1940's Yankees/Movie Star? Photo ID Help

[ATP]

I am exceptionally bad with recognizing faces, can anyone help me with who this is? It as in an large scrapbook album, almost exclusively movie and radio stars autograph ranging from 1932 to the early 1950's with only a few athletes included, so it would somewhere in that range. The specific section it was near was the 1940's. Is it a Yankee, or a movie star playing a Yankee? Feel free to make jokes at my expense if it is extremely obvious :-) Thanks for your help.

[Butch7999]

George Raft.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0706368/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Can't guess what movie, if any, that might be from -- more likely taken at an exhibition game played for charity.
Have another photo of him at such a thing around here somewhere...


Ah! Here it is. Cribbed from a "silver screen" forum somewhere...
Undated, but probably WWII era, although the Cubs uni looks no newer than 1936. Then again,
Raft looks he has a Giants cap above his Yankee pinstripes in your picture, so... hey, it's just for charity...

[ATP]

Ah yes, Raft indeed. I should have guessed as there were quite a few other Raft portrait photos included with it. And also, I would like to say that the several times I have posted for help in this section on items that aren't my speciality, you have been very helpful and I appreciate that, Butch7999. Thank you.

[Butch7999]

You're most welcome, Jeff, and thank you for the kind words.
The members of Net54 and of our own Forum have over the years provided us much more information and assistance than we've ever provided in turn!


Actually, the whole movie-stars-playing-ball thing got us sufficiently curious to do a little more digging, and we found these for starters:

> several mentions here of the "Comedians vs Leading Men annual charity game," including a 1939 installment,
mostly about six to twelve scrolls down at this page:
http://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=12772
-- excellent little resource overall, in fact, for images and citations of baseball-meets-Hollywood...

> scroll down about two dozen clicks for a mention here of a "second annual" motion-picture game in 1937:
http://waterandpower.org/museum/Base..._Early_LA.html

[GoldenAge50s]

That picture of Raft looks like his head is superimposed on that body.