PAULETTE GODDARD - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED 06/12/1946 - HFSID 288924

PAULETTE GODDARD
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce Paulette Goddard's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Goddard, once as an autograph sample and again to grant permission. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: "Paulette Goddard", 1 page, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, 1946 June 12. Paulette Goddard grants to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, Inc., its successors and assigns, the exclusive right, 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. Paulette Goddard (1911-1990) was an American actress. A former teen Broadway chorus girl, she first attracted attention when she was featured reclining on a prop crescent moon in the 1928 Ziegfeld musical, Rio Rita. Goddard reportedly made several two-reel comedies for Hal Roach (in a blond wig) before being featured as a "Goldwyn Girl" in Eddie Cantor's film, Kid from Spain, in 1932. She shot to stardom when she was cast by Charlie Chaplin in his 1936 film, Modern Times. Goddard also won Chaplin's heart as well as the role, but there were questions as to whether the two were ever legally married, and her relationship with Chaplin cost her the one role that she truly coveted: Scarlett O'Hara in the 1939 epic, Gone With the Wind. Goddard, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for So Proudly We Hail (1943), also appeared in such films as The Great Dictator (1940) and Reap the Wild Wind (1942) before making her final film, the French/Italian movie Gli Indifferenti (Time of Indifference), in 1964. She was coaxed out of retirement for a made-for-TV movie, The Snoop Sisters, in 1972. 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 edge. Staples holes at top edge. Lightly toned at bottom right corner. Pencil marks (unknown hand). Multiple mailing folds. Otherwise, fine condition.