OTIS SKINNER - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH 1900 - HFSID 255744

OTIS SKINNER
Rare full-length sepia-toned Morrison photograph from Chicago's Haymarket Theatre Building of actor Otis Morrison in Edwardian costume, signed by Morris in 1900. The Haymarket Theatre was torn down in 1950 to make way for an expressway.
Photograph signed "Otis Skinner/1900". B/w sepia-toned, 7x11¾ photo mounted on 7¼x12¾ card with rounded corners. Photograph by Morrison and the Haymarket Theatre Building in Chicago, Illinois. Captioned on card: "Otis Skinner". The Haymarket Theatre opened in Chicago, Illinois in 1887, but was closed in 1949 and demolished in 1950 to make way for the Kennedy Expressway, I-90. It was, by turns, a legitimate theatre, a vaudeville house, a burlesque house and a second-run movie theatre, and it suffered through three fires between 1893 and 1923, the last of which collapsed the roof and partially destroyed the theatre. Skinner (1858-1942, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was an American stage actor and producer. Skinner had originally trained for a career in commerce, but a visit to the theatre reportedly left him stage-struck. He earned his chops playing bit roles in stock companies in New York and Boston. He toured with the likes of Augustin Daly, Edwin Booth and Helena Modjeska in the 1880s and, by the 1890s, was a legitimate star. Skinner specialized in Shakespearean roles; his performances were praised as natural and unaffected, and he made Shylock from The Merchant of Venice a character with whom the audience could sympathize . However, his signature role was as Hajj in Kismet, which he performed on Broadway from 1911 to 1912 for 184 performances and on the silver screen in 1920 and 1930. In all, Skinner had 25 Broadway appearances between 1900 and 1933. Lightly toned, stained, soiled, creased and bowed. Paper loss and mounting and tape remnants on verso (no show-through). Lightly scratched and scuffed (no show-through). Otherwise in fine condition.