![]() ![]() Her future would depend on hard work and luck. If her father would sign a contract, Ufa would train Truus and put her in more films. Truus's German was wobbly at best, but she was sparkly and funny and the camera liked her. Despite it all (and perhaps because of one particular scene in which Willy Fritsch kissed her), Truus loved the work. She learned that acting didn't just mean showing emotions and moving about, but demanded that she concentrate on staying within chalk marks on the floor so as not to stray outside the range of the lights or the camera's focus. Mabuse the Gambler and Die Nibelungen) and all the grips, riggers, plasterers, cable bashers, and set dressers bustling about their jobs. She watched cameraman Carl Hoffmann (who had lit big hits like Dr. Truus had to quickly get used to being made up and going through wardrobe, then finding her place on the sets. Fritsch was very well known and handsome, and Truus fell in love with him on the spot. Truus met the other members of the cast - her six "sisters" (including English actress Betty Balfour) and Willy Fritsch as Count Horkay. There were plasterers' workshops, carpentry shops, prop stores, hair and wardrobe departments, and publicity offices planning the release of completed movies (Ufa ran 3,000 cinemas, admitting nearly a million people a day). Like its counterparts in California, Rome and New York, Ufa was a factory - scripts were being written, scenes were being shot in big, barn-like studios, editors assembled printed footage in cuttingrooms. She was funny, it shone through, and she got the job. ![]() When the director watched the tests, one girl stood out - where everyone else had gazed into the lens with expressions of the deepest sincerity, this one hadn't been able to repress a laugh. They were all older than Truus, and she could see she hadn't a hope. Truus had never had an acting lesson in her life, and was certain she'd be sent home at once One after the other, the girls were filmed. Not long after, she was summoned to the German capital for an audition - along with two hundred other girls. In 1926, Truus entered a beauty competition in a Dutch magazine - if she won she'd have the chance to audition for a part in a real movie in Berlin. She passionately wanted to be a movie actress, but very few films were made in the Netherlands at the time. Truus found a job with a milliner after school, then trained as a salesgirl at a fashion store in Amsterdam. Van Aalten was born on August 2, 1910, in Arnhem in family of a pharmacist. ![]()
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