Cat. #0016102: RITA LA ROY

Uncommon vintage signed and inscribed sentiment in green fountain pen on a 3.5 x 6-inch pink autograph album page, acquired in-person in 1932, at the very onset of her film career.  In good condition.  The dark, sultry-looking leading lady-- who claimed she was the the offspring of an exotic French actress and a British nobleman, but was actually born in Ina Stuart of Idaho-- was memorable as burlesque queen Taxi Belle Hooper in Josef Von Sternberg's The Blonde Venus (1932), subjected to some of Marlene Dietrich's more stinging barbs.  She played scores of catty, vituperative women and femmes fatales in films like Check and Double Check (1930), Sin Takes a Holiday (1930), A Holy Terror (1931), Sinners in the Sun (1932), The Mandarin Mystery (1936), Lady from Nowhere (1936), Dangerous to Know (1938), and Hold That Woman! (1940).  Save for a handful of television appearances in the 1950s, she vanished from the screen in 1949, embarking upon a new career as the owner of a modeling studio.