Eat Your Heart Out, von Stroheim!

[Robin Lumsden]

Here's the Austrian actor Josef Giampietro posing as a Leibhusar in a Berlin theatre production. It must be during the early 1900s, as Giampietro died in 1913.

The archetypal Prussian officer......and not even German!

I'm particularly interested in the cap. It looks like the real thing and the TK is one of the scarcer types.

[Daniel Murphy]

He certainly looks the part. Had you not identified him, I would have believed he was a real Leib Hussar officer. He definitely had one great costume and props department. Hollywood could surely take a few lessons from them.

Dan Murphy

[Mike Dwyer]

Fantastic photo, Robin!

As for the good props department, probably the entire uniform is either a real Leib Hussar uniform, or was made by a tailor that made them for real hussar officers!

Edited August 12, 2006 by Mike Dwyer

[Robin Lumsden]

I agree - the uniform is probably real, or from an authorised tailor.

The skull is the type shown below........I've never seen a clear photo of this type before, with the 'vertical eyes'.....but this photo must pre-date 1913, so the skull does too.