TOUGH to acquire vintage 8x10-inch sepia-tone portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in black fountain pen at the tail-end of the silent movie era. In good condition for its age, with a minor tear to the left side, neatly repaired on the verso with tape. With the advent of the talkie era, suave Danish silent film star Nils Asther was increasingly relegated to exotic character roles. His handful of forays into the sci-fi and horror genres include roles as a Martian citizen in Himmelskibet (1918), Agor Singh in the Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill classic Night Monster (1942), Inspector Jacques Lefevre in Bluebeard (1944) with John Carradine, and Professor Paul Evans in the Charlie Chan thriller The Feathered Serpent (1948). He was also memorably cast alongside Lon Chaney, Sr. in the 1928 silent drama Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

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