Confessions of an autograph hunter

These superbly inconsequential encounters with stars and statesmen are unintentionally hilarious

TWO HITLERS AND A MARILYN by Adam Andrusier

320pp, Headline, T £14.99 (0844 871 1514), RRP £16.99, ebook £8.99 ÌÌÌÌÌ

Along with schools not bothering with spelling and grammar (elitist, see), universities becoming “emotional harm avoidance” drop-in centres, and the replacement of public intellectuals like Isaiah Berlin with fashion “influencers” named Susie Lau, another sign that we live in a crude post-literacy era is the disappearance of the autograph hunter. It’s all “selfies” now – a pretend intimate moment, lasting a nanosecond, captured on a mobile phone and instantly disseminated on social media.

As Adam Andrusier explains, in the old days, when a celebrity put pen to paper, “there had to be tiny molecules of them lurking”. And once they’d croaked, “that a dead person had once been alive, here was the proof” – a genuine inky squiggle. When Miles Davis died, the value of his autograph doubled; Audrey Hepburn’s quadrupled. Princess Diana’s Christmas cards, priced at £300, were worth £3,000 the day after the fatal collision in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.

Signed photographs and inscribed leaves in a fan’s album have a distinct power. Even as a child, Andrusier eagerly collected memorabilia from ancient stars, such as James Stewart, Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak. Despite approaching Katharine Hepburn nine times, he was always told her policy was “not to sign autographs for people she doesn’t know”, though after nine attempts surely she did know him quite well by now? David Attenborough, Margot Fonteyn and General Pinochet were more forthcoming, as all of them “were delighted I’d be following in their professional footsteps”. What on earth had Andrusier said? That he intended being a military dictator with a fondness for ringtailed lemurs, who went to the ballet every evening?

Another gambit was to haunt stage doors, book and pen at the ready. Judi Dench, Warren Mitchell and Dickie Henderson were affable, “Terry Wogan pretended not to see me,” and Jonathan Miller said loftily he did “not do” autographs. Andrusier nabbed the “tall and hugely fat” wrestler Big Daddy in a swimming pool in Cannes – disappointingly he signed as “Big Daddy” rather than putting his comical real name, Shirley Crabtree. Andrusier also possessed a drawing of a kangaroo by Rolf Harris and solicited a note off Jimmy Savile, the “S” turned into a dollar sign. Michael Winner was so keen to dish out autographs that people ran away from him down the road. It was hard not to end up with six or seven of his signatures every month.

What I enjoyed about this memoir were Andrusier’s amazingly inconsequential encounters. In Hollywood, he saw someone trimming Gene Kelly’s lawn. He also “watched a man in overalls arriving at Spielberg’s place with a pot plant”. Nearer to home, Andrusier saw Ronnie Barker through a hedge. He “looked tired. His face was solemn and impatient. He wasn’t laughing”. None of these celebrities in reality are like their public image. Seeing Nelson Mandela in a hotel lobby, Andrusier says: “By the look of him, he’d utterly got over the joy of being released from prison.”

Andrusier waited for Elizabeth Taylor in Selfridge’s car park, only for her to race past with four bodyguards. She “trained her violet eyes on me,” and muttered, “Sorry, I can’t.” Boris Yeltsin was also surrounded by bodyguards, “a wild drunk making one last important point before being dragged to bed”. More typical of a star’s behaviour was Richard Gere, who at his best only had a “skin-deep charm”. He “gave me his squiggle but didn’t look at me”.

As odd as the famous are the collectors themselves. There’s a Canadian who traced the surviving Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz, gathering signatures from “tiny shrivelled individuals” in Californian care homes. An eye surgeon in Manchester wanted only the autographs of blind people, such as Stevie Wonder, Helen Keller and Ray Charles. “I don’t sign nothin’ for no one!” snapped Charles, when Andrusier located him at the Barbican. The musician was no doubt grumpy because he had to maintain the 10 children he’d fathered with 10 women, says our author. Maybe he simply didn’t want to scribble autographs because he couldn’t see what he was doing.

Along with the people with an “unquenchable appetite” for Shirley Temple, and the Elvis enthusiasts who think the King is alive and well up a mountain in Venezuela, are the weirdos who want serial killer letters and postcards

– there’s good money in Peter Sutcliffe, Fred West, Charles Manson and Ian Brady. Another similar and queasily popular niche subject is Nazi documentation, from framed pictures of Hitler to the memoranda of Reinhard Heydrich. Vulgar and stupid American billionaires living in Florida love this sort of stuff, and the Jewish Andrusier has pangs of guilt in selling it to them: “I was a dealer profiteering from other people’s delusions of grandeur,” which is certainly one way of putting it.

Once Andrusier made the transition from youngster with a hobby to respected professional manuscript and autograph dealer, more pitfalls became apparent. Many of those photographs dispatched by Hollywood stars were signed by secretaries and hence worthless. “I got so darn good at Bogart’s signature, I could write his name better than he could,” a former administrative assistant told Andrusier, before adding, “The studios had a big operation going.”

Greta Garbo refused to participate in the scam, and even signed her own cheques with an alias, “Harriet Brown”. Frank Sinatra’s signature was always embossed by a machine, which pressed silver varnish into the glossy paper.

Another convenient invention was the “autopen”, a template operated electrically and used extensively by astronauts, public figures and incumbents in the White House, particularly JFK, to replicate personalised correspondence.

On one occasion, Andrusier travelled hours on the M25 to inspect a Marilyn Monroe autograph in Penge. It was a forgery: “Her name isn’t even spelt correctly.” Almost as dispiriting are trips to autograph conventions, where the almost forgotten figures of yesteryear sit at a desk and charge £25 for an authentic signature: George Lazenby, Liz Fraser, people who’d been an Ewok. A friend of mine is convinced he once saw It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’s Melvyn Hayes at one of these.

As fascinating as all this is – the purpose of the autograph being to “puncture a hole between our

universe and the parallel one where all the celebrities lived” – for some reason Andrusier pads out his text with a wholly uninteresting and forced account of growing up in Pinner, where the chief character is his father, Adrian, who collects postcards of synagogues destroyed by the Nazis, and “did silly voices and embarrassed people” with his Israeli folk dance routines. A financial adviser and life insurance broker, Adrian is an ebullient bore.

The jacket endorsements from David Baddiel (“Hilarious”), Zadie Smith (“Absolutely hilarious”), Adam Phillips (“Very funny”) and Lisa Appignanesi (“Madcap”) are therefore utterly baffling to me, as is the big disclaimer I noticed: “Some details of this story have been altered, including elements of characterisation, names, dates, places and events.”

So, it’s fictional after all? When Andrusier says one Christmas he’d played keyboards for “stagnant old comedian” Harry Secombe at the Oxford Playhouse – “I saw the sweat on his brow as he lowered his eyes to look into the band pit” – are we to conclude that Harry Secombe, the Oxford Playhouse, Christmastime and keyboard-playing are all just inventions, as fabricated as Marilyn in Penge?

A Marilyn Monroe signature turns out to be a forgery – ‘not even spelt correctly’

‘There had to be tiny molecules lurking’: Marilyn Monroe in 1953