Wayne Morris, Cinema Actor & World War II Fighter Ace - Signed Movie-Promo Photo (1938) and Separate Signed Slip; also, associated Adele Jergens Autograph

Hollywood, CA: Warner Bros. & Vitaphone Pictures / Vitagraph Copyright, 1938. No Binding. Fine. Respectively, Fine and Very Good conditions. See scans and description. Wayne Morris, cinema actor & World War II fighter ace signed 8 1/8" x 10" black & white movie-promo photo, 1938, ) and separate signed slip; also, on reverse of the second, an Adele Jergens autograph. All three signatures have accompanying hardcopy certifications from FHE (Forensic Handwriting Examiner) Frank Garo. Photo is in fine, flawless condition, and is dated September 8, 1938 by Morris on the reverse. Photo was published by Warner Bros. & Vitaphone Pictures, and copyrighted by Viitagraph Inc. Photo is inscribed to an "Artie" and signed by Morris. Accompanying personal collector's slip has Morris' taped-on autograph, and may have originated in 1946 (see scan). On the reverse of this personal piece is the inscription and signature "To Joyce" by American actress Adele Jergens. Presumably both autographs on this piece were collected by the otherwise-unidentified "Joyce". Possibly separable, but we will not attempt that separation. This personal piece is in Very Good condition. Both come to us from the Pacific Book Auction Gallery, from a consignment of the collection of military aviation collector Richard Calow, who probably came into possession of them between 1965 and 1971. As yet another point of interest, the two Morris autographs are of two different hands which Morris used for autographing, but each has been authenticated and certified by the same FHE. Wayne Morris was both a well-known Hollywood actor (Kid Galahad, The Bushwackers, Paths of Glory and other films) and a decorated World War II fighter ace; he flew the F6F Hellcat off the aircraft carrier USS Essex, and was "credited with 57 aerial sorties, shooting down seven Japanese Zeros, sinking an escort vessel and a flak gunboat and helping sink a submarine and damage a heavy cruiser and a mine layer", for which he was awarded four Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals. Adele Jergens was "a model and chorus girl, including being an understudy to Gypsy Rose Lee in the Broadway show Star and Garter in 1942", then signed with Columbia and appeared in a number of movies, including A Thousand and One Nights (1945), Down to Earth (1947), The Corpse Came C.O.D. (1947), The Dark Past (1948), The Woman from Tangier (1948), Ladies of the Chorus (1948), Slightly French (1949), The Crime Doctor's Diary (1949), Armored Car Robbery (1950), Beware of Blondie (1950), Blonde Dynamite (1950), Edge of Doom (1950), Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), The Miami Story (1954), The Day the World Ended (1955), and The Cobweb (1955). All three signatures are nice, relatively early ones. Altogether, clearly a unique item. LPR38