Say that five times fast!
I couldn't tell you when it was, but at some point in the not too distant past, Nick, of n j w v fame, did a post in which this card of Rita Cansino (better known as Rita Hayworth) appeared. I already had a few cards from the 1936 Moderne Schönheitsgalerie set, so I was somewhat familiar with it, but apparently not enough to know that a young Rita Hayworth (she was either 17 or 18 here) had been amongst the subjects.
After seeing Nick's post, I set off to find a copy of my own, which, not surprisingly, didn't work out very well, as there were none available for sale anywhere at the time. Since there was nothing else to do, I put it in my eBay saved searches and commenced to wait until an affordable copy popped up. I want to say that it was around this past Christmas that my saved search yielded a result, well, make that two results. The seller had two copies, one with the normal Kurmark back, and one with a Sultan back. As cheap as they were (I don't remember the prices, sorry), I knew that they wouldn't be up for very long, but for the life of me, I could not decide which back I wanted, so, I just went scorched earth and bought both...
In retrospect, I probably didn't need both, but... Du lebst nur einmal, habe ich recht?
Technically, these ado come from two different sets, but in my mind, since the fronts are identical, they might as well be from the same set (and both companies would've been under the same umbrella). Either way though, neither back is overly exciting, so let's get back to the front(s)...
For the sake of this post, I was trying to think of the first movie that I ever saw her in, and I guess it would've been Charlie Chan in Egypt. I saw most of Warner Oland's Charlie Chan pictures while still fairly young, and have seen "in Egypt" multiple times over the years. Like a number of other old franchises (Universal Monsters, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, etc.), the Charlie Chan films are my version of comfort food.
Without looking at a list I'm probably forgetting a few, but a couple of the pictures that I really liked her in were: The Shadow, Homicide Bureau, The Lady from Shanghai, and Human Cargo. [Yeah, I'm definitely forgetting a few].
Anyway, they're really nifty cards, and I'm grateful to Nick for posting about his, otherwise I might still have been in the dark on this one.
I can't remember if the shipping was free, or if there was no charge for additional cards, but I did get more cheap cards from the same seller.
This card is kind of interesting because by the time it was released in 1936, Clara Bow's career had already been over for close to two years. She did appear in one of those Screen Snapshots shorts in the 40's, but those weren't really pictures per se.
I have a bit of a Clara Bow collection, though I couldn't tell you why. I mean I've seen a bunch of her films, and am endlessly fascinated by early Hollywood, and even more so by the some of the early mega stars, but I don't think that's the reason why I'm attracted to her cards. Even though they weren't comparable in stature, or talent, I have a similar unexplainable draw to, and collection for, Marion Davies. It's one of those things that I really don't even think about the why, and if I do ever try to come with a reason, I just chalk it up to something from my childhood that I've since forgotten. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea, but it's as good of an answer as any.
