FRANK SCULLY - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 07/29/1936 - HFSID 31739

FRANK SCULLY
Variety columnist Frank Scully signed this letter, typed on his personalized stationery in 1936, to fellow columnist Louis Sobol. In it, Scully thanked Sobol for a plug on Sobol's show Now It Can Be Sold and gave an update on the progress of his Hollywood home. Scully is best remembered for his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, about a supposed flying saucer crash in Aztec, New Mexico.
Typed letter signed "Frank" in pencil. Pencil corrections in unknown hand. 1 page, 6x6¾, on Scully's personalized stationery. July 29, 1936. In full: "Dear Louis Merci mille fois ( and you can settle for a million and still consider yourself short-changed) for that plug on Now It Can Be Sold. Abel Green, Edwin Baird, Max Schuster and a couple of other guys who could have done it better but didn't have the time took time out of their present pressing labors to join you in throwing their old flowers our way. We are still on Harry Carey's ranch; our Hollywood slab which we are building on a hilltop eight blocks from Vine and Hollywood is supposed to be ready now but won't be for another month, so we sit here in the boiling sun whittling wood with the Bronx Cowboy. It is by far the most beautiful set-up in this land of make believe mansions and I regret ever having to leave it. But it's too far from my croakers and without them loading me with this and that I wouldn't I suppose live fifty years. We went down to the Romeo Juliet [sic] preem and enjoyed Shearer. Easily the performance of the year if not the top Juliet of all time they gave us the works even to sound tracking out sediments, and any day now I expect they'll find I didn't write the piece and claimed I did. Even Shaw wouldn't do go that far. Weill next time we'll see you if we have to hire Carey to rope you!" "Louis" is possibly New York journalist LOUIS SOBOL (1896-1986), who wrote a gossip-oriented entertainment column for 40 years, initially focused on the Broadway stage but also covering film and TV personalities for the New York Journal American. American journalist FRANK SCULLY (1892-1964) was a columnist for Variety magazine in the 1940s and 1950s, but is chiefly remembered today for his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, in which he claimed that four flying saucers had crashed in New Mexico, including one - possibly the most famous of the four - that crashed in New Mexico in 1948. The magazine True reported in 1952 that two of the scientists that Scully used as sources - Silas Newton and "Dr. Gee", identified as Leo GeBauer - were actually con men who claimed to have created a device for finding gold and oil that used UFO technology. In rebuttal, Scully claimed that Dr. Gee was actually a composite of many sources familiar with the Aztec, New Mexico crash and reiterated his belief in the incident's veracity in his 1963 book Armour Bright. He also authored the somewhat less controversial book Fun in Bed - about keeping yourself amused during convalescence and not what you think - and numerous sequels. Lightly toned and creased. Light tear at bottom edge. Folded in half and unfolded. Otherwise in fine condition.