[Evelyn Laye, English actress and singer, star of stage and screen.] Autograph Signature added at foot of pencil sketch of her by Kenneth Sephton.

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. After a stint as one of George Edwardes’ Gaiety Girls, she made her name in a number of revues, her performance in the lead role of the 1929 Broadway production of ‘Bitter Sweet’ prompting Coward to praise her grace and charm and assurance, which he said provoked one of the most prolonged outbursts of cheering I have ever heard in the theatre. She was less successful in Hollywood, starring in the Romberg/Hammerstein musical ‘One Heavenly Night’ (1931), a failure for Samuel Goldwyn. Signed in ink ‘Evelyn Laye’, on an 11.5 x 20 cm piece of laid paper, over the legs of a pencil sketch full-length portrait of her, competently-executed with in fifties style with slightly oversized head, by Kenneth Sephton. It was Sephton’s habit to present his drawings to the subjects for signature (see the signed sketch of Deborah Kerr, offered separately), thus gaining some manner of endorsement. On aged, worn and lightly-creased paper, with central horizontal fold, with 3 cm closed tear from the left (not reaching the drawing or signature). From the Kenneth Sephton archive. See Image.