834

Lenny Bruce

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:7,000.00 - 9,000.00 USD
Lenny Bruce

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Auction Date:2018 Aug 08 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Fascinating archive of autograph letters and notes from controversial stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce, dating between 1960 and 1966, and consisting of over 40 pages written in pencil and ballpoint, with several examples signed either “Len” or “Lenny,” with some bearing his surname. Much of the collection is addressed to ‘Count’ Lewis DePasquale, a jazz keyboardist and organist who, after meeting Bruce in January 1960, became his right-hand man and frequent collaborator. The archive is comprised of three ALSs and six ANSs, three unsigned letters, three unsigned notes, and 12 pages of 'free-style' handwritten notes penned by Bruce on Hotel Mark, Atlantic City letterhead, with Bruce incorporating his signature twice.

Highlights include (spelling and grammar retained):

A two-page unsigned letter to “Sally Marr,” the stage name of Bruce’s mother, Sadie Kitchenberg Schneider, in full: “Check & see if my black attaché case with the Goya Bean labels on it is up stairs it has value. If there was a theft I am sure I’am insured for it. And proble a lot of other stuff. That will cover you. The bracelet I nerver gave you and the ring for that reason, Lenny why do you keep womans jerly in your house trick to get women in there. Come up to my aparment & see my ear rings. Love your gonifing son.”

A four-page unsigned letter to Max Gordon, a jazz promoter who founded the Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City and who later opened the Blue Angel in midtown Manhattan, in part: “This is an excerpt of wire I sent I.T.A. Please, Please, Max I know that I like Jackie Gleason and never liked Bud Abbot & Lou Costolo. Played miniature golf but never bowled, wouldn’t drink out of a glass with lipstick on it. Will fress up strange shmushskie…Sad clowns are goyish. All I think of when I look at Emmet Kelly pictures is some old bum made cissy on the radiator…The Blue Angel is like sending prize orchids in a steam heated car.” Bruce adds his address at the conclusion, “8825 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif.,” the residence he was found after succumbing to a drug overdose on August 3, 1966.

A three-page letter to Count, in part: “See if you can buy the guitar, trumpet, saxophone and drummer that I loved in Atlantic city—you of course as leader you get $300. Per wk. See what the cheapest you can get them—talk to the guy at the Sir John Hotel,” with adding a brief postscript and adding his contact address: “Lenny Bruce, c/o S. Grush, 9460 Wilshire, Beverly Hills, Calif.”

A one-page letter to Count dated September 10, 1961, in full: “Have defenete gig for you Sept 15—Sept 25, Red Hill. N. Jersey $750. I’m telling the boss if he doesn’t take you he doesn’t get me. Pretty good eh? Come in a day earlier so you can get that Miami sand out of your shoes.”

And a one-page note, unsigned, in full: “Get me something nice for my mother a bracelet with a nice stone in it something for about $3,000 you can get me a beautiful pice for really holesale it will cost you hockshop to sell, 1960 March, found a pice he idemized.”

Excerpts from the Hotel Mark notes: “It is only correct to tell you I request a specific job from you I agree and pay it. If you should catch me on the secret phone in the bathroom giving another law firm the same assignment and at the last moment decide to change my plea to guilty & demand a public defender your comment may he varied but lack unreliable re payment and that’s the only busness relation ship I can exest by is a strick buesness relationship. I plan to be involved with in many areas & seriously will never exploti you &. seriousley insist that with any contract’s we sign from here on in speciphing a semi anual lie detector test & as a security meauser you pick a lie detector man & I pick one we flip a coin and the lie detector gives us a test alter he’s taken a lie detector test that he has not be coerced by other one of us.

Here’s plan. Run ad in paper for two week’s before opening of club. Beauty wanted for twisted Bunnies ‘position’ and girl singer’s stop and & nude sun hating and health potrot. A nudiest familiy who have posed togeather & grandmother 65 to 75 and other couple son & daughter or son & daughter in law. Prefere naturel shapes with nice generous stomacks pendleous bussoms to appear in live picture frame setting’s in night club. Must be a curent members of acredited nudist oganazation…Charles what ever devious matter you use get this ad in figged on the Roth Alberts decion’s quote nudity in it self cannot be considered obseen. Unquote.”

The archive also features: two vintage glossy 3.25 x 4.5 candid photos of Bruce sitting in a court room; a partial mailing envelope addressed by Bruce; a copy of a note to Count; a United Airlines shipping receipt listing “Lenny Bruce” as the shipper, listing the item as “LK cont live dog,” with a weight of 87 lbs; and a letter and a note written by DePasquale. In overall very good to fine condition, with scattered creasing and tears.