Classic Entertainment Autographs

Cat. #0041211: DON TERRY

Sorry, this item has already been sold.

Highly uncommon vintage 8x10-inch black and white costume portrait in his most celebrated role, Naval officer Don Winslow, signed in black fountain pen in the early 1940s.  Some negligible surface creases and light edge wear, but, overall, in good condition for its age.  The real-life adventurer and boxer-turned-B-movie leading man is fondly remembered for his work in cliffhangers of the 1930s and 1940s.  His first role in a serial was as a hard-nosed reporter in The Secret of Treasure Island (1938), but, by the early 1940s, he was being groomed as an all-out star by Universal Pictures.  Terry thrilled World War II-era audiences as the grim, tenacious star of Don Winslow of the Navy (1942), with his set determination and gritty sense of purpose.  The plot involved Winslow joining Navy intelligence to battle the unscrupulous Scorpion organization-- a mission which he would continue, with even greater stunts, in an equally beloved sequel, Don Winslow of the Coast Guard (1943).  Terry was also memorable in the role of Howe in the Basil Rathbone favorite Sherlock Holmes in Washington in 1943, the year he left Hollywood to enlist in the Naval Reserve for real.  He was made Lieutenant Commander in the Pacific, where he was injured in the course of battle and earned the Purple Heart in 1944.  After the war, he never returned to pictures, abandoning a chance at stardom to concentrate on philanthropic endeavors.