ED WYNN - AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED CIRCA 1932 - HFSID 142100

ED WYNN
Comedian and actor Ed Wynn wrote this telegram-style note in pencil on the back of a 1932 letter from attorney Charles J. Goldman about the publishing of his script from The Texaco Fire Chief radio program with the Uproar Company. The publishing of these scripts would turn into a four-year legal battle.
Autograph note signed "Ed Wynn" in pencil. 1 page, 8½x11. Written on verso of a typed letter from Charles J. Goldman, Attorney at Law, on his letterhead. Goldman letter in part: "Dear Mr. Wynn: I am emerging from the necessary publishing preliminaries and will have, by Friday night of this week, a complete dummy which I shall be pleased to forward if you will wire me your whereabouts. You were to send me revised itinerary so that I could not only keep in touch with you, but, could use the same in 'Uproars'... I am planning for an initial print of 100,000 around the last week in November, and arranging for a larger edition if required... Your more recent broadcasts are so superior to the earlier ones that I would appreciate you forwarding me some so that we could make the best possible initial impression... This week we are broadcasting in the largest cities and if the proper response is received will extend to other cities. It has been arranged, as you know, for over fifty stations, but the required permission of the Texaco Company and the National Broadcast Company absolutely demoralized the plans. Won't you please select a half dozen of your most recent broadcasts and send them to me NOW -please. Most sincerely,". Wynn's reply in full:"The early programmes are better material and better constructed than late ones stop it is [illegible] my means of broadcasting stop I suggest printing in rotation of dates as as I presented them stop Cass Theatre Detroit till November twelth [sic] then one week Hanna Theatre Cleveland.". The Uproar company had signed a contract with Wynn on Oct. 1, 1932 to publish his radio scripts for The Fire Chief, sponsored by Texaco. Wynn implicitly owned the scripts, but signingthe contract with Uproar damaged his agreement, also implicit, with Texaco that he shouldn't degrade or cheapen the value of the program. In other words, why listen to the Texaco-sponsored radio show when you can buy the scripts and their jokes from Uproar? Texacotried to stop Uproar from publishing the scripts, so Uproarturned around andsuedNBC and several other defendants, which they claimed were engaged in a conspiracy to prevent Uproar from publishing Wynn's scripts. Thecase went all the way to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled on Jan. 7, 1936 in support of a lower court's ruling that Uproar "is making a commercial use, wholly unauthorized, of the script...". On April 26, 1931, Wynn (1886-1966), born Isaiah Edwin Leopold, made his first appearance as Texaco's "Fire Chief" before a live radio audience. His popular radio series The Texaco Fire Chief ran from 1932 to 1935. He later starred in CBS's first Los Angeles-based variety show, The Ed Wynn Show, from Oct. 6, 1949 to July 4, 1950. The show won the first Emmy Award for "Best Live Show" in 1949, and it would also win a Peabody Award. Wynn won the first Emmy for Most Outstanding Live Personality. He later appeared as Albert Dussell in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), which earned him a 1960 Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor, and in the TV movie Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956) with son Keenan Wynn. Lightly toned and creased. Rust stains on verso. Light tear at left edge. Folded once horizontally and twice vertically. Otherwise in fine condition.