Cooper Gary

Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Sam Wood & For Whom the Bell Tolls Cast & Crew Homemade Scrapbook Album, Signed on Location in Sierra Nevada Mountains


A truly unique piece of Hollywood memorabilia, signed by 50+ members of the cast and crew of Paramount Pictures' epic war romance For Whom The Bell Tolls. The scrapbook pages are contained within a homemade album, comprised of hand-painted bas-relief wooden covers secured by rawhide binding. Some of the album pages are detached but included. Overall toning of pages, but otherwise remarkably intact and in near fine condition. 11.75" x 9" x .5". Housed in a handsome dark brown cloth-covered clamshell case with gilt lettering.


The scrapbook includes: 50+ signatures of cast and crew; 70+ photos; period magazine clippings; and three unused movie production roll call lists. (The first few pages of the album were not counted in our tally, as they preceded movie production; most signatures within that section dated from 1939-1940.)


The scrapbook belonged to a woman named Esther, who worked as a waitress on the film's food service team. The bulk of the signatures were collected during the summer of 1942, when cast and crew assembled in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, about 90 miles east of Sacramento, to film pivotal shots of the movie. The album's photos were taken at and near the Dardanelles Resort. The film's 300-person cast and crew, comprised of 200 professionals and about 100 locals, were housed at four area mountain resorts including Dardanelles.


Famed author Ernest Hemingway published For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940. It tells the story of an American International Brigades volunteer named Robert Jordan, who, while on a quest to destroy a strategic bridge, falls in love with a female Spanish guerilla fighter named Maria.


Paramount Pictures released its movie adaption of the wildly popular wartime love story in 1943. The 170-minute-long Technicolor film starred Gary Cooper as the protagonist Robert Jordan, and Ingrid Bergman as Maria. Norwegian ballerina Vera Zorina was originally slated to play Maria, but she was sacked after the first three weeks of onsite filming. (See our movie roll call sheets to see "Miss Zorina" named!) The movie was filmed in California, Nevada, and Hollywood between July-October 1942. The film would go on to gross over 7 million dollars at the box office.


The scrapbook is filled with 50+ signatures of the movie's cast and crew, including its romantic leads Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. See a list of highlights below:


CAST

• Gary Cooper as "Best regards from Gary Cooper, 1942" - Robert Jordan

• Ingrid Bergman as "Hello - Ingrid Bergman" - Maria

• Vladimir Sokoloff - Anselmo

• Katrina Paxinou - Pilar

• Mikhail Rasumny - Rafael

• Fortunio Bonanova  - Fernando

• Victor Varconi - Primitivo

• Nancy Didrickson, Bergman's stand-in

CREW

• Director and Producer Sam Wood as "Sam Wood, 1942"

• Production Designer William Cameron Menzies

• Production Manager Sidney Street

• Assistant Director Lonnie D'Orsa

• Women's Wardrobe Manager LeVaughn Larson

• Makeup Artist Ben Nye

In addition to its autographs, the album also features over 70 black and white snapshots taken while on location. This mixture of formal and candid shots shows the cast and crew at work in the mountainous terrain. Photos show Gary Cooper waiting by the side of the bridge he dynamites in the movie, and also eating at a picnic table in costume! One can also see shots of camera equipment, the script jockey, stars in costume and makeup, the mountain resort where cast and crew stayed, and the school buses and catering teams that transported and fed them. Some memorable stills of Cooper and Bergman consulting with Wood on the set are also sure to please.


A remarkable artifact of cinematic history!



 


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