Milton, Billy; Garrick Club
Visitors and autograph book from Billy Milton's theatrical parties at the storied Garrick Club, 1944-1985. Oblong 8vo, full calf; pp. c.100 8-line pages, majority completed with autographs, inscriptions and similar MSS notes.
Billy Milton was a stage and screen actor until only a few years before his death. This book contains the guest lists for Milton's famed parties, and as such forms a huge collection of signatures of a cross-section of the theatrical world (critics, writers, actors and others) which Milton inhabited. Most appear under headings recording the precise party which they had attended, starting with Milton's note recording the gift of the book "for the 1st night of the "Quaker Girl" in which I played "Toni".
Amongst the luminaries leaving their mark are actors such as Hugh Paddick, Peter Wyngarde, Celia Lipton, Ned Sherrin and Beryl Reid; musicians like John Railton and Lionel Bart; and others such as impresario Blanche Robey (nee Littler) and celebrity photographer Allan Warren. Most noteworthy perhaps is the signature of horror icon Boris Karloff, who attended the "Firecracker Party" of January 30th 1965 with his wife Evelyn. Amongst the addresses and typical good wishes such visitors books feature are more personal or humorous messages, such as an appeal for gossip for the Daily Graphic and an address given as 'Call MGM', evidently "They never heard of me but it will be a pleasant call!!". This book is not merely an autograph book of the biggest and brightest names, but theatrical history with its bit players, walk-on parts and hangers-on finally achieving equal billing with the still-remembered and feted.