Truus, Bob & Jan too! posted a photo:

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 1117. Photo: Raymond Voinquel.

French actor Pierre Richard-Willm (1895-1983) was a popular actor, often a jeune premier, in 40 films during the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s.

Pierre Richard-Willm was born Alexander Pierre Richard in Bayonne, South-West France, in 1895. His mother, Elisabeth-Fanny Willm, died at the age of thirty-one, and from 1905 on, he was raised by his maternal grandmother in Bordeaux. He attended the école des Beaux-Arts in Nantes. Theatre was his passion, and in 1911, he started as an amateur at the Théâtre du Peuple de Bussang. In 1916, he joined the army and fought during World War I at Verdun. After the war, he became a sculptor, and in 1921, he started playing bit roles on the professional stage. From 1925 on, he worked at the Odeon in Paris in plays like 'La dame aux camélias' under the pseudonym Richard Willm, the combined name of his father and mother. His film debut as a jeune premier came in the Paramount production Toute sa vie / Sarah and Son (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1930), followed by another film by Alberto Cavalcanti for Paramount, Les Vacances du diable / The Devil's Holiday (1931). With his elegance and good looks, he charmed spectators of all ages. In the next years, he made dozens of films, including French versions of Ufa productions, including Autour d'une enquête / Preliminary Investigation (Pierre Chomette, Robert Siodmak, 1931) starring Annabella, and La fille du régiment / The Daughter of the Regiment (Pierre Billon, Carl Lamac, 1933) starring Anny Ondra.

Pierre Richard-Willm’s breakthrough was the foreign legion melodrama Le grand jeu / The Great Game (Jacques Feyder, 1934), in which he starred opposite Charles Vanel and Marie Bell. In the following years, he often played the partner of diva Edwige Feuillère in such films as Stradivarius (Albert Valentin, Géza von Bolváry, 1935), Barcarolle (Gerhard Lamprecht, Roger Le Bon, 1935), La Dame de Malacca / Woman of Malacca (Marc Allégret, 1937) and La Duchesse de Langeais / Wicked Dutchess (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1942). Famous director Max Ophüls directed him in Yoshiwara (1937) and Werther (1938). A big hit was Un Carnet de bal / Dance Program (Julien Duvivier, 193) in which Marie Bell stars as a woman who decides to find out about the men (including Pierre Richard-Willm) who once danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life. His most famous role was Edmond Dantès in two episodes of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo / The Count of Monte-Christo (Robert Vernay, 1943) based on the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas père. He starred as composer Franz Liszt in Rêves d'Amour / Dreams of Love (Christian Stengel, 1942-1947), for which film he also designed the sets. In 1946, he decided to retire from the cinema and to dedicate himself completely to his beloved Theatre Vosgien. In 1975, he wrote his memoirs, 'Loin des Étoiles' (Far from the stars), in which he wrote that the cinema had only been a nice intermission for him. Pierre Richard-Willm died in 1983 in Paris.

Sources: Franck Richard, Wikipedia and IMDb.

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