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Lee Marvin was born in New York City in 1924. He was part of an illustrious family that had arrived in the U.S. in the 1600s, but Lee was a black sheep who was kicked out of several schools. He joined the Marines in World War II, and he was wounded in action (he was shot in his buttock, which severed his sciatic nerve) and was discharged. He discovered acting and first went to New York where he got some Broadway and TV roles, and then moved to Hollywood in 1950, and most of his first roles there were in war films or westerns. He got the a leading role in Eight Iron Men in 1952, but his biggest break came in 1953, when he played one of the movies' most memorable villains in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, opposite Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford. But this did not make him a lead actor, and he took whatever he was offered, including some lesser roles in major productions, like in The Wild One and The Caine Mutiny, playing characters called Chino and Meatball. Likely discouraged by the parts he was getting, he started doing more and more TV, and in 1957, he got the lead in M Squad, and he was finally able to get more important roles. In 1961, he appeared in The Comancheros with John Wayne and the following year he again played a super-memorable villain, as Liberty Valance opposite Wayne and Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He continued to do much TV, and I saw him in three of those performances as a pre-teen, and he had a great effect on me even then! One was on Bonanza where he appeared in an episode as a prospector who has a life or death challenge with Pernell Roberts, one was in "The DuPont Show of the Week", in an episode based on the H.G. Wells story "The Valley of the Blind", and the last was on "The Twilight Zone" in the episode entitled "Steel", which still gives me the chills when I view it now! He played a villain once again in Don Siegel's ultra violent TV movie, The Killers, and the movie was deemed too violent for TV and was given a theatrical release instead. The following year he played a double role in Cat Ballou, and he surprisingly received the Oscar for Best Actor. The following year he co-starred in The Professionals, the fine Richard Brooks movie. The following year he starred in The Dirty Dozen and in Point Blank, two great movies, in the very same year! He was finally a superstar, but ironically that caused his career to take a major downturn in quality. He took the roles that paid him the most (likely because he had 6 kids from two marriages, plus a live-in lover!), and he turned down some great roles, including as Ed in Deliverance and as Quint in Jaws. He also could have played the lead in The Wild Bunch, but made the major dud, Paint Your Wagon, instead! Marvin also made headlines when his live-in lover Michelle Triola sued him for "palimony", the first case of its kind. While his later career did not live up to his first 17 years, Marvin was a wonderful actor who had a huge number of memorable roles in both TV and the movies (often as the BADDEST villains!), and I highly recommend seeing all of the movies and TV roles mentioned here! He passed away in 1987 at the age of 63 after complications after being treated for Valley fever, a fungal infection.

Important Added Info: Note that this still has been personally autographed (signed) by Lee Marvin! Also note that although this still was "printed in Great Britain", it has full NSS information. We have been told by an expert that Columbia and MGM had a number of their color stills printed in Great Britain in the late 1950s and the early 1960s (the years vary between the two studios), no doubt because the English color printing was better than the U.S. color printing at this time. However, they were printed in Great Britain to be used in the U.S. (we have heard from many collectors who saw these color stills in U.S. theaters at the time these movies were released, but we have not heard from any English collectors who saw them used in England at that time). In the late 1960s and 1970s some studios started printing color stills like these in Italy, surely for the same reason (because Italian printers had better color printing during those years). But those stills printed in Italy were for use in the U.S., as these stills printed in Great Britain were for use in the U.S.

Note that this autographed item is part of a remarkable collection. In our last three all-signed auctions, we auctioned hundreds of items from this collection and now we are auctioning 224 more items (mostly 8x10 stills and repro 8x10s, but also 54 small photos)!
     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