JOE KIRKWOOD JR. - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED CIRCA 1946 - HFSID 289204

JOE KIRKWOOD, JR.
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce hIS signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Kirkwood, once to grant permission and again as an autograph specimen. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: "Joe Kirkwood, Jr.", 1 page, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, circa 1946.Joe Kirkwood, Jr. 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. Australian golfer Joe Kirkwood, Jr. (b. 1920), and his father, Joe Kirkwood, Sr., became the first father and son to make the cut in the US Open (1948). Kirkwood won the Philadelphia Inquirer Open in 1949 and the Blue Ribbon Open in 1951, for the latter win. Kirkwood played the title role in eleven Joe Palooka movies between 1946 and 1951, and in the 1954 American TV series. Later he was a news reporter on NBC Radio's Monitor. 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." Filing holes at left edge. Lightly creased. Otherwise, fine condition.