Author: [20th Century Photographer]
Title: Sonnie Hale and Jessie Matthews
Description: London: Gaumont British, [Ca. 1930s]. Original hand colored real photograph issued as a postcard. 5.5 x 3.5 inches. Very Good. Printed on verso: "Film Partners" Series, 85, Long Acre, London; No. PC 196. Made in Great Britain. Gaumont-British was founded in 1898 as the British subsidiary of the French Gaumont Film Company. It became independent of its French parent in 1922 when Isidore Ostrer acquired control of Gaumont-British. In 1927 a leading silent film maker, the Ideal Film Company, merged with Gaumont. The company's Lime Grove Studios was used for film productions including Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of The 39 Steps (1935), while its Islington Studios made Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). In the 1930s, the company employed 16,000 people. In the United States, Gaumont-British had its own distribution operation for its films until December 1938, when it outsourced distribution to 20th Century Fox. In 1941 the Rank Organisation bought Gaumont-British and its sister company Gainsborough Pictures. Sonnie Hale (1 May 1902 – 9 June 1959) was an English theatre and cinema actor and director. John Robert Hale-Monro, better known by his stage name, was born in Kensington, London, the son of Robert Hale and Belle Reynolds. His father, and his sister Binnie Hale, were actors. He was educated at Beaumont College, Old Windsor. Jessie Margaret Matthews OBE (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected. .

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