Cat. #00132223: JACK DUFFY

Exceptionally rare vintage 8x10-inch double-weight black and white comic portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in black fountain pen in the 1920s. In good condition, with some minor corner wear. On the verso, there is a sticker from the third-party authentication service P.S.A. and the corresponding certificate accompanies the photograph. Rascally vaudevillian, music hall star and Universal, L-KO and Vitagraph silent screen comedian Jack Duffy was the brother of character actress Kate Price. Like Charles "Chic" Sale, Clem Bevans and Claude Gilingwater after him, he was a make-up master who always worked himself up to look several decades older than his actual age. This often involved removing his full set of false teeth, sporting a long, white beard, and limping about in a stooped-over position. After years of playing timeworn bartenders, daffy farmers, and cranky relatives alongside Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Larry Semon, Laurel and Hardy, Frank "Fatty" Alexander, Louise Fazenda, Chester Conklin, "Snub" Pollard, Ben Turpin, Walter Hiers, James Finlayson, and other luminaries, he died rather suddenly, of undisclosed causes, at age 56-- much to the shock of those who thought him an octogenarian. His autograph is virtually nonexistent in any format.