Identify Me

Lucille Ball ?

HAHAHA, best thread on chess.com

I vote with jblo....Lilli Palmer

Marco, enough with your attempts to hijack this thread and turn it into something it is not: I have deleted all of those pictures and most of your posts, and if you try to disrupt this thread again, I will give you a temporary mute.

It looks very much like Ingrid Bergman to me, and nothing like any other actress posted in the thread.  Wish I could be of more help than that.

GEE !! I did not try to disrupt the thread; I only had post several photos of the beautiful chess player ChessQueen. If you check her website, she spreads model chess photos just to promote chess!! 

Anyway, that is ok.

I showed the photo to my 83-year old mother who's very good at identifying old movie stars of that era. Her initial reaction was Donna Reed, although she's hesitant to assert it definitively. She also emphatically said it's not Ingrid Bergman.

Dang, all of these women look almost identical. What, were they cloning them?

I'm certain the lady-in-question is both an actress and a chess player.  I can't find any indication that Lilli Palmer, Virginia Mayo or Donna Reed (all suggested here) were chess players. 

I had indeed noticed the similarities in the table and mirror (though not in the board and pieces. This photo appeared on the cover of June-July  "Chess Review."  I'm guessing this and the photos in question were taken the same day, possibly as potential publicity for the upcoming Pan-Am tournament of July-August.

I vote Lilli Palmer.

I don't think it's anyone I knew before I saw the pic - Bergman, Bacall, Ball, Reed, Young, Deitrich - nope. 

Cooper and Palmer made "Cloak and Dagger" together, released in 1946 - Warner Bros. The other pic with Herman Steiner is from "Confidential Agent," 1945, also Warner Bros., which might explain the same backgrounds.

According to http://en.chessbase.com/post/movie-stars-playing-chess, the Bogart/Bacall/Boyer/Steiner pic is "Lauren Bacall gives chessmaster Herman Steiner “the look” while Charles Boyer and Humphrey

Bogart finish a game between takes of “Confidential Agent” (1945) in which Boyer was starring.
The scene is Boyer’s dressing room at Warner Bros. Studio.

Maybe Cooper had the same dressing room during the filming of "Cloak and Dagger"....

This looks like the same lighted mirror and trim. Same dressing room at Warner Bros. IMDB says this is "Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in his dressing room on the Warner Bros. lot during a break from filming "77 Sunset Strip," January 30, 1961.

Same fan.

Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer.

Lilli Palmer in a similar outfit.

That outfit does look similar, though not the same.

Here are close-ups of the lady and the mirror:

Yes, different. I looked for same outfit and didn't find. 

I have a theory: According to IMDB: "Due to military intelligence and secrecy reasons, American Hollywood Studios were prevented by the US Government from mentioning the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services) in movies during World War II. However, this movie was first released in September 1946 which was after the end of World War II, hence explaining why the OSS was mentioned in this movie." 

The Steiner/Boyer "Confidential Agent" pic was from 1945 and you think the Pan-Am tourney and "Chess Review" were from 1945? Maybe "Cloak and Dagger" was filmed in 1945 at Warner Bros, but wasn't released until 1946. That might explain how there are publicity stills with Steiner and stars - they were all shot in 1945. Maybe Warner Bros couldn't release "Cloak and Dagger" until after WWII (2 Sept 1945).

per wikipedia: "[Steiner] formed the Steiner Chess Club, later called the Hollywood Chess Group, headquartered in a clubhouse next to the Steiner residence. The Hollywood Chess Group was visited by many movie stars including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer, and José Ferrer. Steiner and the Hollywood Chess Group organized the Pan-American International Tournament in 1945 and the Second Pan-American Chess Congress in 1954."