The NFSA has recently acquired a beautifully preserved autograph book compiled by Lesley Cansdell (nee Walsh). Lesley was born in Sydney in September 1941 and grew up in Marrickville, where she lived until she met her husband George in 1964.
Lesley’s autograph book contains over 90 handwritten comments and signatures from people including Ruth Cracknell, Chips Rafferty, John Ewart, Rod Taylor, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Muriel Steinbeck and many more. To overcome the illegibility of some of the signatures, and in the interests of identifying the stars in years to come, Lesley wrote the name of each person on the page. Accompanying many of these signatures are portraits of the stars that Lesley cut and pasted from magazines including Radio Pictorial and ABC Weekly. In doing so, she transformed this little autograph book into a timeless piece of memorabilia.
