Rare 3.5 x 5.5-inch sepia-tone Ross Verlag postcard portrait, dating to the late 1920s, boldly signed in blue fountain pen with the spelling of his first name employed during his foray into German pictures, Eddy Polo.  In good condition, with a few negligible flecks of soiling.  Dubbed the Hercules of the Screen, tough-as-nails Eddie or Eddy Polo played hero Cyclone Smith in cowboy shorts of the early silent era.  Following a period of acting and directing in Europe, interrupted by the rise of Nazism, he returned to the States to work as a movie make-up artist in the late 1930s, beginning with The Wizard of Oz (1939).  From then through 1946, he occasionally popped up in character roles, including the horror gems The Wolf Man (1941) and The Climax (1946).

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