Highly rare vintage inscribed pencil signature on a 4x6-inch tan autograph album page, acquired in-person in the early 1930s. In good condition. Although elegantly-clad leading lady Lilyan Tashman was sleek and sophisticated in such silents as Manhandled (1924) and Don't Tell the Wife (1929), she didn't come into her own until her first sound film, New York Nights, in 1929. For the next five years, the blonde beauty became one of Hollywood's best "bad girls", using up men like tissue paper, employing her wiles to adorn herself with creature comforts and making it quite clear that she deemed sex a pleasurable recreation, and not just a means to an end.  She was also memorable in the horror classics The Cat Creeps (1930) and Murder by the Clock (1931), and a brief series of comedies co-starring Kay Francis, most notably Girls About Town (1931). Alas, shortly after completing Riptide in 1934, Tashman died of cancer, aged only 37 years.  It is probable that, had she not passed away, her career would have been decimated by the establishment of the Hollywood Production Code, which effectively eliminated the sort of delightfully debauched vixens so deftly portrayed by the unforgettable vamp.

• Tweet