HAROLD RUSSELL - DOCUMENT SIGNED 05/15/1947 - HFSID 289266
Price: $700.00
HAROLD RUSSELL
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce
the amputee's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for
needy film industry veterans.
Document signed: "Harold Russell", 1 page, 8½x5¼.
Hollywood, California, 1947 May 15. Hall grants to the Motion Picture
Relief Fund, Inc., its successors and assigns, the exclusive right to use his
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. 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 film.) The script
originally called for a wounded veteran returning home from WWII; it was adapted
to fit Russell's physical condition. Russell won two 1946 Academy Awards for
his performance: 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 (to pay for medical treatment for his wife). 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.
Russell is one of only two non-actors to win an acting Oscar, the other being
Haing Ngor for The Killing Fields. 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." Two filing holes at left. Staple holes at top left. Two vertical and
one horizontal fold. Lightly creased. Otherwise, fine
condition.
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