RICARDO CORTEZ. Vintage 5x7 matte finish silver tone bust portrait, circa 1935, boldly signed in black fountain pen, "Best wishes/Ricardo Cortez." Fine condition, with a faint paper clip impression in the upper left corner and a mild horizontal bend in the right background, not markedly detracting from overall appearance. A nice Jewish boy from Vienna, Jake Krantz was transformed into Ricardo Cortez by a Hollywood studio and groomed as a successor to Rudolph Valentino. As a contract player with Warner Bros., he made a smooth transition to sound, but a succession of mediocre scripts combined with his own limited acting ability soon led to a decline in his career. By the mid-Thirties he was pretty much relegated to playing shady characters who got bumped off in the first reel. A standout among his many films was the first screen version of The Maltese Falcon, released in 1931, in which he played Sam Spade. Authentically signed photographs are quite uncommon.
$70 |
