Miss Europe 1927

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The Sofiensäle in Vienna, location of the event.

The competition for the Miss Europe 1927 was the first of its kind. It was once carried out by the 1925-1927 existing Fanamet , the common European film distribution of the US film companies Fa mous player, First Na tional and Met ro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The company served twelve countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the Balkans. There she organized national beauty contests in 1926 based on the American model as a PR measure . In a second stage, these culminated in the first election for Miss Europe in early 1927 . The title role in a Hollywood film was awarded as the winning prize. These competitions received a lot of attention in the local press.

Preselections

Months beforehand, Fanamet was looking for attractive film talent in all twelve countries. There were local juries in each of the countries to review thousands of photos submitted. Twelve young women were selected from these in each country and invited to tea or dinner by the national jury. By the end of 1926, three “semi-finalists” were selected from among their number and their pictures were sent to an international jury in Berlin. She chose the most beautiful girl from her home country, invited her to Vienna, paid her and a female companion (usually the mother) for the trip and the stay.

final

The final event took place on February 5, 1927 in Vienna . There were ten candidates from the twelve countries, including one from Latvia for the three Baltic states. The applicants from Romania and Turkey did not show up: the first because of illness, the second because of visa problems. In the end, only eight candidates took part in the election.

There are different representations of the process:

  • According to Stefanie Job , the event took place on the occasion of a ball in the Vienna Sofiensäle . The prize was the main role in a Hollywood film directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau . When the twelve-member jury could not decide between the ten candidates (including the wife of the cameraman and later director Gustav Ucicky ), Murnau was called in Hollywood. He decided that test recordings should be made of all candidates and sent to him that the winner would eventually play in his film. A few weeks later he chose Štefica Vidačić. However, the film project was never realized. Nevertheless, she received a year, a fee of 100 dollars per week.
  • According to Ida Ograjšek Gorenjak , the election was carried out as part of the Caligari Redoute , also in Vienna. Since the candidates from Yugoslavia and Poland were tied for the top in the end, they had to run a "runoff" in Berlin , the seat of Fanamet and thus the "head referee".
  • In fact, the following day all eight finalists were filmed in the Schönbrunn film studios and the recordings were sent to the Berlin jury for selection. After reviewing the films, she invited the candidates from Yugoslavia and Poland to Berlin for the final decision and ultimately determined Štefica Vidačić to be the winner.

That is why many Internet publications state Berlin as the location and the date in mid-March. The year 1928 is often incorrectly found. At this point, however, the Fanamet no longer existed.

The participants
country Spelling in the contemporary press Spelling in the native language
Placements
1. YugoslaviaYugoslavia Kingdom 1918Kingdom of Yugoslavia  Štefica Vidačić Štefica Vidačić, Štefanija Vidačić
2. PolandPoland 1919Second Polish Republic  Aniela Bogucka Aniela Bogucka
3. AustriaAustriaAustria  Hilde Bird Hilde Ptak aka Betty Bird
Other participants
Lithuania 1918Lithuania LatviaLatvia EstoniaEstonia Baltic states Margarete Klauss (Margit Klaus)
Bulgaria 1908Bulgaria Bulgaria Zorka Jordanova (Sara Jordanova) Зорка Йорданова
Second Hellenic RepublicSecond Hellenic Republic Greece Dina Sarri Διονυσία Σαρρή, Δινα Σαρρή, Ντίνα Σαρρή
Czechoslovakia 1920Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia Ella Posnerová (Anna Posnerova) Ela Poznerová, Eliška Poznerová
Hungary 1918Hungary Hungary Maria Mátyus Mátyus Mária
Not started
Romania kingdomRomania Romania ?
TurkeyTurkey Turkey ?

aftermath

At the beginning there was no talk of a contest. Expressions such as “beauty competition”, “film beauties”, “beauty queen”, “revue of beauty”, “Fanamet competition” were used. It is therefore not surprising that a married woman like Hilde Bird was able to attend. The term “Miss Europa” (spelling at the time) only came up afterwards. The Fanamet's process of taking all local, regional, national and international steps into one hand would probably be called casting today - including photo and video viewings. And that was exactly the second goal, in addition to market penetration.

Only a few had acting experience: Ela Poznerová was a theater actress, Hilde Bird and Aniela Bogucka had music and stage training, Margarete Klauss had little film experience.

The Hollywood dream burst when the Fanamet was wound up. (After all, she fulfilled her obligation and paid the promised fee to the winner for a year - even without employing her). The film companies involved had promised themselves “new faces” that should differ from American actresses. However, the otherness they were looking for was too little. There were enough beautiful and talented young women in the United States. But European film production discovered and recruited young actresses here. Hilde Bird and Ela Poznerová met the expectations with ease. Štefica Vidačić turned five strips. The candidates from Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary only appeared in one or two films, exclusively in their home countries. This may have been due to language barriers, which could end an advancement with the advent of the talkie at the latest.

Career history of the finalists in detail:

  • The winner Štefica Vidačić (alias Steffie Vida alias Stefanie Job) did not make the hoped-for Hollywood career. After all, she made five films under the name Steffie Vida in Berlin (1928 and 1929). There she met the film composer and UFA music director Willy Schmidt-Gentner , with whom she was married from 1932 (moving to Vienna) to 1942. Through him she at least stayed in contact with the film industry: in 1947 she was given the opportunity to produce a television series with the Vienna Philharmonic for the CBS together with Leopold Hainisch , although at the time she only had a vague idea of ​​what "television" actually meant. In 1948 she married the Swiss journalist Max Job, went with him to Zurich and now used the name Stefanie Job.
  • The runner-up, the Polish dancer Aniela Bogucka, was curiously not "discovered" for the film at all. It can be assumed, however, that the nationwide surge in popularity of her stage career was not exactly a hindrance.
  • About the Viennese Hilde Bird (alias Hilde Ucicky alias Betty Bird), of course the crowd favorite with home advantage, it was mentioned several times that she was only missing one vote to win. So it is justified to place them in third place. For them, the competition was the springboard to a very big screen career. She must have shot almost permanently: 34 films in the period from 1927 to 1935! Before that, she had eight short appearances (1924–1926).
  • Nothing is known about Margarete Klauss from Latvia, not even the correct spelling of her name.
  • Zorka Jordanova from Bulgaria made a film in her home country (1931).
  • Dina Sarri took part in two films in her native Greece (1928 and 1932).
  • The Czechoslovakian Ela Poznerová was able to look back on almost 60 years of screen career: 16 films (Czech and German) from 1927 to 1985.
  • Mária Mátyus from Hungary made two films in her homeland (both in 1929).

But the Fanamet competition could also open up chances of success for candidates who did not make it to the Vienna final . The best known example is Ida Kravanja aka Ita Rina . She was elected Miss Slovenia in a local preliminary decision in autumn 1926 and reached the Yugoslav state decision in Zagreb too late - when the three "semi-finalists" had already been appointed. There, however, the German producer Peter Ostermayr became aware of them. The result: she appeared in 18 films from 1927 to 1939 and made one last one in 1960.

On the other hand, a professional actress could also fail in the national selection: Anny Ondra was one of the three Czechoslovak "semi-finalists" who was last defeated by Ela Poznerová, although she had already made 28 films (from 1919). It did not affect her career: Even without Fanamet , she was in another 61 films until 1951.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefanie Job : The neglected muse. Biography of the novel of the film musician and UFA general music director Willy Schmidt-Gentner. Frieling, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89009-804-5 , pp. 48-50
  2. ↑ Ida Ograjšek Gorenjak: Hollywood comes to Central Europe: the Fanamet beauty contest in Central and Southeastern Europe , in: Iskra Iveljić (Ed.): The Entangled Histories of Vienna, Zagreb and Budapest (18th-20th Century) , FF-Press, Zagreb 2015, ISBN 978-953-175-584-9 , p. 222
  3. ↑ The two most beautiful women. In:  The interesting sheet / Wiener Illustrierte , February 17, 1927, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dib
  4. ↑ Numerous Croatian websites celebrated the 90th anniversary of "their" first Miss Europe on March 15, 2017, for example Zagrepčanka u Berlinu proglašena miss Europe - 1927 , accessed on June 11, 2017. The sentence Zagrepčanka Štefica Vidačić postala je Miss Europe na natjecanju koje je održano u Berlinu 15. ožujka 1927. godine. means: "The Zagreb woman Štefica Vidačić was Miss Europe in the competition that took place on March 15, 1927 in Berlin."
  5. ↑ An example: Greenpeace France ( Memento from January 5, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Another example: pin-ups, playmates, beauty queens - Documentation 1994 by NZZ Format on youtube (around 8:40 p.m.), accessed on March 29, 2017
  7. ↑ polskiemiss.blogspot.de
  8. ↑ Ida Ograjšek Gorenjak: Hollywood comes to Central Europe: the Fanamet beauty contest in Central and Southeastern Europe , in: Iskra Iveljić (Ed.): The Entangled Histories of Vienna, Zagreb and Budapest (18th-20th Century) , p. 215‒ 233, FF-Press, Zagreb 2015, ISBN 978-953-175-584-9 , p. 225
  9. ^ Steffie Vida in the Internet Movie Database
  10. ↑ Stefanie Job: The neglected muse. Biography of the novel of the film musician and UFA general music director Willy Schmidt-Gentner. Frieling, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-89009-804-5 , p. 156f.
  11. ↑ This is probably the reason why a “first Miss Europe / 1928 / Swiss woman / Stefanie Job” is haunted in many media!
  12. ^ Betty Bird in the Internet Movie Database
  13. ^ Zorka Yordanova in the Internet Movie Database
  14. ^ Dina Sarri in the Internet Movie Database
  15. ↑ Ela Poznerová in the Internet Movie Database
  16. ^ Mária Mátyus in the Internet Movie Database
  17. ^ Ita Rina in the Internet Movie Database
  18. ^ The film beauty competition in Prague . In: Mein Film , 56 (1927), p. 6 (online at ANNO )
  19. ^ Anny Ondra in the Internet Movie Database