Hollywood Actress-signed Photographs, ca. 1942
APPRAISER:
So we have Hollywood photos here. Tell me about this one up here.
GUEST:
That's Morrow, my stepfather. That's in the early '50s at Arthur Murray. He was such a good dancer that Arthur Murray actually wanted him to be an instructor. That's one of his talents back in the day.
APPRAISER:
And what about the rest of these?
GUEST:
Well, Morrow was in the Navy from 1939 to 1945. And in 1940, he went to Washington, and in '41, he went to the Sound Motion Picture Studio to learn motion picture. And in '42, he went to Hollywood and got all these autographs from these movie stars.
APPRAISER:
So you're not sure what he was doing and how he encountered all these people.
GUEST:
Nope. He never talked about the service. We only learned a lot of this stuff from my mother after he passed.
APPRAISER:
Right, so no one's quite sure how he was lucky enough to meet some of Hollywood's hottest ladies at the time.
GUEST (laughing): No, no.
APPRAISER:
Clearly he was a pretty lucky man, because we're showing three here. There's a total of 18, so we have 15 more signatures in the book here, signed photos. What we have here is Judy Garland, Veronica Lake, Carmen Miranda. They're fantastic photos because they're from the '40s and they're vintage.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Many of these women lived very long lives. So when they signed much later in their career, they're not worth quite as much as they are when they're nice early shots like this. And we know when he got them because you know he went to Hollywood in '42.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
So one thing I know is that one of the places you might find a lot of these ladies in 1942 in Hollywood was at the Hollywood Canteen. So in October of 1942, Bette Davis was very instrumental, Jule Styne, one of the guys from MCA, they got together and they decided to start a club for servicemen. From what they say, the Canteen ran from October of 1942. So if you were to find out when he went in '42, it's probably some time right around then. And it closed on Thanksgiving Day 1945. And they estimate that they served over three million servicemen during that time. Your ticket for entry was your uniform.
GUEST:
Oh really, okay.
APPRAISER:
Once you walked through the door you paid nothing. Over 3,000 Hollywood stars, directors, entertainers put on music. A lot of these top Hollywood ladies would dance with the servicemen, that was a big highlight. They were the service people, they would come wait on you. So you were being taken care of. Hollywood was thanking the servicemen that were fighting the war. And while we don't know for sure because there's no way for us to know, I think it's probably really likely that's where he got all of these. I actually ran every name that we have in the book here through the list. And every one of these people was on the list of people who volunteered at the Canteen.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
We also know that he was a good dancer, as you pointed out.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
So chances are he may have even danced with some of these people. So then we look at the value of these pictures, and for the ones we have right in front of us, a Judy Garland from this era, because she's quite young here, is worth anywhere between $600 to $800. Veronica Lake, $300 to $500. That's a great Carmen Miranda shot, exactly how you want to see her with the whole fruit headdress, $300 to $500. And if we add up everything else you have here in the book, a lot of other great people-- Rita Hayworth, Lucille Ball, the list goes on and on. It's around for total at auction between $4,000 to $6,000.
GUEST:
Oh, wow, that's pretty good to know. Thank you very much.
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