TLS signed “J. Cagney,” one page, 7.25 x 10.5, Verney Farm letterhead, July 3, 1979. Outstanding content concerning the making of the classic Yankee Doodle Dandy. In part: “There was never a script submitted to Mr. Cohan. He sent a friend out, who was a lawyer, to view the rough cut. My brother Bill escorted Mr. Raftery to a projection room, and sat him down in a big comfortable chair. Inasmuch as the script had not been submitted, my brother was full of misgivings, feeling the lawyer would step all over it. My brother was wrong. About twenty minutes into the film it really got to Mr. Raftery…my brother could feel the lounge vibrating as he realized Mr. Raftery was crying. Bill knew he was home free then…If there ever was a script written by Cohan I never saw it. I did see ‘The Phantom President,’ but it was a flop, and Mr. Cohan’s mannered performance did not help it any. I met him once when he was casting a play. I was in and out in a great hurry, Cohan holding I was not the type he was looking for…An interesting light on the way the film reached the Cohan family, and this may be apocryphal. Warner Bros. sent a print up to his home and he and his wife sat in the projection room and viewed the picture. After the lights went up, Mrs. Cohan, who had not gotten put of her wheelchair in years, got up and walked over and said to George, ‘George you were fine.’ She had accepted me as George so completely. Now that may be all fraudulent, but I thought you should know it. It is interesting if true…I just thought of something else. There was a group of us who used to have dinner every Tuesday night years back. When I say ‘we’ it was people who had worked with Cohan: Spencer Tracy, Frank Morgan, Ralph Bellamy, and Pat O’Brien.” In fine condition. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope. A unique firsthand perspective of Cagney’s Academy Award winning role, brimming with colorful anecdotes. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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