#bulgarian actress

[chibimats]

Nina Dobrev in an A.L.C Re­nee Strap­less Leather Top at the F1 Grand Prix of Las Ve­gas on No­vem­ber 23, 2024

[postcard-from-the-past]

Bulgarian actress Manja Tzatschewa on a vintage postcard

[darlingdawnvintage]

Sylvie Vartan French • Bulgarian singer and actress photo taken in Japan 1972

[operafantomet]

I’m curious, what is the reason a production will give a Christine actress a blonde/different colored wig? I know smaller productions often have a blonde Christine (I think at least) but like- London for example, I thought they had a few Christine’s with a blonde wig, I assumed because the actress was a blonde but I swear there were some blonde Christine’s that also had a dark wig as well. Is there any reason for this? Or is it just random?

I the earliest days of POTO there was a will to adapt the 'Degas' wig to whoever played Christine and Meg. Whereas all three original Christines in West End followed the Sarah Brightmanesque look with big brown curls, they did feature Patti Cohenour on Broadway with a much lighter brown wig, to adapt to her colouring. It wasn't blonde, but it was a light auburn / reddish brown:

For the original Toronto production they also changed Susan Cuthberg's wig from brown to blonde during her run, making her the first blonde ALW Christine out there. This too was due to it being closer to her own colouring:

Equally, Janet Devenish started out with a very red Meg wig in West End. Later in her run it was changed to a blonder one. It's the blonde look that's stuck on Meg, but interestingly she was a redhead first!

A final example from early POTO days is that original Australian Meg, Sharon Millerchip, started out as a blonde, but it was decided that a brunette wig looked better on her. Once again to adapt to the actress' natural colourings.

But later in the 1990s the general formula stuck. Christine as a brunette, Meg as a blonde. A handful of Christines in West End was featured with auburn wig to match their own colouring, and one or two Megs got a brown wig, but they were definitely the exception rather than the rule. Especially in the US and the World Tour the Christines has worn a general dark brown wig completely unrelated to what hair colour they have in real life. This is what is generally done for the replica production, as the design indicates brown curls, but with some exceptions here and there.

With the first ever non-replica production, in Hungary 2003, their Christines partly wore their own hair, braided, with extensions in the back. This meant that a variety of colours has been seen there: Vanilla blonde, darker blonde, auburn, brunette. Here's barbara Fonyo (auburn), Renata Krassy (blonde) and Andrea Maho (brunette):

The non-replica productions that followed chose different strategies:

The 2008 Polish production emulated the 2004 movie, with curly brown wigs

The 2013 Restaged Tour did a less curly, general brown wig

The 2014 Estonian production featured their Christines with their actual hair colour (one brunette, one blonde)

The 2014 Czech production stuck fairly close to the original design, with long brown curly wigs,

The 2015 Finnish/Swedish production tried out different shades of red; first strawberry blonde, then flaming red.

The 2015 Romanian production and later Norwegian/Greek/Tour version went blonde. The Romanian production featured the actress' own hair, while the others has done wigs. But there's been different shades of blonde, different lengths and different curls. Gaston Leroux has been mentioned as inspiration.

The 2017 Serbian production also featured their Christine with their respective hair, which gave one blonde and one brunette.

Ditto for the 2019 Bulgarian production, ranging from light brown to black hair.

The 2020 Swedish production first went red for Christine. I have read they thought it was never done before and that's why they wanted to try it out (but as seen above, the Finnish/Swedish production beat them to it). When a new principal Christine was cast they gave her a blonde wig, to better match her colouring.

The 2022 Sydney Harbour production did fairly classic brown curly wigs.

The 2023 new Romanian production also feature Christine with her own hair - like the original Romanian production, and incidentally the same actress. But it looks like there's a bit of extensions going on as well.

Last, but not least, the 2023 Mediterranean production premiering in Italy did somewhere between honey blonde and auburn.

So in large, a non-brown Christine wig seems to be a way of adapting the hair to the actress - whether a wig is in use or not. In some cases it's also a way of actively differentiate the look from Maria Bjørnson's original design (as well as the iconic Mary Philbin look).

In replica production the 'wildest' things they did in the 1990s and early 2000s was auburn Christine wigs, and primarily in West End. But in the later 2000s more variations started to appear. The very light brown wigs of Janine Kitzen in Stuttgart and Robyn North in West End comes to mind, and Anne Görner's fairly redhead wig. Then Harriet Jones' first auburn red wig in West End, and them going all blonde on Emmi Christensson. Again the overall strategy seems to be to match the actress' own colours and the wig. Left: Anne Görner in Essen, and right: Emmi Christensson in West End.

In recent years there's also been a will to adapt the texture of the curls. From recent West End examples there is Lucy St Louis, Beatrice Penny-Touré, Paige Blankson and Chumisa Dornford-May with afro-textured hair. Ditto for Emilie Kouatchou on Broadway. Here's Lucy St Louis with Killian Donnelly:

And then the recent wig change for Eve Shanu-Wilson in West End, which is meant to closer reflect on her heritage. Though the Phantom historian in me also thinks it brilliantly reflects on the 1990s West End wigs, so I'm doubly happy...

So yeah. Usually the variations in wig colour and curls is due to a will to reflect on who the actress is and how she looks in real life. But the wig is of course also a tool to create a certain look for a certain role. Which means that every wig is an interpretation, and a negotiation between wanted look and the many possibilities for adaption.

[klonnieshippersclub]

If Bonnie had the opportunity to pursue something unrelated to Mystic Falls and magic, what would it have been? Would she have went to an HBCU? Continued cheerleading?

A question about Bonnie’s hobbies? Perfect. Based on the few things we’ve seen Bonnie do. Taking pictures at the Founder’s Day Celebration I can see her into photography. When Bonnie at Abby’s house she tended to her garden. So another hobby outside of magic.

It’s mentioned in season 3, that she and Matt were lifeguards at the pool for a summer. He actually buried the whistle from that summer during season5.

In season 6, Bonnie mentions she missed being around people so I could see her choosing jobs or hobbies that aids in that community value that she craves. In season 8, we see her jogging to Caroline’s house. In a deleted scene post-Enzo’s death she was jogging and intended to avoid Stefan. Our girl has a diverse physical skillset, she does triathlons for sure.

As for cheerleading a 100% yes. Kat Graham is a trained dancer and not allowing Bonnie to be showcased dancing more was a crime! They could’ve made her the caption of the cheer squad? I’ve seen that behind the scenes video of Kat and Candice dancing that’s all I’m going to say there. Hear me out what about majorette Bonnie? That would be great too. Bonnie’s probably tired of being the only black woman in town. She’d love an HBCU. She deserves friends outside the MFG more than anybody else.

Taking a moment here everyone else got to include their IRL hobbies or a piece of themselves in their characters but Kat. Nina wanted her Bulgarian roots in there? Katherine and Elena has that. Candice King used to be a singer? We get moments of Caroline singing. Paul/Ian want to be the bad guy some more. Silas is created and Damon has these back and forth evil moments. Michael Malarkey has a music career? Enzo teaches Bonnie how to play the guitar. There’s so many moments where Bonnie and Kat were sidelined we’d be here all day if we started listening them. TVDU fans continue to pretend that characters like Vicki, or Caroline, or Katherine, The Mikaelson’s or whomever suffered as heavily as Bonnie did in the narrative. When that is simply false.

As a Bonnie fan first and foremost this is why most Bonnie fans stick with each other. TVDU fans like to minimize the racism that Kat faced and how that plays into Bonnie, while claiming that Bonnie fans only label people racist. Arguing that Bonnie fans are irrational for calling out the show and how that racism perpetrated in TVDU. When they simply cannot mentally handle that their favorite show or character benefits of of the mistreatment of a black actress/character. Racism is not just an opinion as much as these fans believe it is.

Your asks sounds like a potential college AU for Bonnie/Klonnie. Please tell me you’re writing this! I’d be honored to read it and so would other Klonnie fans.

[cleapallea]

How the zodiac signs influenced your appearance?

Birth chart: Nina Dobrev

Little analysis about Her and also the placements in Zodiac signs.

Having Sagittarius in 4 house, 12 house, Sagittarius stellium, and sag influence degree illustrates the foundation or bond of one's roots (ancestors), home and family.

╰┈➤ If someone has their sag started and placed in 4th house or 12 house. There was a chance that it would raise the nationalities or ethnicities of the person because it was often associated with having 2 or more of them.

Like for example: Nina Dobrev is a well-known actress from The Vampire Diaries (I love how she changed her looks, voice, and personality from the show). Her ASC is Sagittarius and placed in the 12th house. Anyway, She is Half-bulgarian and Canadian (so, yep like I said more than one ethnicity

Author's Note: (I also want myself to be an example, my fourth house starts at Sagittarius at 21° degrees (containing chiron) which is placed on Capricorn.  I don't look like pure-blooded Asian at all (Even my classmates always mentioned it), and then, when I asked my mom she said that our ancestors came from West (Spain and Portugal) while my dad was from East Asian (Chinese/Korean).

Venus starts at Sagittarius 12house placing at the first house with a Cancer degree.

╰┈➤The first house was ruled by 𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗖𝗘, 𝗦𝗞𝗜𝗡, 𝗣𝗛𝗬𝗦𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗟 𝗔𝗕𝗜𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗙-𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗚𝗘 because of Aries influenced which represents brain, head and face. Venus in 'abstract sense' is all about 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡.  

When the Venus leaps in Sagittarius (which is her 12th house ruling and ACS) it makes the person petite and skinny, esp (if there no Jupiter/ 10th house influenced). People often think that she mess up her face because she stayed up in small/skinny/thin frame structure. About the physical ability, people noticed how her eyelid space changes from small to big which is connected to 1st house ruling Aries. Her so-called fans has been speculated that she had it done which until now remained to be rumors. And yes, Mostly sag' eyes are really wide (all about structure), and her cancer degree and 1st house ruling plays a huge role on it.

╰┈➤If you have venus in the first house ruling you are most likely to change your eyes or appearance (esp, whether it is makeup involved) Plus, as you grow older until you achieve your 'fully growth' or 'fully glow-up' in your Saturn Return or in the age of 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 and so fourth. Since 1st house is all about physical ability and self image. Venus in the first house describes as timeless beauty.

Her DSC is Gemini in the 7th house ruling; carrying the Jupiter starting from the 6th house, but it said that it was retrograde. so, instead of making her body structure bigger, which unfortunately doesn't because of it...

Jupiter ruler of expansion, fortune and growth.

Note: Gemini represents lungs, hands, and arms.

Thus, it explained why her fans perceived she got her slim in that part so small and thin. Even tho, it actually just looked like "long".

In astrology, when the planet is retrograde, it reflects karma energy, which is associated with experiencing the qualities that a specific person may not wish for.

❝𝘽𝙚 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧❞

all of us have retrograde planets. BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY HUMANS.

—𝙿𝚕𝚊𝚐𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚖 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝙲𝚛𝚒𝚖𝚎—

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

Freddie Mercury with Camellia Todorova (Bulgarian singer and actress known as Camy Todorow) in the 80s

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #4052

When (American, of fucking course) fans decide it's whitewashing for a Bulgarian actress to play a Spanish character. They're both white, idiots!

[postcard-from-the-past]

Bulgarian actress Manja Tzatschewa on a vintage postcard

[a-name-a-day]

Today's Name: MARINA (IPA: /məˈriːnə/)

Usage: Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, feminine. A Japanese feminine name also uses the same Romanised spelling.

Etymology: Feminine form of Marinus, itself derived from the Latin name Marius. Marius possibly comes from the Roman war god Mars, or from the Latin maris, "virile". Also associated with the Latin word marinus, "of the sea".

Popularity: Currently hovering around the middle of the USA's and England and Wales' top 1000 most popular names. In the top 50 in Spain and ranked 54 in Puerto Rico, but is not currently on any other most popular name lists.

Variants: Related names Marine (French, Armenian, Georgian), Maryna (Belarussian, Ukrainian, Polish), and Marijn (Dutch). Diminutives Maren (Danish) and Marinka (Croatian, Slovene). Masculine forms include the aformention Marinus, as well as Marin (Romanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Serbian), Marino (Italian and Spanish), and Marinos (Greek)

Famous Namesakes:

Marina de Tavira, actress (Mexico)

Marina Diamandis, singer (Wales)

Marina Sirtis, actress (England)

Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (Greece)

Marina Khiel, Olympic skiier (Germany)

Marina Klimova, Olympic figure skater (Russia)

Marina Sheshenina, Olympic volleyball player (Russia)

[mybenia1]

Sylvie Vartan is a Bulgarian-French singer and actress

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this week (#169):

3 by forgotten [re-discovered?] Turkish director, Metin Erksan:

🍿  Dry Summer, a mesmerizing 1964 Turkish masterpiece I never heard of before. It tells of a greedy peasant who refuses to share the water on his field with his neighbors, as well as his scheme to steal his younger brother's new bride. (Photo Above). A rustic tragedy featuring one of the most insidious screen villains ever. Highly recommended. 9/10.

It was championed and restored by Martin Scorsese's 'World Cinema Project'. (I'm going to start chewing through their list of preserved classics from around the world.)

🍿 Time to love (1965) is a fetishistic, probably-symbolic, melodrama about a poor house painter who falls in love with a wall portrait of a woman, but who can't or won't love the real person. Lots of brooding while heavy rains keep pouring down, and traditional oud music drones on. Strikingly beautiful black and white cinematography elevates this strange soap opera into something that Antonioni could have shot.

🍿 "May Allah's mercy be upon her! May Allah's mercy be upon her! May Allah's mercy be upon her!"

In 1974 Erksan directed the cheesy Seytan ("Satan"), a plagiarized, unauthorized Turkish rip-off of 'The Exorcist'. It was a schlocky, nearly a shot-by-shot copy, and included the blood spurting, head spinning, cursing, stairs, a young actress that looked strikingly like Linda Blair, and even extensive use of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells'. But it eliminated the Catholic element and had none of the superb decisions of the William Friedkin's version. 1/10.

🍿  

Agnès Varda's deceivingly blissful drama, Le Bonheur. Exquisite, subversive and beautifully simple, about an uncomplicated man who's completely happy with his idyllic life, his loving wife and two little children. But one summer day he takes on an attractive mistress, while still feeling uncommonly fulfilled and undisturbed. Varda lets the Mozart woodwind score do all the heavy interpretive lifting of this disturbing feminist take of the bourgeoisie. Just WOW! 8/10.

At this point, I should just complete my explorations of Varda's oeuvre, and see the rest of her movies. Also, I'm going to take a deep dive one day into the many terrific movies from 1965 (besides the many I've already seen, 'Red Beard', 'Simon of the desert', 'Repulsion', 'The spy who came in from the cold', 'Juliet of the spirit', 'Pierrot the fool'...).

/ Female Director

🍿

2 by amazing Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov:

🍿 Ága, my first Bulgarian film, but it plays somewhere in Yakutsk, south of the Russian arctic circle. An isolated old Inuit couple lives alone in a yurt on the tundra. Slow and spiritual, their lives unfold in the most unobtrusive way, it feels like a documentary. But the simplicity is deceiving, this is film-making of the highest grade, and once Mahler 5th was introduced on a small transistor radio, it's transcendental. The emptiness touched me deeply.

Together with 93 other movies, this was submitted by Bulgaria to the 2019 Oscars (the one won by 'Parasite'). How little we know; If selected, we might have all be talking about it. Absolutely phenomenal! The trailer represents the movie well. 10/10

(It also reminded me very much of the Bolivian drama 'Utama' from 2022, another moving story of an elderly Indian couple living alone in the desert, tending to their small flock of llamas.)

🍿 Milko Lazarov made only one earlier film, the minimalist Alienation in 2013. It tells of Yorgos, a middle age Greek man, (impassively played by the father from 'Dogtooth'), who crosses the border to Bulgaria to buy a newborn baby. But it's not as bad as it sounds, because he's actually helping the impoverished surrogate mother (who looks like young Tilda Swinton) who can't effort to keep him. Another stark and snail-like drama about quiet people who barely speak, told with the masterful language of a true poet. Like 'Ága', it too opens with a stunning close up of a lengthy incantation in an unfamiliar language. I wish he made more movies. 8/10.

🍿  

2 more arctic dramas:

🍿 The original movie about indigenous Inuks, Nanook of the North, from 1922, was the first feature-length documentary to achieve commercial success. An engaging slice of life of an Inuit family, even if some of the scenes were staged. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿 "Many of the scientists involved with climate change agree: The end of human life on this planet is assured."

Another fascinating Werner Herzog documentary, Encounters at the end of the world. About the "professional dreamers" who live and work at McMurdo Station in Antarctica; divers who venture to explore life under the the ice, volcanologists who burrow into ice caves, etc. Herzog's 'secret sauce' is finding the most outrageous, interesting spots on earth, and then just going there and letting his camera do his bidding.

🍿

2 fantastic shorts by Hungarian animator Réka Bucsi:

🍿 Her 2014 Symphony No. 42 consists of 47 short & whimsical vignettes, without any rhyme or rhythm; A farmer fills a cow with milk until it overflows, a zoo elephant draws a "Help me" sign, a UFO sucks all the fish from the ocean, wolves party hard to 'La Bamba', an angry man throws a pie at a penguin, two cowboys holding blue balloons watch a tumbleweed rolls by, a big naked woman cuddle with a seal, etc. Earlier than Don Hertzfeldt's 'World of tomorrow' and my favorite Rúnar Rúnarsson's 'Echo', it's a perfect piece of surrealist chaos. 10/10

My happiest, unexpected surprise of the week!

/ Female Director

🍿 Love (2016), a lovely meditation on nature, poetry and cats in the cosmos. 8/10.

/ Female Director

🍿

Françoise Dorléac X 2:

🍿 Her name was Françoise ("Elle s’appelait Françoise") is a fluff bio-piece about the utterly gorgeous model-actress, who died at a fiery car-crush at 25, and who left a legacy of only a few important films. It includes previously-unseen, enchanting clips and photos from her short life. But then is cuts into her and sister Catherine Deneuve practicing their "Pair of Twins" song-and-dance from 'The Young Girls of Rochefort', the most charming musical in the world, and life is sunny again.

/ Female Director

🍿 That man from Rio, her breakthrough film, was a stupid James Bond spoof, inspired by 'The adventures of Tintin'. Unfortunately, it focused on protagonist Jean-Paul Belmondo, and used Dorléac only as eye-candy. It's the first film I've seen from Brasília, just a few years after it was constructed. 2/10.

🍿

Paintings and Film X 3:

🍿 'Painting Nerds' is a YouTube channel by 2 Scottish artists, putting up intelligent video essays about the art of painting. Paintings In Movies: From '2001: A Space Odyssey' to 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' is an insightful meditation which explores the relationship between the two art forms. Among the many examples it touches on are the canvases in Hitchcock's 'Rebecca' and 'Vertigo', 'The French Dispatch', 'Laura' and 'I'm thinking of ending things'. They even made a Wellesian trailer for that essay, When Citizen Kane met Bambi : The Lost Paintings of Tyrus Wong!

🍿 So I decided to see some of the movies mentioned above, f. ex. Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry from 1955. Famous for being Shirley MacLaine's film debut, his first collaboration with Bernard Herrmann, and this being his only "real" comedy. However, the only engaging element among the idiotic machinations on screen were the stunning VistaVision landscapes, painted in true Vermont autumn colors.

🍿 All the Vermeers in New York is my [5th film about Vermeer, and] my first film by prolific indie director Jon Jost. The Scottish essay above interpretated it as a "Charming mirroring of art and life, but also a deeply sad film... The gallery scene shows the transmission of feeling from painting to person, and ultimately, the vast amount of space between them. It plays out the entire drama of the film in microcosm.." But that Met Gallery scene was the only outstanding one in an otherwise disjointed experiment about the NYC art world. The abrasive stockbroker who falls for a French actress at the museum and mistakes her for a woman from the painting was mediocre and irritating. 3/10.

🍿

First watch: Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, an homage to Melville's Le Samouraï. An RZA mood piece about a ritualistically-chill black assassin / Zen Sensei, who communicates only with carrier pigeons, and who drives alone at night in desolate streets on mafia missions. 'Live by the Code, die by the Code'.

🍿

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Scorsese's only melodrama with a female protagonist (? - haven't seen 'Boxcar Bertha' yet). It opens in a tinted Wizard of Oz scenery, and tells of an ordinary single mom who dreams of becoming a singer. Hardly a feminist story, as she navigates between one unloving husband, an abusive lover and eventually bearded Kris Kristofferson, who ends up beating her son and promises not to do it again. 3/10.

[I finally watched it because of this clip of 15-year-old Jody Foster singing Je t'attends depuis la nuit de temps on French television].

🍿

The new well-made HBO documentary The Truth vs Alex Jones. About the collective mental sickness that is Amerika. It's hard to imagine how insane are the crazies over there. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿

3 more shorts:

🍿 The Most Beautiful Shots In Movie History, a little mash-up clippy from The "Solomon Society" with an evocative Perfect day cover.

🍿 Joana, a beautiful tribute of a Spanish father to his little daughter. Reminds me of better times and another daughter.

🍿 From hand to mouse, a mediocre 1944 'Looney Tune' short from Chuck Jones, with the same dynamics that the Coyote & Road Runner did much better.

🍿

Ramy Youssef X 3:

🍿 I discovered first-generation Egyptian-American stand-up comedian Ramy Youssef. In his funny 2019 special, Feelings, he comes across as a sweet dude, a sensitive, observant Muslim, on a complicated spiritual quest in New Jersey. Recommended!

🍿 Ramy was his A24 TV-series that expanded on the themes. It had more of a sitcom vibes, reminiscent of 'Master of None', another one that dealt with an unexplored ethnicity, previously marginalized. I only watched the first season, and liked how unapologetic he was in having large part of the dialogue in other languages, Arabic, French, Etc. Episode 7, "Ne Me Quitte Pas", starring his screen-mom Hiam Abbass was a terrific stand-out.

🍿 “Where were you when the floods happened in Pakistan?”

More feelings, his brand new stand up which just dropped is dark and gentle. It opens with some dark truths from his friend Steve who wants to die, and moves right into the situation in Palestine.

(Later: He hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend.)

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

[ldagence-celbs]

Nina Dobrev - Bulgarian-Canadian Actress -

[joyxcelestia]

Some of My Candy Love aesthetics of Lynn Darcy/Candy with some face claim.

The sunny girl Lynn is portrayed as Nina Dobrev, a Bulgarian-Canadian actress and model.

The choice of the face claim are my opinion, that’s how I see Lynn for the purpose of my Wattpad stories.

Edits made by me.

I hope that you like the aesthetics of Lynn.

Have a great day❤️

[petrovawitch]

Why Megan fox for a Bulgarian oc

Originally she had Nina Dobrev’s face, but since it didn’t fit her character/storyline/etc she morphed into Megan. There aren’t too many Bulgarian actresses that i’m familiar with enough to cast as my OC, and in the quickest google search I just preformed I didn’t recognize many of the names either.

i’m going to hope/pretend this was curiosity and not judgement, by the way!

[archduchessofnowhere]

What are your favourite non-fiction book about the Habsburgs?

Hello! Sorry it took me so long to answer!

My favorite book about the Habsburgs is actually one that it's not about the main people I tend to talk about in this blog (aka from the time of Franz Josef): Barbara Stollber-Rillinger’s biography of Empress Maria Theresia, which is not just a biography but THE book about the 18th century Habsburg empire, period. She covers EVERYTHING: how the Maria Theresia myth originated, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years War, court rituals, marriage alliances, education policies, religious policies, political reforms, the complex relationship between the Empress and her children (each child gets their own chapter), just to name a few of the book’s subjects. It is an academical book so the prose is kinda dry, and if you’re not used to read this kind of scholarly work it may be a bit difficult to get through, but I don’t think it’s particularly hard to read. It did took me months to read it but because it’s a LONG book (over 1000 pages) and I did find some parts a bit tedious (mainly the ones related to the political reforms, the subject just doesn’t interest me a lot), but in other parts I was so hooked that I couldn’t stop reading. If you're looking for a more personal biography of the empress you might find this one disappointing since the author doesn't focus too much on that (“no false intimacy with Maria Theresa will be presumed. The heroine shall be kept at arm’s length.”), but otherwise I highly recommend it.

Leaving the world of academic writing and entering into pop history, surprisingly my favorite book that I’ve read so far is Joan Haslip’s 1982 The Emperor and the actress. This books is neither a biography of Emperor Franz Josef nor Katharina Schratt, but a book about their relationship, how they met and became unlikely best friends. Haslip still does this thing in which she doesn’t cite anything BUT she does quote lots of letters and explicitly says “now I’m quoting a letter”, which made this problem less annoying. Possibly there may be better books about Katharina (there are newer and more updated ones in German for sure), but in English this remains the best source about the actress, and because of that I was completely hooked. It was also my introduction to Bulgarian history and royalty, which I knew nothing about before (fun fact Katharina was also besties with future Tsar Ferdinand and Franz Josef was jealous of him because of it lol). It isn’t a perfect book by any means, but I’m very fond of it nonetheless (example on how this books isn’t perfect at all: Haslip says once that Sophie Chotek was ugly which is just CRAZY, she was gorgeous!!!).

In the memoirs area I really enjoyed Stephanie of Belgium’s. While the view she gives of the Viennese court is obviously biased, I liked to have her version of the story, because I felt that it was overall balanced (yes, even with the complaining about her unfair treatment and all). She also provides some of Rudolf’s letters, which is nice.

I’ve only scratched the top of the iceberg that is Rudolf and Mayerling books, so I don’t really have a favorite here. I’ve read Greg King and Penny Wilson’s Twilight of Empire which I thought was a good introduction to the subject, mainly because there is a whole section of the book in which the authors go in-depth about the history of Mayerling books from the first one ever published, focusing on how reliable they are based on the author and the sources they had access to; which I think is a very useful reading guide to get fully into the subject (on the other hand, I did find the biography part of the book was just ok).

On books about Empress Elisabeth, I already mentioned some in this ask.

To be honest I’ve been avoiding the “big” Habsburg books, in part because they lowkey intimidate me (there are so many both in academic and pop history, where do you even begin?), and in part because I fear that I will find them unsatisfactory (I rather read a 500 pages long book that goes into detail in, idk, Charles V’s life and reign than a “History of the Habsburgs” book that only gives him 20 pages). HOWEVER I’ve been researching which are the books that seem like the best on different subjects so I’ve already got a reading list ready for my hot girl summer.

Thank you for your question!