BILLIE BURKE - AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED 6/1949 CO-SIGNED BY: ALAN VILLIERS, FREDA UTLEY, STANLEY F. HORN, JOHN T. FLYNN, HAROLD RUSSELL, MARIAN CASTLE, ROSAMOND du JARDIN - HFSID 29583

BILLIE BURKE, HAROLD RUSSELL, ALAN VILLIERS, JOHN FLYNN, STANLEY F. HORN, FREDA UTLEY, MARIAN CASTLE and ROSAMOND du JARDIN
Guestbook page signed to author Rose Harbaugh by actors Billie Burke and Howard Russell, mariner Alan Villiers, political commentators John T. Flynn and Freda Utley, historian Stanley F. Horn and authors Marian Castle and Rosamond du Jardin in 1949.
Autograph notes signed "Best wishes from Alan Villiers", "Many thanks to a wonderful/stove for a wonderful time/Harold Russell", "With dearest thanks for giving me/a lovely day long to be remembered/Billie Burke/June 1949", "Best wishes of/Stanley F Horn/'The Robert E Lee Reader/Oct. 22, 1949" and, on verso, "We deal in delightful imponderables,/don't we?/Marian Castle", "With sincere appreciation of Rose/Harbaugh's understanding and/thanks for her effors on behalf/of my book/Freda Utley/June 28, 1949", "With appreciation and best/wishes to Mrs. Harbaugh/Rosamond de Jardin/Oct. 1949" and "This to register my deep appreciation/of Mrs. Harbaugh's thoughtfulness and/kindness./John T. Flynn/Nov. 8, 1949". 2 pages, 7½x11½, 1 sheet, front and verso.ROSE OLLER HARBAUGH, to whom these autographs were inscribed, wrote Eddie Elephant Has a Party (1947) and Favorite Torte and Cake Recipes (1951). Broadway star BILLIE BURKE (1885-1970) was married to master showman Florenz Ziegfeld from 1913 until his death in 1932. She received her only Academy Award nomination in 1939 for her supporting role as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live (1938). She starred as Mrs. Topper in three successful Topper films, but Burke will always be remembered as Glinda, the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz (1939). HAROLD RUSSELL (1914-2002) was working as an explosives expert at an Army base in 1944 when a defective fuse exploded a charge of TNT he was holding. Both of his hands were amputated. Recommended by actor Dana Andrews, Russell was selected by Samuel Goldwyn to play the part of Homer Parrish in The Best Years of Our Lives (Andrews, who had met Russell while narrating an Army film on the recuperation of wounded soldiers, played Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives). The script originally called for a wounded veteran returning home from WWII; it was adapted to fit Russell's physical condition. Harold Russell (1914-2002) won two 1946 Academy Awards for his portrayal of Parrish: one for Best Supporting Actor and the other, a special Oscar, for "bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures". In 1992, Russell became the first and only actor to sell his Oscar (Best Supporting Actor). An author and national commander of AMVETS (1949-1951, 1960-1970), Russell also served as chairman of President Johnson's Committee on Hiring the Handicapped. Born in Australia, ALAN VILLIERS (1903-1982) ran away to sea at age 15, becoming an accomplished seaman on merchant, whaling, and historical vessels, known for his particular love of sailing ships. In 1934, Villers purchased a Danish training vessel, the Georg Stage, renamed it the Joseph Conrad (in honor of another author and accomplished sailor). With an amateur crew, he embarked on a 57,000 mile, two-year voyage around the world, crossing the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The Joseph Conrad is now on exhibit at the Mystic (Connecticut) Seaport and Museum. During World War II, Villiers was commissioned in the Royal Naval Reserve, and earned the Distinguished Service Cross for dangerous missions which included the Dunkirk evacuation, convoy duty, and command of groups of landing craft in the Sicily and Normandy amphibious landings. Villiers wrote dozens of books, all about the sea and those who sailed it, and was a frequent contributor to National Geographic. In 1957, Villiers captained the Mayflower II, a replica of the original pilgrims' vessel and replicating their historic voyage of 1620. Like many Cold War conservatives, British author FREDA UTLEY (1898-1978), born Winifred Utley began her political life as a leftist. She became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1928, but became quickly disillusioned with the party after a trip to Moscow revealed the party's corruption and inability to provide services like housing or medical care. She moved to the United States in 1939 after the arrest of her husband three years earlier and switched from Communism to anti-Communism. Her books include The Dream We Lost (1940), about her disgust with the Soviet Union and Communism; Last Chance in China (1945), which argued that Western policies resulted in Chinese Communists triumphing over Communist Nationalists in the the post-World War II Chinese civil war; The High Cost of Vengeance (1948), which criticized Allied treatment of the defeated Nazi Germany and the Nuremberg trials; Will the Middle East Go West? (1956), which argued that American support of Israel would turn the Arab Middle East Communist; and the first volume of her autobiography Odyssey of a Liberal (1970). One of the United States' best-known political commentators, journalist JOHN T. FLYNN (1882-1964) was a supporter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but opposed overseas war and the New Deal. He broke with Roosevelt completely in 1936 and was one of the founders of the America First Committee, which charged that Roosevelt was trying to ensnare the U. S. into another world war. (Flynn reportedly distanced himself from America First's extremist and anti-Semitic groups as much as he could) America First disbanded after Pearl Harbor, but Flynn's attacks on American militarism and New Deal liberalism only intensified. He wrote these rather prophetic words in 1944's As We Go Marching: "The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines." He was also an early critic of the U. S.'s involvement in France's Indo-Chinese War - what would later become the Vietnamese War. His anti-militarism views cut him off from conservatives as well as liberals in 1955, and he retired from public life in 1960. MARIAN CASTLE (1896-1993) was born Marian Johnson and also wrote under the pseudonym Monty Castle. Castle wrote numerous short stories for magazines, as well as the books Silver Answer, The Golden Fury, Roxanna and Deborah. A resident of Denver, Colorado, she received numerous awards from the Colorado Author's League. STANLEY T. HORN (1889-1980) was a journalist who joined the Southern Lumberman, a lumber industry trade paper, in 1908, a relationship that continued almost without a break for the next 72 years. But he's probably best known for his research and writing about the American Civil War and Southern history. His books include Boy's Life of Robert E. Lee (1935), The Hermitage: Home of Old Hickory (1938), Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan (1939), The Army of Tennessee: A Military History (1941), Gallant Rebel: The Famous Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (1947), The Robert E. Lee Reader (1949) and The Decisive Battle of Nashville (1956). ROSAMOND du JARDIN (1902-1963) was a writer who, in addition to almost 100 short stories, wrote a number of young adult novels about high school romance. She also wrote humorous verse for the Chicago Daily News and scripts for radio shows like Silver Theatre, Stars Over Hollywood and Aunt Jenny Stories. Lightly toned, soiled and rippled. Torn neatly from guestbook at left edge. Otherwise in fine condition.