Paul Scofield WW2 Vintage (oldest?) Birmingham Rep SIGNED AUTOGRAPH + AFTAL COA

A pair of vintage 1942 Birmingham Repertory Theatre programmes, one signed by the late, great theatre and film actor Paul Scofield during productions from The Travelling Repertory Theatre company formed by Basil Langton during World War 2.

Included is the original (detached on three sides, stamps are folded over but complete) mailing envelope to an address in Birmingham, stamped 26th October 1942

Given that Paul Scofield was born in 1922, he would have been in these two plays (Major Barbara and Hamlet) when he was just 20 years old quite possibly making this the oldest surviving autograph of his anywhere.

David Paul Scofield  CH  CBE  (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an English actor. During a six-decade career, Scofield achieved the Triple Crown of Acting , winning an Academy Award , Emmy , and Tony  for his work. He won the three awards in a seven-year span, the fastest of any performer to accomplish the feat.

Scofield received Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play  at the 1962 Tony Awards  for portraying Sir Thomas More  in the Broadway  production of A Man for All Seasons . Four years later, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor  when he reprised the role in the 1966 film adaptation , making him one of eleven to receive a Tony and Academy Award for the same role. His Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie  was achieved for the 1969 television film Male of the Species .

Preferring the stage to the screen and putting his family before his career, Scofield nonetheless established a reputation as one of the greatest Shakespearean performers. Among other accolades, his performance as Mark Van Doren  in Quiz Show  (1994) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor  and he won Best Actor in a Supporting Role  at the BAFTA Awards  for portraying Thomas Danforth  in The Crucible  (1996). Scofield declined the honour of a knighthood , but was appointed CBE  in 1956 and became a Companion of Honour  in 2001.

Basil Calvert Langton  (9 January 1912 – 29 May 2003) was an English actor, director and photographer, who made a career on both sides of the Atlantic. He was an authority on the plays of George Bernard Shaw  and compiled an archive of more than 400,000 words of interviews with people who had known and worked with Shaw. He was also a teacher, working at colleges in New York and California.

After a series of leading roles with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre , Langton founded his own permanent repertory ensemble, the Travelling Repertory Company, in 1941. It toured Britain until 1946, performing in bombed cities, munitions factories and army camps.[2] [7]  At various times the company's members included Dame Sybil Thorndike  and Sir Lewis Casson  (who were married to each other), as well as Margaret Leighton , Renée Asherson . Esmond Knight , Paul Scofield  and Eric Porter .[7] [8]

Langton was declared medically unfit for military service in World War II  because he had asthma , but nonetheless registered as a conscientious objector . His wartime pacifism  estranged him from some in the British establishment; it was widely believed that his pacifist beliefs had led the authorities to withhold the public subsidy a touring repertory company might have been expected to receive.[9]

In 1947, Langton moved permanently to the U.S., and worked on stage and television as a director and actor.[7]  He gave the American television premiere of a Shaw play, The Devil's Disciple , and produced the first Shaw Festival in America. He was a co-founder of the Empire State Music Festival, and ran a jazz festival with Duke Ellington , Dave Brubeck  and George Shearing . On Broadway he acted in The Affair , Camelot  and Rolf Hochhuth 's controversial play Soldiers . He returned to London in as the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Lord Alanbrooke, in Clifford Williams 's production of Soldiers  at the New Theatre  in 1968.[2]  One of his last acting performances was in Star Trek: Voyager  in 1994 as the titular character, an extra-terrestrial being, in the two-hour pilot episode "Caretaker ".[10]

Comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and lifetime guarantee from a major UK AFTAL dealer member