More Good Communists

 

More East German actors serving the state with portrayals of western decadence.  Dig the greaser beatnik in the background.  The stamp on the back, "Reproduktion u. Anderungen verboten.  Aenny Jungermann Photoarelier  Rudolstadt, Registr.  Nr. 8"  Rudolstadt is a city in Thuringia, a German state that was onc epart of the East.  

Dana Hall School For Girls 13

Unless someone writes in their photo album that these photos belong to me and sign their name, there is always a question of who put the thing together.  I'd guess it's probable that the owner has put some pictures of herself in this collection of life at Dana Hall School, and the most likely culprit has to be one of the three theatrical subjects.  One might stress friends and faculty from the ordinary days at school, but the theatrical portraits are special and say, "Look, that was me." 

The very first post from this collection was a loose photo, not pasted on to any of the pages, and the young lady was identified as Helen Zollinger.  But whether Helen was a classmate of the album's owner or that identification was written by Helen's grandchild years latter, well, who knows.   In any case, none of the three women in costumes look like Helen.

The couple are ID'd as Henry Doran and Helen Moock.  They've showed up before this, and they look just young enough that they might be friends, and just old enough to be junior faculty.  And speaking of labels, once again click on Dana Hall School to see more.

The Theater, The Theater

"Marilee" is the only thing written on the back of this print.  I did a search for any plays with that title and came up empty.  So, which of the three women in this photo is Marilee?  Obviously, I haven't a clue. 

The Distinguished Actress

broadway.cas.sc.edu

Several posts ago I mentioned that I had bought an envelope of theatrical photographs.  Well, they arrived yesterday, and this is the first post from that collection.

This cabinet card is, to put it mildly, damaged.  The bottom margin that would have identified the photographic studio, and quite possibly, the actress is gone, and I'm not willing to spend days searching images of nineteenth century theatrical photography looking for a match.  While it would be a time consuming exercise, it wouldn't necessarily be a pointless search. It was a fairly common practice during the cabinet card era for famous performers to drop by the local photo studio and have pictures taken.  As I've noted in some of my previous posts, photographers would provide free pictures in exchange for the right to sell those same pictures to the general public. 

Now, I'd like to recommend one of my favorite online photographic resources.  broadway.cas.sc.edu  (You can click just below the title.) It's a great site documenting theatrical photographs from the Broadway stage.  The collection is housed at the very un-Broadway University of South Carolina.