Cat. #0014423322: GIBSON GOWLAND

Extremely rare vintage pencil signature on a 1.25 x 5.25-inch slip of off-white paper, dating to the 1930s, affixed to a 4x6-inch tan album page.  Just the second example we have ever encountered, in very good condition for its age and suitable for matting.  Note that the image of the actor accompanying the scan of the autograph here is not actually included with the signed item.  Gruff, burly character actor Gibson Gowland played oversized brutes and thugs, perhaps most memorably Silent Sepp and McTeague in Erich Von Stroheim's Blind Husbands (1919) and Greed (1924), respectively.  He also had small, memorable roles in classic films like F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927), The Mysterious Island (1929), Arrowsmith (1931), The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), Phantom Ship (1935), The Ape (1940) with Boris Karloff, How Green Was My Valley (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Human Comedy (1943), Going My Way (1944), Gaslight (1944), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).  Among horror, sci-fi and fantasy buffs, Gowland has an unusual distinction:  He is the only actor to appear in separate death scenes filmed by Lon Chaney, Sr., with whom he appeared as Simon Buquet in The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and Lon Chaney, Jr., playing a villager in The Wolf Man (1941).