TONY MARTIN - AUTOGRAPH CIRCA 1948 CO-SIGNED BY: BUSTER SHAVER - HFSID 143564

TONY MARTIN; BUSTER SHAVER
4½x3¾ album leaf, signed on one side by the crooner, and on the other by the vaudeville musician
Signature: "Tony Martin", 4½x3¾ album leaf. Dated at bottom right corner "10-6-48" (unknown hand). Also signed on verso: "Buster Shaver." TONY MARTIN, (1913-2012), was a popular crooner of the 1940s and 1950s whose deliberate delivery and romantic ballads were more in keeping with vintage movie musicals than the currents that would shape the pop music of the last half of the 20th century. He made his first hit record in 1938, Now It Can Be Told. After serving in the Navy in WWII, Martin made a brief but fairly successful stint on Mercury from 1946 to 1947 that helped get things going for him again, after which he moved to RCA and enjoyed many pop hits over the next decade. He also got a lot of work in radio and television, and performed with considerable success on the cabaret circuit with his wife, dancer-actress Cyd Charisse. BUSTER SHAVER was a dancer, pianist, and all-around vaudeville entertainer. In the 1930s, he introduced George and Olive Brasno, midget dancers who appeared in several films, including two Our Gang features, (and turned down roles in The Wizard of Oz because Shaver was paying them better). Shaver himself appeared in some short films, including Vaudeville (1934), and in the Broadway musical Are You With It? (1945-1946). Shaver was featured, again with the Brasno's, in a London pantomime, Babe in the Woods (1948). A video of Shaver dancing with Olive Brasno (a Christmas doll come to life) to the tune of "Hello Young Lovers" on The Colgate Comedy Hour (1952) can be viewed on the web. Ink lightly beaded but legible. Corners worn. Otherwise, fine condition.