Cat. #00044011: BEN BARD

Scarce vintage 7x9-inch sepia-tone matte-finish chest-up portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in fountain pen and dated 1937.  In good condition, with a hint of soiling in spots and very gentle corner creasing.  The handsome, beady-eyed Bard was the quintessential "suave heavy" in dramas and comedies of the silent era, with just a hint of evil always breaking through his smooth, gentlemanly exterior.  Increasingly relegated to character roles during the talkie era, he was something of a regular in horror, fantasy and sci-fi flicks, including memorable work in The Bat Whispers (1930), The Leopard Man (1943), The Seventh Victim (1943), The Ghost Ship (1943), and The Phantom Planet (1961).