Cat. #0060523: CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG

Scarce vintage fountain pen signature on a 3.5 x 6-inch pink autograph album page, acquired in-person, probably in the 1930s. In very good condition and ideal for matting with a favorite photograph. After a stint in one-real silent comedies, raven-haired, saucer-eyed Clara Kimball Young found her niche playing worldly, sophisticated ladies in Vitagraph dramas like Delayed Proposals (1913), Without a Soul (1914) and My Official Wife (1914). By 1914, she had cemented her image as a temperamental diva-- onscreen and off!-- and was widely considered the screen's most popular actress. After entering into a tryst with Lewis J. Sleznick and shifting to his studio, cranked out acclaimed pictures like Camille (1915), Hearts in Exile (1915), Trilby (1915) and Eyes of Youth (1919) with then-newcomer Rudolph Valentino. Alas, by the tail-end of the silent era, her impossible antics with colleagues, wild personal antics and rude attitude with fans-- including kicking an autograph hound in the rump, prompting a lawsuit-- had devoured her career. She was almost completely bankrupt by 1932 and spent the latter part of her life as an infamous Hollywood party-going eccentric, making ends meet with a few character roles in early talkies. Horror buffs will remember her as Dorothy Regent in The Return of Chandu (1934) with Bela Lugosi and she was genuinely chilling as the deranged Mrs. Jamison in the Wallace Ford thriller The Rogue's Tavern (1936).