Clyde Fitch Extremely Rare Early Autographed Letter 1890 Playwright BeauBrummell

Description: Here is a very rare very early autographed handwritten letter by playwright Clyde Fitch, from 1890 William Clyde Fitch (1865 – 1909) was an American dramatist, the most popular writer for the Broadway stage of his time (c. 1890–1909). Many silent movies were made from his plays (see below for list). Fitch was one of the early American playwrights to publish his plays. His first work of note was Beau Brummell (1890), set in the English Regency and based on the life of the historical figure. The play became a lucrative showcase for actor Richard Mansfield (1857–1907), who played the title role for the rest of his life. His 1892 play Masked Ball (an adaption from Alexandre Bisson's Le Veglione) was the first time that producer Charles Frohman put Maude Adams with John Drew Jr., a pairing that led to many successes. In 1901, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines made a star of Ethel Barrymore. "Fitch had a special talent for writing female characters that female stars could act agreeably," theater critic and historian Brooks Atkinson wrote of him in his history of Broadway. Fitch was renowned in his time for works such as Nathan Hale (1898), The Moth and the Flame (1898), The Climbers (1901), The Girl with the Green Eyes (which ran 108 performances at the Savoy Theatre in 1902 and starred Robert Drouet as John Austin), Her Own Way (1903, starring Maxine Elliott), The Woman in the Case (which starred Drouet and ran for 89 performances at the Herald Square Theatre in 1905),The Truth (1907), The City (1909), and Girls (1910). His works were popular on both sides of the Atlantic. His play based on the heroine of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem Barbara Frietchie met with mixed reviews in 1899 because of the romance he added to the tale, but it was revived successfully many times. In 1896, he wrote the lyrics to a popular song Love Makes The World Go 'Round, with an arrangement by William Furst. In December 1905, Fitch visited novelist Edith Wharton in her Park Avenue apartment to discuss collaborating on a dramatization of her novel The House of Mirth. Wharton was not a fan of Fitch's plays, which she regarded as more commercial than artistic, but knew him to be a consummate professional and the most likely writer to be able to bring Lily Bart's story to the stage. She also enjoyed his ironic sense of humor. (Wharton described her visitor as "a plump showily dressed little man, with his olive complexion and his beautiful Oriental eyes full of wit and understanding.") In the following months, they met in Paris and at the Mount, Wharton's estate in Massachusetts, to work on drafts, with Wharton taking responsibility for the dialogue and Fitch for the plot revisions. At one point, when the work was not going well, Wharton in frustration asked Fitch why he had ever thought her novel could be turned into a successful play. Incredulous, Fitch replied that he never had thought that it was a plausible endeavor. It then became clear, to their amusement, that each had been set up (probably by producer Charles Frohman) to believe that the project had been initiated by the other, and seduced by the thought of working with a famous person in another field, they had each agreed to collaborate. The play was the critical and commercial failure Wharton feared it would be, but the two became good friends. Fitch's career spanned a brief two decades, but he earned upwards of $250,000 from his plays at a time when a dollar per day was the working wage. He directed a few of his plays and was involved in the production of all of them. He was the first American playwright to be taken seriously, and at one time, managed to have five plays running simultaneously on Broadway. "Once Clyde Fitch got his foot in the door," Brooks Atkinson wrote, "he dominated Broadway drama." A generous host with an engaging personality, Fitch was renowned as a raconteur. His invitations to Quiet Corner, his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, were much sought-after. He was a close friend of designer Elsie de Wolfe, who helped him find many of the furnishings for his Connecticut mansion, Manhattan townhouse, and other residences. At one point, she said "He knows more about women than most women know about themselves." About his taste for luxury and his work habits, a friend remarked, "He lives like sultan and works like a dock laborer on an eighteen-hour shift." A dandy by his early teens, Fitch knew that in school he was seen as a sissy, but he said, "I would rather be misunderstood than lose my independence." Correspondence of the time points to a likely relationship, however brief, with Oscar Wilde. James Gibbons Huneker, a critic sympathetic to Fitch's wit and sense of the ironic, dropped a few broad hints about the playwright's sexuality in his columns when commenting on his "feminine manner of apprehending meanings of life," his not always believably masculine dialogue, and his reserve when dealing with passion between men and women. Huneker also wrote that, if Fitch slowed down and lived long enough, he might actually turn out a "masterpiece in miniature." Fitch suffered from attacks of appendicitis but refused his American doctor's recommendation of surgery; instead he trusted the specialists in Europe who assured him that they could effect a cure over time without surgery. He left for Europe in Spring 1909 against his doctor's wishes. While staying at the Hotel de la Haute Mère de Dieu at Châlons-en-Champagne in France, he suffered what would be a fatal attack. He underwent surgery by a local doctor rather than travel to Paris and died from blood poisoning aged 44. His body was returned from France where it was entombed for a time in the Swan Callendar Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, which belonged to a friend. In 1910, the body was removed and taken to New Jersey for cremation, and the ashes were returned to the Swan Callendar Mausoleum until the Hunt & Hunt monument was finished. His ashes were placed in a sarcophagus (where his parents' ashes later joined his) in their own mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery. A memorial exists at the Clyde Fitch Memorial Room in Converse Hall at Amherst. Since his death, Fitch has fallen into obscurity, but some of his plays were revived in repertory theaters in the twentieth century or made into films and adapted for television. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a collection of his papers. Some tearing at creases. Very rare. Will ship worldwide. I always combine shipping on multiple orders. Filmography: Elizabeth Taylor and Stewart Granger in Beau Brummell (1954)Beau Brummell6.4based on the play written for Richard Mansfield by1954 BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950)BBC Sunday-Night Theatre7.6TV Seriesplay19541 episode Claudette Colbert, Melvyn Douglas, William 'Stage' Boyd, and Lilyan Tashman in The Wiser Sex (1932)The Wiser Sex7.0play "Her Confession"1932 Myrna Loy in The Climbers (1927)The Climbers6.0play1927 Nancy Nash in The City (1926)The Citybased on play by1926 Florence Vidor in Barbara Frietchie (1924)Barbara Frietchie6.4play1924 Lovers' Lane (1924)Lovers' Laneplay1924 Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Beau Brummel (1924)Beau Brummel6.6play1924 Mary Miles Minter and Tom Moore in The Cowboy and the Lady (1922)The Cowboy and the Ladyplay1922 Betty Compson in The Law and the Woman (1922)The Law and the Womanplay "The Woman in the Case"1922 Billie Burke in The Frisky Mrs. Johnson (1920)The Frisky Mrs. Johnsonplay1920 Madge Kennedy in The Truth (1920)The Truthplay1920 Constance Talmadge in A Virtuous Vamp (1919)A Virtuous Vamp6.2play "The Bachelor"1919 Corinne Griffith in The Climbers (1919)The Climbers7.1play1919 Girls (1919)Girlsplay1919 Olive Tell in The Girl and the Judge (1918)The Girl and the Judgeplay1918 Olive Tell in Her Sister (1917)Her Sisterplay1917 Robert Warwick in The Heart of a Hero (1916)The Heart of a Hero6.0play "Nathan Hale"1916 The Woman in the Case (1916)The Woman in the Caseplay1916 Alan Hale and Pauline Frederick in The Woman in the Case (1916)The Woman in the Caseplay1916 The Way of the World (1916)The Way of the Worldplay1916 The Girl with the Green Eyes (1916)The Girl with the Green Eyesplay1916 The City (1916)The Cityplay1916 Anna Murdock and Richard Travers in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (1916)Captain Jinks of the Horse Marinesplay1916 Barbara Frietchie (1915)Barbara Frietchieplay1915 Laura Nelson Hall and Vernon Steele in The Stubbornness of Geraldine (1915)The Stubbornness of Geraldineplay1915 Gail Kane in Her Great Match (1915)Her Great Matchplay1915 The Climbers (1915)The Climbersplay1915 Her Own Way (1915)Her Own Wayplay1915 The Moth and the Flame (1915)The Moth and the Flameplay1915 The Cowboy and the Lady (1915)The Cowboy and the Ladyplay1915 The Straight Road (1914)The Straight Roadplay1914 Hazel Buckham, John Burden, and Richard Stanton in A Southern Cinderella (1913)A Southern CinderellaShortplay1913 The Battle of Bunker Hill (1911)The Battle of Bunker Hill7.7ShortWriter1911

Price: 129.99 USD

Location: Marietta, Georgia

End Time: 2024-12-23T03:00:01.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.5 USD