Eugenie Leontovich Autograph with Great Written SentIment, ANASTASIA, 1955

Description

About the Autograph Collection. My Aunt Helen spent years collecting autographs during her tenure at The National Theater in Washington DC.
She began her tenure in 1932 until her retirement in the mid 1980’s due to an Auto Accident. Most of the collection spans the 1940’s, 50’s with some autographs from the 60’s and 70’s. Some of the Autographs Collection was recently sold to
Tamino Autographs in New York
. As a point of interest I’ve included a family photo.
I will be listing more from this fairly large collection over the next few weeks.
* ANASTASIA, 1955 Eugenie Leontovich,
Sentiment: To Helen with full faith that she’ll do  beautifuly in whatever she’ll choose to do!
Eugenie Leontovich (Born Evgenia Konstantinovna Leontovich; Russian: Евге́ния Константиновна Леонто́вич, tr. Evgéniya Konstantinovna Leontóvich; March 21 or April 3
(Leontovich cited the latter date on her U.S. naturalization paperwork; the discrepancy may be between the O.S. (Julian) and N.S. (Gregorian) calendars) in either 1900, which most sources cite and which Leontovich herself claimed, or earlier, i.e. 1893, according to a border crossing manifest from September 23, 1922, which gives her age as 29, indicating 1893 as her year of birth, or 1894 or 1898, according to a different travel manifest. A Russian-born United States stage actress with a distinguished career in theatre, film and television, as well as a dramatist and acting teacher.
She was described as “[o]ne of the most colourful figures of the 20th-century theatre,
a successful actress, producer, playwright and teacher. She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for William Saroyan’s The Cave Dwellers.
Born in Podolsk, she studied at Moscow’s Imperial School of Dramatic Art, and then under Meyerhold at the Moscow Art Theatre, which she subsequently joined. The daughter of Konstantin Leontovich, an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, she suffered greatly during the Revolution. Her three brothers (who were Army officers like their father) were murdered by the Bolsheviks. In 1922, she “found her way to New York and set about mastering the English language”. That year, she joined a touring company of the musical Blossom Time in 1922 and traveled throughout much of the U.S. Her success led to Broadway stardom.
Eugenie Leontovich as Grusinskaia, the dancer, in the original Broadway production of Grand Hotel (1930)
After touring the country in Blossom Time, she was cast as Grusinskaia in the Broadway adaptation of Vicki Baum’s novel Grand Hotel. An enormous success, the play, which opened in 1930, was later filmed with Greta Garbo in the part created by Leontovich. After Grand Hotel Leontovich was given the role of Lily Garland (aka Mildred Plotka) in Twentieth Century, a comedy by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. She played the role from December 29, 1932 until May 20, 1933.
She also played the Archduchess Tatiana in Tovarich, a comedy about a pair of Russian aristocrats who survive in Paris by going into domestic service. It was in this play that she made a highly successful London debut at the Lyric Theatre in 1935, with Cedric Hardwicke as her co-star. During World War II she appeared on Broadway in Dark Eyes, a comedy she wrote with Elena Miramova about three Russian exiles in New York. The play was produced in London after the war with Eugenia Delarova and Irina Baronova. In 1936, she had played Shakespeare’s Cleopatra at the New Theatre, returning to London in 1947 as a female Russian general in a farce which she co-authored, Caviar To The General, which temporarily displaced Phyllis Dixey at the Whitehall. A year later, she moved to Los Angeles, where for the next five years she had her own theatre, The Stage, where she both produced and performed.
In 1954, she created the role of the Dowager Empress in the play Anastasia on Broadway. (The role was played by Helen Hayes in the film version.) In 1972, she adapted Anna Karenina for off-Broadway, calling it Anna K. and appearing in it with success. Leontovich made a handful of films. For most of her long professional life she was identified with the stage. For seven years in the 1960s she was artist in residence at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. She taught acting in California and New York City.
Broadway plays; Leontovich made her Broadway debut in 1922 in Revue Russe, appearing with Gregory Ratoff, whom she married the following year. She appeared on Broadway in Bitter Oleander (1935), Dark Eyes (1943) which she co-wrote, and Obsession (1946). Her most notable role as the Dowager Empress in Anastasia (1954).
Leontovich, whose students addressed her and referred to her as “Madame”, lived in a Manhattan apartment surrounded by family pictures and icons. Both of her marriages ended in divorce and she had no children. She became a naturalized United States citizen on September 5, 1929. According to her official biography, her first husband, Paul Sokolov, was purportedly a Russian noble. Her second husband was actor, producer, and director Gregory Ratoff, whom she married on January 19, 1923; they lived in California until their divorce,[when?] and she moved to New York.
Dorothy Clara Louise Haas (29 April 1910 – 16 September 1994)
was a German-American actress and singer who played in German and American films, and often appeared in Broadway plays. Her husband was caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. Dolly Haas had her debut as a professional actress in 1927. She then worked at Berlin’s Grosses Schauspielhaus, before embarking on a film career that brought her to England and to Hollywood. She also performed on Broadway. Haas enjoyed a brief but successful stage career in the United States as well, appearing alongside such luminaries as John Gielgud and Lillian Gish in the 1947 revival of Crime and Punishment. She made her New York stage debut in 1941 in Erwin Piscator’s production of “The Circle of Chalk. She followed Mary Martin in the lead role in Lute Song in 1946 for the touring production. Her co-star, Yul Brynner, said that Haas’ casting substantially improved the show, stating that, “Dolly Haas understood the part. She had an affinity for it, and the play immediately improved. It wasn’t at all that Dolly was a better actress. She was just better casting for the part than Mary. Mary Martin agreed with Brynner’s assessment, and helped Haas to prepare for the role in a very short span of time allotted for rehearsal. She performed in Off Broadway productions of The Threepenny Opera and Brecht on Brecht. Although Haas did not appear in many English language films, she had an important role in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1953 film, I Confess. Haas was a personal friend of Hitchcock’s, and Hitchcock cast her as Alma Keller, the wife of the murderer—janitor Otto Keller. This high-profile film also starred Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden and Brian Aherne.
John Emery (May 20, 1905 – November 16, 1964)
was an American stage, film, radio and television actor. Through the late 1930s to the early 1960s he appeared in supporting roles in many Hollywood films, beginning with James Whale’s The Road Back (1937) and ranging from Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound to Rocketship X-M. Emery appeared on Broadway in John Brown (1934), Romeo and Juliet (1934-1935), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1935), Flowers of the Forest (1935), Parnell (1935-1936), Alice Takat (1936), Sweet Aloes (1936), Hamlet (1936-1937), Antony and Cleopatra (1937), Save Me the Waltz (1938), The Unconquered (1940), Liliom (1940), Retreat to Pleasure (1940-1941), Angel Street (1941-1944), Peepshow (1944), The Relapse (1950), The Royal Family (1951), The Constant Wife (1951-1952), Anastasia (1954-1955), Hotel Paradiso (1957), and Rape of the Belt (1960).
Robert Duke was born on June 22, 1917 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was an actor, known for An Angel Comes to Brooklyn (1945), Gunman in the Streets (1950) and Le traqué (1950). He died on March 8, 1979 in Katonah, New York, USA.
Character Actor KURT RICHARDS, was also known in Hollywood as Jonathan Kidd
after a producer suggested he change his name. Under the name Richards, he appeared in 16 Broadway productions, including Anastasia, Come Back Little Sheba and A Streetcar Named Desire. When Richards came to Hollywood, he changed his name and had roles in Wink of an Eye, Macabre, Can Can, The One and Only Genuine, Original Family Band and Operation Eichmann. He also was billed as Kidd in such TV series as Perry Mason, Sea Hunt and Dr. Kildare.
Carl Don was born on December 15, 1910 in Vitebsk, Russian Empire
. He was an actor, known for Ransom (1996), Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) and Stardust Memories (1980). He died on March 6, 2001 in New York City, New York, USA.
George Cotton was born on November 1, 1903 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949), The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950). He died on May 26, 1975 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Lili Valenty August 17, 1900 in Lódz, Poland, Russian Empire -March 11, 1987
in Los Angeles, Birth Name Lili Eisenlohr Valenty. The multi-faceted Polish-born performer Lili Valenty appeared in a dozen or so Broadway plays in the 30s, 40s and 50s, then went on to enliven a number of routine on-camera projects in her twilight years. Born at the turn of the century, she received her start on the German stage where she became a star. In the early 1930s she emigrated to America and tried to parlay her European success into stardom here. Although she fell quite short, she did launch a moderately successful career on both radio and the Broadway stage. Some of her NY theater productions included “Bitter Stream” (her debut) 1936, “Cue for Passion” (1940), “The Land Is Bright” (1941), “Sky Drift” (1945), and “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” (1950). In 1955 she was a replacement in the role of Baroness Livenbaum in the successful Broadway production of “Anastasia” starring Viveca Lindfors and Eugenie Leontovich, which later went on tour. Lili later transitioned into the film and TV mediums, predominantly in decorative fluff unworthy of her talents. Although she made her film debut in support of Anna Magnani in the melodrama Wild Is the Wind (1957), she continued rather inauspiciously from there with a minor dowager role in Can-Can (1960), and typical ethnic parts in The Story of Ruth (1960), the Troy Donahue / Suzanne Pleshette romantic excursion Rome Adventure (1962), one of Elvis Presley’s weaker vehicles Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), and the Jayne Mansfield “comedy” It Happened in Athens (1962). Sometimes billed as “Lili Valenti”, she appeared sparingly after this as various mamas, madames, gypsies, nuns, ballet teachers, and the like on episodic TV. She died in Los Angeles in 1987 at age 86 and left no survivors.