Rare vintage 8x10-inch sepia-tone portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in blue fountain pen in the late 1920s or early 1930s. In good condition, with some gentle edge wear. A member of the family of actors which also included Dustin and Marshall Farnum, William Farnum was one of the top-paid stars of the silent era, noteworthy in The Sign of the Cross (1914), Samson (1915), A Tale of Two Cities (1917), Les Miserables (1917), Riders of the Purple Sage (1918), The Man Hunter (1919), The Lone Star Ranger (1919), and If I Were King (1920). A a serious injury on the set of The Man Who Fights Alone (1924) led to his being relegated to character work for the remainder of his career, through the 1950s, with memorable supporting roles in an assortment of films and serials, including A Connecticut Yankee (1931), Supernatural (1933), The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), The Scarlet Letter (1934), Cleopatra (1934), The Amazing Exploits of the Clutching Hand (1936), Undersea Kingdom (1936), The Lone Ranger (1938), The Secret of Treasure Island (1938), Shine On, Harvest Moon (1938), Adventures of Red Ryder (1940), Kit Carson (1940), Lone Star Ranger (1942), Deep in the Heart of Texas (1942), Hangmen Also Die! (1943), The Mummy’s Curse (1944), The Perils of Pauline (1947), Samson and Delilah (1949), Gun Cargo (1949), and Jack and the Beanstalk (1952).