#gizella

Gizella Mészáros by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: Vintage Hungarian postcard. Photo by Brenner, Budapest. Gizella Mészáros (1877–1953) aka Giza Mészáros (Újpest, 15 November 1877 - Paris, 18 November 1953), was an Hungarian actress, and the mother of Paulette Mészáros. Gizella Mészáros was born Katalin Schultz (variant name: Gizella Schultz) as the daughter of Mór Schulcz and Rozália Fleischer. After elementary schooling in Újpest and civil schooling in Kispest, she became a pupil at Elek Solymosi's drama school. She made her public stage debut in the autumn of 1896, appearing opposite András Leszkay in Arad in the role of a naïve girl. Her first major role was Magduska in Jenő Rákosi's Magdolna. She was successful in Ferenc Herczeg's play Honty Háza and in Kis Lord. From there she was invited to Kassia. On 2 June 1900, she appeared as a guest at the National Theatre in the role of Noémi in The Golden Man, and was later engaged by Lajos Makó in Szeged. Of all her favourite roles, she loved most Sándor Bródy's Dada. In 1897, her daughter Paulette was born in Oradea. From 1903 Mészáros was a member of the Szeged theatre for two years under the direction of Dr. Jenő Janovics. During these two years on the Szeged stage, she developed the subtle, noble and direct art that made her so valuable among Hungarian actresses. Ignác Krecsányi, the director of the theatres in Buda and Timisoara, engaged Giza Mészáros for his company in Buda from 1 April 1905. From 15 November 1907 she joined the Hungarian Theatre, soon afterwards she was invited to the People's Theatre-Vígopera, and from 1 December 1910 she was a member of the Vígszínház, from which she left on 17 June 1916 for the performance of Three Little Girls, after having been engaged by Dr. Artúr Bárdos' Modern Stage, where she worked for five years. The Fővárosi Hírlap of 26 April 1916 described her as "A great actress. She is clever, witty, has an excellent sense of humour, a lovely voice, and is even a sight to behold, which is not a last resort at night." Her partner at one time was Gyula Csortos. Together with Irén Varsányi, Mészáros dictated fashion at the Vígszínház in the 1910s. Giza was often the first to appear in the latest Parisian dress creations and was considered the uncrowned queen of fancy shoes and silk stockings, who led a lifestyle fit for a star. From 1918 she played at the Belvárosi Theater, and in 1921 she signed a contract with the Renaissance Theater in Vienna. From 4 May 1924 she was a member of the Union Theatres, and from 1 September 1925 she was a member of the Belvárosi and Renaissance Theater. In Vienna, she made a long guest appearance at the Renaissance Theater, where she achieved undivided success as Lavinia in Love at the Fair, which remained a significant event in her artistic career. Until 1932, she acted various theatres in Budapest. Giza Mészáros had a modest film career in the 1910s, starting with Egy csók története (Sándor Góth, 1912), which starred her partner Gyula Csortos. Afterward followed A Marhakereskedö (Sándor Góth, 1913), Lotti ezredesei (Colonel Lotti, Peter Paul Felner, 1916) in which she had the lead, A föld embere (Earth's Man, Michael Curtiz, 1917), starring Oscar Beregi as a mine engineer, and A hazugság (The Lie, Ödön Uher ifj., 1919), after Paul Bourget's novel Mensonges, about a woman with a double life as world-wise, frivolous lover of an older baron, and at the same time the chaste and remorseful lover of a young poet. Her last part Mészáros had in the short Terike by Dezsõ Major, released in Hungary in 1927. After her retirement from stage and screen, Giza and her daughter went abroad several times to attend to her son-in-law's business affairs, but homesickness drove her home several times, including in December 1939, when she returned to Hungary after a stay in Paris and Barcelona. In the autumn of 1953, Giza Mészáros' son-in-law, the Spanish businessman Ricardo Jossua, was already in an emotionally unstable state, often with thoughts of death. From the beginning of October, he stayed with his wife Paulette and mother-in-law Giza at the luxury hotel Kléber, Avenue 17, in Paris. On November 18, while Paulette and Giza slept, Jossua fired the two women with his gun, and then shot himself in the bathroom. According to the letters found by the police, Jossua had already tried to drive his car into the Seine with the aim of eliminating all three of them, but he was afraid to be found and saved in time. (NB IMDB lists Giza Mészáros's death as 1954 but that is wrong). Giza Mészáros was an educated, intelligent actress, who portrayed dramatic heroines with just the same tools and features as her comic figures of the operettas, but found it difficult to adapt to the new acting style. Sources: Hungarian Wikipedia, IMDb.