CLEMENCE (WINIFRED ASHTON) DANE - AUTOGRAPH CO-SIGNED BY: ELEANOR ROBSON BELMONT - HFSID 88058

CLEMENCE DANE and ELEANOR ROBSON BELMONT
Album leaf signed by writer Clemence Dane and actress Eleanor Robson Belmont
Signatures: "Eleanor Robson Belmont" and "Clemence Dane". With three other signatures in unknown hand. Black ink notations in unknown hand. 5¼x6¾ album page, with five binder holes along left edge. According to the notations on this leaf, this signatures were written on Jan. 8, 1934, March 9, 1934 and March 23, 1934. CLEMENCE DANE was the pseudonym of British author and screenwright Winifred Ashton (1888-1965). She won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story for the 1945 movie Perfect Strangers, released in the U. S. as Vacation from Marriage. Dane, who wrote 25 novels between 1917 and 1964 - including the 1928 Sir John Samuarez mystery Enter Sir John, which was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock into 1930's Murder! - also wrote six plays, including the Broadway hit A Bill of Divorcement, which was also adapted to film twice in 1922 and once in 1932, the last with Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore. Not surprisingly, Dane also had numerous film and TV writing credits as well between 1922 and 1968, including a 1935 film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina starring Greta Garbo. British-born American actress ELEANOR ROBSON BELMONT (1879-1979) was a successful American actress whose career on Broadway (1900-1909) took off with Merely Mary Ann (1903-1904). She retired after marrying American banker August Belmont, Jr. in 1910 and threw herself into philanthropy for the next five decades. After retiring, she wrote the Broadway play In the Next Room (1923-1924) and the book The Case of the Black Parrot, both of which were adapted into movies. She also organized the Metropolitan Opera Guild in 1935 to help finance the Metropolitan opera. Lightly toned and soiled. Lightly discolored at top and right edges (does not touch signature). Irregular bottom edge. Otherwise, fine condition.