Ray Bolger Signed Photo w/ Paul Hartman & Edgar Bergen – COA JSA

Presented is an autographed photo of Ray Bolger, Paul Hartman and Edgar Bergen. Each signed their respective photo in the collage trio (4.5″ x 9″) in black felt tip (“9”) clipped delicately from the 1959 book, “Pictorial History of Television.” The clipping features both stars in pictorial television snips. Bolger is shown in the television show, “Washington Square.” Hartman is featured in “Ford Star Revue” (standing next to Grace Hartman) and Bergen is in the third photo of “Colgate Comedy Hour” standing next to Sue Carson.

Ray Bolger was a major Broadway performer in the 1930s and beyond. He is best known for his roles in The Wizard of Oz (1939) as the Scarecrow and in Walt Disney’s holiday musical fantasy Babes in Toyland in 1961 as the villainous Barnaby.

He starred in “Washington Square” as an agent looking for talent in New York City in this musical revue with a light plot. The format allowed him, the regulars and a guest or two to break into song as he visited them. For example, at the Greenwich Village Inn, Bolger met Broadway belter Elaine Stritch, the hotel’s operator; country crooner Rusty Draper; R&B act The Three Flames; and the dance duo of (Ruth) Mata and (Eugene) Hari. It was not all music, however; at the Washington Square Playhouse, actress Jo Wilder did a dramatic scene between acts.

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.

Authentication: JSA Basic Cert & Sticker

Ray Bolger Signed Photo