A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Born:
September 28, 1901
Died:
July 12, 1993
Lily Geertruida Maria Henriëtte Bouwmeester (1901–1993) was a Dutch stage and film actress, who received an honorary Golden Calf for being "the best actress in Pre-War Dutch cinema". The daughter of two musicians, Bouwmeester spent her youth touring Europe with her parents. When constant travelling proved to be too exhausting, she moved in with her aunt, actress Theo Mann-Bouwmeester. She dreamed to become a dancer, but her aunt demanded for her to become an actress and sent her to several auditions. At the age of 14, she debuted in a stage production by Herman Heijermans. Bouwmeester made her screen debut in silent film Majoor Frans (1916). In 1917, she landed a contract with a prestigious theatre in Amsterdam and performed at the Stadsschouwburg, receiving much acclaim from theatre critics. While working on a play in 1920, she met actor Theo Frenkel Jr., whom she married in 1921. Soon after that she left the Stadsschouwburg to produce her own plays with her husband. After her divorce in the early 30s, Bouwmeester decided she needed a break and left the theatre. She did not, however, give up acting. In 1935, when the sound film had just been introduced in the Netherlands, she auditioned for the lead role in The Cross-Patch (1935), but had no luck. She was noticed by director Ludwig Berger, who cast her in Pygmalion (1937). The production was a success; Bouwmeester became an instant star and was offered a five-year contract with Paramount Pictures. She declined, however, because her new husband, actor Cor van der Lugt Melsert, was unwilling to travel to the United States with her. During World War II, Bouwmeester secretly took in two Jewish children in her home. After the liberation in 1945, she was offered movie roles again, but declined all offers. She decided to return to theatre instead and played in the famous stage production of Pygmalion. In 1969, she resigned from acting completely.
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Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.