LAUREN BACALL - FIRST DAY COVER SIGNED CO-SIGNED BY: FARLEY GRANGER, CYD CHARISSE, DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR., JANET LEIGH - HFSID 251972

LAUREN BACALL CO-SIGNED BY: FARLEY GRANGER; CYD CHARISSE; DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR.; JANET LEIGH
This 1944 first day cover commemorating the 50th anniversary of motion pictures was signed by five Hollywood stars
First Day Cover signed: "Lauren Bacall", "Farley Granger", "Cyd Charisse", "Janet Leigh" and "Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.". 6½x3½. FDC commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Motion Pictures, 3-cent stamp picturing same affixed, postmarked New York, New York, October 31, 1944, FIRST DAY OF ISSUE. Signed by five Hollywood stars. When model LAUREN BACALL (1924-2014) made her Hollywood debut in Hawks' To Have and Have Not (1944) with Humphrey Bogart, both film critics and moviegoers fell in love with the beauty with the throaty voice. Lauded as the most sensational newcomer of the year, Bacall found both fame and love, eventually marrying Bogart. After his death in 1957, Bacall made Designing Women (1957) and The Gift of Love (1958). In 1970, she made a triumphant comeback in the stage production of Applause. Bacall's later films include Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Shootist (1976) and The Fan (1981). The actress was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), winning a Golden Globe in the same category. The previous year, she had received an Honorary Award from the French Academy of Cinema. To this day she continues to charm audiences with her trademark dancer's eloquence of movement, suggestive twinkle in her eye and fierce female shrewdness. DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR. (1909-2000), the son of the dashing actor of the 1920s and Anna Beth Sully. Although the younger Fairbanks, a movie producer as well as an actor, appeared in some 75 films, his father took little interest in his son's career. His feature films included Stella Dallas (1926), Little Caesar (1930), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Gunga Din (1939) and Sinbad the Sailor (1947), and Fairbanks also appeared in a number of made-for-TV movies and hosted the anthology series, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Presents (1952-1955). Fairbanks was highly decorated for his US Navy service in World War II; he organized the Beach Jumpers, an elite unit which staged diversionary amphibious landings to draw enemy forces away from the genuine landing sites. In the 1930s, he was married to actress Joan Crawford. Stage, screen and television actor FARLEY GRANGER (1925-2011) is best known to television audiences for his work on soap operas, including One Life to Live (1976-1977), The Edge of Night (1980) and As the World Turns (1986-1987). One of the last Goldwyn contract players, Granger had made his film debut in The North Star in 1943. After a stint in WWII, he returned to acting, making both Hollywood and Italian films. His other TV work includes appearances on early anthologies (from 1953) and guest starring roles on series through 1990. He also made a brief Broadway comeback in Deathtrap in 1980. CYD CHARISSE (1921-2008), one of film's best dancers, spent her childhood studying ballet. At age 13, she joined the Ballet Russe. Five years later, in 1940, she married Nico Charisse, her ballet instructor. A more enduring marriage followed, to actor and pop singer Tony Martin. Charisse starred with Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957) and with Gene Kelly in Words and Music (1948), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Brigadoon(1954), Deep in My Heart (1954), It's Always Fair Weather (1955) and Invitation to the Dance (1956). The mother of actresses Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis with third husband (1951-1962) Tony Curtis, JANET LEIGH (1927-2004) was one of Hollywood's biggest stars from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Best remembered as the Oscar-nominated murder victim in the shower in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), she also starred in such films as Little Women (1949), Scaramouche (1952), My Sister Eileen (1955), Touch of Evil (1958), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Harper (1966). Lightly soiled. Otherwise, fine condition.