FRANCIS LEDERER - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 282775

FRANCIS LEDERER
Vintage black and white publicity photograph of a younger Francis Lederer, signed to Beverly Hills restaurant owner Joseph "Peppino" Micoli
Inscribed photograph signed "Dear Mrand [sic] Mrs Peppino/Though your food is the best/Italian food in town it is/surpassed by your personality/charm and kindness. All the luck/to you& yours Francis Lederer". B/w, 7¾x9¾ overall, 7¼x9¼ image, one surface, printed on cardstock, rounded corners. Joseph "Peppino" Micoli was the owner of Peppino's Restaurant on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. Lederer (1899-2000, born Frantisek Lederer in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, now the Czech Republic) was an American actor with over 60 movies and TV shows to his credit. Lederer got his start on the stage and in the German film industry, where he was billed as Franz Lederer and was amajor star.He debuted on Broadway in 1932, the first of four Broadway appearances, where he was "discovered" and brought to Hollywood. He specialized in roles as an outgoing, naïve foreigner manipulated by Englishmen or Americans in such films as Man of Two Worlds (1934), Romance in Manhattan (1934) and One Rainy Afternoon (1936), graduating to roles as villains, cynics, sophisticated scoundrels and even a turn as Dracula in The Return of Dracula (1958). One of his best performances was in Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), where he played a disgruntled member of the German American Bund. He retired from films in 1958, having made his fortune in real estate. Lightly toned, soiled, stained, bowed and rippled. Light nick in top right corner. Otherwise in fine condition.