Natalie Wood Signed Photo West Side Story Display – COA JSA

Presented is an autographed West Side Story photo of Natalie Wood within a custom display (16″ x 19″). She signed her photo (2″ x 3″)  cut  signature in the black felt tip (“7-8”) clipped delicately from the 1959 book, “Pictorial History of Television.”

Natalie Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age 8 in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), followed by a role in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956). Wood starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962) and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Her career continued with films such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).

The autographs were part of a larger compilation within the book. Note, there were two books in this collection from which these autographs were obtained. Wildly obsessive by a Hollywood insider no doubt it featured the duteous task of 400 signatures of television actors and actresses, nearly all signed by their respective images, with a few adding brief inscriptions in the books. Now, the signatures have been wonderfully conserved from the books and preserved singly for appreciation.

Television’s intention was to revolutionize America’s desire for more entertainment. Previously for enjoyment, Americans were flocking to the theater or stationed next to their radio for their daily broadcasts. Before the end of 1931, as the industry gained a full-steam-ahead approach, CBS President William Paley announced they were, “on the air seven hours daily, seven days a week.”

In 1959, Daniel Blum caught up with the history of the television industry by providing a first look at the medium in the form of a photography book. Titled, “Pictorial History of Television” the publication peeked into the earliest conception in the 1930s toward it’s humble beginnings in the late 1940s into the late 1950s. The hardcover is a heavily photo-illustrated survey of the major programs and personalities of that time period (1930s-50s). Notably, the era of television like the silent film is rapidly vanishing from first-hand accounts and memories as generations get older. So, there is the importance behind this work.

Blum continued his cavalcade of media books later in his career with “A Pictorial History of the Talkies”, “The Silent Screen”, “The American Theatre” and “Television” and of course volumes and volumes of the “Theatre World” and “Screen World” Annuals.

Overall, the autographed photo presents as a reward for the tremendous complication of both television history and the latter arduous task of signature collecting.

Authentication: JSA Full Letter

Natalie Wood Signed Photo