Funny Letters From Famous People

by Charles Osgood

  Dear Josie:

  It’s been years since we had anything but the most sketchy communication.… I’ve long since owed you an account of the destiny of your cat and here we go.

  The cat, after your leaving him, seemed not certain of his character or his place and we changed his name to Delmore which immediately made him more vivid. The first sign of his vividness came when he dumped a load in a Kleenex box while I was suffering from a cold. During a paroxysm of sneezing I grabbed for some Kleenex. I shall not overlook my own failures in this tale but when I got the cat shit off my face and the ceiling I took Delmore to the kitchen door and drop-kicked him into the clothesyard. This was an intolerable cruelty and I have not yet been forgiven. He is not a forgiving cat. Indeed he is proud. Spring came on then and as I was about to remove [one of] the clear glass storm window[s], Delmore, thinking the window to be open, hurled himself against the glass. This hurt his nose and his psyche badly. Mary and the children then went to the Mountains and I spent a reasonably happy summer cooking for Delmore. The next eventfulness came on Thanksgiving. When the family had gathered for dinner and I was about to carve the turkey there came a strangling noise from the bathroom. I ran there and found Delmore sitting in the toilet, neck-deep in cold water and very sore. I got him out and dried him with towels but there was no forgiveness. Shortly after Christmas a Hollywood writer and his wife came to lunch. My usual salutation to Delmore is: Up yours, and when the lady heard me say this she scorned me and gathered Delmore to her breasts. Delmore, in a flash, started to unscrew her right eyeball and the lady, trying to separate herself from Delmore lost a big piece of an Italian dress she was wearing which Mary said cost $250.00. This was not held against Delmore and a few days later when we had a skating party I urged Delmore to come to the pond with us. He seemed pleased and frisked along like a family-loving cat but at that moment a little wind came from the northeast and spilled the snow off a hemlock onto Delmore. He gave me a dirty look, went back to the house and dumped another load in the Kleenex box. This time he got the cleaning woman and they remain unfriendly.

  This is not meant at all to be a rancorous account and I think Delmore enjoys himself.… People who dislike me go directly to his side and he is, thus, a peace-maker. He loves to play with toilet paper. He does not like catnip mice. He does not kill song birds. In the spring the rabbits chase him around the lawn but they leave after the lettuce has been eaten and he has the terrace pretty much to himself. He is very fat these days and his step, Carl Sandburg notwithstanding, sounds more like that of a barefoot middle-aged man on his way to the toilet than the settling in of a winter fog but he has his role and we all respect it and here endeth my report on Delmore the cat.

  Best,

  John

  Flannery O’Connor

  FLANNERY O’CONNOR, the great Southern author of novels, novellas, and short fiction, wrote this letter to her friend Cecil Dawkins:

  Dear Cecil:

  Well my novel is finished.

  The current ordeal is that my mother is now in the process of reading it. She reads about two pages, gets up and goes to the back door for a conference with Shot [their dog], comes back, reads two more pages, gets up and goes to the barn. Yesterday she read a whole chapter. There are twelve chapters. All the time she is reading, I know she would like to be in the yard digging. I think the reason I am a short-story writer is so my mother can read my work in one sitting.

  In 1961, O’Connor wrote her friend “A” about the confusion that her book titles are capable of causing, particularly her 1960 novel The Violent Bear It Away.

  Some friends of mine in Texas wrote me that a friend of theirs went into a bookstore looking for a paperback copy of A Good Man [Is Hard to Find]. The clerk said, “We don’t have that one but we have another by that author, called The Bear That Ran Away With it. I foresee the trouble I am going to have with Everything That Rises Must Converge—Every Rabbit That Rises Is a Sage.

  Isaac Asimov

  SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR Isaac Asimov wrote an admiring letter to science writer Carl Sagan in December 1974:

  Dear Carl,

  I have just finished The Cosmic Connection and loved every word of it. You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.

  One more thing about the book made me nervous. It was entirely too obvious that you are smarter than I am. I hate that.

  S. J. Perelman

  BEST KNOWN TODAY for writing two of the best Marx Brothers movies, Horse Feathers and Monkey Business, S. J. Perelman was in his day widely renowned as a master of satire and irony. He wrote more than a dozen books, numerous other screenplays, plays, and several volumes of essays. He served as principal arbiter of humor at The New Yorker for several decades, and was an icon to generations of humorists.

  Perelman’s cleverness extended to the simplest of missives, such as this dinner invitation Perelman wrote to essayist, critic, editor, and good friend Edmund Wilson in 1939:

  Hotel Fairfax

  116 East 56th Street

  New York City

  February 9, 1939

  Dear Edmondo,

  I got back from the country to find your card sparkling like a jewel in a diadem of unpaid bills, poison pen letters, and rusty old telephone messages. We would like very much to see you but there is no earthly reason why you should have to bend over a hot stove (with flushed cheeks, occasionally tucking up a wisp of hair on the nape of your neck) to prepare dinner for us. I think it would be much better if Mrs. Wilson and you came in and had dinner with us. This invitation does not extend to your baby, who I understand has a tendency to fall asleep about six o’clock after gorging himself, belching, and generally behaving in the worst possible taste.

  Do you have a sitter whom you could call in for the occasion? A father of two since I saw you last, you will find my conversation studded with references to Snuggle-duckies, pablum, and strollers. But why depress you in advance?

  We look forward to seeing you just as soon as possible.

  Ever,

  S. J. Perelman

  Perelman was not likely to let anyone get away with anything. Here’s a letter he wrote in 1975 to Perry Howze, an aspiring graphic designer and cartoonist who had written a fan letter to Perelman—and misspelled Perelman’s name. They later became friends, but not before Perelman penned the following:

  Gramercy Park Hotel

  New York City

  January 1975

  Dear Perry,

  Judging from your progressive-school handwriting, the content of your previous note, and the imperious tone of the message below, you seem to be a willful infant who is accustomed to getting her own way. Accordingly, you may profit from a word of advice and I’ll give it to you for free.

  The next time you issue a demand for anything, honey, whether it’s a spoonful of farina or a Christmas card, examine the name of the person you’re asking and spell it correctly.

  Now wipe the egg off your face and have a happy New Year.

  Love,

  Perelman had the occasion to write the following letter in 1978 to Arthur H. Rosen, president of the National Committee on United States–China Relations, Inc.:

  Gramercy Park Hotel

  New York City

  July 17, 1978

  Dear Sir:

  I am in receipt of your boorish little note in which you dub me “an alte knacker” (whatever you conceive that to mean) and a “meshugener” (misspelled though the intent is clear), and equate me with folk seeking to perform rock on the Great Wall and to canoe on the Yangtse. Not content with these gibes at a person unknown to you, you then demand with a cackle whether I consider myself a comedian. All the foregoing, please note, on the basis of a telephone inquiry reported to you by a subordinate, the details of which you know nothing about.

  Let me, therefore, reply as succinctly as I can. I have never before heard of you, but if the above is indicative of your skill at furthering
relations between the United States and China, you are lamentably miscast. You belong on the borscht circuit—not at Grossinger’s, the Concord Hotel, or even at Kutscher’s, but at some lesser establishment where the clientele is as gross and chuckle-headed as you are. It defies reason that the promotion of cordiality between two great nations should have been entrusted to an asshole.

  Yours, etc.

  Quentin Crisp

  THE ESTEEMED AUTHOR, actor, raconteur, and noted wit Quentin Crisp, who described himself on his calling card as a “retired waif,” didn’t make it to New York for the first time until he was in his seventies, but, as he often said ever afterward, “The moment I saw New York, I wanted it.” He was able to move there to do his one-man show, An Evening with Quentin Crisp, and he enjoyed considerable celebrity for the rest of his many days.

  Shortly after he first arrived in New York, he wrote the following letter to his young niece Denise:

  The Church of the Beloved Disciple,

  348 West 14th. St

  New York City

  23rd. October ‘80

  Thank you, Dear Denise, for your kind letter. I am not really staying in a church but it is a safer resting place for letters than my rather dubious room opposite. I have, as you see, reached America and am hammering away at a Mrs. Levitt who is my immigration lawyer in the hope of becoming a “resident alien.” At the moment our plea is that I will do work that no American will do. If this fails, I shall “come here to join my relatives.” Mrs G. now has a telephone and we have spoken to each other at great length. She is planning to visit New York in order to witness me when I do a stint of addressing the multitude in a dim bar on 6th. Avenue. How she will return in the middle of the night to New Jersey I have no idea but, as you know, she is infinitely resourceful and will doubtless have a distant relative in New York whom she can nag into allowing her to sleep on his bathroom floor.

  At the moment I am staying in a penthouse that belongs to a kind friend. The hospitality of Americans is infinite. Taxi drivers are willing to take you round the city free of charge; bus drivers shake you by the hand; pedestrians say, “Welcome to the United States!”

  If you possibly can, you should come here though I am aware of your difficulties. Everyone is rich and everyone is handsome so you could marry almost anybody within a week.

  I was delighted to hear from you and sorry that most of your correspondence is with my agent. I send you my best wishes for your health and happiness. This message also goes for your mother and your children. If I am granted residency here, I will write again; if not, the whole world will know.…

  Quentin

  P.S. Take no notice of the back of this page; it is only part of a rejected book.

  Q.C.

  Andy Rooney

  ANDY ROONEY, whom we’ll return to in the next section, once got a rave review for one of his books in the Washington Journalism Review. He immediately wrote the reviewer:

  Roger Piantadosi

  Washington Journalism Review

  Dear Roger,

  Bad taste though it may be, I can’t resist telling you that I could hardly have been more pleased with your review of my book than if I’d written the review myself.

  I admire writers who don’t care what people say about their work but I am not among them. I care desperately. I consider myself a minor writer for this reason. J. D. Salinger is a major writer. He doesn’t care. Of course, he doesn’t write anything either.

  An editor at Warner Books wrote what Rooney thought was a good letter, asking him to contribute to a book they were going to publish called The Joy of Pigging Out. Rooney wrote back:

  Patti Breitman

  Editor

  Warner Books

  Dear Patti,

  Thanks for your understanding letter. What you seemed to understand was that I probably wouldn’t do what you were asking me to. That was good thinking on your part.

  There is just so much Andy Rooney the world needs and having my name on the cover of a book and included in the publicity when I’ve had almost nothing to do with it, is the kind of step toward exceeding that need that I try not to take.

  The Joy of Pigging Out sounds like fun but I hope the phrase “pigging out” isn’t past its prime. It reached its peak with teenagers about ten years ago and, if you’re lucky, they may all be of book-buying age now and it won’t occur to them, at least, that the phrase has been phased out of the lexicon of the current crop.

  Good luck but don’t wait for a contribution from me.

  Sincerely,

  Andy Rooney

  III

  DENIZENS OF THE FINE ARTS AND SHOW BUSINESS

  There’s no business like show business, unless it is the arts.

  You cannot tell where one begins and the other starts.

  If you would like to know an artist or performer better,

  Forget the art, forget the show, and go right to a letter.

  A letter being personal is always less inhibited

  Than the show that is put on or art that is exhibited.

  Creative people have great gifts which some regard as flaws;

  What they crave most in this life is approval and applause.

  CHARLES OSGOOD

  Mozart

  WHEN HE WAS twenty-one, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote this letter to his father after spending an evening visiting a friend whose daughter was reputedly a child prodigy. Although the little girl’s piano technique had been admired and resoundingly praised by many musicians, Mozart (who, of course, had himself been one of the greatest child prodigies in history) regarded her talent somewhat differently.

  Augsburg

  October 23, 1777

  Mon très cher Père:

  … When I was at Stein’s house the other day he put before me a sonata by Beecke—I think I have told you that already. That reminds me, now for his little daughter. Anyone who sees and hears her play and can keep from laughing must, like her father, be made of stone. For instead of sitting in the middle of the clavier, she sits right opposite the treble, as it gives her more chance of flopping about and making grimaces. If it has to be played a third time, then she plays it even more slowly. When a passage is being played the arm must be raised as high as possible, and according as the notes in the passage are stressed, the arm, not the fingers, must do this, and that too with great emphasis in a heavy and clumsy manner. But the best joke of all is that when she comes to a passage which ought to flow like oil and which necessitates a change of finger, she does not bother her head about it, but when the moment arrives, she just leaves out the notes, raises her hand, and starts off again quite comfortably—a method by which she is much more likely to strike a wrong note, which often produces a curious effect.

  … Herr Stein is quite crazy about his daughter, who is eight-and-a-half and who now learns everything by heart. She may succeed, for she has a great talent for music. But she will not make progress by this method—for she will never acquire great rapidity, since she definitely does all she can to make her hands heavy. Further, she will never acquire the most essential, the most difficult and the chief requisite of music, which is time, because from her earliest year she has done her utmost not to play in time.…

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  The following year (1778), Mozart wrote to an apparently unduly neglected cousin:

  Mademoiselle, my very dear Cousin,

  You may perhaps believe, or opine, that I am dead!—that I am defunct!—or insane!—but no, I beg you to think no such thing, for to think is one thing and to do another! How could I write so beautifully if I were dead? Tell me now, would it be possible? I will not offer a word of apology for my long silence, for you would never believe me; though what is true is true! I have had so much to do that I have had time to think of my little cousin but not to write to her, consequently I have had to leave it undone. Now, however, I do myself the honor of inquiring how you are and how you do? …

  Adieu little coz. I am, I was, I shou
ld be, I have been, I had been, I should have been, oh, if I only were, oh, that I were, would God I were; I could be, I shall be, if I were to be, oh, that I might be, I would have been, oh, had I been, oh, that I had been, would God I had been—what? A dried cod! Adieu ma chère Cousine, whither away? I am your faithful cousin,

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Beethoven

  LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN had very little—if any—control over his temper, which swung wildly in all directions. Here are two brief missives that Beethoven wrote on consecutive days to pianist/composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel in 1799. First:

  Never come near me again! You are a faithless cur, and may the hangman take all faithless curs.

  Beethoven

  The very next day:

  My dearest Nazerl,

  You are an honest fellow and I now perceive you were right; so come to see me this afternoon; Schuppanzigh will be here too, and the pair of us will scold you, cuff you, and shake you to your heart’s content.

  A warm embrace from

  Your Beethoven

  Also known as Little Dumpling

  Here’s a humorously peevish missive Beethoven wrote to a potential patron, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, regarding a commission that obviously severely displeased the composer, whose unruly feelings about Napoleon Bonaparte moved him to dedicate his Third Symphony to him, and later tear off the title page in a rage and retitle the symphony Eroica, and rededicate it to the memory of a hero.

  April 8, 1802

  May the devil ride the whole lot of you, gentlemen—what, suggest to me that I should write a sonata of that sort? At the time of the revolutionary fever—well, at that time it would have been worth considering, but now that everything is trying to get back into the old rut, Bonaparte has made his concordat with the Pope—a sonata of that sort? If at least it were a Missa pro Sancta Marai a tre voci or a Vespers, etc.—well, in that case I should immediately take hold of the brush and write down a Credo in unum in enormous notes weighing a pound each—but good heavens, a sonata of that sort at the beginning of the new Christian age—ho ho!—count me out of that, for nothing will come of it.