BETSY BLAIR - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 08/04/1984 - HFSID 42511

BETSY BLAIR
Academy Award-nominated actress Betsy Blair wrote this letter in 1984 with a promise to contribute material to the recipient's museum. Accompanied by original mailing envelope.
Autograph letter signed "Betsy Blair". 1 page, 8 ½ x 11, on stationery of the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, California. Aug. 4, 1984. In full: "Dear Mr. Axelrod, your letter was forwarded to me here in L. A. I would be very happy to help your museum by me modest contribution. When I am next home in London I will dig out some photographs and other material for you. Yours sincerely". Lightly creased. Staple holes in top let corner. Folded twice and unfolded. Otherwise in fine condition. Accompanied by: Original mailing envelope on Chateau Marmont stationery. Postmarked Los Angeles, California, Aug. 6, 1984. Addressed to Mr. Todd Axelrod, Las Vegas, Nevada. One 20¢ color Performing Arts-Douglas Fairbanks stamp affixed. Lightly soiled. Normal postal stamps. Neatly torn open at top edge. Staple holes in top left corner. Blair (1923-2009, born Elizabeth Boger in Cliffside, New Jersey) is probably best known as Ernest Borgnine's plain girlfriend in Marty, a role that earned her an Academy Award Nomination and a BAFTA Award. It was a role that almost never happened, as she was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities at the time. Blair only got it because her first husband Gene Kelly threatened to pull out of the filming of It's Always Fair Weather unless she got the role. Blair got her start in show biz while waiting to enroll at Sarah Lawrence College. Her first jobs were in the chorus at the International Casino in New York when she was 15 and in the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940 (where she met Kelly). In all, Blair had five Broadway productions to her credit from 1940 to 1960, with three before her film debut, and almost 40 movies and TV shows to her credit between 1947 and 1994.