More Letters of Note
Page 12
April 29th, 1971
“Messrs Jeffrey Benson and Michael Isaacs of Tracing Services Ltd, currently on bail on charges of conspiracy to create a public mischief, appear to have lost most of the work collecting debts and tracing absconders for the Granada group, to the considerable regret of Mr James Arkell, Granada’s retail credit manager. Ever since last June, when Tracing Services got the contract, Mr Arkell has been receiving £20 every month from Tracing Services, but the payment now appears to have stopped.”
On April 9th of 1971, much to the dismay of one James Arkell, the brief story quoted above was published in Private Eye, a British satirical news publication founded in 1961 which, thanks to its unflinching commitment to uncovering scandals, is no stranger to legal disputes. Indeed, a few weeks after this particular piece hit the shelves, a letter arrived from Arkell’s solicitors, to which Private Eye responded with a letter which has since become famous in legal and publishing circles. Never ones to miss an opportunity, Private Eye published the exchange very quickly, and almost immediately Arkell withdrew his complaint. The magazine has since used the dispute as shorthand when responding to threats, e.g. “We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.”
Note: “Pressdram Ltd” is Private Eye’s publisher. Also, there was no “case” legally, despite the name by which the dispute is now known.
Dear Sir,
We act for Mr Arkell who is Retail Credit Manager of Granada TV Rental Ltd. His attention has been drawn to an article appearing in the issue of Private Eye dated 9th April 1971 on page 4. The statements made about Mr Arkell are entirely untrue and clearly highly defamatory. We are therefore instructed to require from you immediately your proposals for dealing with the matter. Mr Arkell’s first concern is that there should be a full retraction at the earliest possible date in Private Eye and he will also want his costs paid. His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply.
Yours,
[Signed]
Goodman Derrick & Co.
* * *
Dear Sirs,
We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr. J. Arkell.
We note that Mr Arkell’s attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.
Yours,
Private Eye
Letter No. 037
THE OUTSIDERS
JO ELLEN MISAKIAN TO FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA
March 21st, 1980
In March of 1980, a school librarian by the name of Jo Ellen Misakian wrote to Francis Ford Coppola and, on behalf of the students at Lone Star School in Fresno, California, asked him to consider adapting their favourite novel, S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, for the big screen. Also included with her letter were a copy of the book, and a petition signed by 110 of the kids. Amazingly, three months later they received an unexpected and cautiously optimistic reply from producer Fred Roos, who soon advised Coppola to read the book. Coppola did exactly that, and two years later production on the movie began.
The Outsiders, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was released in March of 1983, with an incredible up-and-coming cast that included Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, and Matt Dillon. A premiere was held for the school, attended by the cast.
Lone Star School Library
2617 South Fowler Avenue
Fresno, California 93725
March 21, 1980
Mr. Francis Ford Coppola
1 Gulf and Western Plaza
New York, N. Y. 10023
Dear Mr. Copolla:
I am writing to you on behalf of the students and faculty of Lone Star School. We hope you will take the time to consider our request.
We are all so impressed with the book, THE OUTSIDERS by S. E. Hinton, that a petition has been circulated asking that it be made into a movie. We have chosen you to send it to. In hopes that you might also see the possibilities of the movie we have enclosed a copy of the book.
Lone Star is a small school in Fresno County. We have a student body of 324 students. It is a kindergarten through eighth grade school. I feel our students are representative of the youth of America. Everyone who has read the book, regardless of ethnic or economical background, has enthusiastically endorsed this project. This plea comes from our seventh and eighth grade students.
We feel certain that if you will read the book you will agree with us.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed)
Jo Ellen Misakian
(Mrs. John Misakian)
Librarian Aide
* * *
American Zoetrope
June 10, 1980
Ms. Jo Ellen Misakian
Lone Star School Library
2617 South Fowler Avenue
Fresno, Calif. 93725
Dear Mrs. Misakina:
Thank you for sending us your letter, the petition from your students and the book “THE OUTSIDERS” by S.E. Hinton. Francis Ford Coppola received them and was very impressed with the passionate interest you and your students showed in this book.
We are thus following through on it as you can see by the attached report that was done by one of our readers. The reader seems to agree with you and your students.
The next step is for myself and other members of our company to read the book and see if we really might want to make a film out of it. I’ll try to keep you posted on the progress.
Thanks again to you and your seventh and eighth graders for being good literary scouts and for choosing our company.
Sincerely,
(Signed)
Fred Roos
FR/lff
cc: F. Coppola, L. Fisher
S. Rogers, S. Ingleby
* * *
Jo Ellen Misakian
Lone Star School
2617 South Fowler Avenue
Fresno, Calif. 93725
Dear Miss Misakian:
Thanks for your letter of July 14, 1980. Sorry your class was not in school to share the news.
The latest is that the Zoetrope Studios executives read and discussed at length the pros and cons of making a movie out of “THE OUTSIDERS” with some being for it and some being against it. I flew to Tulsa to have a personal meeting with Suzie Hinton which I enjoyed very much and found valuable.
The final decision has been to go ahead and try to option the book with the aim of filming it if we can get a good screenplay. The negotiations with Ms. Hinton’s agents are going on now.
By the time school reconvenes, hopefully we will have acquired “THE OUTSIDERS” and have begun to hire a screenwriter to adapt it. If you want to further use this book as a class study project, perhaps you could have each of your students write an essay on why they like “THE OUTSIDERS”; perhaps talking about their favorite scenes or about scenes they don’t like. This could be helpful to we the filmmakers.
Also, there is a chance that we may not be able to use the title “THE OUTSIDERS” because of another movie that came out recently with that title. I hope we don’t have to change it but if we do, I’d like to hear your students suggestions of an alternative title…such as “Ponyboy”.
I’d also like to hear your students opinion of one possible change that we might have in the movie. That is to not have a gang fight at the end. It seems wrong to me in light of what has just happened to Dallas, Johnny and Bob that the two groups would still have another fight. Hopefully they would have learned something during the course of the story. At least I’d like to think they had and to show audiences through our movie that they had. Any opinions on this would be helpful.
I look forward to hearing from you and your students in a few weeks. Again, thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
(Signed)
Fred Roos
FR/lff
<
br /> * * *
the OUTSIDERS
April 21, 1982
Mrs. Jo Ellen Misakian
Librarian Aide
Lone Star School Library
2617 South Fowler Ave.
Fresno, California 93725
Dear Mrs. Misakian,
I want to keep you and the school up to date on the progress of Lone Star’s very own movie production, THE OUTSIDERS.
We are presently shooting the film in Tulsa and are into our fifth week. We have a wonderful cast and it’s going very well.
The enclosed production notes will tell you and the kids about everything they need to know about the movie and who’s in it.
I’ll keep giving you updates.
Sincerely,
(Signed)
Fred Roos
Producer
cc: Francis Coppola
Beverly Walker
Letter No. 038
I CAN’T LOOK YOU IN THE VOICE
DOROTHY PARKER TO PASCAL COVICI
June 28th, 1945
The late, great Dorothy Parker had many strings to her bow. She wrote hundreds of poems and short stories, many of which were published in magazines and books; she was a biting and much-loved book critic for The New Yorker in the late 1920s; in the 1930s, she moved to Hollywood to try her hand at making movies and co-wrote two Academy Award-nominated screenplays; she was also a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a legendary group of New York City’s brightest and wittiest writers, columnists and comedians who met each day for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan. Alas, she was also human. In June of 1945, whilst suffering from a bout of writer’s block, she sent this dejected telegram to her editor, Pascal Covici.
WESTERN UNION
1945 JUN 28 PM 4 37
NBQ209 78=NUJ NEWYORK NY 28 422P
PASCAL COVICI.VIKING PRESS=
18 EAST 48 ST=
THIS IS INSTEAD OF TELEPHONING BECAUSE I CANT LOOK YOU IN THE VOICE. I SIMPLY CANNOT GET THAT THING DONE YET NEVER HAVE DONE SUCH HARD NIGHT AND DAY WORK NEVER HAVE SO WANTED ANYTHING TO BE GOOD AND ALL I HAVE IS A PILE OF PAPER COVERED WITH WRONG WORDS. CAN ONLY KEEP AT IT AND HOPE TO HEAVEN TO GET IT DONE. DONT KNOW WHY IT IS SO TERRIBLY DIFFICULT OR I SO TERRIBLY INCOMPETANT=
DOROTHY.
Letter No. 039
DO NOT BE SO BLOODY VULNERABLE
NOËL COWARD TO MARLENE DIETRICH
1956
It was in 1935 that movie stars Noël Coward and Marlene Dietrich first spoke, thanks to an unexpected phone call from Dietrich in which she complimented him on his starring role in The Scoundrel. For the next 38 years, until Coward’s death, they remained close friends and wrote regularly, the topic of discussion often Dietrich’s complicated love life. In 1956, she sent him a downbeat letter and detailed a disastrous flight with her drunken on-off lover of five years, Yul “Curly” Brynner – just the latest depressing “episode” of many. This wasn’t the first time Coward had been told of such events, and he clearly couldn’t bear to see Dietrich suffer any longer. This was his stern reply.
Marlene Dietrich during rehearsal at the Palladium with Noël Coward, 1954
Firefly Hill
Port Maria
Jamaica B.W.I.
Oh, darling,
Your letter filled me with such a lot of emotions, the predominant one being rage that you should allow yourself to be so humiliated and made so unhappy by a situation that really isn’t worthy of you. I loathe to think of you apologizing and begging forgiveness and humbling yourself. I don’t care if you did behave badly for a brief moment, considering all the devotion and loving you have given out during the last five years, you had a perfect right to. The only mistake was not to have behaved a great deal worse a long time ago. The aeroplane journey sounds a nightmare to me.
It is difficult for me to wag my finger at you from so very far away particularly as my heart aches for you but really darling you must pack up this nonsensical situation once and for all. It is really beneath your dignity, not your dignity as a famous artist and a glamourous star, but your dignity as a human, only too human, being. Curly is attractive, beguiling, tender and fascinating, but he is not the only man in the world who merits those delightful adjectives...Do please try to work out for yourself a little personal philosophy and DO NOT, repeat DO NOT be so bloody vulnerable. To hell with God damned “L’Amour.” It always causes far more trouble than it is worth. Don’t run after it. Don’t court it. Keep it waiting off stage until you’re good and ready for it and even then treat it with the suspicious disdain that it deserves...I am sick to death of you waiting about in empty houses and apartments with your ears strained for the telephone to ring. Snap out of it, girl! A very brilliant writer once said (could it have been me?) “Life is for the living.” Well that is all it is for, and living DOES NOT consist of staring in at other people’s windows and waiting for crumbs to be thrown to you. You’ve carried on this hole in corner, overcharged, romantic, unrealistic nonsense long enough.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Other people need you...Stop wasting your time on someone who only really says tender things to you when he’s drunk...
Unpack your sense of humor, and get on with living and ENJOY IT.
Incidentally, there is one fairly strong-minded type who will never let you down and who loves you very much indeed. Just try to guess who it is. XXXX. Those are not romantic kisses. They are un-romantic. Loving “Goose-Es.”
Your devoted “Fernando de Lamas”
Letter No. 040
FROM HEAVEN
PAUL REVERE OSLER TO GRACE OSLER
July 1st, 1893
Esteemed Canadian physician Sir William Osler is known by many as the “Father of Modern Medicine”. He both practiced and taught at the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital, of which he was a founding professor, and helped to revolutionise medical education by introducing the now commonplace residency system: the training of doctors within the hospital itself. His status as one of the world’s greatest doctors was further strengthened in 1892 with the publication of his indispensable textbook, The Principles and Practice of Medicine, aka the “Physician’s Bible”. Sadly, a year after the book was released, William’s first child, Paul Revere Osler, died a week after being born. In an effort to console his distraught wife, Grace, William wrote her a letter, from Heaven, in Paul’s voice.
Note: The Emma Osler referred to in the letter is William’s sister, who died at the age of two; ‘Julius Caeser’ refers to a stillborn baby from Grace’s first marriage.
Heaven July 1st
My dear Mother
I for one am good & get on nicely with our singing and if our earthly parents continue to show an interest in us by remembering us in their prayers, we are allowed to write about every three or four tatma’s (i.e. months). I got here safely with very little inconvenience. I scarcely knew anything until I awoke in a lovely, green spot, with fountains & trees & soft couches & such nice young girls to tend us. You would have been amused to see the hundreds which came the same day. But I must tell you first how we are all arranged; it took me several days to find out about it. Heaven is the exact counterpart of earth so far as its dwellers are concerned; thus all from the U.S. go to one place–all from Maryland to one district & even all from the cities & townships get corresponding places. This enables the guardian angels to keep the lists more carefully & it facilitates communication between relatives. They are most particular in this respect and have a beautifully simple arrangement by which the new arrivals can find out at once whether they have connections in heaven. I never was more surprised in my time–we say that here not life & not eternity, for that has not started for us–when the day after my arrival Althea brought me two quill feathers on one of which was written Julius Caesar & the other Emma Osler. I knew at once about the former as I had often heard you and father talk of him and had so longed to wear his little cap; but the latter I did not know at all but she said she had been father’s little sister & she h
ad been sent to make me feel happy and comfortable.
You must know that all the souls coming here are grouped in 6 divisions
Those who have never lived and have not seen the sun. The angels have no end of trouble with them, largely Althea says because they are so stupid and learn so slowly, not having seen the sun-light. They are allowed to grow until equal to the size of the body of a 2 year old child & at which point they stop. They never obtain a full knowledge but always remain childlike. This is their great attraction & in their gardens may be seen hundreds of thousands of middle aged & old soul-bodies refreshing their memories of happy days on earth by playing with these angel children.
Those who have not lived a full year are also in a separate division and we are gradually taught and within a very short space of time have beautiful soul-bodies about the size of an earthly child of five. We have however full knowledge and have not many childish ways.
Children between 1 & 5 years look here about 10 years in earthly-size; & though they say that their voices are better & their education more perfect than ours we do not think so.
From 5 to 15 years the children who come attain in their soul-bodies the earthly size of about 15 and are of great use to the angels in helping with the younger ones & in showing all the beauties of the place and in tuning harps in the great days of the chorus.
The grown soul-bodies–about which we do not know very much only seeing those very nearly related to us by earthly ties. We play all day & talk so much with each other about earth and take a great interest in all that you do. We cannot always see you, why I do not know, but at intervals we have such clear and definite sights of our earthly homes. Julius Caesar is very well and a great favorite. He looks a dear little fellow of about two years old (earthly count) and he told me when his guardian angel was not near that he felt a little badly that I should have been in the Amarathyn division–i.e. the one in advance of his. He and Aunt Emma are to come very often and we know now all about our many relatives. Unlike the real angels we have no fore-knowledge and cannot tell what is to happen to our dear ones on Earth. Next to the great feast days, when we sing choruses by divisions in the upper heavens, our chief delight is in watching the soul bodies as they arrive in our divisions. I am helping the angels to get them in order & properly trained. In the children’s divisions not a friad (i.e. about an hour of earthly time) passes without the excitement of a father, a mother, a brother or a sister united to one of us. We know about 1000 of each other so that it is great fun to see our comrades & friends making their relatives feel at home.