Cat. #0017510: MANTAN MORELAND

HIGHLY rare vintage 8x10-inch black and white Monogram Pictures publicity portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in blue fountain pen in the 1930s. In fine condition for its age, with minor damage to all four corners and two chips to the left border edge, which can be trimmed away, if one so wishes. Nicknamed "Google Eyes" from his youth, beloved African-American character actor Mantan Moreland began made his bones in carnivals, medicine shows and all-Black vaudeville reviews. After a decade of professional ups and downs, he teamed with several comics, notably Benny Carter, popularizing an "indefinite talk" routine, wherein each teammate would start a sentence, only to be interrupted by the other, to tremendous comic effect.  Already wildly popular by the time he entered films in 1936, he delighted audiences in admittedly stereotyped servant roles. Too funny to continue being shunted aside by lily-white Hollywood, Moreland began getting better parts in a late-1930s series of comedy adve