Cat. #0057942: CORNEL WILDE

Vintage 8x10-inch sepia-tone matte-finish portrait, dating to the 1940s, boldly signed and inscribed in violet fountain pen.  In good condition, with pinholes to all four corners and a few negligible surface dings.  Dashing Hungarian-born Cornel Wilde was a champion fencer with the U.S. Olympic team, quitting just before the 1936 Berlin games to try his hand at stage acting.  It was during his run as Tybalt in Laurence Olivier's 1940 Broadway production of "Romeo and Juliet" that his abilities as both swordsman and actor were spotted by Hollywood talent scouts, and, in 1945, he earned critical acclaim and an Oscar nod for his portrayal of Frederic Chopin in A Song to Remember (1945).  He spent the balance of the 1940s in romantic, often swashbuckling, leading roles, perhaps most notably Aladdin in A Thousand and One Nights (1945) and shocked husband Richard Harlan in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).  He worked steadily in the 1950s and 1960s, memorable in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), The Naked Prey (1965) and Beach Red (1967), but his star gradually faded.  Wilde died of leukemia at the age of 77.