Cat. #00196332112: SIMON OAKLAND

Highly scarce vintage 8x10-inch black and white portrait, boldly signed and inscribed in brown felt-tip pen in the 1960s. In good condition, with minor edgewear. A former violinist, familiar-faced character actor Simon Oakland was an established stage star by the time he entered films in 1957, typically cast as outwardly unpleasant sorts with inner reserves of decency and compassion.  In I Want to Live (1958), for example, he played a journalist who first shamelessly exploited the murder trial of death-row inmate Susan Hayward, then worked night and day to win her a reprieve.  In Hitchcock's horror masterpiece Psycho (1960), he had a memorable curtain speech as the jumpy, jittery psychiatrist who turned out to be the only person who fully understood transvestite murderer Anthony Perkins.  Conversely, Oakland played his share of out-and-out villains, notably the bigoted Officer Schrank in West Side Story (1961).  Aside from his role as Captain Bennett in Bullitt (1968), he spent the 1960s onward almost completely confined to television appearances, including two classic episodes of "The Twilight Zone" in 1961 and 1963. He died of cancer at the age of 63 and his autograph is rather elusive in any format.