British postcard by National Museum of Photography Film and Television, no. NMP 18. Photo: Cornel Lucas, 1954.

Blonde and Curvey Diana Dors (1931-1984) was called ‘The English Marilyn Monroe’, to her disgust. In her own words: “I was the first home-grown sex symbol, rather like Britain's naughty seaside postcards." When Marilyn Monroe's first film was shown here [The Asphalt Jungle (1950)], a columnist wrote, 'How much like our Diana Dors she is'.

Diana Dors was born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, England, in 1931. Her father, Peter Fluck, was a railroad employee. Her mother, Mary Fluck, had almost died from the traumatic birth of her daughter. Because of this trauma, she lavished on Diana everything she had dreamed of: clothes, dance lessons, visits to the cinema. The actresses on the screen caught Diana's attention and she later said that she wanted to be an actress from the age of three. Physically, Diana grew up fast and she looked and acted much older than she was. 'The Siren of Swindon' began her career on stage when she was only 13. The youngest of her class, she trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) in London. At the age of 15, she appeared in her first film, The Shop at Sly Corner (George King, 1947) starring Oskar Homolka. The J. Arthur Rank Organisation offered her a contract and she played several ‘sexy girl in background’ roles in their films. The best of these parts was Charlotte in Oliver Twist (David Lean, 1948) starring Alec Guinness. She made several more films in the late 1940s, including substantial roles in the comedy Here Come The Huggetts (Ken Annakin, 1948), and the 'bad girl' opposite Honor Blackman's more virtuous roles in the cycling comedy A Boy, a Girl and a Bike (Ralph Smart, 1949) and Diamond City (David MacDonald, 1949), a lively British 'Western' set in South Africa's diamond fields. Her appeal stemmed from a combination of glamour and humour, coupled with a lack of vanity. A good example of her early appeal comes in Lady Godiva Rides Again (Frank Launder, 1951) with Dennis Price. It was a light-hearted romp that made fun of the beauty queen business. The American Board of Film Censors banned the film because Diana was showing her navel. However, she's friendly and surprisingly non-threatening in the film, more interested in having fun than in winning. Both critics and the public loved her as a sexy siren.

Diana Dors was one of the first celebrities to court the British press. Her first husband and manager Dennis Hamilton believed any publicity could only benefit the ambitious starlet. One stunt was to set up the company Diana Dors Ltd and another was the announcement of Diana as the youngest Rolls Royce owner at 20 (however, she could not drive). Dors got a 'decent' role in the 'women in prison' drama The Weak and the Wicked (J. Lee Thompson, 1954) opposite Glynis Johns and people started to believe she could act and look decorative. She confirmed her talent with a good role in the fantasy A Kid for Two Farthings (Carol Reed, 1955) with Celia Johnson, and her part as a murderess in Yield to the Night (J. Lee Thompson, 1956), loosely based on the true life story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in Britain for murder. Casting off her sex symbol image, Diana portrayed Mary Hilton whose story is told entirely in flashbacks, as she awaits her final sentencing or possible reprieve, and attempts to tie up the loose ends in her life involving her mother, brother, and husband. Michael Brooke writes at BFI Screenonline: "Eyebrows were raised at Dors being offered such a challenging dramatic role, given that her blonde bombshell image at the time was almost exclusively associated with comedy, but she rose to the occasion, managing to evoke considerable sympathy for her condemned but essentially unsympathetic character." Hollywood snapped Dors up but put her in two unsuitable vehicles, the crime thriller The Unholy Wife (John Farrow, 1957) with Rod Steiger, and the comedy I Married a Woman (Hal Kanter, 1958). A public brawl between her and her husband, Dennis Hamilton, finished her Hollywood career. Diana was pushed fully clothed into her swimming pool at a pool party full of Hollywood A-list celebrities. Hamilton then proceeded to punch the photographer thought to have pushed her into unconsciousness. The celebrities fled and the headlines the following day were 'Ms Dors go home and take Mr Dors with you!'. Her three-movie deal with RKO ended after they cancelled the contract on a moral clause.

Diana Dors returned to Britain but never quite attained the level of her pre-Hollywood period. During the 1960s Dors never stopped working but her roles got smaller and the films worse. In the campy horror film Beserk! (Jim O'Connolly, 1967), she played a performer in a cheesy carnival who ends up cut in half by a power saw. The film starred 63-year-old Joan Crawford who played the outrageous owner and ringmaster of a travelling circus, who'll stop at nothing to draw bigger audiences... Dors was often seen on TV both in the US and the UK. She began to pile on the pounds and rapidly went from blowsy to fat. A weighty role was as the ex-wife of Peter Sellers in There's a Girl in My Soup (Roy Boulting, 1970). Her appearance in The Amazing Mr Blunden (Lionel Jeffries, 1972) got a lot of publicity as she played a slatternly Victorian housekeeper in her sixties. Her major television breakthrough came in 1970 when she starred as a brassy matriarch in Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall's popular ITV sitcom Queenie's Castle (1970-1972). Despite these successes, she continued to accept any role and took small roles in several British sex comedies, such as Adventures of a Taxi Driver (Stanley Long, 1976). Diana Dors died in 1984 from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years earlier. She was 52 years old. For over thirty years, she had lived in the headlines, and now she was missed. She had three sons, Mark and Gary Dawson from her second marriage to comedian/TV emcee Richard Dawson, and Jason Lake from her third marriage to actor Alan Lake. Alan Lake committed suicide not long after her death, which generated even more headlines. Her final film, the Nell Dunn adaptation Steaming (Joseph Losey, 1985) starring Vanessa Redgrave, was released a year later. During her career of nearly four decades, the British public loved Diana Dors, and her life, professional and personal, was followed in a whole new way. The media made her life accessible to the British public: she was down to earth, made mistakes, and had a vulnerability about her. The public followed her ups and downs through the many daily newspapers and magazine articles. With 'The Three M's' from Hollywood: Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren and Marilyn Monroe, DD has left her mark on popular culture by popularising the 1950s blonde bombshell look. David Absalom at British Pictures: "She's been a National Joke and a National Disgrace in her time, but when she died we realised we'd lost a National Treasure."

Sources: Michael Brooke (BFI Screenonline), David Absalom (British Pictures), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), DianaDors.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Diana Dors Diana Dors British English Actress European Film Star Film Movie Movies Screen Picture Cine Cinema Kino Filmster Star Sex Symbol Bombshell Platinum Blonde Vintage Postcard Venice Cornel Lucas Cornel Lucas National Museum of Photography Film and Television

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German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7871/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Ufa. Willy Fritsch in Saison in Kairo/Cairo Season (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933).

From the mid-1920s on, charming Willy Fritsch (1901-1973) replaced Bruno Kastner and Harry Liedtke as the darling of female cinemagoers in Germany. Fritsch became the immensely popular ‘Sunny Boy’ of the Ufa operettas of the 1930s and 1940s, and with his frequent co-star Lilian Harvey he formed the 'dream team of the German cinema'.

Willy (sometimes credited as Willi) Fritsch was born Wilhelm Egon Fritz Fritsch in Kattowitz in German Silesia (now Katowice, Poland) in 1901. He was the son of Lothar Fritsch, a farmer and machine manufacturer, and his wife Anni (née Bauckmann). In 1912 he moved with his family to Berlin, where he planned to become a mechanic. In 1919 he took up acting lessons from the actor Gustav Sczimek. Fritsch debuted with a small role at Max Reinhardt's famous Deutsches Theater. There and at the affiliated Kammerspiele (Chamber theatre) he was cast in smaller stage roles and played young lovers and comic parts. In 1922, he joined the Max Reinhardt Ensemble on its tour through Scandinavia. From 1921 on, Fritsch began to appear as a supporting player in films, like the sound experiment Miss Venus (Ludwig Czerny, 1921). In 1923, he auditioned for the leading role of a blind artist in the melodrama Seine Frau, die Unbekannte/His Mysterious Adventure (Benjamin Christensen, 1923), which was then re-written to fit his rather sunny nature.

Willy Fritsch convincingly played the would-be son of an aristocrat in Der Farmer aus Texas/The Farmer from Texas (Joe May, 1925), which made him the new star of the production company Ufa. Next, he starred as the dashing Lieutenant Niki in Ein Walzertraum/A Waltz Dream (Ludwig Berger, 1925), which turned out to be a significant success in the USA. At AllMovie, Janiss Garza writes: "This UFA silent, based on an old operetta, is far more light-hearted and spirited than the moody, heavy-handed fare that generally came out of Germany." Ufa intervened when United Artists offered Fritsch a contract. His next films, Der Prinz und die Tänzerin/The Prince and the Dancer (Richard Eichberg, 1926) and Der letzte Walzer/The Last Waltz (Arthur Robison, 1927) followed the formula of Ein Walzertraum. Fritsch only occasionally altered his now well-established film image in Spione/Spies (1928) and Frau im Mond/Woman in the Moon (1929), directed by Fritz Lang. Hal Erickson notes at AllMovie: "Spies (Spione) was the first independent production of German 'thriller' director Fritz Lang. The years-ahead-of-its-time plotline involves Russian espionage activity in London. Mastermind is Haghi (Rudolph Klein-Rogge), a supposedly respectable carnival sideshow entertainer. Heading the good guys is Agent 326 (Willy Fritsch), with the help of defecting Russian spy Sonya (Gerda Maurus). The film moves swiftly to several potential climaxes, each more exciting than its predecessor. Haghi's ultimate demise is a superbly staged Pirandellian vignette. Anticipating Citizen Kane by a dozen years, director Lang dispenses with all transitional dissolves and fade-outs, flat-cutting territory from one scene to another."

Willy Fritsch took singing lessons to prepare himself for the sound film Melodie des Herzens/Melody of the Heart (Hanns Schwarz, 1929) with Dita Parlo. His breakthrough came after being paired with Lilian Harvey in Liebeswalzer/The Love Waltz (Wilhelm Thiele, 1930) and the two were also engaged privately. Liebeswalzer established Harvey and Fritsch as the popular 'dream team of the German cinema'. Their next films such as Hokuspokus/Hocuspokus (Gustav Ucicky, 1930), the historical romance Der Kongress tanzt/Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931), Ein blonder Traum/A Blonde's Dream (Paul Martin, 1932) - co-written by Billy Wilder, and especially Die Drei von der Tankstelle/Three Good Friends (Wilhelm Thiele, 1930), were huge international box-office hits. Fritsch and Harvey appeared together in twelve films. Each of these films featured several songs, which became popular hits and were also released on records, further adding to the popularity of the two stars. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "If a poll had ever been conducted amongst fans of international musical-comedy star Lillian Harvey, the actress's most popular vehicle would probably have been Die Drei von Der Tankstelle (Three From the Gas Station) - with Congress Dances running a very close second. The story opens as three debt-ridden young men pool what is left of their savings to open a roadside service station. Their most frequent customer is the wealthy, winsome Ms. Harvey, who frequently shows up fetchingly clad in hiking shorts. Each young man falls in love with the girl, unbeknownst to the other two. Which one will she choose? Most likely, the one who sings the best - and that would be Lillian Harvey's frequent screen vis-a-vis Willy Fritsch."

Willy Fritsch had a long-term contract with Ufa and was paid a monthly salary of 20,000 Reichsmark per month, which was doubled during the 1930s. Eschewing his trademark sunny boy persona, Fritsch proved his range as a character actor in films like Ich bei Tag und Du bei Nacht/I by Day, You by Night (Ludwig Berger, 1932) co-starring Käthe von Nagy, Walzerkrieg/The Battle of the Walzes (Ludwig Berger, 1933) opposite Renate Müller, and the satirical romp Amphitryon/Amphitryon - Happiness from the Clouds (Reinhold Schünzel, 1935) with Paul Kemp. Fritsch managed to survive the Hitler era without any loss of prestige. After the end of the war, he relocated to Hamburg. He spoofed his image as the romantic lover in Film ohne Titel/Film Without a Title (Rudolf Jugert, 1947), and excelled as the comical conférencier in Herrliche Zeiten/Fun Times (Erik Ode, Günter Neumann, 1949). Although still in high demand, Fritsch didn't find satisfying roles in West Germany's post-war cinema. He continued to appear on stage and in films until the early 1960s. He remained a popular figure, partly due to his work as the host of nostalgic radio shows. Since 1937, he was married to dancer and actress Dinah Grace until she died in 1963. They had two sons, Michael and Thomas. After his wife's death, he decided to retire. With his son Thomas Fritsch he starred in his final film, Das hab ich von Papa gelernt/I Learned It from Daddy (Axel von Ambesser, 1964). In 1963 he published his memoir … das kommt nicht wieder/That will never come back, and in 1965 he was honoured with the Filmband in Gold, for his long and important work for the German film. Willy Fritsch died of heart failure in 1973 in Hamburg, Germany. He was 72.

Sources: Filmportal.de, Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line - German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), IMDb and Wikipedia.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Willy Fritsch Willy Fritsch German Actor Acteur European Film Star Cinema Film Kino Cine Picture Screen Movie Movies Darsteller Schauspieler Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Ross Verlag Ross Ufa Saison in Cairo 1933 Reinhold Schünzel

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French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 636.

Bright-eyed Mitzi Gaynor (1931) is an American actress, singer, and dancer. She was a leading lady in light musicals, including There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), which featured Irving Berlin's music and starred Ethel Merman, and South Pacific (1958), based on the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Mitzi Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in 1931, in Chicago, Illinois. She was the daughter of Pauline, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. After her father remarried, she became step-sister to anti-war activist Donald W. Duncan. Her family first moved to Elgin, Illinois, then to Detroit, and later when she was eleven, on to Hollywood. She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career as a chorus dancer. At 12, she joined the dancing chorus of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. She lied about her address so she could attend Hollywood High School. In 1950, she signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century Fox where she sang, acted, and danced in several film musicals. A Fox Studio executive thought that Mitzi Gerber sounded like the name of a delicatessen, and they came up with a name that used the same initials. Gaynor made her film debut in a musical, My Blue Heaven (Henry Koster, 1950) supporting Betty Grable and Dan Dailey. She followed it with a college drama Take Care of My Little Girl (Jean Negulesco, 1951), where she played the roommate of Jeanne Crain. Fox then gave Gaynor a star part, in the musical biopic Golden Girl (Lloyd Bacon, 1951). It was a mild success at the box office. Gaynor was one of several stars in the anthology comedy We're Not Married! (Edmund Goulding, 1952) with Ginger Rodgers and Marilyn Monroe, and then she was top-billed in the musical, Bloodhounds of Broadway (Harmon Jones, 1952). Fox put her in another biopic, The I Don't Care Girl (Lloyd Bacon, 1952), where she played Ziegfeld star Eva Tanguay. Gaynor starred in Down Among the Sheltering Palms (Edmund Goulding, 1953), playing a South Sea island girl. She was the female lead in a Western, Three Young Texans (Henry Levin, 1954) with Jeffrey Hunter. Gaynor's most popular film in her time at Fox was There's No Business Like Show Business (Walter Lang, 1954), where she was billed after Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor and Johnnie Ray.

In 1954, Mitzi Gaynor married Jack Bean, a talent agent and public relations executive for MCA, in San Francisco, California. She had just been released from Twentieth Century-Fox (before the start of There's No Business Like Show Business) with four years left on her contract and decided with the time off to get married. The union was childless. After their wedding, Bean quit MCA, started his own real estate business and managed Gaynor's career. Bean wisely perceived that his new bride was a far more effective performer on a live stage rather than a film set. In 1956, Gaynor appeared in the Paramount remake of Anything Goes (Robert Lewis, 1956), co-starring Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, and Zizi Jeanmaire, loosely based on the musical by Cole Porter, P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton. Paramount cast her in another remake, The Birds and the Bees (Norman Taurog, 1956) with David Niven, playing the role originated by Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941). Her third film for Paramount was The Joker Is Wild (Charles Vidor, 1957), a biopic of famous comedian Joe E. Lewis (Frank Sinatra) in which Gaynor played the female lead. In 1957, Gaynor appeared in MGM's Les Girls (George Cukor, 1957), with Gene Kelly and Kay Kendall. Her biggest international fame came from the plum role of Nellie Forbush in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (Joshua Logan, 1958), starring Rossano Brazzi. For her performance, she was nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe Award. Gaynor followed this with a comedy at MGM, Happy Anniversary (David Miller, 1959) opposite David Niven, and the British musical comedy thriller Surprise Package (Stanley Donen, 1960), with Yul Brynner and Noël Coward. Her last film role was For Love or Money (Michael Gordon, 1963), starring Kirk Douglas. Mitzi Gaynor's film career was over, but happily, she continued to be a major draw on the nightclub and summer musical circuit. She often performed songs at Academy Awards ceremonies. At the 1967 Oscar telecast, she sang the theme from the film Georgy Girl (Silvio Narizzano, 1966) and stopped the show. The Academy had a hard time getting the audience to sit down and stop applauding. Gaynor later added the number to her concert repertoire. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she starred in nine acclaimed television specials that garnered 16 Emmy nominations. During the 1990s, Gaynor also became a featured columnist for the influential news magazine The Hollywood Reporter. Her husband Jack Bean died in 2006.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Mitzi Gaynor Mitzi Gaynor American Actress Hollywood Movie Star Film Star Movie Movies Film Cine Cinema Kino Picture Screen Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Editions P.I.

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German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6069/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.

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. On stage, he played in operettas and revues but also worked with Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt.

In 1903, Willi (also written as Willy) Forst was born Wilhelm Anton Frohs in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria). At age 16, he began his career as an actor on the provincial stages in Austria–Hungary and the German Empire. He was a featured performer in the post-World War I operetta theatres of Vienna and Berlin. He also worked with famous directors like Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt. His film debut was in the Austrian film Der Wegweiser/The Signpost (Hans Kottow, 1920). His first major screen roles were opposite Marlene Dietrich in the silent films Café Elektric/Cafe Electric (Gustav Ucicky, 1927) and Gefahren der Brautzeit/Dangers of the Engagement Period (Fred Sauer, 1929).

Willi Forst made his sound and singing film debut in Atlantik/Titanic (Ewald André Dupont, 1929) and soon became known for his distinctive velvety voice and 'charming Viennese' characters. After Zwei Herzen im 3/4 Takt/Two Hearts in Waltz Time (Géza von Bolváry, 1930), he played six more times under the direction of Géza von Bolváry. Most of these successes were written by Walter Reisch, and so were also Ein blonder Traum/A Blonde's Dream (Paul Martin, 1932) with Lilian Harvey and Willy Fritsch, and Der Prinz von Arkadien/The Prince from Arcadien (Karl Hartl, 1932) with Liane Haid. Forst considered the best learning experience for his future role as director, So ein Mädel vergisst man nicht/Unforgettable Girl (1933) directed by expressionist film actor-turned-director Fritz Kortner.

Willi Forst developed the genre of the Wiener Filme with writer Walter Reisch in the 1930s, beginning with the Franz Schubert melodrama Leise flehen meine Lieder/Lover Divine (Willi Forst, 1933). He followed it with the hit Maskerade/Masquerade in Vienna (Willi Forst, 1934), which launched his fame as a significant director and made an instant star of Paula Wessely. For Mazurka (Willi Forst, 1935), he lured Pola Negri back from Hollywood. From the mid-1930s he also recorded many records, largely of sentimental Viennese songs, for the Odeon Records label owned by Carl Lindström AG. He founded his own film company, Willi Forst-Film, in 1937. His best-known film would be the elegant satire Bel Ami (Willi Forst, 1939) based on the novel by Guy de Maupassant. He also played the title role, which would be his alter ego from then on.

Following the annexation of Austria in 1938, Willi Forst was much courted by the Nazis. He succeeded in avoiding overt political statements, concentrating entirely on the light entertainment for which he was famous and which was much in demand during the war. During the seven years of National Socialist rule in Austria, he only made four films, none of them political. His most important work was his Wien-Film trilogy: Operette/Operetta (Willi Forst, 1940), Wiener Blut/Vienna Blood (Willi Forst, 1942), and Wiener Mädeln/Vienna Beauties (Willi Forst, begun in 1944, but not completed until 1949). After the war, he had comparatively little success, except for the film Die Sünderin/The Sinner (Willi Forst, 1951) starring Hildegard Knef and Gustav Fröhlich. The frank treatment of social and sexual mores in Germany during and after the war and a modest nude scene of Knef created a furor at the release, but the film went on to attract an audience of seven million people. Willi Forst's last film was the comedy Wien, du Stadt meiner Träume/Vienna, City of My Dreams (Willi Forst, 1957), with Adrian Hoven and Erika Remberg. Then Willi Forst retired from the film world, acknowledging that his style was no longer in demand. After the death of his wife in 1973, he lived a reclusive life in the Swiss canton of Tessin. He died of cancer in Vienna in 1980 and is buried in Neustift am Walde. At Senses of Cinema, professor Robert von Dassanowsky writes that Forst is "one of Austrian and Central European cinema's greatest filmmakers and influential industry figures, whose lack of presence in the international film 'canon' of important directors today is one more casualty from the negligence that has greeted Austrian cinema since the collapse of its commercial film industry in the 1960s."

Sources: Robert von Dassanowsky (Senses of Cinema), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

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Vintage postcard, no. 1151.

Spanish-American bandleader Xavier Cugat (1900-1990) was known for his musical genius and glitzy persona as the king of the posh nightclub scene with his signature tuxedo, ear-to-ear smile, pencil-thin moustache and chihuahua. He spent his youth in Havana, Cuba and was a trained violinist and arranger. He set the standard for Latin dance music for the Hollywood film industry from the 1930s onwards. 'The Rumbia King' performed in thirteen MGM musicals, weekly radio broadcasts and a sixteen-year engagement at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. With his bombshell wives like Abbe Lane and such iconic performers as Desi Arnaz and Tito Puente, he was one of the greatest promoters of the Latin-American style and helped to pave the way for the artists who followed him.

Xavier Cugat was born Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Migall de Bru y Deulofeu in 1900 in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. Cugat was born just a few minutes after midnight in the last year of the 19th century. This was considered so remarkable in his home country of Spain that his father, who was a political prisoner at the time, was pardoned and his brothers were exempted from military service. His family moved to Cuba when he was five (or three - sources differ). One of his neighbours was a violin maker who crafted a miniature version of the instrument that would become Cugat's ticket to Fame. In Havana, he was trained as a classical violinist and played in cafés. He went on to work at Le Payret cinema, where he provided background music for the silent films shown there. On the recommendation of his violin teacher and after passing an audition, he was hired by the director of the Havana Symphony Orchestra, where he became the first violinist at the age of 12. In 1915, his family migrated to New York. Like his brother, Francis Cugat (1893-1981), the artist of the famous book cover of 'The Great Gatsby' (1925), he became a graphic designer, more specifically a cartoonist. The Catalan mezzo-soprano Maria Gay introduced the young Xavier to prestigious musicians such as Pau Casals or Enric Granados. Through hard work, Cugat progressed. He met Enrico Caruso, befriended him and accompanied him on his tour of the United States. Caruso got the young man to study with the artistic director of the prestigious Carnegie Hall. Thanks to his contacts in the music world, he could perform at Carnegie Hall, where he met with only moderate success. At the conservatory, he met Rita Montaner, who studied singing there and they married in 1918 In 1920, the young couple divorced. His family returned to Catalonia, enabling 20-year-old Cugat to study in Germany. In 1924, he returned to the United States. Once again, he appeared at Carnegie Hall. This time the audience gave him a standing ovation, but he still failed to win over the critics. Cugat felt deeply offended. In New York, he met up again with his ex Rita Montaner, and he helped her prepare for Cuban and Antillean music shows. When discovering these shows, he decided to abandon the violin. Montaner founded an orchestra which Cugat directed. In 1926, they were both cast on Broadway in the hit revue 'Una noche en España'. The following year, he moved to Los Angeles. In California, he worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times during the day and tried to find members for his band at night. Cugat finally got his break when his combo played at the fashionable Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles and introduced the rumba. Audiences were captivated by the exotic rhythms and sounds of this music that made them shake their hips in an entirely new way. He christened the band 'Xavier Cugat y sus Gigolos' and his style of music caught on. Cugat convinced the owner to hire South American dancers and made the dancers part of his orchestra. In the late 1920s, the silent film era ended and that of films with sound began. Cugat turned his act into the Vitaphone short A Spanish Ensemble/Xavier Cugat and His Gigolos (1928). In the early 1930s, he appeared with his band in more films such as The Lash (Frank Lloyd, 1930) and In Gay Madrid (Robert Z. Leonard, 1931) starring Ramon Novarro. In 1931, Chaplin asked him to play the violin for one of the musical themes in his film City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931). That same year, he hired a 13-year-old dancer, Margarita Carmen Cansino, the future Rita Hayworth, to perform with his band. In 1931 he went with his band to New York for the opening of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where he eventually replaced Jack Denny as leader of the resident orchestra.

For sixteen years, Xavier Cugat was orchestra leader at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. From 1932 on, the band performed daily evenings at the hotel's Starlight Roof cabaret, and soon afterwards at the hotel's Start Room matinees. Cugat kept the faithful Nilo Menéndez on piano and percussionist Ray Gonzalez, to whom he added Alberto Calderon on drums and José Piñita on trumpet. His niece, Margo, provided the dance numbers, and Carmen Castillo was the band's singer. One of his trademark gestures was to hold a chihuahua while he waved his baton with the other arm. In the 1930s and 1940s, Xavier Cugat was nicknamed 'The Rumba King' because of his popularisation of that Latin dance. He drew heavily on Cuban music but reworked it to suit American tastes. Although his music now bears little relation to its original roots, Cugat made an important contribution to the spread of Cuban rhythms. He shuttled between New York and Los Angeles for hotel and radio appearances interspersed with film appearances. Cugat used a variety of singers on his recordings, including Alfredito Valdès, Miguelito Valdès, Connie Francis, and Dinah Shore. His 1940 recording of 'Perfidia' with Miguelito Valdés became a big hit. Cugat was instrumental in bringing Latin music to the attention of the US public. He and his band appeared in several memorable MGM musicals in the 1940s. In such films as You Were Never Lovelier (William A. Seiter, 1942) with Rita Hayworth, Bathing Beauty (George Sidney, 1944), and Week-End at the Waldorf (Robert Z. Leonard, 1945), he usually played himself, even if the character had a name other than Xavier Cugat. Cugat followed new trends closely. For example, he made recordings for the chachacha, the conga, the mambo and the twist at the time they were in vogue. A major hit was 'Brazil,' which reached seventeenth place on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1943. Other well-known songs include 'Bahía' by Ary Barroso, 'Siboney', 'Malagueña', 'Andalucía (The Breeze and I)' by Ernesto Lecuona, 'Tequila' and 'El Cumbachero'. From 1942 to the summer of 1946, the war kept the orchestra away from the recording studios. It placed itself at the disposal of the American Administration for numerous tours of military camps abroad.

In 1947, Xavier Cugat left the Waldorf Astoria with two talented singers in tow: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. He toured Venezuela the same year, Peru in 1960 and Bolivia in 1962. In addition to his tours, Cugat appeared in a string of films in the late 1940s. As the head of his orchestra, he could be seen in such musicals as A Date with Judy (Richard Thorpe, 1948), On an Island with You (Richard Thorpe, 1948), and Neptune's Daughter (Edward Buzzell, 1949), starring Esther Williams. He toured the world with his orchestra, to which he added the female voices of Lorrain Allen, Carmen Miranda, Lina Romay and Abbe Lane. He recruited the latter in 1950 and kept her in his band throughout the decade. The first theme she performed with Cugat was 'The Wedding Samba'. Cugat travelled to almost every country in the world. The secret of his success was always knowing how to adapt Latin American music (which he described as "tropical"), simplifying the themes to make them accessible to the tastes of the audiences he hosted. In 1963, Cugat was deeply affected both sentimentally and musically by the departure of Abbe Lane, but he quickly bounced back by taking on a new singer, Charo, whom he made his fifth wife and appointed as a folk singer. After suffering a stroke in 1971, Xavier Cugat retired. In 1973, however, he recorded one last double LP with his orchestra, which remains one of his best-selling and most famous records. He lived in Catalonia and continued to paint, draw and caricature. In 1990, he was awarded the Cross of St. George by the Generalitat of Catalonia. Cugat was married five times. His first marriage was to Rita Montaner (1918–1920), his second was to his band vocalist Carmen Castillo (1929–1944), his third to actress Lorraine Allen (1947–1952), his fourth to singer Abbe Lane (1952–1964), and his fifth to Spanish guitarist and comic actress Charo (1966–1978). His last marriage was the first to take place at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. In 1990, Cugat died of heart failure at age 90 in Barcelona and was buried in his hometown of Girona. Cugat received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at the address 1500 Vine Street. Several songs Xavier Cugat recorded, including 'Perfidia', were used in the Wong Kar-Wai films A Fei jing juen/Days of Being Wild (1991) and 2046 (2004). His song 'Cui Cui' was featured in the animated feature Happy Feet (George Miller, Warren Coleman, Judy Morris, 2006), about a tap-dancing penguin who can't sing a love song.

Sources: Xavier Cugat i Mingall, Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.

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