OLGA SAN JUAN - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED 11/14/1946 - HFSID 289256

OLGA SAN JUAN
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce Olga San Juan's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Juan, once as an autograph sample and again to grant permission. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: '"Olga San Juan", 1 page, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, 1946 November 14. Olga San Juan grants to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, Inc., its successors and assigns, the exclusive right, until December 31, 1947 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. Born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican patents, Olga San Juan (1927-2009) danced the fandango for FDR at the White House at age 11, and was performing in New York nightclubs in her teens. Signed by Paramount, she was soon hoofing with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in Blue Skies (1946) and with Donald O'Connor in Are You With It? (1948). With her hair dyed, she became the first blonde "Latin spitfire." First and foremost a singer and dancer, she was also adept at comedy, and especially for her mangling of the English language. After marrying actor Edmund O'Brien in 1948, she starred in the Broadway show Paint Your Wagon (1951), but otherwise devoted herself mostly to supporting roles in his movies (like The Barefoot Contessa, 1954) and to raising a family. 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 top left. Staple holes at top left. Normal mailing folds. Slightly creased. Pencil mark (unknown hand). Otherwise, fine condition.