This vintage real photo postcard features stage and film actress Maria Orska (1893-1930). She was a major star in Germany during the 1920’s. She was born in Russia and her birth name was Rachel Blindermann. She was born into a Jewish family that lived close to Odessa in the Russian Federation. Today, her birthplace is located in the Ukraine. Her father was a lawyer. Just prior to World War I she moved to Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin. Orska must have been bright because she was fluent in German, French, Italian, Russian, and Polish. In Berlin, she worked with Rudolf Bernauer, Max Reinhard, and other well known directors. She became popular in Germany for her film parts, though she favored theater. Her first movie was “Damon Und Mensch” (1915) and it was produced by Jules Greenbaum, a pioneer of the German cinema. Oscar Kokoschka, an Austrian artist, drew Orska’s portrait, and lithographs of the work are now part of several museum’s collections. Orska married a much older man who was an influential Jewish banker from Berlin. They married in 1920 and divorced in 1925. Her next significant relationship was with a wealthy Jewish industrialist and geologist named Julius Heinrich Koritschoner from Vienna, Austria. In 1928 he fatally shot himself, leaving Orska a letter. Koritschoner’s morphine addiction was thought to have led to his suicide. Orska’s sister had committed suicide just two years earlier. She committed the act of self destruction just after having an intense argument with Maria. Orska was extremely popular in Central Europe during the 1920’s. The IMDb credits Maria Orska with 14 movie appearances between 1915 and 1923. She was seen as an extraordinary actress and her photographs appeared on many magazine covers and postcards. Suicide had taken the lives of her ex husband and her sister; and she too, eventually succumbed to self-annihilation. She committed suicide in 1930 while in Vienna. It was speculated that, like her ex-husband, morphine addiction resulted in her suicide. Here is some information about this postcard. It was published by Film Sterne. Around 1916 Rotophot began publishing three series of postcards with the RPH logo (see bottom left corner of above image).The first series was called “Buhnen-Sterne” (stage stars) and was comprised of German stage performers. The second series was named “Film Sterne” (film stars) and this postcard portrait of Maria Orska is part of that series (no. 118/1). The third set of postcards, “Film Sterne” (film scenes) showed scenes from German films and identified both the film and the performers. The photographer of this postcard portrait of Miss Orska, was the Becker & Maass studio, located in Berlin. SOLD
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