Classic Entertainment Autographs

Cat. #0006113: HARLAN BRIGGS

Uncommon vintage inscribed black fountain pen signature on a 4x6-inch light blue album page, acquired in-person by a New York City-based autograph hound in the 1940s. In good condition. Diminutive, rascally character actor Harlan Briggs made his bones on the vaudeville and Broadway stages before transitioning to Hollywood to appear in the 1935 film adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' "Dodsworth." Because of post-production delays, his first movie credit was actually David O. Selznick's The Garden of Allah (1936). He went on to play a long string of small-town big-wigs, usually with oversized pipes clamped between their chompers, in classic films like The Mad Holiday (1936); After the Thin Man (1936); Stella Dallas (1937); The Mysterious Miss X (1938); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1938); Blondie Takes a Vacation (1939); The Wizard of Oz (1939), as Charley Grapewin's stunt double; the horror flick The Man They Could Not Hang (1939); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940); My Little Chickadee (1940); Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise (1940); State Fair (1945); To Each His Own (1946); Night and Day (1946); A Stolen Life (1946); Danger Street (1947); The Perils of Pauline (1947); A Double Life (1947); and Carrie (1952). His most memorable role was that of the eminently bribeable Doctor Stall in W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick (1940).