Extremely rare vintage 3.25 x 5.25-inch sepia-tone "Ross" Verlag postcard portrait, boldly signed in blue fountain pen in the late 1920s, during her European stage career. In fine condition for its age. Note that the image of the star shown alongside the scan of the autograph here is not actually included with the piece. Great Austro-Hungarian stage and silent film star Leopoldine Konstantin would likely be completely unknown to English-speaking contemporary audiences, were it not for her unforgettable role as Claude Rains' nasty, coniving mother in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946).  For a decade after leaving her native country, the actress was forced to work in a factory to make ends meet, partly due to speaking virtually no English.  When the Notorious role came up, she immersed herself into intensive language study, snagging the part, mastering it, and ultimately stealing the show.

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