Lot 13
A rare handwritten Oliver Hardy letter
25 November 2013, 13:00 EST
Los AngelesSold for US$1,625 inc. premium
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A rare handwritten Oliver Hardy letter
Autograph letter signed ("Daddy") in black ink, 3 pp, 4to, [Culver City, California, November 25, 1935], to Hardy's wife Myrtle, then residing in a Topanga Canyon sanitarium for the treatment of her alcoholism, with original Hal Roach Studios transmittal envelope signed ("O. Hardy").
Hardy writes of the troubled production of Bohemian Girl: "Have been working awfully / hard there has been so / much illness on this picture. / Stan was layed up for 2 1/2 weeks Mae Bush for 4 weeks it seems / we have been on it for a year." Bohemian Girl stars Laurel and Hardy as gypsies in 17th century Bohemia, and costars Mae Busch as Hardy's wife. It was also Thelma Todd's last film, with the actress's tragic death by carbon monoxide poisoning coming just three weeks after the writing of this letter.
The majority of the letter finds Hardy expressing love and encouragement to his wife, from whom he was estranged at the time. He ends the letter, "Be sweet, think / sweet and know that / my devotion has never / changed and never will / But we must go up hill and not back ... I love you darling everlastingly / Daddy." A heartfelt letter from the iconic comedian to his second wife, whom he would divorce in 1937.
8 1/2 x 11 in.
Hardy writes of the troubled production of Bohemian Girl: "Have been working awfully / hard there has been so / much illness on this picture. / Stan was layed up for 2 1/2 weeks Mae Bush for 4 weeks it seems / we have been on it for a year." Bohemian Girl stars Laurel and Hardy as gypsies in 17th century Bohemia, and costars Mae Busch as Hardy's wife. It was also Thelma Todd's last film, with the actress's tragic death by carbon monoxide poisoning coming just three weeks after the writing of this letter.
The majority of the letter finds Hardy expressing love and encouragement to his wife, from whom he was estranged at the time. He ends the letter, "Be sweet, think / sweet and know that / my devotion has never / changed and never will / But we must go up hill and not back ... I love you darling everlastingly / Daddy." A heartfelt letter from the iconic comedian to his second wife, whom he would divorce in 1937.
8 1/2 x 11 in.
