Elizabeth Allan (Elizabeth Allen and Betty Ellen) ~ This is a vintage original cigarette card form the 1937 Cigarette Card series Bunte Filmbilder. This is card #261. It is about the same size as a US baseball card (just over 2¼"x2¾"). This particular example is in excellent condition with minor edge wear.

Despite the spelling of Allen on the card, this is Elizabeth Allan, the British actress who goes back to the very early days of sound motion pictures. I believe that this photo was probably done for the MGM production of Camille, released in 1936.

Allan was born in 1908 in Skegness, Lincolnshire, England. She was a well known and well loved British Actress and Film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She made it to the Old Vic training school in London and began her career in repertory and playing small parts in British films. In 1932, she married her agent Wilfred J O'Bryen.

In 1934 Elizabeth crossed the Atlantic to Hollywood appearing in several films, the best known being Mrs Copperfield/Murdstone in David Copperfield (1935 with Freddie Bartholomew,) Lucy Manette in A Tale of Two Cities (1935 with Ronald Coleman,) and as Nichette in Camille with Greta Garbo in 1936. She entered fully into the social life of Hollywood being romantically linked with the film star Clark Gable, and in tails and a topper escorted Marlene Dietrich to a costume ball. Her time in Hollywood caused a rift in her marriage and she became out of sympathy with the Studio System; so when war broke out in 1939 Elizabeth left the dream factory to return to England.

She and her husband became happily reconciled and had two children eventually buying a house with a garden facing the sea in Hove - Courtney Tye, Courtney Terrace on Kingsway. Elizabeth continued to appear in British films for the next 20 years- her film with George Formby She Snoops to Conquer being particularly well received - on-stage, and on TV.

She is credited with appearing in 46 films and 25 stage roles but went on to reach an all time peak of prominence and popularity in the 1950s as a panelist on the TV program What's My Line. Beautiful, witty, glamorously dressed and wearing remarkable jewellery, she was voted Top Female TV Personality of 1952. In 1960, using the stage name Betty Ellen, she starred in the Twilight Zone episode "The After Hours" with Anne Francis. After the death of her husband in 1977 she retired into private life and lived on until 1990.

This lot consists of a genuine German cigarette premium issued between about 1930 and 1937. In general, German cigarette cards and premiums make an interesting and inexpensive addition to any collection. The Nazi government of Germany opposed smoking and eventually put an end to cigarette cards. As a result, the native German card collecting hobby never developed to the extent of that in Britain or the United States. As a result, most German premiums and cards cost only a fraction of what might be expected from their American and British cousins.

Large photos are shown smaller than actual size while small ones are generally enlarged to as much as twice their original size. Almost all photos and cards are scanned through protective sleeves or pages which tends to cut the clarity a bit. Enlarged defects tend to look worse than they actually are.