CARMEN MIRANDA - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED 09/16/1946 - HFSID 289097

CARMEN MIRANDA
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce Carmen Miranda's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Miranda, once as an autograph sample and again to grant permission. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: "Carmen Miranda", 1 page, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, 1946 September 16. Carmen Miranda grants to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, Inc., its successors and assigns, the exclusive right, to use her name, autograph, photographic likeness, or artist's sketch of the likeness, for reproduction on engraved, embossed or printed stamps, and in stamp albums, and in connection with the advertising and exploitation of these stamps and stamp albums for sale throughout the world. Portuguese-born samba singer and actress Carmen Miranda (1909-1955), known as "the Brazilian Bombshell", was a superstar in that country by 1928. Invited to New York to appear in a Broadway show, she arrived in the U.S. with her band, the Bando da Lua, in 1939. Miranda, was the highest-paid entertainer in the U.S. for several years during the 1940s, sold over 10 million copies of her records worldwide, and made 14 films between 1940-1953. In many of her films, which include The Voice of the Carnival (1933, her debut), Hello, Hello, Brazil (1935), Bananas of the Land (1939), Down Argentine Way (1940), Weekend in Havana (1941) and Springtime in the Rockies (1942), she appeared in platform sandals and towering headdresses made of fruit, earning another nickname, "the lady in the tutti-frutti hat". The Motion Picture Relief Fund was founded in 1921 to assist ill and needy film industry veterans, as expressed in its motto: "We take care of our own." The fund raised money through voluntary payroll deductions and celebrity events. As President of the Fund from 1939 until his death in 1956, film and radio star Jean Hersholt conceived Hollywood Star Stamps as a fundraising method. These stamps, 468 in all, were sold at dime stores after World War II in sheets of 6-12, at 10 cents per sheet, and were an immediate hit with collectors. Now called the Motion Picture and Television Fund, the non-profit organization funds its own hospital and retirement home. It confers the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award annually at the Academy Awards ceremony to "an individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry." Three filing holes at left. Staple holes at top left. Toned at edges. Normal mailing folds. Lightly creased. Pencil mark (unknown hand). Otherwise, fine condition.