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Buster Keaton ("The Great Stone Face") was an actor from the 1900s to the 1960s. He was (along with Charlie Chaplin) one of the most famous comedian in silent movies, and he continued to make sound movies as well. He has too many wonderful movies to list, but some of his movies include: The General, Sherlock Jr., The Cameraman, and he made a very memorable final cameo appearance in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum AND W.C. Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania in 1880. He showed his remarkable talents early, beginning with a juggling act when he was a teen. He left home and worked that act in vaudeville, later traveling to Europe, and appearing on Broadway in 1906. Although he had initially been a non-talking juggler (this helped when he performed in countries where they did not speak English), he started making comic asides in his act, and soon they were a bigger and bigger part of his appeal. In 1915, Fields made the short film, Pool Sharks, where he performed his tricks on a specially made pool table (a routine he performed in the Ziegfeld Follies). He also made another short film that was shown during his Follies Act, His Lordship's Dilemma. But otherwise, Fields spent all his time on his stage act. In 1924, Fields took a minor role in a Marion Davies movie, and that led to two starring roles in movies directed by D.W. Griffith, and suddenly Fields was a major movie star in his mid forties! Fields was one of the few great silent comedians who was able to seamlessly made the transition to sound movies (another was Laurel and Hardy). While he was a great physical slapstick comedian, sound actually added quite a bit to his appeal. In the early 1930s he not only appeared in some marvelous features (Million Dollar Legs, It's a Gift, and many others) but he also made the series of wonderful shorts for Paramount Pictures (The Fatal Glass of Beer, The Dentist, and more). Fields made some great movies in 1939 and 1940 (when he was 60!), You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, My Little Chickadee, and The Bank Dick (where he played Egbert Souse, pronounced "Soo-say"). But he had many ailments related to his alcoholism, and he made just a few film appearances in the early 1940s. When Fields was dying in 1946, the story goes that a friend visited him at the sanitarium where he was staying, and found the lifelong atheist reading a Bible. When asked why, Fields replied, "I'm checking for loopholes"! Fields made many wonderful movies, but if I had to recommend two to start with, it would be It's a Gift (which includes the great sequence in the store with Mr. Muckle, the nearly blind and deaf old man) and The Bank Dick (which includes the great sequences of Fields being conned into buying the worthless Beefstake Mine stock, and subsequently re-selling it to the hapless Og Oggilby. As Fields tells Og, "Don't be a luddy-duddy! Don't be a mooncalf! Don't be a jabbernowl! You're not one of those, are you?") AND Boris Karloff was born in England in 1887. He moved to Canada at 21 and then the U.S., and he was a stage actor who appeared in a large number of silent movies, but with only limited success. In 1931, he was cast as Frankenstein's monster, and his enormous success in that movie over-shadowed the fine performances he turned in on Scarface (1932), The Lost Patrol (1934), and The House of Rothschild (also in 1934). He was typecast as a monster/horror movie star, and with few exceptions, that is all he played the remainder of his career. He had great roles in The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, and many others. He wore a huge amount of make-up in the Frankenstein movies and The Mummy, and he had health issues that made that even more uncomfortable, and so he later mostly played roles that did not require substantial make-up. In 1941 Karloff was offered the stage role of Jonathan Brewster (written specifically for him) in Arsenic and Old Lace, and he received a percentage of the profits. The film rights were sold to Warner Bros, who wanted Karloff to reprise his stage role, but he rightly thought appearing in the movie would hurt the play (and his profits) so he refused (which was a sound business decision, but robbed us of a great film portrayal!). The movie was filmed in late 1941, but the studio had agreed not to release it until the play finished its run, so it was not released until 1944 when the play finally ended after over 1,400 performances! Karloff is also well remembered for his great narration of Chuck Jones' great animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Important Added Info: This cut album page has been personally autographed (signed) by Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, AND Boris Karloff. It could be matted with a vintage or repro still and framed together to make a cool display!

Note that our consignor long ago inherited an autograph collection from his father, who had obtained them in person many decades ago. After he inherited the collection, our consignor purchased a few more autographs, and then stored away the entire collection, and he has only now decided to auction the items. We feel it is extremely likely that the autographs are authentic, especially because they were obtained many years ago, before the autograph hobby became commercialized.

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