JOAN LESLIE - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED 08/09/1946 - HFSID 289007

JOAN LESLIE
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce Joan Leslie's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Leslie, once as an autograph sample and again to grant permission. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: "Joan Leslie", 1 page, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, 1946 August 22. Joan Leslie 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. Joan Leslie (1925-2015) was on the vaudeville stage at age 3, an ad model at 11, and in films by 12. Some of her best movie roles came inSergeant York (1936), High Sierra (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Hollywood Canteen (1944), and Rhapsody in Blue (1945). Her appearances became infrequent after 1960 as she pursued a second career as a dress designer, but she reappeared decades later in three TV movies, the last being Fire in the Dark in 1991. 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 (worn). Staple holes at top left. Normal mailing folds. Lightly creased. Pencil mark (unknown hand). Otherwise, fine condition.