Scarce vintage signature in blue ballpoint pen on a 4x5-inch pale pink autograph album page, acquired in-person in the 1950s and decorated with a small magazine image.  In good condition, with a minor diagonal crease to the upper left-hand corner, well away from the writing.  The tall, icy-eyed character made his bones on the Broadway stage and was lured to Hollywood in 1935, to play Porthos in The Three Musketeers (1935).  While the bulk of his subsequent roles were not on this plateau, he nearly always transcended the material:  In the otherwise dreary Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Mummy's Boys (1936), for example, Olsen all but ignited the screen with his terrifying portrayal of a lunatic. Thanks to his aristocratic bearing and classically trained voice, Olsen was often called upon to play famous historical personages, including Buffalo Bill in Annie Oakley (1935), John Knox in Mary of Scotland (1936), Robert E. Lee in Santa Fe Trail (1940), and Sam Houston in Lone Star (1952).  Among his many other classic film credits, he was memorable in The Life of Emile Zola (1937); Disney's animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), as the voice of the Magic Mirror; The Song of Bernadette (1943); Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944); Cobra Woman (1944); The Valley of Decision (1945); Mildred Pierce (1945); It's a Wonderful Life (1946); Notorious (1946); The Fountainhead (1949); Father of the Bride (1950); Father's Little Dividend (1951); and The Long, Long Trailer (1953).  

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