Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 110

Over the years, I have amassed a decent collection of memorabilia from Ann Dvorak films, mainly because most of her titles are not particularly collectible, so there’s been virtually no competition. Scarface is on one of those rare Ann-D films that commands a high price tag, so I don’t have much from it except for still photographs.

My Scarface memorabilia dry-spell is now coming to an end with the purchase of this lobby card. I won it on eBay a couple of days ago. Maybe I shouldn’t jinx it, because it has not yet arrived in the mail but I am pretty excited about it. Sure, it’s trimmed, mounted on craft paper, and may or may not be from a 1930s reissue, but for 27 bucks, I’ll take it. Lobby cards from Scarface usually go for a few hundred and can run into the thousands, so this is a deal even if it is in lousy condition.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 108

A by product of collecting Ann Dvorak memorabilia for 15+ years is my small collection of items relating to Anna Lehr, Ann’s mom. Lehr started her career as a vaudeville performer before moving on to films. Considering she retired from cinema in the early 1920s, I think the amount of items I have been able to find is pretty impressive. I posted a few of them in an Anna Lehr gallery, which I have not gotten around to updating even though I have picked up a few more items since.

Once upon a time, before marriage and parenthood, I use to actually do eBay searches for all of Ann’s movie titles, along with all of Anna Lehr’s  which is how I came across this lobby card for A Child For Sale from 1920. In some photos of Lehr, you can really tell she is Ann’s mom though in this image she kind of looks like a generic 1910s film actress. Still, a lobby card of Ann Dvorak’s mom is pretty darn cool, don’t ya think?

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 106

There are certain “firsts” one usually remembers; first kiss, first date with a spouse, first trip to Disneyland – my list also includes my first Ann Dvorak lobby card.

It was the fall of 1997 and while interning at a Beverly Hills talent agency, I met a fellow named Darin who introduced me to the mad, mad world of movie memorabilia collecting. I had expressed an interest in Ann Dvorak, who turned out to be an economical choice because – well, no one else collected on her, so items from her films were relatively inexpensive.

One day on our lunch break, Darin took me to a shop called The Hollywood Poster Exchange located in West Hollywood at the corner of Santa Monica and La Cienega. By that time, the shop had been around almost 30 years under the ownership of Bob Colman. I was completely new to the memorabilia hobby and was in awe when Bob pulled out a few Racing Lady lobby cards. Up until then, I thought all vintage posters cost a bloody fortune, so to have the opportunity to own something from the 1930s was truly amazing. The card I selected was $15, which was a lot for me at the time and I had never even heard of Racing Lady, but it didn’t matter. It was vintage, it was Ann Dvorak, and it was mine.

It’s now been over 15 years since I bough that first card, and I have purchased many, many more. Still, I will never forget that first one, which marked the day that I officially became an Ann Dvorak collector.

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 104

This is another item from the collection that falls under the “favorite” category. It’s three Warner Bros. gals, Ann Dvorak, Ann Sheridan, and Ann Nagel presumably hanging out in Sheridan’s dressing room since she doesn’t have any make-up on and appears to be in lounge-wear. The photo is from late 1936 and Dvorak is in costume as Della Street in The Case of the Stuttering Bishop. Even though Nagel is also in that film, I don’t think she’s in costume, but I could be wrong. When this was taken, Dvorak was weeks, or even days away from severing ties with the studio.

I purchased this one around 11 years ago at a local shop. It was filed in the Ann Sheridan folder and when I found it, I felt like I had struck gold. I considered using it in the book, but ultimately it did not make the cut. Still, it is a great picture of three fabulous ladies.