We are honored to be your one-stop, 5-star source for vintage pin up, pulp magazines, original illustration art, decorative collectibles and ephemera with a wide and always changed assortment of antique and vintage items from the Victorian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Mid-Century Modern eras. All items are 100% guaranteed to be original, vintage, and as described. All sell no reserve! ITEM: This is a large format, vintage and original, fine art portrait by Edwin Bower Hesser of Samuel Goldwyn’s latest Hollywood import Lili Damita in a passionate portrait with her co-star Ronald Coleman. 1928, Damita still retains her luscious European beauty, not yet having undergone the full Hollywood glamour makeover. Her wavy tresses and sparkling eyes shine under a halo-like glow. Dating from early publicity to her American film debut in The Rescue, Hesser has perfectly captured the dazzling pair in a breathtaking pictorialist style. This portrait comes from Damita’s personal collection. Measures 10 1/4″ x 13 1/4″ with deckled edges on a semi-gloss double weight paper stock. Hesser’s ink stamp to verso. CONDITION: Fine+ condition with one small soil spot in the bottom right corner. Please use the included images as a conditional guide. Lili Damita (July 10, 1904 March 21, 1994) was a French actress who appeared in 33 movies between 1922 and 1937. Born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France, she was educated in convents and ballet schools in several European countries, including France, Spain andPortugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris. By the age of 16, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de Paris. She also worked as a photographic model. Offered a role in film as a prize for winning a magazine beauty competition in 1921, she appeared in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in Das Spielzeug von Paris (1925) by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz. She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: Fiaker Nr 13 (1926) and Der Goldene Schmetterling (1926). Damita continued appearing in German productions directed by Robert Wiene (Die Grosse Abenteuerin; 1927), G. Pabst (Man Spielt nicht mit der Liebe; 1926), and British director Graham Cutts (The Queen Was in the Parlour; 1927). In 1928, at the invitation of Samuel Goldwyn she went to Hollywood, making her American debut in a film titled The Rescue. Leased out to various studios, she appeared with stars such as Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, and James Cagney. Her films included the box office successes The Cock-Eyed World(1929), the semi-silent The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929), and This Is the Night (1932). In 1935, she married a virtual unknown who would become Hollywood’s biggest box office attraction, Errol Flynn, with whom she had a son, Sean Flynn (born 1941). Following the marriage, she retired from the screen. The couple divorced in 1942. Barbara Hershey portrayed her in the TV film My Wicked, Wicked Ways [1985] based on Errol Flynn’s autobiography. While living in Palm Beach, Florida, Damita married Allen Loomis, a retired Fort Dodge, Iowa dairy owner, and spent part of each year living there. During the Cambodian Civil War (Khmer Rouge Reign), her son Sean Flynn was working as a freelance photo journalist under contract to Time magazine when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone went missing on the road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 6, 1970. DNA testing was conducted on remains found in Cambodia and turned over to the U. Embassy in March 2010. However, the results, released June 30, 2010 by JPAC, showed the remains were not those of Sean Flynn. Lili Damita died of Alzheimer’s disease on March 21, 1994, in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 89. She was interred in the Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa, her second husband’s hometown. The item “Large Vintage Edwin Bower Hesser Rare Photograph Lili Damita Ronald Coleman 1928″ is in sale since Thursday, April 28, 2016. This item is in the category “Entertainment Memorabilia\Movie Memorabilia\Photographs\Pre-1940\Black & White”. The seller is “grapefruitmoongallery” and is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This item can be shipped worldwide.

• Size: 10 1/4″ x 13 1/4″
• Country/Region of Manufacture: United States