Scarce vintage signature in black fountain pen on a 4x6-inch pale yellow autograph album page, acquired in-person in the 1930s. Signed, as was his custom, as "Edw. Ellis", and in good condition, with some pencil notations by the previous owner along the bottom edge, including the actor's death year of 1952. The character actor of the stage, and silent and early talkie screens, who was typically cast as off-putting, strident types, is best remembered for the titular missing industrialist in The Thin Man (1934).  He was also noteworthy in The Great Bradley Mystery (1917), Lionel Barrymore's I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Sweepings (1933), From Headquarters (1933), Girl Missing (1933), The Ninth Guest (1934), the fantasy flick The Return of Peter Grimm (1935), Fury (1936), Little Miss Broadway (1938), A Man to Remember (1938), Main Street Lawyer (1939), Man of Conquest (1939), Three Sons (1939), A Man Betrayed (1941), and The Omaha Trail (1942).

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