Renée Adorée

Renée Adorée (September 30, 1898 – October 5, 1933), French actress who appeared in Hollywood silent movies during the 1920s, original vintage real photo postcard (RPPC).

In 1920, given the exotic name Renée Adorée (French for "reborn" and "adored," both in the feminine form) by the studio, she appeared in her first motion picture. With the advent of sound in film, Adorée was one of the fortunate stars whose voices met the film industry's new needs. She would star opposite Lon Chaney and her former brother-in-law Owen Moore, make three more films with John Gilbert, and appear in four films with another leading Hollywood actor Ramón Novarro.

Beginning in 1902 Kodak offered a preprinted card back that allowed postcards to be made directly from negatives. This technology allowed photographers to travel from town to town and document life in the places they visited. Local entrepreneurs hired them to record area events and the homes of prominent citizens. These postcards documented important buildings and sites, as well as parades, fires, and floods.  Real Photo postcards (RPPCs) became expressions of pride in home and community.

While Kodak was certainly the major promoter of photo postcard production, they didn't seem to originate the term "Real Photo," and used it less frequently than photographers and others in the marketplace from 1903 to ca. 1930. But it has become the popular term today to distinguish photographic postcards from commercially printed, mass-produced postcards of the same era. Real Photo postcards have made for millions of 'one-off' photographs, where the photographer may have produced a single or a small number of prints from one negative.

This vintage real photo postcard, measuring 3.5 x 5.5 inches is in fine condition showing light signs of age and toning. Verso bears original RPPC graphics.