^Lot 931 James Cagney

TLS signed “Jim C.,” one page, 7.25 x 10.5, Verney Farm letterhead, August 27, 1979. Cagney writes an admirer. In part: “I can understand the mystery involved in the final script of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’ The Epstein boys were responsible for most of the re-write. There is no reason for you to know that, or through the shooting scripts there were interpolations by actors and directors concerned with it. Curtiz did have very little to do with that, as his knowledge of English was very spare…and the Epstein boys put his name in in place of their own as a favor to a friend…The crying that I used in the death scene with Papa, just seemed to do the finishing off of what was in the script. I believe I told you in my other letter to you about Mr. Cohan sending out his lawyer friend, of 300 pounds and Boston Irish, to sit in judgment on what was in the finished product…after 20 minutes…the lower man was in tears. We knew then we had his complete approval. There were many things which dropped into the script. But that was true of all our jobs for some of us. Curtiz, to answer your questions about him, wore his coat of many colors rather well, and he was most unhappy when off the set. I used to say there was no such person as Curtiz, but only Curtiz the director. I understand they would actually take the camera from him to keep him from going on for 24 hours of straight shooting. He was truly fanatical. I understand he had no life off the set.” In fine condition, with intersecting horizontal and vertical folds. A unique firsthand perspective of Cagney’s Academy Award–winning role, brimming with colorful anecdotes and directly mentioning famed director Michael Curtiz and the Academy Award-winning screenwriting Epstein brothers.