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Lot 55

CHANDLER, RAYMOND. 1888-1959.
Typed Letter Signed ("Ray"), 1 p, 4to, August 8, 1952, La Jolla, CA,

4 June 2014, 13:00 EDT
New York

US$1,000 - US$1,500

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CHANDLER, RAYMOND. 1888-1959.

Typed Letter Signed ("Ray"), 1 p, 4to, August 8, 1952, La Jolla, CA, on personal letterhead, with secretarial mark in red ink in upper corner and pencil erasure in lower margin, pinholes to top margin, folding creases.

Chandler writes his Hollywood agent, H.N. Swanson, to inquire whether there have been any television offers forthcoming, and provides a withering take on a then current detective series. In part, "There isn't a decent private eye show on the air. I read in the paper where Lee Tracy had made Martin Kane over into something fresh and beautiful, so I tuned it in last night, if that's the correct expression for TV, and if television has done anything worse, I am so happy to have missed it. Between the commercials I tried to study Mr. Tracy's approach to his art but was handicapped by having to look at his face, which on television seems to consist of some doughy substance or perhaps a soft white wax. His talent as an actor is considerable in the right time and place and would have dwarfed the rest of the cast, esthetically speaking, had they not already been dwarfs."

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