MARY PICKFORD - BOOK PAGE SIGNED 5/1954 CO-SIGNED BY: IRVING BERLIN - HFSID 284223

MARY PICKFORD and IRVING BERLIN
They sign opposite sides of a book page, each on a picture featuring a contribution to the US war effort. Pickford had added an inscription.
Book Page inscribed and signed: "To Bill - with all good wishes/Mary Pickford May - 1954", 6½x9½, and on verso: "Irving Berlin". Page from the book From Movie Lot to Beachhead: The Motion Picture goes to War and Prepares for the Future, by the editor's of Look magazine, 1945. Pickford's page features to photo images of her engaged in fundraising and morale-building activity in World Wars I and II respectively. Berlin's picture shows him in film footage used in his morale-boosting films for both World Wars. Shown in other pictures are Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Laughton. MARY PICKFORD (1893-1979) began working at Biograph Studios in 1909 at $40 a week. By 1912, she was making $500 weekly at Adolph Zukor's Famous Players. Her salary was doubled periodically. In 1916, Pickford signed an astounding contract with Zukor for $10,000 a week plus a $300,000 bonus plus the formation of The Mary Pickford Company, a studio devoted exclusively to the making of her films. Pickford was the first superstar of the movies. In 1919, Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks formed United Artists to distribute their films. In 1920, Pickford and Fairbanks were married. They separated in 1933, which coincided with Pickford retiring from the movies. Pickford and Fairbanks were divorced in January 1936. Inn 1937, she established the Mary Pickford Cosmetics Company. That same year, she married former co-star Charles "Buddy" Rogers. IRVING BERLIN (1888-1989), born Israel Isidore Baline in Tumen, Siberia, Russia, was such a force in American music that in 1924, when Berlin was just 37, songwriter Jerome Kern gave this assessment: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music." If the only song he ever wrote was "God Bless America", made famous by Kate Smith, Berlin would be an important part of American music. But Berlin wrote more than 900 songs, including the classics "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody", "There's No Business Like Show Business", "Always", "Easter Parade" and "Blue Skies", 19 musicals, including Annie Get Your Gun and Call Me Madam, and the scores of 18 movies, including Holiday Inn, which featured his 1942 Academy Award-winning song, "White Christmas".  Left edge torn from previous binding. Soiled. Otherwise, fine condition.