Highly rare vintage 3 x 5.25-inch black and white English postcard portrait, boldly signed in black fountain pen in the 1910s. In fine condition for its age, with a few minor surface scuffs and a minor diagonal crease to the lower right-hand corner tip. Hulking English-born German actor Henry Victor was a leading man in British silents, but, with the advent of sound, his dense Germanic accent forced him to switch to character roles, often as Nazis or other villains. Beyond films like Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), The Mortal Storm (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942), and They Got Me Covered (1943), he had memorable roles in a number of horror, sci-fi and fantasy classics. He starred as Hercules, the hulking strongman who secretly courts the scheming Cleopatra in Tod Browning's Freaks (1932); the Saxon Warrior in James Whales' The Mummy (1932); Furber in The Mad Doctor (1941); and Dr. Miklos Sangre in King of the Zombies (1943). This is one of the only examples of his autograph we have encountered in over 35 years.

• Tweet