Classic Entertainment Autographs

Cat. #0013541: ELSIE FERGUSON

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Uncommon vintage inscribed signature in blue fountain pen on a 2x3-inch business card, acquired in-person in the 1920s.  In good condition, with just a hint of toning, and affixed to a 3x5-inch pale blue card with photo mounts.  The exquisitely beautiful stage star was offered movie contracts by multiple studios, declining them all until the French director Maurice Tourneur personally requested that she appear in Barnaby Sheep in 1917.  In part, she also consented to films because she no longer had the protection of her beloved Broadway employers Henry B. Harris, who perished on the Titanic, and Charles Frohman, who died on the Lusitania.  Although Ferguson appeared in 25 motion pictures, uniformly cast as aristocratic society women, only one, the Warner Oland flick The Witness for the Defense (1919), survives.  The leading lady was also a key figure in the infamous Evelyn Thaw scandal of 1906, as she and the accused murderess were longtime friends and kept no secrets whatever between them.