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Buster Crabbe was born Clarence Linden Crabbe II in Oakland, California in 1908. He was named for his grandfather, and he was nicknamed "Buster" at an early age. Buster was raised in Hawaii, where he became a great swimmer, and he was went to college at USC, and was in both the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games, and he medaled in both. He got bit parts in movies starting in 1930, but after he married his girlfriend, Adah Held, in 1933, he set about trying to become a full-time actor. It seemed he would have been a natural to play Tarzan in 1932's Tarzan the Ape Man, but that part went to the winner of five Olympic medals, Johnny Weissmuller. But in 1933 Paramount Pictures decided to make an imitation Tarzan movie (it was King of the Jungle, starring "Kaspa the Lion Man", but everyone "knew" he was Tarzan!), and Crabbe got the part. That got him the role of Tarzan in PDC's Sol Lesser's Tarzan the Fearless the same year, but it had a much smaller budget than the MGM Tarzans. Buster had signed a contract with Paramount, and he appeared in lots of their movies over the next three years, usually billed as Larry 'Buster' Crabbe, but they really didn't know what to do with him. In 1936 he starred in Flash Gordon for Universal Pictures (based on the classic Alex Raymond newspaper comic strip), and that is the role he is most remembered for, and it was released in both a serial and feature version, and was followed by two sequels, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Original movie posters from all three of these movies are extremely rare and quite desirable! In 1938, Crabbe starred in another newspaper strip adaptation, Red Barry, and in 1939 he was Buck Rogers! Crabbe had played in some Paramount westerns, and he made a series of westerns for PRC, starring as "Billy the Kid" starting in 1941. By the 1950s Crabbe's movie career had slowed greatly, and he starred in a TV show, Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, and he got his real life son cast on the show as well. In the mid 1950s, he bought a swimming camp for kids, and also got heavily involved in a company that sold swimming pools, and these business pursuits meant he did little acting. You may remember him from his TV commercials in the 1970s where he pitched the Magic Mold Bodyshirt, and he modeled it himself, and looked great! Crabbe was still married to his college sweetheart, and they remained married for 50 years, Buster passed away in 1983 at the age of 75. Right before he passed away, he starred in a wacky movie, The Comeback Trail, a sort of rip-off of The Producers, where two promoters take an over the hill former cowboy star, and cast him in a movie, and give him dangerous stunts to perform in the hopes he will drop dead and they can collect the insurance on him!

Important Added Info: Note that this REPRODUCTION still has been personally autographed (signed) by Buster Crabbe (he added the names of the others in the photo, and also noted that he didn't have his mustache)!

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 many more signed photos and miscellaneous other signed items (plus many 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.

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