Classic Entertainment Autographs

Cat. #004021211: KAREN STEELE

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Highly rare and quite beautiful 8x10-inch full-body portrait, boldly signed and inscribed to inveterate collector Raymond Ward in green fountain pen in the 1950s. In fine condition for its age, with some staining to the lower right-hand border and a few minor handling dings. After a successful modeling career, incredibly beautiful buxom blonde Karen Steele was groomed for an acting career, cast as Virginia, Ernest Borgnine's sister-in-law, in Marty (1955). Despite a memorably emotional performance, she was thereafter increasingly relegated to T.V. work, appearing in various roles on "Dragnet" (1956), "Perry Mason" (1958-1962), "77 Sunset Strip" (1959-1960), "Bonanza" (1961),"Surfside Six" (1961-1962), "Rawhide" (1962), "Naked City" (1962), "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1965), "Get Smart" (1965), "Star Trek" (1966), "Flipper" (1967), "Hogan's Heroes" (1969), and "Mannox" (1970).  She also starred in two forgettable sci-fi B-movies in the late 1960s, Cyborg 2087 (1966) and Braddock (1968). In 1974, Steele abandoned Hollywood to marry a psychiatrist 12 years her senior and live out her life on the Arizona desert. It was there that she died, after an unspecified long illness, at the age of 57.