MONTY "THE BEARD" WOOLLEY - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED 07/22/1946 - HFSID 289160

MONTY WOOLLEY
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce Monty Woolley's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Woolley, once as an autograph sample and again to grant permission. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: "Edgar M. Woolley/(Professionally known as MONTY WOOLLEY" and "Monty Woolley", 1 page, 8½x11. Saratoga Springs, New York, 1946 July 22.  Monty Woolley grants to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, Inc., its successors and assigns, the exclusive right, until December 31, 1947 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. Monty Woolley (1888-1963) was an Oscar-nominated American actor and stage director. Woolley was born into privilege at the New York City's Bristol Hotel - which his father owned - and grew up with the glitterati of his age. He became president of the Yale Dramatic Association and later, after serving as an intelligence officer in France during World War I, commandeered the Yale Experimental Theatre until 1927. Cole Porter, one of his high-placed friends, helped him break into professional theatre as a stage director. He had 10 Broadway credits, mostly as a director, between 1929 and 1941. Woolley got onto the big screen with an un-credited role in Ladies in Love (1936) and went on to appear in over 30 movies and TV shows. Woolley was known as "The Beard" for his full beard, which emphasized his intellectualism and easily typecast him. Among his most memorable performances were as the bombastic and authoritarian Sheridan Whiteside in the Broadway production The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939-1941, 739 performances) and its 1941 film adaptation. But he could also display great depth, as shown by his Oscar-nominated performances in The Pied Piper (1942) and Since You Went Away (1944). 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 check (unknown hand). Otherwise, fine condition.