A vintage 5x3 card signed in person with a biro, February 8th 1966, by Chester Conklin (1886 - 1971), the early American film comedian who appeared in a series of films with Mabel Normand and worked closely with Charlie Chaplin, both in silent and sound films. Whilst working in Omaha, Nebraska Conklin had seen a performance by the vaudeville team of Joe Weber and Lew Fields, which prompted him to develop a character based on his boss at the time, a man with a thick accent and a bushy walrus moustache. With this character, Conklin broke into vaudeville, and spent several years touring with various vaudeville shows and performing as a clown with the Al G. Barnes Wild Animal Show. After seeing several Mack Sennett comedies while in Venice, California during the 1913 winter break, the 27-year-old Conklin went to Keystone Studios, applied for a job and was hired as a Keystone Cop with a salary of $3 a day. In 1914, Conklin co-starred with Mabel Normand in a series of films: Mabel's Strange Predicament, Mabel's New Job, Mabel's Busy Day and Mabel at the Wheel. In that same year he appeared in Making a Living, in which Charlie Chaplin made his film debut. He would go on to make more than a dozen films with Chaplin while at Keystone and the two became lifelong friends. In the 1930s Conklin made the transition to talkies and continued to act for another thirty years. He performed with Chaplin in two feature-length films: Modern Times in 1936, and in 1940's The Great Dictator.