Erzsi Paulay
actress
- Born:
- 1886-12-16, Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]
- Died:
- 1959-06-26, Valenza, Piedmont, Italy
- Professions:
- actress
Biography
Born under the twin-crowned eagle of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on 16 December 1886, Budapest’s own Erzsi Paulay stepped onto flickering screens when cinema itself was still learning to walk. She haunted the frames of the silent epic *Elnémult harangok* twice—first in 1916, then again in its 1922 resurrection—and bewitched audiences as *A halhatatlan asszony* in 1917, sealing her name in the brittle celluloid of early Hungarian film. Off-screen, she wed the dashing Italian actor Vittorio Cerutti, a marriage that braided Danube and Alpine blood. Sixty-two summers after her first cry on the banks of the Danube, she drew her last breath on 26 June 1959 in Valenza, Piedmont, Italy, leaving the projectors of Europe still whirring her echo.
