About This Stamp
In the early days of film, before “talkies” had been invented, all movies were silent. Despite the lack of sound, talented silent film stars conveyed a variety of characters and emotions through acting.
The Postal Service honored these actors by featuring them in the Silent Screen Stars postage stamps, designed and drawn by Al Hirschfeld and issued in San Francisco, California. Those featured included Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Zasu Pitts, Harold Lloyd, Keystone Cops, Theda Bara, and Buster Keaton.
Stamp Art Director
Howard E. Paine
A member of the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee before being named an art director in 1981, Howard E. Paine supervised the design of more than 400 U.S. postage stamps. After three decades as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, he retired in 2011.
For more than 30 years Paine was an art director for the National Geographic Society, where he redesigned National Geographic magazine, developed the children’s magazine, National Geographic World, and designed Explorers Hall. A popular lecturer, he has spoken at Yale University and New York University, among others, and presented programs for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. A judge for numerous art shows and design competitions, Paine also taught magazine design at The George Washington University.
Paine had been a stamp collector since childhood. In 2000, he designed the catalog for Pushing The Envelope: The Art of the Postage Stamp, an exhibit of original stamp art at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Howard Paine died on September 13, 2014.