BILLY DE WOLFE - AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED CO-SIGNED BY: SPRING BYINGTON - HFSID 321890

BILLY DE WOLFE and SPRING BYINGTON
Stage and screen star Billy De Wolfe pens a short note to a fan. On the verso, actress Spring Byington has also signed. Autographs from two of Hollywood's most memorable stars.
Autograph note signed: "To Bernard-/Best wishes-/Billy De Wolfe" and "Spring Byington" 6x3½ notebook paper. BILLY DE WOLFE (1907-1974, born William Andrew Jones in Wollaston, Massachusetts) was an actor of vaudeville, stage, film and TV. He got his start in vaudeville and musical revues in the late 1930s; his best known act was "Mrs. Murgatroyd", with a mustachioed De Wolfe in spectacles and a flowered hat impersonating a middle-aged woman. His best known persona, though, was as a lisping, effeminate man with the catchphrace "Busy, busy, busy!" He first appeared on film in 1943, the first of his 30 movies and TV shows. His career enjoyed a renaissance in the 1960s and 1970s. Evidently, something in his campy performance struck a chord with audiences of that era, and he was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show (1970-1972). He also landed recurring roles as Jules Benedict on That Girl (1966-1969), as Roland B. Hutton, Jr. on Good Morning, World (1967) and as Willard Jarvis on The Doris Day Show (1969-1973). SPRING BYINGTON (1886-1971) was an American actress of radio, stage, and screen, most famously lending her talent to the CBS sitcom December Bride. Byington began acting in school, participating in amateur productions, eventually joining the Elitch Garden Stock Company at the age of 14. After her mother passed in 1907, she took her inheritance and moved to New York to pursue acting professionally, joining a theatre company that toured Buenos Aires, Argentina just a year later. She would continue to do theatre work for a long period of time afterwards, appearing in 21 Broadway plays between 1924 and 1934. Although she did film work for a number of years, including an Academy Award nominated role in the film You Can't Take It With You (1938),it was her work on the sitcom December Bride that would forever cement her name in television history. Today, she is highly regarded as one of the founding women of television comedy, often compared to Lucille Ball, whose company Desilu produced the sitcom. Creased and toned. Lightly soiled in lower margins. Frayed top edge from notebook binding. Otherwise, fine condition.