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Elissa Landi
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Elissa Landi was an actress in 1923 - 1943 and a writer 1944 - 1948 writing 6 novels and books on poetry. She was born Elizabeth-Marie Kuhnelt in Venice, Italy December 6, 1904 and lived only 43 years until 1948 when she died of cancer in New York. She had one daughter, Carolyn Maude Thomas. Elissa Landi is believed by some people to have been the secret granddaughter of Sissi (Empress Elizabeth), the beautiful consort of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. (5/1/00) (updated 12/28/02) Find more details in the Internet Movie Database
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Innocent Binnie (Elissa Landi) happens to be the spitting image of Lia Monta (... Elissa Landi), a less-than-innocent famous actress. When Lia skeedaddles to Berlin with a cache of stolen jewels, Binnie takes her look-alike's place on stage. She falls in love with Lia's sweetheart Gordon (John Stuart) but runs into trouble with her double's no-good husband Jeffrey (John Longden). When the police discover that the jewels are stolen, poor Binnie is arrested for the crime. She eventually clears herself, but only after vowing never again to pretend to be anything other than what she is. Outside of the pleasurable spectacle of watching Elissa Landi essay a dual role, the most entertaining aspect of Children of Chance is its comedy relief, courtesy of Wallace Lupino and Gus McNaughton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Elissa Landi, handsomely gowned and possessed of an accent and a temperament, appears as Lisa della Robbia, toast of opera lovers. Cary Grant is cast as Gerald Fitzgerald, the smitten admirer who marries the prima donna and soon finds himself merely a part of her retinue and custodian of the Pekingese, Toto. Preferring divorce to dishonor, he sets the legal wheels in motion and even has his eyes upon Mrs. Fitzgerald, the second, when the singer relents, upsets her rival's wedding plans and promises to reform. The ending is contrived to leave the beholder with the notion that Mr. Fitzgerald may soon be back in the marital dog-house.
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The daughter of an Austrian military officer and stepdaughter of an Italian nobleman, Elissa Landi was privately educated in England and Canada. Her acting career commenced with the 1924 London stage production The Storm; two years later, she appeared in her first film. She came to Broadway to play Catherine Barclay in an unsuccessful staging of Hemingway's Farewell to Arms. Despite the failure of this production, Elissa was invited to come to Hollywood. She is best remembered for her ethereal, virtuous performance as the early-Christian heroine of DeMille's Sign of the Cross (1932), though she was even more effective as the leading lady in the historical satire The Warrior's Husband (1933). Her screen career came to an end in 1937, save for an unexpected return before the cameras in the 1943 war film Corregidor.
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This grim but lively melodrama, even more than her earlier vehicles (Always Goodby, Wicked) shows the potentialities of Elissa Landi as an emotional actress. A stage success of 17 years ago, the picture has two other noteworthy performances—by Laurence Olivier, a mild spoken English actor with unusually good camera presence, and Lionel Barrymore. Barrymore, the best leerer in his family, achieves facial contortions of unparalleled eloquence; he has added a scratchy guffaw to his paraphernalia of lechery. Good shot: the scene in a cabaret in which a song sung by the performers reminds Barrymore where he first saw Elissa Landi.
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Elissa Landi (December 6, 1904 – October 21, 1948) was an Italian born actress who was popular in Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s. Rumoured to be a descendant of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, she was noted for her aristocratic bearing.
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Elissa Landi