DS, 54 pages, 8.5 x 11, April 3, 1939. Bound agreement between Lombard and RKO Radio Pictures for the film tentatively titled Memory of Love, which would eventually be released as In Name Only. For her services Lombard will receive a salary of $100,000 over a 12-week period, as well as 7.5% of the gross should the film exceed $1.75 million. Agreement goes into particulars about call times on the set, availability after shooting is complete, artist billing, meals, transportation, and lodging. Signed on the final page by Lombard, who also initials a crossed out passage on another page. Some light creases and wrinkles, and some light damp staining to top left corners of pages, otherwise fine condition. The original well-worn paper covers are detached but present.
Lombard received this hefty compensation—especially by Great Depression standards—in exchange for her participation in the motion picture...but it took some convincing by studio executives. The movie was originally designed as a reunion for Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, but Hepburn left RKO after the box office failure of 1938’s Bringing Up Baby. Lombard—at the peak of her popularity following a string of hit movies—was tapped as her replacement. Having recently wed Clark Gable, however, she was more interested in being a wife than a starlet—although the promise of a large paycheck and four-picture deal enticed her to return to the limelight. This very agreement was said to have irritated Grant, who eventually negotiated a higher salary for his participation in the film, but without the profit percentage—and top-billing—afforded the actress in the commercially successful melodrama. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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