No, we’re not going to have a Bull Dog Farm. Maggie came through fine. She and Charlie really get along famously. He loves to play with her, and now even instigates the games once in a while.
My hemmorhoids [sic] are really bothering me again; the only cure is an operation (painful, but not serious) and I suppose I ought to face up to it, but ugh … what thinkest thou?
Gosh, I wish you would get a phone installed there so we could talk.
I notice that some of these bills (Animal Shelter, for instance) have been appearing month after month. Haven’t you paid them?
Hugs and a kiss and all the love in the world …
T.
[Collection Gerald Clarke]
TO JACK DUNPHY
Cela Fe La Horta
Mallorca
Spain
July 1970
Dearest Jacksie—
This is the most beautiful finca—right in the sea with lovely caves. It is very remote—the nearest village (and it’s just a cluster of houses) is 8 miles away—and Palma, which is rather like a small Barcelona, is a three hour drive. So one leads a very quiet, healthy life. I feel so much better. It is so wonderful to be free for a while of all my worries—the IRS., the California courts, all the pending trouble with 20th Century Fox, etc. etc. etc.11 I’m just not going to think about any of it. I wish I could go on a trip around the world for a whole year. Alas! Am going to Verbier next Tuesday (and if it is nice will stay there a week and afterwards either come back or go to visit the Brandolini’s [sic] (Gianni Agnelli’s sister) in Venice. Anyway will let you know so you can have guests if you want.
Hope Abbe has stopped sneezing and Dio is staying home and Maggie being not too rambunctious.
I miss you, precious love. All my love
T.
[Collection Gerald Clarke]
TO JACK DUNPHY
5 August 1970
Verbier
Dearest Jack—
Rented a car and drove up here and really it’s lovely—snow on the mountains, flowers in the fields. Alas, they are building still another apartment chalet across from us. But at least it will be the last because there is no more room.
I’ve seen everyone. Mme. Guinnard says she has some laundry for you, and I said I’d pick it up. Mme. [unclear], who looks wonderful, very trim, was happy to see me, and I had lunch today with the Cortleys. I expect I will stay here until [the] weekend, then go to Turin (Agnelli) and Venice (c/o Count Brandolini, Palazzo Brandolini, Venice) and then come back here for a bit before taking the plane.
Saw Mme. Michieli, and she was fine and the apartment [is] in perfect shape. Really, it is such a cozy, pretty place. The rugs look great. Don’t worry. I will leave everything spic & span.
Saw in the paper about the New York heat-wave. Hope it didn’t affect you & Maggie too badly. I love you.
A Biêntôt—[sic]
T
[Collection Gerald Clarke]
TO JACK DUNPHY
[Palazzo Brandolini]
[Venice]
15 Aug. 1970
Happy Birthday, Angel Jack!12
Arrived here yesterday after a really pleasant cool quite [sic] week in Verbier. I really love that little apartment.
Am living here in a vast apartment in this most beautiful palace. I plan to stay here until the end of next week and then drive back to Verbier for a few days and then take a plane to London for a few days with the Radziwills—so will be home in about 2½ weeks.13 I’ve really enjoyed this holiday because it is the first time I’ve just wandered around feeling carefree and uncommited [sic]. Still, I’ll be glad to get home to all my loved ones.
I went to the bank in Lausanne (Credit Suisse) and we have $18,000 there. I didn’t take any one.
I am having 2 suits made here at Cecconi. My weight is good. Walked miles in Verbier.
I love you.
XXX
T.
[Collection Gerald Clarke]
TO MARIE RUDISILL
[Bridgehampton, N.Y.]
[25 September 1970]
Dearest Tiny—
I am so sorry to hear of your illness—I have been away all summer, and only just returned.
As for the advance you asked me to make, I won’t beat around the bush either: I can’t do it just now. I’ve had a terrible year on the stock exchange and I have a lot of money tied up in a new business opening in California. You know I’ve always helped you when you needed it, and maybe, after the first of the year, when I know what my income will be, I can manage this.
I will be here for the next few months. I know you are disappointed, and I’m sorry; but really I do love you and hope so much that you are feeling better—
T.
[Collection Edmond Miller]
TO JACK DUNPHY
Hotel Ritz
15, Place Vendôme
Paris
[22 July 1971]
Darling Jack—
Nice flight, but it is lonely here in our old nest without you to wake up and pester and have grapefruit avec honey. I will probably be back before you get this. Hope you had a good visit with Gloria.14 A kiss for Mags and Dio and AP. I love you.
T.
[Collection Gerald Clarke]
TO KATHARINE GRAHAM
[Postcard] VERBIER, Suisse
[10 February 1972]
Kay—
Here, all ice and silence. But gradually I am feeling a recession of all those bad vibrations that have been so incessantly vibrating the last three years. Miss you, all love—
T.
P.S. Expect to be here until April
[Collection Katharine Graham Estate]
TO JACK DUNPHY
[New York or Bridgehampton, N.Y.]
5 July ’72
Darling Jack—
I finished the Hazlitt book, and fell asleep, and woke up with such a feeling of warmth and gratitude and love for you.15 You are the only good thing that ever happened to me. I admire and respect you so. I think that is more important perhaps than loving you. You can love for such shallow and wrong reasons. I love you for the right ones.
T.
P.S. This isn’t your birthday present. I just want you to have it now.
[Collection Gerald Clarke]
TO LOUIS NIZER
Bridgehampton
New York
16 May 1973
How pleasant to have a letter from the admirable Mr. Nizer—even a scolding one.16 It was so well written; if only your client, Miss Susann (sp?) had your sense of style! As for my “offense”—well, I was told, lo these years ago, that Miss S. and her husband had requested a screening of the Carson program, and that they were attended by their attorney (presumably you, since I read in some paper that you were the lady’s legal counsel.) Perhaps it was someone from your office? Or never happened? In any event, I do see your point, and I do apologize.
Still, I don’t understand why you think what I said about your client was “libelous.” All I said was that, in certain of her publicity photographs, she “looks like a truck driver in drag.” That seems to me merely an aesthetic opinion—a spontaneous observation. Bitchy, yes; malicious, no.
I feel no malice for your client; on the contrary, I respect her as a very professional person who knows exactly what she’s doing and how to do it.
On the other hand, I suggest you examine a few of the remarks Miss S. made about me—as recently as an interview 3 weeks ago in the Los Angeles Times. Over and again she has implied that I am a homosexual (big news!) and a lazy bones jealous of her productivity.
As far as I’m concerned, I couldn’t care less if she won the Nobel Prize—so did Pearl Buck, alors.
Anyway, thank you for calling my attention to the magazine After Hours (Dark?).17 I’d never heard of it. The interview in question was given last fall in New Orleans and printed in the N.O. Times Picayune.
I’ve never written, much less answered, more than ten or so letters. So save this. Maybe someday I’ll be famous and your grandchildren can sell this at Sotheby’s. But who could fail to answer someone who so charmingly suggests he might sue you?
Truman C.
TO KATHARINE GRAHAM
The Broadmoor
Colorado Springs, Colorado
[Early March 1974]
Darling Kaysie—
Am here for a week recovering from my hospital experience.18 Feel much better, and bless you so much for the flowers.
Funny how everything evolved—how I got bronchial pneumonia, then the trial was delayed for 6 months after all! Not that I ever want to get back into that fray.19
I know that you are concerned about me on several levels. Don’t.
I expect to be back in New York very soon, and hope we can have a really good talk. I know you are one of the only friends I can rely on—but I think you will find my head on your shoulder less heavy.
I love you
T.
[Collection Katharine Graham Estate]
TO JACK DUNPHY
[Denver]
March 1974
What a winter! Diotima was the worst of it, and I think of it every day, and know how much you must miss her. When Capote and Dunphy were on the Greek island of Páros in 1958, Dunphy rescued a kitten a boy had thrown into the sea. “I have called her Diotima after the woman who taught Socrates all about love,” he wrote his sister Gloria. Diotima died in February. Me, too. And you. And Maggie. But it will not be too long now.
I am still at Mt. [unclear] hospital in Denver—but will be discharged in about five days—totally disintoxicated from both booze and pills. It hasn’t been easy, and I don’t think I could have done it without all this good and kindly professional help. I have met the most exceptional
