Nifty vintage 5x7-inch sepia-tone portrait, dating to the 1940s, boldly signed with her name along in violet fountain pen.  In very fine condition.  Familiar-faced character actress Spring Byington played whimsical, kindhearted mothers and relatives, snooty socialites, flaky eccentrics, and neighborhood gossips in films like Little Women (1933); Dodsworth (1936); Theodora Goes Wild (1936); The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938); You Can't Take It With You (1938), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award; When Ladies Meet (1941); The Devil and Miss Jones (1941); Meet John Doe (1941); Roxie Hart (1942); and Heaven Can Wait (1943).  She later played Lily Ruskin on T.V.'s "December Bride" (1954-1959).  Byington made a handful of forays into the horror, sci-fi and fantasy film genres, playing Ettie Coombes in Werewolf of London (1935), the half-crazed housekeeper in Dragonwyck (1946), Justice Amelia Brown in Rocket Man (1954), and J. Pauline Spaghetti on two Catwoman episodes of T.V.'s "Batman" (1966).

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