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Alan Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1934, the child of Russian Jewish parents. His parents moved to Los Angeles when he was 11. After college, Arkin, together with two friends, formed the folk music group The Tarriers, and in 1956, they co-wrote the modern version of "The Banana Boat Song", which was a big hit for them, but a bigger hit for Harry Belafonte. Surprisingly, the quirky Arkin initially had little success as an actor. He spent much of 1958 to 1968 supplementing his income by performing with the children's folk group, The Babysitters and also taking odd jobs! His first real movie role was in The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming (nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film). He was really noticed for his supporting role as the creepy psychopath who terrorizes blind Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark in 1967, but he took a big step backwards in 1968 when he played the title role in Inspector Clouseau. He took many quirky roles after that, in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Popi, and in Catch 22, as Yossarian. In 1974, he finally had a major commercial hit, in Freebie and the Bean with James Caan, and of course he hated the movie! He was the co-star (opposite Peter Falk) in Andrew Bergman's 1979 cult classic The In-Laws, which I consider the best screwball comedy ever made ("There's red tape in the bush?" "Enormous red tape, Sheldon.") The 1980s were not a very productive decade for Arkin, but he came back strong in 1990 with a supporting role in Edward Scissorhands, as well as Glengarry Glen Ross in 1992, and I liked him quite a lot in Slums of Beverly Hills in 1998. In the 2000s, he re-surfaced again in Little Miss Sunshine (winner of the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film), and Argo (nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film). Arkin was one of those actors who loved odd quirky movies (and playing odd quirky characters) and he avoided movies that would have wide commercial success. He summed up his reasons for why he followed this path when he said, "Everybody's career has ups and downs. I like to take chances, I don't like to stand still. And I don't give a damn what the market is interested in; I want to try things. Success has nothing to do with box office as far as I'm concerned. Success has to do with achieving your goals, your internal goals, and growing as a person. It would have been nice to have been connected with a couple more box office hits, but in the long run I don't think it makes you happier." He passed away in 2023 at the age of 89.

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by Alan Arkin!

Note that this autographed 8x10 is part of a remarkable new collection we have been consigned, and we are auctioning nearly 500 items from this collection in this set of auctions (we will have more from this collection in our next few sets of autograph auctions).
     In the 1970s, our consignor was a high school teacher who taught a film class, and one day a week (and all through the summer) he ran the local movie theater (and he saved all the presskits and one-sheets from the movies the theater showed).
     Starting in the late 1970s, but increasingly greatly in the early 1980s, he hit on the idea of writing to famous celebrities, and enclosing an 8x10 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 often was able to locate an 8x10 still from his collection that was from a really good movie from that star, or one that had a really good image of that star. In a relatively small number of cases, he did not have a still in his collection to send, so he bought a reproduction from a photo shop, and sent that instead, which is why some of the items that have this notation on them are reproductions.
     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 photo (and the vast majority of the other photos we are auctioning for this consignor) were obtained in the mid-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.

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775