WALTER BRENNAN - DOCUMENT DOUBLE SIGNED 08/05/1946 - HFSID 289213

WALTER BRENNAN
Consent form authorizing the Motion Picture Relief Fund to reproduce Walter Brennan's signature and likeness for a series of stamps raising money for needy film industry veterans. The form is signed twice by Brennan, once as an autograph sample and again to grant permission. A remarkable, perfectly verified example!
Document signed twice: "Walter Brennan", 1 page, 8½x11. Los Angeles, California, 1946 August 5. Walter Brennan 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. In 1936, Brennan (1894-1974) won the first of his three Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards for his role as Swan Bostrom in Come and Get It, set in the Wisconsin woodlands. In 1938, he won the Oscar for his role as septuagenarian horse breeder Peter Goodwin in Kentucky and won again in 1940 for The Westerner, playing legendary Judge Roy Bean. From 1957-1963, he was Grandpa Amos McCoy in TV's The Real McCoys. He portrayed a former cavalry scout raising his grandson in The Guns of Will Sonnett on ABC from 1967-1969. 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, adhesive patch at top hole). Normal mailing holds. Slightly creased. Slightly soiled. Otherwise, fine condition.