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Auction History Result 6r058 WILLIAM S. HART linen 3sh '10s great stone litho of the tough cowboy star with gun! Date Sold 4/16/2015 Sold For: Login or Register to see sold price. An Original Vintage Theatrical Linenbacked Three-Sheet Movie Poster (3sh; measures 41" x 81" [104 x 206 cm]) (Learn More) a circa 1910s stock poster for theaters showing William S. Hart silent cowboy westerns. They would put in the name of the movie in the blank box at the bottom, either by writing it in, or by putting a paper snipe in that area. This way, a frugal theater owner could buy a single poster and use it for many different William S. Hart movies. It certainly makes sense that there would be a great need for this poster, because in the late 1910s, William S. Hart was incredibly popular, and his movies were shown over and over! He was born in New York in 1864, as the U.S. Civil War was coming to a close. He spent some time out West, but mostly lived in New York, working some as a postal clerk. Almost all screen cowboys who followed Hart have had strong western backgrounds, growing up on ranches, and participating in rodeos, but not Hart. He became interested in stage acting, and In 1899 he created the role of Messala in the first stage production of "Ben-Hur", and later the role of Trampas in the first stage production of "The Virginian". In 1913 or 1914 at the age of 48 or 49 (information is sketchy) he made his first movie and he began directing most of his movies, and within a few years was producing them as well. The movies were usually set in the West, but not always "westerns" in the modern sense, but almost all were elaborate moralistic melodramas, with tales of romantic betrayal, and long journeys by the hero to get vengeance and redemption. He WAS a big man with a very craggy face and he looked like a western hero (his nickname was "Two-Gun Bill"). His movies were extremely popular with the public in the late 1910s. By 1925 Hart had made around 75 movies, and he was now 60, certainly quite old for a screen cowboy. The public was tiring of his movies, and there were new younger western stars who had been in circuses and Wild West Shows (Tom Mix, Buck Jones, and Hoot Gibson) and they had far better cowboy abilities. Besides, Hart was involved in both a messy divorce AND a paternity suit, and that publicity was not helping him. Hart made one final film, Tumbleweeds, in 1925, and then retired. He lived until 1946, and he donated his large estate to the City of Los Angeles. His mansion is now a museum and has been preserved with its original fixtures and furnishings intact and the surrounding land is now a park. If anyone knows more about this poster, please e-mail us and we will post it here. NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography. If you know who did the art (if any), please let us know. Overall Condition and Pre-Restoration Defects with Quality of Restoration: good to very good. The poster had tears and small paper loss on parts of some foldlines, and it also had many small areas of paper loss scattered throughout, with larger paper loss (around 2" x 2") near the middle of Hart's shirt. Overall, the poster was in good condition prior to linenbacking. The poster was really well backed, but you can see signs of the above defects and the restoration of the above defects. Learn More about condition grades 
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