1460200 1964 Shakespeare. Richard Burton's Hamlet. Letter to NY Times Critic. Signed by Entire Cast.

 

1964 Cast Signed Richard Burton's HAMLET Letter X28 Actors & Actresses Croyn Herlie Drake Classic Rare Theatre History PSA #Z00567 with Letter of Authenticity.  Important that PSA deemed this signature special enough to apply a LETTER OF AUTHENTICITY as opposed to a Small Certificate that  is given to the average autograph.  Richard Burton's Hamlet played at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre in 1964.  The Production was a financial smash, largely owing to Burton's romance with Elizabeth Taylor, and achieved the longest Broadway run for Hamlet at 137 performances. Burton and Cronyn won TONY AWARDS.  Notable Signatures include Richard Burton, Hume Cronyn, Eileen Herlie, George Rose, George Voskovec, John Cullum, Robert Milli, Linda Marsh, Dillon Evans, Bernard Hughes, and Alfred Drake. This Letter was part of the Lewis Funke Estate.  Mr. Funke was a well respected New York Times Critic for the Theatre in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  The Content is outstanding, most letters to the Times critic either glowing or decrying the critic as being unworthy of the position he holds.  The letter is PSA Graded and Authenticated to be Genuine.   It has been permanently marked with  an invisible DNA daub that will fluoresce under a laser lamp.   The Burton/Gielgud production of Hamlet took place because of a lighthearted agreement between Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole while they were filming Becket. O’Toole decreed that they should each play Hamlet afterwards under the direction of John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier in either London or New York, with a coin toss deciding who would be assigned which director and which city. O’Toole won London and Olivier in the toss, with Burton being assigned Gielgud and New York. O’Toole kept his part of the agreement, appearing as Hamlet under Olivier's direction in the premiere production of the Royal National Theatre later that year, and Burton approached producer Alexander H. Cohen and Gielgud about mounting a New York production. Because Burton disliked wearing period costumes, and for aesthetic reasons of his own, Gielgud conceived of a production performed in a rehearsal setting with an incomplete set and the actors wearing what appeared to be street clothes (although the costumes were actually the result of continuous trial-and-error in rehearsals, with the actors bringing in countless variations of attire for Gielgud to consider).  Gielgud also opted to depict the Ghost as a shadow against the back of the stage wall, voicing the character himself on tape (since he was unavailable while the production was in performance). The production was a financial smash, achieving the longest run for the play in Broadway history at 137 performances, which broke the previous record set by Maurice Evans's GI Hamlet in the 1940s. The run's popularity was due in no small part to attention Burton received for his romance with Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married while the production was in Toronto pre-Broadway; crowds gathered outside the New York theater to get a glimpse of Burton, and sometimes Taylor, after the show. Burton's reviews in the title role were largely favorable and he received a Tony Award nomination for his performance, and Hume Cronyn’s performance as Polonius won him the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. Eileen Herlie, who played Queen Gertrude, had already played the role in Laurence Olivier's Oscar-winning 1948 film version. Less favorably received were Linda Marsh as Ophelia and Alfred Drake as King Claudius, whom Gielgud had considered replacing with respectively Sarah Miles and either Harry Andrews or himself in rehearsals. Interest in the production inspired books by cast members William Redfield and Richard L. Sterne, who went to the length of hiding a tape recorder in a briefcase at rehearsals to get accurate transcriptions of what was said. A filmed record of the production was created by recording three live performances on camera from June 30 to July 1 using a process called Electronovision and then editing them into a single film.