March 2025 Sports Card & Memorabilia Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/16/2025
Rare Singer/Actor Autographs - Douglas McPhail (d. 1944 of Suicide) & Henry Armetta (d. 1945 During Show). Although his career was short-lived, McPhail was fortunate enough to have appeared in some of the finest musicals and operettas of the late 30s. Jeanette MacDonald took an early interest in this handsome baritone, when he performed in the chorus of San Francisco and other of her pictures. The studio signed him on at nineteen as the back-up for Nelson Eddy in The Girl of the Golden West (1938), although McPhail did not get screen time. His career flared briefly in 1939 and 1940, when he appeared with MacDonald, Judy Garland, Eleanor Powell and future wife Betty Jaynes in a series of musical pictures. Although the studio groomed him as the next Nelson Eddy, it failed to recognize the changing interests of the moviegoing public, who tired of his style of singing. His marriage failed, and he took to drink. Roles dried up, and after an earlier suicide attempt, McPhail succeeded in poisoning himself on December 6, 1944. Armetta was an American character actor who appeared in at least 150 American films, beginning in silent movies. His last film was released posthumously in 1946, the year after his death. (JSA Auction Letter)
Condition: VG-EX+
Rare Singer/Actor Autographs - Douglas McPhail (d. 1944 of Suicide) & Henry Armetta (d. 1945 During Show) (JSA Auction Letter)
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