132. Today in 1920s Turkey: 4 January 1926 (Cover Picture: Signed Jackie Coogan Photo)
English:
The personally signed picture that Jackie Coogan sent The Weekly Digest.
Keeping in mind the little actor’s world-wide fame, we requested his picture back when The Weekly Digest first started coming out. In the most recent mail delivery we received a personally signed picture with greetings from Jackie Coogan. We present it to our readers.
Türkçe:
“Caki Kugan”ın Haftalık Mecmua’ya bizzat imzalayarak gönderdiği resim.
Haftalık Mecmua’nın bidayet intişarında küçük sanatkarın cihan-şümul şöhretini düşünerek bir resmini istemiştik. Caki Kugan’ın selamlarıyla gönderdiği ve bizzat imzaladığı resmini son gelen postadan aldık. Karilerimize takdim ediyoruz.
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This photograph of child film star, Jackie Coogan occupies the entire front page of the eight-page weekly illustrated journal, Haftalık Mecmua. The picture consists of a portrait of a bright-eyed child in an oversized paperboy hat. The “head-shot” includes a most precious message penned in the lower right corner, presumably by the boy, that reads: “GOOD WISHES FROM JACKIE COOGAN.” The caption provided by the magazine reveals interesting details concerning how the autographed picture was procured. According to this text, Haftalık Mecmua made a request for a photograph of the child with “world-wide fame” back in July of 1925 (when its first issue was published). It is unclear what method of communication initiated the request (mail, telegraph, telephone) but it is stated that the signed picture was received in a “recent” delivery from the postal service.
Born on 26 October 1914, Jackie Coogan would have been eleven years old when this issue of Haftalık Mecmua was published. Most notably he starred alongside Charlie Chaplin in The Kid in 1921 where he wore a similar, over-sized paperboy’s hat in much of the promotional pictures — an iconic look he continued to sport in another film, also released in 1921. Like many child stars he continued to act into adulthood. The most recognizable character he played that I have familiarity with was Uncle Fester from The Addams Family which aired between 1964 and 1966.
The 1920s is a decade in which photography gained both popularity and ubiquity on a mass scale. Moreover, its proliferation via the popular press served to usher in a new age of visible “celebrity.” Celebrity photographs appear in the pages of illustrated gazettes with greater frequency as the decade carried on. Like the present example, occasionally autographed photos of famous film actors donned the premier spot, or rather, the cover pages of such publications. Other examples of published autographed pictures include both domestic and international personages such as President Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) and the aforementioned actor, Charlie Chaplin.
Originally published at https://steemit.com on January 5, 2018.
