Hepburn to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr
A group of 7 Autograph and Typed Letters Signed ("Pete"), to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr and wife Mary Lee.
Various places: 1981-1996.
Price: $3,000.00
About the item
7 pp., on Katharine Houghton Hepburn letterhead. 8vo. Hepburn to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Overall very good with old folds. Provenance: Estate of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Item #308908
The friendship of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr and Katharine Hepburn spanned the entirety of their long careers; the two starred together in Morning Glory in 1933 — Hepburn's third film, for which she won her first Oscar. The present group of letters testifies to the warmth with which they continued to regard each other in the later years of their lives, and in several Hepburn refers to creative projects on which she is then at work. Hepburn includes "Pete" in her signature in all of the letters, and addresses Fairbanks as "Pete" as well — evidently a private joke between the two.
In a letter of March 23, 1981, Hepburn thanks Fairbanks for his work as narrator on a PBS documentary on Hepburn's career released a few weeks earlier: "You are a sweetie to have labored on my behalf. I've not yet seen it but everyone says that you did a lovely job." She continues in the same letter about the touring production of "West Side Waltz," the play written by Ernest Thompson for which she would ultimately receive a Tony nomination: "We're a big hit out here [Los Angeles?]. They care about the play — The end that is. But he really can write & the audience laugh & laugh."
In a letter of December 8, 1981, she writes "Aren't you sweet — It does look like a big hit — What luck," referring either to On Golden Pond, which had received limited release in the U.S. four days earlier, or the Broadway run of "West Side Waltz," which had begun in November. She adds, "Hope you can come to the play."
In a letter of December 26, 1982, Hepburn writes of a car accident she'd been in a few weeks earlier: "Well — here's from the fool ... Did I look down — or up or in or out — who will ever know — right square into a telegraph pole! We'll recover hopefully but my oh my casts & neck braces & ribs & bore bore bore …"
In a letter of March 5, 1986, referring to a television tribute to Spencer Tracy, in which Hepburn gave an emotional reading of a letter she wrote to her former lover following his death, she tells Fairbanks: "Thank god it's over –– apparently a success — The things we're asked to do — Wow!"
