Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930 – November 7, 1980), nicknamed the “King of Cool”, was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1974, he became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years. He was combative with directors and producers, but his popularity placed him in high demand and enabled him to command the largest salaries.
WalterFilm.com’s third catalog (#44/2019) contains 84 pages that include vintage original photographs, posters, programs, pressbooks, lobby cards and film scripts. The categories encompassed are: Warhol, LGBTQ, Movie Musicals, African Americana, Pre-Code Hollywood, Literature, Film Directors and Women.
The catalog’s cover (above) is graced by a in-flight image of a dancing Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth (attributed to photographer George Hurrell) from the 1942 poster of Columbia Picture’s “You Were Never Lovelier” (see below).
1930s movie posters proclaimed, week after week, what Hollywood had to offer to an eager world during the days of the great movie studios and the Great Depression. No better example of this is the above exquisite 1932 vintage original Belgian poster of Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express.
The Beginning
In the beginning, as the fledgling studios began to grow, and knowing that a portion of their potential audience was illiterate, they took their cue from vaudeville, fairs and the circus to create colorful artwork that depicted scenes from their movies in order to promote their films.
From the mid 1920s through the 1940’s, movie studios developed their own artwork styles for their posters, lobby cards and other marketing materials. They hired well-known artists and illustrators, such as Al Hirschfeld, John Held Jr., Hap Hadley, Ted Ireland, Louis Fancher, Clayton Knight and Armando Seguso, to create the illustrations and graphic designs.
The introduction of the color offset lithography printing technique in the 1920’s changed the artistic quality of posters, sharpening the image and, over time, shifting the emphasis from illustration to photography.
At the same time, Hollywood Portrait Photography evolved as a result of the work of six individuals that became the photographers of choice for “shooting the stars:” Albert Witzel, George Hurrell, Clarence Bull, Ruth Harriet Louise, Milton Greene and Cecil Beaton.
As an addition to our WalterFilm.com website, we are delighted to announce that Walter Reuben Inc. has expanded its marketing profile to include a portfolio of catalogs that will consist of exceptional items, as exampled above. This first catalog in this series (#42/2018) is 126 pages and encompasses the breadth and depth of our collecting and connoisseurship.
Its cover is graced by a stunning photograph of Audrey Hepburn in the “little black dress” designed by Hubert de Givenchy and worn by her in the opening scene of the 1961 romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Here are two additional photographs of that scene from our collection.
