Italian postcard by Unione Cinematografica Italiana, series Teodora no. 9. Photo: Ambrosio Film. Rita Jolivet and René Maupré in Teodora (Leopoldo Carlucci, 1921). The back of the card reads: "When Teodora (Rita Jolivet) meets the Greek Andrea (René Maupré) she becomes his lover, pretending she is a widow with the name of Mirta." NB most sources, including the original intertitles in the existing print, state that René Maupré played Andrea/Andres, and looking at photos of Maupré this seems right. Yet, Martinelli claims Maupré played the emperor Justinian and Ferruccio Biancini played Andrea.
Rita Jolivet (1885 - 1962), an American-born British actress of French descent, was already an acclaimed stage actress of the British, American, and international stage when she debuted in film. Noticing Jolivet's performance at the Garrick Theatre in New York, the American distributor and importer of European films George Kleine proposed her to make films in Italy. Enthusiastic about the Guazzoni epics and Borelli's Love Everlasting (Ma l'amor mion non muore), Jolivet went to Turin where she worked for Ambrosio. After acting in Fata Morgana (Eduardo Bencivenga, 1914), with René Maupré, and Cuore ed arte (Bencivenga, 1915), with Hamilton Revelle, however, she returned to the US to play in Cecil B. deMille's The Unafraid (1915), with House Peters. The film was a huge success and Jolivet acted in another four American films.
Embarked on the Lusitania in May 1915 in order to shoot two more films at Ambrosio and to marry an Italian count, Jolivet was one of the few survivors when a German submarine destroys the transatlantic. Her theatrical producer and mentor Charles Frohmann was on board as well but he perished, after which Jolivet's stage career came to halt and henceforth she focused on film acting. Safely escorted to Britain, she married count Cippico di Zara in London, and reaching Italy, she played in two more Ambrosio productions, La mano di Fatma (1916) and Zvani (1916), both by Gino Zaccaria. Returned to the States, Rita acted in four films in 1916-1917, and contributed to a Red-Cross film. In 1918 she decided to produce Lest We Forget, a romanticized version of the fatal events of the Lusitania, directed by French director Léonce Perret. Jolivet personally presented the film in roadshows all along the States. The revenues of Lest We Forget were donated to war victims. Also, Jolivet was the best Liberty Bonds seller of the US, supposedly selling them more than Fairbanks, Pickford and Chaplin together.
After the war, Jolivet returned to Italy to star in a long cherished project: the life of Theodora, Empress of Byzantium, directed by Leopoldo Carlucci, based on Victorien Sardou's play, and with enormous, imposing sets by Armando Brasini. On stage, Sardou's play had been a major hit for Sarah Bernhardt. Because of various economical problems and censorship, the production slowly proceeded in 1919 and 1920 and was finally premiered in the US in October 1921. It was a huge succes. One year after, success was even bigger in Italy, with audiences flocking to see the film. The critics were enthusiastic both about the film with its gigantic sets and about Jolivet's performance. In-between theatrical performances Jolivet made 1 American and 3 more films in France: The Bride's Confession ( Ivan Abramson, 1921) with Leah Baird, Roger la Honte (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1922) with Gabriel Signoret, Le mariage de minuit (Armand du Plessy, 1923) with Gabriel de Gravone, Le marchand de bonheur (Giuseppe Guarino, 1926) with Georges Melchior, and Phi-Phi (Georges Pallu, 1927) with Georges Gauthier and Gaston Norès. She then remarried a rich Scotsman in 1928 after divorcing Cippico, retreated from stage and screen world, and moved to New York.
Source: Vittorio Martinelli, Le dive del silenzio, English Wikipedia, IMDB.