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Carl Reiner was born in The Bronx in New York City in 1922. When he was 16 he discovered acting, but college and service in the Army during WWII came first. During the war, he married singer Estelle Lebost. He was 21 and she was 29, unusual for that time, but they remained married for 64 years until she passed away in 2008, when she was 94 (you almost surely know her from one classic line in son Rob's When Harry Met Sally, when she said "I'll have what she's having"!). After the war, Carl got some Broadway parts, and in 1950 he got his big break performing sketch comedy on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, because he also became one of the writers, alongside Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Aaron Ruben and other all-time greats! In 1959, Reiner wrote and starred in a TV pilot called Head of the Family, which was autobiographical, about the home life of a TV writer. The network didn't like it, but two years later he tried again, this time casting super-likeable Dick Van Dyke in the lead role, and it was a giant hit. Reiner did get to act on the show, as Alan Brady (reportedly based on Caesar, Reiner's old boss). After the show went off the air, Reiner did some acting, writing, and directing, with mixed results. He wrote an autobiographical novel "Enter Laughing", which became a Broadway hit starring a then unknown Alan Arkin, and then was adapted into a movie with Reni Santoni in the lead role, and the final 12 minutes of that movie are among the funniest 12 minutes ever in a movie! He followed with the ultimate black comedy "Where's Poppa?" in 1979, he did the first of a series of movies with equally quirky wacky stand-up comedian Steve Martin, The Jerk, followed by Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains and All of Me. After taking a "break", he resurfaced as an actor, most notably in the Ocean's 11 series. He has three children in the creative arts, but it is his son Rob, who is most famous, following in his father's footsteps as an actor and director, and to my mind he has equaled or surpassed his father's directing accomplishments, which I am sure made Carl very proud! Carl Reiner holds the unusual distinction of being the only person to appear on every version of The Tonight Show, and he made countless appearances. It is easy to see why, because he was an experienced performer who had an incredibly quick and sharp mind, which made him the ideal talk show guest! Reiner passed away in 2020 at the age of 98.

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

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In our last two all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning 211 more items (mostly 8x10 stills and repro 8x10s, but also 58 other items like playbills and more)!
     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 photo (and the vast majority of the other photos 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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Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775