Extremely rare vintage signature in blue ballpoint pen on a 3x5-inch tan card, dating to the late 1960s. In good condition and nice for matting. With his diminutive stature and distinctive hoarse, breathy voice, character actor Percy Helton began his career in silents, only garnering attention after his hilarious bit as an intoxicated Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Afterward, he was in high demand to play a vast array of crooks, priests, lawyers, cops, town drunks, shop keeps, coroners, chauffeurs, and physicians in countless classics, including The Set-Up (1949), Criss Cross (1949), Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), My Friend Irma (1949), Cyrano De Bergerac (1950), The Robe (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), A Star Is Born (1954), sci-fi's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), White Christmas (1955), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Terror at Midnight (1956), Jailhouse Rock (1957), and Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1957).

• Tweet