PHOTOGRAPH – CROSS DRESSING ACTRESS KITTY DOVER – AUTOGRAPHED – STRAUSS – PEYTON PHOTO
Cross Dressing Kitty Doner - Photo by Strauss-Peyton. Circa 1930. . 10 x13 3/4. Signed lower right corner just above photographers imprint. Possibly  from the film "A Famous Male Impersonator" (1928,US) a Musical short starring vaudeville player Kitty Doner.
Kitty Doner was an American vaudeville performer. She was a male impersonator, actress, and dancer, specializing in boy roles, and later in life worked as a choreographer and television producer.
Signed to Jimmie "Starr" who was a reporter in Hollywood for many years.
Famed St; Louis photographer J.C. Strauss had a brother named Benjamin who 1900 moved to Kansas City Missouri to start his own studio. Ben took on an employee named Homer Peyton whom Strauss made a partner in the company and the name was changed to Strauss-Peyton. That studio became quite famous in its own right for its portraiture of theatrical & cinema people. Peyton in particular created very artistic images not just through the camera but by physical manipulations on the negatives, and even on the final prints. Strong contrast, tonality and clarity. LF ET 026