The Non-Smouldering Cigarette – Katalin Karády Some Hungarian film makers often look back with nostalgia to the 1930’s and 1940s - a golden age of Magyar movie when such charismatic stars as Pál Jávor, Klári Tolnay and Zita Perczel graced the screen. One star who shone particularly brightly was Katalin Karády, a brilliant actress whose life matched many of her roles for drama and intensity. Katalin Karády was born as Katalin Kanczler, on 8th December 1910 in Budapest. Her humble childhood in the capital’s outer district of Kôbánya hardly gave clues as to the stage and screen actress of stature she was to become. Her strict father often used his belt or his fists on Karády and her six older siblings. Karády’s early appearance also gave little hints of the stunning, smouldering beauty which would emerge from the chrysalis. According to her memoirs, one aunt took a look at her once and said cruelly, „Well, it will sure be difficult to find a husband for Kati without paying”. However, by her teens Karády had blossomed with a natural, compelling charisma which never faded after. By the age of 14, Karády had developed a passion for clothes and with her slim, big-boned figure could wear them with panache. After her father’s death, she dropped out of her second year of high school at 16, and married a much older man, but the marriage quickly floundered. However, she appeared on the Vígszínház theatre stage in Budapest and soon attracted a host of admirers, for her personality as well as her acting abilities. Between 1931 and 1941, she appeared in the Pesti and Vígszínház theatre in various roles. In 1939, Karády made her first film, „Halálos tavasz” (Lethal Spring), and became an overnight star. This debut gave her instant fame as a diva and sex-symbol, supported by her unusual, humming voice, and "femme fatale" character. Katalin Karády attracted always much attention with her alternative lifestyle, threw great parties and was rarely seen without a cigarette between her full lips. From 1939 Zoltán Egyed became her manager, and successfully created a Hollywood-like image around her..In the next nine years, she appeared in 20 movies thousands of fans tried to mimic her clothing, hairstyle and behavior throughout the country. Karády's personal life was also a constant topic of gossips, conflicting rumors came and gone about she being a man-eater or a lesbian. The theories were stirred up even more, as she started an intimate relationship with the chief of Govenor Miklós Horthy’s intelligence secret service, István Újszászy,, who bought her a villa, Actually, this relationship was not a simple affair, but real love, they were bride and groom, and planned their marriage after the war. (This could never come true. Újszászy was arrested first by the SS, when Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944, and in the last monthes of the war by the Russian „AVH” , called NKVD. He spent 3 years in a soviet camp as prisoner, then – supposedly – was delivered back to Hungary, and was given into to hands of the AVH in 1948. No more confirmed dates are about his further fate. Declared as dispappeared, but more, then sure, he died from torture in the cellars of the Hungarian Communist Secret Service.) During the 1940’s, Karády made some 20 classic films, from period costume dramas like „Erzsébet királyné” (Queen Elizabeth) to brooding mysteries such as „Valamit visz a víz” (The Water Brings Something) in which the role gave opportunity for her to display her dangerous, sensual intensity. Karády was compared to everyone from Rita Hayworth to Barbara Stanwick, Jane Russell to Greta Garbo, although she had a personality all her own and with her square jawline and determined character, could compete with Hollywood’s best. It seemed there was no role she couldn’t play, from the suicidal rejected lover in „Ne kérdezd, ki voltam” (Don’t Ask Who I Was) to the spoiled, disturbed maiden in „A szûz és a gödölye” (The Virgin and the Kid Goat), or the faithful wife who turns vivacious vamp in „Alkalom” (Occasion). During the Second World War, Karády owned three flats in and around Budapest, including the one Újszászy bought for her. The plaque placed by the local government in 1991 on the wall of this late, now-faded Art Deco building of Művész street reads: „In this building lived Katalin Karády (1912-1990), popular actress in many Hungarian films and protector of those persecuted in 1944”. The Gestapo arrested Karády on 18th April 1944, with allegations that she spied for the Allied Forces and for her relationships with Colonel Újszászy (by that time the relationship between the Nazi Germany and Horthy’s Hungary was totally deteriorated, and Nazis made steps to take Hungary under their own control from every point of view, while Horthy took serious efforts to stop Hungary’s participation in WWII, and through his secret service looked for connections with the Allied Forces). Before her arrest, Karády already has been attacked in the press for her „liberalism”, the nazi authorities put a pressure on her with banning her songs from the radio, her new film, the „Machita” from the movie theatres, and stopping the ongoing productions shot with her. In prison, Karády was beaten severely and was not released until late summer. After the war, Karády made only one more film, „Forró mezôk” (Hot Meadows), in 1948 and, three years later, she left Hungary. First she lived in Salzburg, then moved to Switzerland, and after a year to Brussels. In 1953, she lived in Sao Paolo, Brazil, opening a fashion shop. In 1968, - after Ted and Robert Kennedy intervened for her – she finally received the American visa, and moved to New York, where she opened a hat salon. Performing rarely for friends only, she lived in retirement, refusing to appear in the media. Receiving a governmental invitation at her 70th birthday in 1980 to return to Hungar, she only sent a hat, baffling officials. When she died on 8th February 1990, her bankaccount showed 531 559 USD. From the villas she owned in Hungary, one appartment was left in Lepke street of Budapest, and a land of 120 hectares in Pék. And of courses remained numerous movies and songs, inlcuding her symbol”, the title of her most known hit, the „Hamvadó cigarettavég”, (Smouldering Cigarette). Her ashes were brought back to Budapest a year later. The famous villa in Művész street, which was bought to her by Colonel Újszászy was planned to be used as a” Hungarian Downing street 10”, residential place for the all-time prime ministers of the country. But only József Antall and Gyula Horn moved in for a short ime. Last two photos: "Karády getting the American citizenship", and Karády with Hanna Honthy Hungarian díva, at the later's was a guest star in New York (1971).