ARTHUR PENN - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 184751

ARTHUR PENN
Signed 4x6 photo of Penn from the shoulders up in a light-colored jacket and sweater
Photo signed "Arthur Penn" in blue ink. With erased pencil notations on verso. B/w, 6x4¼. Penn, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1922, died in 2010 NYC, NY is an Tony-winning and Oscar-nominated director of film and the stage and one of the youngblood directors of Hollywood's New Wave in the 1960s and 1970s. Penn cut his teeth in theatre in World War II, when he formed a small drama circle in Fort Jackson, South Carolina and directing TV shows for NBC in the 1950s. The apprenticeship paid off; by 1961, he had won a Tony for his direction of The Miracle Worker (1959-1961, 719 performances) and two nominations for Two for the Seesaw (1958-1959, 750 performances) and All the Way Home (1960-1961, 333 performances). Penn made the jump to film with the psychologically-charged Western The Left-Handed Gun (1958), based on a play by Gore Vidal, and a 1962 adaptation of The Miracle Worker. Despite being fired from directing The Train (1964) two days into shooting by star Burt Lancaster, he went on to become a successful - and counterculture-pleasing - director with movies like the iconic Bonnie and Clyde (1967); Alice's Restaurant (1969), based on the Arlo Guthrie's anti-war song Alice's Restaurant Massacree; and Little Big Man (1970), an unlikely western with Dustin Hoffman, as well as more conventional fare like Night Moves (1975). Penn was nominated for Best Director Oscars three times for The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde and Alice's Restaurant. Penn's later career suffered as audience tastes turned towards lighter blockbuster fare, but he continued directing into the new millennium with an episode of the TV series 100 Centre Street in 2001. Lightly toned. Errors in negative were reproduced in photo. Otherwise in fine condition.