Forgotten today, Marcella Albani was an idol of the European cinema in the final years of the 1920s, making dozens of films in five different countries (Italy, Germany, Austria, France and Czechoslovakia). After sound came, her popularity declined and she turned to writing. One of her novels "La Città dell'amore" was even adapted for the big screen by Mario Franchini, her husband. She went on acting until 1936. After a final appearance in Luis Trenker The Kaiser of California (1936), she retired from acting and led a peaceful life at the Ligurian Coast. Born in 1899, Marcella Albani had been discovered twenty years afterward by writer-director Guido Parish with whom she formed a very successful team. The couple made nearly all their respective films together (mainly tearjerkers and adventure yarns) until 1924 when they parted company. Their first movies were made in Italy until Parish decided to go to Germany. Marcella followed her mentor - who had changed his name to Guido Schamberg - there, and she met with instant success. Very exotic as the elegant Latin lady against a German backdrop, she enraptured German males in flicks such as Frauenschicksal (1923), Das Spiel der Liebe (1924) or Die Flucht in den Zirkus (1926). When she became freelance, she was occasionally chosen by important directors like Joe May, Friedrich Zelnik' or William Dieterle. One thing leading to another Marcella Albani made no fewer than fifty-odd films in only seventeen years. She was not even sixty when, having fallen into oblivion, she died of a brain tumor. Will she be rediscovered some day? - IMDb mini biography by: Guy Bellinger

Filmography

• 1936The Kaiser of California — Seine Frau
• 1935Stradivari — Fürstin Tatjana Nousinoff
• 1935Stradivarius
• 1934The Fight for the Matterhorn — Felicitas - Carrel's Wife
• 1933Non son gelosa — Lia Berti
• 1932Devil of the Matterhorn — Felicitas - Carrel's Wife
• 1931Before the Jury — Leda Astorri
• 1931Vertauschte Gesichter — Karin Nansen
• 1930Masks
• 1930The experience of a night — Baronin Ileana Stardza
• 1929Anschluß um Mitternacht — Liane
• 1929Hingabe — die Frau
• 1929L'évadée — Délia Fitzbury
• 1929The Sins of Love
• 1929Their Son
• 1928Die Pflicht zu schweigen — Maria Harp
• 1928Prince or Clown — Lydia
• 1928Secrets of the Orient — Sobeide
• 1928The Fight for the Matterhorn — Felicitas, Wife of Carrel
• 1928The Lady in Black — Prinzessin Nedelkoff
• 1928The Last Supper — Viola Suroff
• 1927Behind the Altar — Die Marchesa
• 1927Der Fluch der Vererbung — Olga
• 1927Liebesreigen — Olga Hessenberg
• 1927Make Up — Adda van Royt
• 1926Die geschiedene Frau
• 1926Souls Aflame
• 1926The Escape to the Circus — Mistress Wera
• 1925Guillotine
• 1925The Old Mamsell's Secret — Felicitas van Dekker
• 1924Das Spiel der Liebe

Appearances as themselves (1)

• 1931The Movie Star — Herself