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Betty Compson was an actress from the 1910s to the 1940s. She was a major star in the silent era, and was one of Paramount's top stars in the early 1920s. She was married to director James Cruze, and some of her movies include: The Docks of New York (directed by Josef von Sternberg), The Great Gabbo (with Erich von Stroheim), and Barker (nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for this film). She divorced Cruze, who was a major alcoholic, but the IRS went after her for Cruze's debts, and she was forced to pay them off, which resulted in her losing much of what she had accumulated. She appeared in smaller and smaller roles in the 1930s and 1940s, and retired in 1948, passing away in 1974 at the age of 77.

Important Added Info: Note that this item has been personally autographed (signed) by Betty Compson and hand-numbered 4809/1! Our consignor is a longtime collector who purchased this signed item from a reputable dealer, and he does not have a certificate of authenticity, but we believe the signature to be authentic. Also note that in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, it became a common practice to pass out 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" "Ross postcards" to the people who attended a movie. These were postcards that people could send through the mail (each had a picture of one of the movie's stars on it, and standard postcard markings on the other side). But these were also sent to theaters where the stars would make personal appearances, and members of the audience would get the stars to autograph them if they could, but of course, the cards themselves did not come autographed! Sometimes the theaters would use a special "Das Programm Von Heute" that had a blank area on the cover, where they would cut four slits in the upper left and have the "Ross postcards" inserted into that area, so that the audience members would get the program and the card together! We imagine that theaters hoped that audience members would mail the postcards after they saw the movie to friends, telling them how much they enjoyed it, thus creating advertising for the movie. These are often called "Ross autograph cards" by collectors, because moviegoers sometimes obtained autographs on them. Ross postcards are quite collectible, signed or unsigned, but of course, they are worth far more signed. They are often quite rare, because most German paper of all kinds from before World War II was destroyed during the war, due to the massive paper shortages there at that time.

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