Cat. #001384922: JOAN FONTAINE

Lovely 8x10-inch black and white portrait in her prime, boldly signed with her name alone in black felt-tip marker in the 1980s. In good condition. After spells of stage work and forgettable B-movie fare in the 1930s, leading lady Joan Fontaine gained prominence in two Hitchcock classics:  Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941), taking home an Academy Award for the latter. In 1943, she was again nominated, for her portrayal of Tessa Sanger in The Constant Nymph. Fontaine spent the next few years playing innocent, well-bred types, in films like This Above All (1943) and Jane Eyre (1943), but, as she matured as an actress, she leaned toward sophisticated, often hot-headed or maliciously calculating characters.  Of particular note are her knockout performances in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) and Ivanhoe (1952). In 1966, she starred in the cult horror flick The Witches, which proved, not surprisingly, her final film.