JAMES KIRKWOOD JR. - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 03/01/1981 - HFSID 270545

THE TONY AWARD & PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF A CHORUS LINE IS "BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL AS WELL AS MY BRAINS TRYING TO WRITE THIS MUSICAL...A MUSICAL COMBINED WITH A MURDER MYSTERY"

JAMES KIRKWOOD
TLS: "Jim", 1 page, 8¼x10¾. New York, 1981 March 1. To comedienne Phyllis Diller. In full: "Thank you so much for your note. And I think of you often as I'm burning the midnight oil as well as my brains trying to write this musical. You are constantly in my mind every time I write a line or a monologue or a sketch in which I hope you will appear. The show is extremely difficult to write book-wise because of the heavy plotting involved--what with red herrings, many suspects, and all the entanglements that go with a musical combined with a murder mystery. So it's going slowly but I hope well. I'll be in California around the middle of March and will try to call you and perhaps we can get together if you are out there. In the meantime, I hope all goes well with you, that you are happy in your work and happy in your personal life, training your gerbils, or singing to the cat, or playing terrible jokes on any minors that happen to be around. I love you buckets." JAMES KIRKWOOD (1924-1989) is the author of novels There Must Be a Pony!, Good Times/Bad Times, American Grotesque, P.S. Your Cat is Dead!, and Some Kind of Hero. Co-author of the book of A Chorus Line, he won the 1976 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. A Chorus Line ran for a then-record 6,137 performances, from 1975-1990. Comedienne PHYLLIS DILLER known for her outrageous appearance, zany outfits, distinctive laugh and a stand-up act that featured frequent references to her fictional husband, "Fang", and zingers about her sex appeal and numerous plastic surgeries, got her big break in March 1955 (at age 37), when she debuted at San Francisco's Purple Onion club. Her feature film credits include Splendor in the Grass (1961), The Fat Spy (1966), Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number! (1966), The Sunshine Boys (1975) and The Silence of the Hams (1994), and she provided the voice of the Queen in A Bug's Life (1998). Despite retiring from nightclub/stage tours in May 2002 at the age of 84, Diller continued to make films (Motorcross Kids, 2004; Forget About It, 2005) and occasionally appear on TV programs, including two episodes of 7th Heaven (2002, 2003). With original envelope. Unevenly toned. Otherwise, fine condition. Two items.