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Auction History Result 8s078 JOHN GREGSON English personality poster 1950s head & shoulders portrait of the English leading man! Date Sold 8/19/2018 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Unfolded English Personality Poster (measures 22" x 28" [56 x 71 cm]) (Learn More) John Gregson was an English stage, screen, and TV actor from the 1940s to the 1970s. After serving in World War II, he started making movies in 1947, and he appeared in a number of Ealing movies in the 1950s. He never became a top leading man, but he was a dependable actor who always turned in a good performance. He is perhaps best remembered for his starring role in police TV drama "Gideon's Way" starting in 1964. He passed away in 1975 at the age of 55. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Important Added Info: Note that we believe that this is a personality poster from England (it does not have printing information indicating that in the bottom, but it does not say it is printed in the U.S.A., and Mr. Gregson is an English star, and we don't think there would be a U.S. poster for him). English personality posters are even more rare than U.S. ones (there are only three of them in this set of auctions, and our consignor tells us they are the only three he ever saw!). Also, this poster, unlike the vast majority of personality posters, is printed on a thin paper, and not the heavy stock that the others are printed on. Perhaps that is because it is from England, but we just don't know. Note that starting in the very early 1910s (around 1912, when studios realized that people were more likely to go to a movie if it had a star they liked in it), studios created sets of special "personality" posters, which theaters that showed their movies could hang in their lobbies. These had a big advantage over posters for specific movies, because they could be used whenever a movie with that star was shown, which meant they could be used over and over! Because studios realized this, they made these posters on a high quality paper stock, sometimes with a "linen" texture, and sometimes with elaborate border designs, and almost always with great quality color printing. They almost always measured exactly 22" x 28", the same as "half-sheets" (which were then known as "displays", except that they were taller than they were wide, and that the images almost always had a "full bleed", meaning that there were no blank borders. They almost always showed a head and shoulders image of the star, and the image on these posters is often very close to actual life-size! They almost always have the name of the star and the studio they worked for at the bottom. Even though there were many sets of these from many studios over a period of approximately 30 years (they were rarely made after the early 1940s), very few survive, likely partially due to World War II paper drives, and partially due to the fact that they were never folded and the paper they were made of sometimes aged poorly. We at eMoviePoster.com were just consigned a very special collection of 99 of these "personality" posters, which we are auctioning in separate auctions. They were collected starting in the mid 1980s, and the collector who assembled this collection tried to "upgrade" condition whenever possible over the years, so many of them are in excellent condition (sometimes likely the best surviving example), and on the ones where they are in lesser condition, it is because the collector never could find one in better condition! Now he has consigned them to us, and they will find new owners. If they were kept together, they would surely make an incredible display for the walls of any place where lots of people gather, like a museum, a restaurant, or any similar place. Of course, it is more likely that these will find many, many separate new homes, but we hope that they end up publicly displayed wherever they end up! Note that the other personality posters we are auctioning are associated with a specific studio. But this one is not. We imagine that is because it is from the early 1950s, which is at a time when all the regular studios had quit making 22" x 28" personality posters, so we imagine this was some special promotion that might have been connected to a specific movie and not a studio. If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail us and we will post it here. Condition: fair to good. The poster is on a thin paper (see above). There are two significant scuff marks in the left and right of Gregson's head and small areas of surface paper loss in his forehead, and a scratch in his nose. There are some scuffs in the lower parts of the poster. Obviously, this poster can be restored, but bear that expense in mind before bidding on this poster. Learn More about condition grades 
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