Classic Entertainment Autographs

Cat. #0019620113: OTTOLA NESMITH

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Exceedingly rare vintage green felt-tip pen signature on a tan 3x5-inch card, acquired in-person by inveterate autograph hounds Irene and Rose Gellar in the 1960s and decorated with a Players Directory image. Her name, clipped from the same book, has been taped to the bottom; otherwise, in fine condition, with light toning, and suitable for matting with a favorite photograph. Sometimes called a "poor man's Margaret Hamilton," sharp-featured character actress Ottola Nesmith played spinsters, dowagers, gossips, forbidding nurses, governesses, and pushy saleswomen in films and television programs across the span of the 1930s through late 1960s. Among horror, sci-fi and fantasy film buffs, she is remembered as part of the troupe that popped up in loads of Universal Horror classics. She was Mrs. Mason in Invisible Ghost (1941), Mrs. Bally in The Wolf Man (1941), Señora Contreras in The Leopard Man (1943), Mrs. Loughwood in The Seventh Victim (1943), and governess Elsa Walter in The Return of the Vampire (1943), among other notable credits.