaries as "eine charmante Frau" ("a charming lady").

In another twist, her NKVD agent-brother Lev Knipper, was sent from Moscow to Berlin on a secret mission to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The plan was to use one of Olga's visits with Hitler for a suicide attack on the Nazi Fuhrer, a plan which was aborted by an order from Joseph Stalin, who feared retaliation ..... Olga was apparently oblivious to the plan. However as some reports suggest that Lev ended up in a concentration camp (he supposedly survived because of his excellent German), its hard to understand how she stayed out of one herself.

During World War II her acting career was less successful; She had fallen out with Goebbels, when she had said when asked, that German troops would not be having Christmas in Moscow because the Russians were too strong ... she was investigated by the SS on the order from Heinrich Himmler and only an intervention by Hitler apparently stopped her arrest and execution as a Soviet Spy in 1945. During the battle of Berlin Olga hid in a bomb shelter and was seized by the Red Army and she was flown to Moscow in April of 1945, for debriefing at the NKVD offices of Lavrenti Beria ... After the war she was flown back to Berlin lived in the Russian sector of the city, in a house supplied by the Soviets .... again, several articles in the French and British press at the time, were said to have stated that she was a clandestine agent and was secretly decorated by the Soviet government.

However, before the Berlin Wall went up she apparently fled Berlin and the Russians, and in 1949, she moved to Munich, Bavaria, and launched a cosmetics company. At the same time she continued acting, and played supporting roles and cameos in more than 20 films. She largely retired from acting in the 70s, and ended in 1978, with a small film role as a grandmother. After publishing a book of memoirs. Her correspondence with Russian actors Olga Knipper (her daughter?), and Alla Tarasova was published posthumously. Her film career spanned six decades and over 138 film titles ... On the 9th of march 1980, moments before she died, apparently sensing the end was near, she ordered a glass of champagne from her granddaughter Vera Tschechowa. Her last words were, "Life is beautiful!"

Now if you have stuck with this so far, you, like me, will be thoroughly confused by the answer to the big question, was she a Nazi supporter, or a Soviet Spy (given that her family were in Russia, it has to be a strong possibility), or just a poor girl doing her best to survive the vicissitudes of fate, which swirled around her, but never quite knocked her to the ground. According to one biography, her personal file was temporarily available for viewing at the KGB archives in Moscow after the fall of communism .... and one of the reports on her was prepared and signed by the brutal KGB chief Viktor S. Abakumov. On that report a handwritten question was penned by Joseph Stalin .. "What do you suggest to be done with Ms. Chekhova?". The report was later noted that Stalin was quoted as having said "the actress Olga Chekhova will be very useful in the post-war years".

Make of that what you will .... no one seems to know what the answer was for sure.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Camilla Horn was a former German dancer and a film star of the silent and sound era. She didn't come from a stage background, and she was originally trained as a dressmaker and worked at Erfurt .... however she went to Berlin to train as an actress and dancer, and in 1921 she first appeared in the movie "Kean" as an extra. In 1925 she made an uncredited appearance in the movie 'Ways to Strength and Beauty', and as an extra in 'Herr Tartüff'.

In 1925, together with Marlene Dietrich, she worked as a dance extra in the German film 'Madame Doesn't Want Any Children' (Madame wünscht keine Kinder), and later she was seen in a musical review by director Alexander Korda (She preferred in later life to disregard these early bit parts and proclaim Faust as her film debut). This stood her in good stead, because in 1926, she got a break through role in the movie 'Faust', when she replaced the popular American actress Lillian Gish who had pulled out, with the part of 'Gretchen' in F. W. Murnau's lavish UFA production. The movie raised her to the state of a star, and she eventually went on to make over 70 movies in the following decades.

In 1928 she then met and became the mistress of producer Joseph M. Schenck who engaged her for United Artists, she went to the to Hollywood soon after to make three Hollywood movies, cast as the vamp. In both the "Tempest" and "Eternal Love" she starred opposite John Barrymore. Horn's final American film, a talkie shot in both English and German versions, was 'The Royal Box', made in 1930.

She returned to Germany, but in 1932 she went to England to make three films in which she displayed a good command of the language. The films - 'The Return of Raffles' in 1931, 'Matinee Idol' in 1932 and 'Love Nest' in 1932 were all minor films however, and when she returned in 1934 to make the even poorer 'Luck of a Sailor', she had been relegated to fourth-billing. She then returned to Germany, where although she didn't join the Nazi party, and allegedly refused to follow the party line, she worked regularly. This reduced the size of the roles available to her, and she took parts in Italian productions until her trouble with the Nazis (prosecuted for a tax offence), which led to her semi-retirement in 1939.

An attempt to cross the border into Switzerland having been unsuccessful, she took up farming and at one point went into hiding. At the wars end, the British tribunal at Delmenhorst convicted her for minor offenses (among them travelling without permission), and she was imprisoned for three months at the women's prison in Vechta. But she eventually became an interpreter for the occupying Americans before resuming an acting career with a triumphant stage appearance in Cocteau's L'Aigle a Deux Tetes (1948).

Her post-war film career was patchy, and she concentrated on stage roles ... the late sixties saw her feature in a number or films, and again in the 1980's, when she carved out a career as a character actress, playing forceful matriarchs on television and film, and winning the 1988 Bavarian film prize for her role as a royal grandmother in 'Schloss Konigswald'. Her last role was in 1990 and she retired to a nursing home. She died 14 August 1996

In 1985 she wrote an autobiography, Verliebt in Die Leben ("In Love with Life"), in which she candidly discussed her many marriages (She married at least five times) and her equally many affairs (including a long-standing one with her co-star Louis Graveure). .

Trivia:

• She later claimed that her acceptance of UFA's offer of a contract prevented her immediately joining Murnau in Hollywood, where she believed she would have starred in his masterpiece 'Sunrise'.
• Tempest was the first film produced by United Artists to have synchronised sound and music effects.
• Between April 1972 and February 1973 a song was written about her by the then-unsigned Bruce Springsteen. This still-unreleased song surfaced in the 1990s on a bootleg entitled 'Early Years'.

Pictures:






Videos:

You can see her here and here

[VintageKell]

Evangeline Tay (Born, Evangeline Tay Su Ann) was a minor Singaporean TV celebrity, model and student .... she has posed for Maxim magazine (presumably the Asian edition), and was crowned 'Best Legs in 2007' under Maxim's 'Top 100 girls' edition. She was a 'Suitcase Girl' in TV show 'Deal or No Deal' Season 2 ... she was also a very silly girl .... so she ticks all the boxes for this thread

In 2008 she ran a red light and was spotted by cameras, but a friend who was then (obviously not now ), a police officer, suggested that Evangeline Tay Su Ann pay $1,000 to another woman to say it had been her at the wheel and save her a ticket ..... presumably as the cameras wouldn't be able to distinguish the difference. The subterfuge failed, and the courts dealt with the matter very severely, and both the police officer and the other woman involved were jailed at earlier hearings. Former deputy superintendent of police Kelvin Choo Yew Beng, was sentenced to six months for recruiting Leung Man Kwan to take the rap for Tay. While Leung, a property agent, was jailed for three months in 2009.

However the silly girl got off much lighter ..... she was fined just $2,000 for paying Leung to pervert the course of justice, plus being banned from driving for 12 months for the various traffic offences .... Her light sentence was prompted because although she had been led astray, she had pleaded guilty when charged. The judge also found that she had been suffering a minor bout of depression at the time which had contributed to her being persuaded to commit the crime. Needless to say, not content with getting off lightly her lawyer said she was seriously considering an appeal against the sentence.

Many online observers in Singapore noted the lightness of her sentence, compared with the severity to her partners in the events, and there was something of a controversy. But she has been a 'good girl' since ..... so that's all right then

Trivia:

Her whole life is trivia, but never mind

• Evangeline believes she can have it all - be a top-notch banker and a high-flying career woman and a wife and mother too!
• She maintains her svelte figure by doing what she's really good at - juggling up to 20 hula hoops ...
• She was doing a business degree at the Singapore Institute of Management at the time of the offence.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

This thread concentrates on actresses who are 'disgraced' in someway, and usually 'minor', and or 'forgotten', or in some cases 'unknown' ... but in nearly all cases, its a combination of this set of attributes that qualifies 'a gal' for the posting. However some actresses actually bring one aspect to such a level of perfection, that it in itself is a qualifier.

Now I submit for your inspection, the actress Annie Bos, a Dutch theater and silent film actress, who was known as Holland's first movie star and diva, and nicknamed "the Dutch Asta Nielsen" (a woman who qualified for a posting here herself, partly because she was also virtually unknown). So being known as the 'new nobody', is fairly spectacular, in a nonentity kind of way.

What? You haven't heard of her? Well neither had I .... and I suspect not many in Holland would have either.

For the record, she made her theater debut in 1909 and she played mostly bit parts, until she was invited to make movies by director Maurits Binger. She made her first film appearance in the film 'De Levende Ladder' in 1913, and over the next few years, she made a number of movies, before she starred in 'Majoor Frans' in 1916, which made her a Dutch star ..... well that's something! However when the Hollandia studio was bought out the new owners fired Bos, saying she was too old over the hill at 34!

It's at this point that she takes nonentity to new levels .... Bos was offered a contract in the United States, allegedly on the basis of one of her movies ('Een Carmen van het Noorden') being shown in the US to some success, but, when she arrived in New York City in 1921, she discovered the studio she was supposedly contracted to, simply didn't exist anymore. There was no one to meet her and she was in fact an unknown. She did the usual 'plucky gal' thing, and attempted to get a film contract, but had only one minor success, when she landed a small role opposite Pearl White in the American film 'Without Fear' in 1922. But apparently being 'the Dutch Asta Nielsen' didn't hack it in the US, and she was offered no more parts.

Undaunted, she then travelled to Germany to try and get roles, but didn't have any luck there either .... they hadn't really heard of her either. Ah well, "back to 'Tara', Scarlett", as a later actress might have said ...... so in 1924, she moved back to the Netherlands, where she had to rely on an old friend to give her the lead in the movie 'Mooi Juultje van Volendam'. The film flopped and was removed from cinemas after one week. And that was that, despite her 41 movies, she just had never really risen much above unknown, and after a last foray on the stage, where she had a role in the play 'Madame DuBarry' (which got some critical acclaim), she retired in 1925 (ostensibly, to marry a Mr Cornelis Loeff). She was soon forgotten by the public .... that's if they had ever really noticed her, and her death in 1975 was reported in only one newspaper.

Of course, there are lots of other unknowns, and they wouldn't qualify solely on that criteria, but she is a case study in career mediocrity, or at least major obscurity .... taking it to new lows ... and in a way, this is what finally brought her fame (or is that infamy?), by getting her on to this thread, as a standard bearer and representative for all those girls whose careers passed unnoticed

Trivia:

• Actress Willeke van Ammelrooy portrayed her in a play in 2006.
• She performed all her own stunts. For 'Het Geheim van Delft' (1917), she was required to be tied to a windmill at a height of 40 meters. I said she was plucky!
• She was the first Dutch actress to pursue a career in America. She may well have been the last for a while as well, seeing as she failed.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Zubeida Begum Dhanrajgir was an early Indian film actress. She was the daughter of the Muslim actress Fatma Begum (who was notable herself for being a pioneer film actress and later India's first woman film director). It was her mothers influence that got her in to movies at an early age (She was aged 12 when she made her debut in 'Kohinoor'), and grew up to become famous for her good looks, her singing, dancing and her speech (albeit this latter attribute only came to the fore after the advent of the talkies).

Now, the names of her movies will mean little to people outside of the Asian sub continent, so I will list only a couple (for reference) : Devdas in 1937, and one of the first 'talkies, 'Meri Jaan'. The latter came after she starred in a string of silent films, and then starring in India's first talkie 'Alam Ara' (The Light of the World), a movie that changed Indian cinema for ever (some have argued that sound, swept the production of dramatic realism films aside, in favour of melodramatic musical/dance escapism hybrids), and proved to be the turning point in her career. After these hits Zubeida was suddenly in high demand and reaped financial rewards making her the highest paid woman in Indian movies at that time. In 1934 she set up Mahalakshmi Movietone with another actor and had more box-office bonanzas and she continued to appear in one or two films a year until 1949 when the movie 'Nirdosh Abla' was her last of 37 films.

So why does she make it here?

Well as stated earlier, she came from a notable Muslim family, so her being an actress was considered shameful by many in that community (much like now in fact ). Coupled with that, was the fact that she was your 'genuine Royalty' ... her mother had married the Nawab of Sachin .... so Muslim royalty, cavorting around in a lascivious manner for the entertainment of men .... double Zubeida was one of Indian cinema's earliest superstars and among the few girls who entered films at a time when it wasn't considered an suitable occupation for girls from respectable families let alone Royalty. Much like it was in the Edwardian era in Europe and the US thirty years earlier, (see many of the other 'respectable girls' on this thread, who hid their movie careers from their families).

She was also apparently very successful in transmitting erotic emotions on the screen, with films like 'Zarina' in which she played a circus girl whose 'kisses steamed up the screen' ...... this apparently caused a heated debate on censorship in the press and elsewhere in conservative India ... so much so that, after this period, the censorship board of India virtually stopped all kissing or sexual content .... Film critic Lata Khubchandani later wrote,"..our earliest films...had liberal doses of sex and kissing scenes in them. Strangely, it was after Independence that the censor board came into being and so did all the strictures."

However she then went on to commit the ultimate sin in Islam (for which she would nowadays no doubt be killed by someone), she married the Maharaj Narsingir Dhanrajgir Gyan Bahadur of Hyderabad, and secretly converted to Hinduism upon marriage in December 1950 ... She spent her last years in Dhanraj Mahal Palace in Bombay, living happily amongst her children and grandchildren until her death in 1988.

Trivia:

• Zubeida was one of the few star actresses to make a successful transition from the silent era to the talkies in any part of the world.

Pictures:



Her Mother Fatima Begum



Stick with me lads, and you'll get to see the world!

[VintageKell]

For those who are interested in cleaning or repairing old photo's using photo editors I have just set up a Picture Repairs or Cleaning thread in the Help and support sections

It just gives a basic heads up and illustration of what can be done ... no doubt photoshop experts will add technical explanations and descriptions, but the old family photos can be improved. I can't give technical help, I fly by the seat of my pants myself