Unsigned TLS, six onionskin pages, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, October 20, 1974. Fascinating letter from Erin Fleming, the personal secretary to Marx, concerning the actor’s declining health, in part: “Please be advised that it will be totally impossible for Groucho to travel to New York ever again. He went to New York against the advice of his doctors and attended the opening of Animal Crackers…Groucho suffered several setbacks on that last trip, and he had to be hospitalized twice, for a total of three weeks, when he returned home…As you know, he is a man of great willpower, and I believe that his health could not withstand another such journey. He is fine now, i.e., as fine as can be expected, but I have hired one more nurse, so that he now has a nurse on duty 24 hours, three shifts per day. Before the Animal Crackers trip, he required two nurses: a night nurse (Traci) and a morning nurse (Barbara). Groucho’s condition is called ‘eschemia’…which engenders small strokes—these strokes do not necessarily impair his wit, but rather, his motor resources such as speech, walking, and general movement…Groucho is now in the process of re-writing his portion of the Scrapbook using the original transcripts, supplemented by many tape-recorded conversations that I have made. He is enjoying the writing immensely, although we are moving slowly as he tires easily…He may have slowed down a lot, but as he himself succinctly explains, ‘my body may be in neutral, but my brain is still in gear.’” In fine condition, with punch holes to tops and edges.
