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Jackie Coogan was born in 1914. His is one of the saddest Hollywood stories, but amazingly he mostly overcame his great tragedies. A child actor from a family of actors (both parents and younger brother, Robert), Coogan was spotted by Charlie Chaplin and given the title role in The Kid in 1921 when Coogan was just 6. The movie was a huge success, and throughout the 1920s Coogan was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. His career wound down in his teen years, and as he approached his 21st birthday, tragedy struck. He was in a car with his father and best friend (actor Junior Durkin) and they crashed, and his father and Durkin were killed. Coogan's mother married his business manager, and when Coogan turned 21 he requested the millions he had earned, and he discovered his mother had no legal obligation to give it to him! Years later California would create the Child Actors Bill (known as the Coogan Act), which protects the earnings of child actors. Amazingly, Coogan bounced back. Two years later he married Betty Grable, and made a few movies. But then he divorced Grable and served in World War II and when he returned from the war, he discovered his career in movies was mostly over. A decade later he started playing minor roles as villains in movies, and in 1964 he landed the role of Uncle Fester on TV's "The Addams Family", and that not only made him financially secure, but is likely the role he is best remembered for, in spite of his many major successes as a child and as a teen! Some of his movies include: The Kid (in the title role), The Joker Is Wild, and Oliver Twist. He passed away in 1984 at the age of 69.

Important Added Info: Note that this item has been personally autographed (signed) by Jackie Coogan (it is a vintage card from the 1930s that he signed at a later date)!

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In each of our last several all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning 209 signed photos and miscellaneous other signed items (plus 55 signed index cards that have a different note on those)!
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a teacher who taught a film class, and he also part-time ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s through the late 1980s, he wrote to famous celebrities, and enclosed an 8x10 still or repro (or sometimes another item) from his collection, and he wrote a literate personalized letter, talking about his work as a film teacher, and discussing his favorite movie by that star.
     He received signed photos back from a good percentage of the people he wrote to, and if the people simply sent him a stock photo back, he did not save it, but if he felt the autograph was genuine, and if they added a personalized note, then he did save them.
     In the late 1980s, he pretty much stopped sending letters and photos, simply because he was just too busy. So this item (and the vast majority of the other photos and other items we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the late 1970s or 1980s, through personal correspondence with this star. This is of course excellent, because back at that time celebrities were not selling their signatures nearly as much, and many of the stars were pretty forgotten and were happy to get letters from people like our consignor!
     He of course does not have any "Certificates of Authenticity", but he only kept ones he felt were surely authentic, and those are the ones we are auctioning. However, bidders can certainly compare the signatures to known examples on the internet to judge for themselves.

As is true of all the signed items we are currently auctioning, we give every buyer 30 days in which to review what they purchased and they can return any item as long as it is within 30 days of the end of the auction. On non-signed items, we give a "lifetime guarantee" on everything we auction, but on signed items, we give the above modified guarantee of 30 days after the auction closes.

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