Scarce 5x7-inch black and white portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in blue fountain pen in the 1930s. In good condition, with some light creasing to the bottom right-hand area, invisible when the photo is viewed head-on. After long stints on the stage and in silents, charming Elisabeth Risdon enjoyed fresh popularity in older age, as a character actress in classic films.  She played a mixed bag of kindhearted and venom-spewing mothers, aunts, society women, town folk, and queens in movies like Crime and Punishment (1935), Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), The Affairs of Annabel (1938), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939), Mexican Spitfire (1940), Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Ma! He's Making Eyes at Me! (1940), High Sierra (1941), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), Random Harvest (1943), horror's Weird Woman (1944), The Unseen (1945), Mourning Becomes Electra (1945), and Life with Father (1947).

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