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, November 12, 1971. Letter to “Swanie,” his literary agent H. N. Swanson, in full: “Two queries, in connection with a story I'm working on (to keep from going nuts till I hear from another story I sent on last month to Ober, Ivan and Dorothy):
1. A woman, once a child star, now getting the least bit fat, perhaps in her middle thirties, gets work only when she plays Aunt Mollie, a comedy pest, in Suburban Honeymoon, a fictitious show. The query: She gets hired on two or three times each season, and how much would she be paid for this occasional appearance?
2. A guy, still in his twenties, went from Carlisle, Pa. to New York, appeared in a Broadway play, and then was sold to Hollywood. But he appeared in some pilots that flopped, getting tagged as a jinx, so for a while is in eclipse for regular work. But he does work in a shaving-lotion commercial, as the butler who takes the bottle from the maid, hands its to the shaver, and then stares in disbelief when the maid likes the smell so well she kisses the shaver. It is a sort of regular job, like Jesse White for Maytag. The query: How much would he get this work? It would help me if he didn't get too much, but did get enough to live on.
3. Assuming he gets too much for my purposes, are there any small bit parts in advertising that I could allude to to wrap him up in this respect? His TV work is a very small part of the story, but I ought to have it right.
Mrs. Layne keeps writing me, and says she's in touch with you, or that Layne is, or something. If you can fix up a deal I can always use it. Regards, and my usual hey nonny nonny.” Cain adds a brief handwritten postscript. In fine condition.
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