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The Widow's Might, the 1918 William C. de Mille silent cross-dressing drag romantic comedy ("By Marion Fairfax"; about a young man from New York who buys a western ranch and sees a calendar with a picture of a beautiful woman, and he falls in love with her, but later finds out she is the daughter of the man who sold him the ranch, and he was swindled in that deal, but he doesn't hold that against the girl; however, he wants his revenge on the inhabitants of the town, and he dresses up as a woman and manages to get almost all the eligible young men to fall in love with him!) starring Julian Eltinge, Florence Vidor, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Mayme Kelso, and James Neill. Who was Julian Eltinge? Forgotten today except by historians, he was born in Massachusetts in 1881, and as a young child he enjoyed performing dressed as a female. When he was 23 he performed in a Broadway musical (by Jerome Kern) as a man impersonating a woman, and his great success led to a major career in vaudeville. He would perform a series of singing and dancing acts, with many costume changes, and audiences did not see him as a man pretending to me a woman, but they saw him as a woman! In fact, he would sometimes be billed simply as "Eltinge", so the audience would be in doubt as to his gender throughout the show, and in his final number he would remove his wig to reveal he was a man (often to gasps from the audience). This was recreated in the various versions of the play and movie Victor/Victoria. Eltinge toured the United States and Europe, and he gave a command performance for King Edward VII of England at Windsor Castle! In 1914 Julian Eltinge made the first of a dozen movies in the course of a decade, and movie paper of any kind from any of these movies is beyond rare! The one-sheet poster from "The Widow's Might" is not only the ONLY poster from any of Eltinge's movies we have ever auctioned, but we also searched the Internet and could not find any other posters. This is especially odd given that Eltinge made at least most of his movies for Paramount Pictures, which was the number one studio in the world at this time! Julian Eltinge paved the way for much later drag performers including Divine, Charles Pierce, Craig Russell, Jim Bailey and RuPaul. Eltinge kept his private life extremely secret, and while most historians assume he was surely gay, actress Ruth Gordon said he was "as virile as anybody is virile". He adopted a supermasculine facade in public (in an attempt to dispel rumors), and one critic described him as "ambisextrous". He acquired much wealth, and lived alone in a mansion, and when he passed away in 1940, his sole heir was his 79 year old mother. Also, note that this is a "lost" film, which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist.
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Important Added Info: Note that ANY movie paper from this movie is incredibly rare. We have never auctioned even a single movie paper item from this movie until we received this one-sheet! Not only that, but this is the ONLY poster we have ever auctioned that shows Eltinge, and it has a wonderful image of him, perhaps the best there was (and this may be the only surviving poster that shows Eltinge)! The phrase "museum quality" is sometimes used for fine vintage movie posters, indicating that they deserve to be included in, and displayed in a museum. It is most often used for a poster that has multiple qualities: extreme rarity, important historical significance, and a great image. This poster has all of those qualities! Also note that this one-sheet measures 28" x 41" [71 x 104 cm].

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