PRINCIPALS' AUTOGRAPHS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21698, 13 January 1934, Page 10 (Supplement)

PRINCIPALS' AUTOGRAPHS

KEEN AMERICAN DEMAND INTERESTING PRICE RANGE The fact that nearly every film principal has two signatures—one for private and the other for public purposes •—emerges from an astonishing "analysis" just made of the "market value" of many principals' autographs. Apparently there is a very brisk trade in these autographs in America, and a private signature falling into the wrong hands is liable to appear, unknown to the writer, on a forged cheque. , So many frauds have been perpetrated or attempted in this way that the wise actor seldom signs an autograph book in the handwriting known to his banker. Hence the marked variation often observed in principals' signatures. One may have been faithfully reproduced from a private letter and the other may have been given (with due care) to an American autograph hunter. Mae West's autograph is worth £5 in Hollywood, and so is Greta Garbo's (there are only six authentic Garbo signatures in circulation). Other current prices are:—Marlene DiQtrich, £4 10s; Wallace Beerv, £3 10s; Norma Shearer, £3 10s; Charles Laughton, £3 10s; John Barrymore, £3 10s; Herbert Marshall, £3 ss; Fredric March, £3 os; Bing Crosby, £3; Marie Dressier, £3; Janet Gaynor, £3; the Marx Brothers, £2 each, or £lO for all four on the same sheet; Constance Bennett, £2; Richard Bennett, £2; Sylvia Sidney, £2; Harold Lloyd, £2. The trading that goes on in signatures is naturally not encouraged or approved by the actors themselves. Most of them strongly disapprove, and they try, where possible, to avoid the "professional" autograph seeker, who pesters them at every turn. The genuine admirer, who merely wants a signature for his or her own pleasure, is always welcome to it, but the professional pest has so many ways of approach that it is often very difficult to distinguish a friendly from a purely commercial request.