American novelist (1892–1977) best known as the author of such crime/noir classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity. TLS signed “Jim,” one page, 8.5 x 11, personal letterhead, April 27, 1974. Letter to Matthew J. Bruccoli, professor of English at the University of South Carolina, with Cain offering an anecdote on author John O'Hara: “In re THE CHRISTMAS SPEERT, the piece I suspect of being O'Hara's first in New York: I reprinted it on the Christmas Page, December 25, of the New York World, 1929, as I pin down by the following recollection: I was in touch with the big money at the time, so I could have produced a play, and on the basis of this piece sent for O'Hara to try and persuade him to write it…I invited him down to the apartment…in October 1929, on Fast Nineteenth Street…my wife Elina wasn't there.” He explains why the meeting had to take place only in 1929 and continues: “O'Hara seemed surprised at my admiration for the piece, indifferent to my idea, and utterly indifferent to me. He was not the easiest person to like, being quite cold in his manner, even at age 24…I do not think I was alone in that reaction to him. He wasn't noted for his charm. But on paper I was, and still am, his potato.” Cain adds a postscript that refers to Judge John Sirica, the Watergate judge who ordered President Nixon to turn in his White House tapes to the Senate committee: “Now to mooch something off you, since I take it you're partly Italian: This judge we have here, who has his name pronounced SirIca — Shouldn't that be SIRica? That’s how I make it, on the basis of operatic Italian, which I'm fairly loaded with." In fine condition. Praised by such contemporaries as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, author John O'Hara is perhaps best remembered for his novels Butterfield 8 (1935) and Pal Joey (1940).
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