- Date: Tuesday evening, 18 January 1938, 9:30 p.m.
- Written at: New York, New York
- Stationery: Hotel Taft, 7th Ave. at 50th St., New York
- From: Joseph “Joe” Sharmer
- To: Ruby
- Condition: Complete — 2 pages; envelope not found
Each page of the original is shown beside its transcription. Click a page to enlarge it.
PAGE 1
Tuesday Eve
930
My Lover:—
Billy Rose’s Casa Manana opened across the street tonight & I just came in from watching them all arrive & what a sight — More top hats & orchids than I have ever seen in all my life — The air is bitter [?] & only 14° above but I danced thru it all in order to see them come. Saw W. Winchell arrive & O O McIntyre, Mayor La Gardia & wife plenty more but I didn’t know any of them but I am like a mouse can look at a Queen. In all that crowd there wasnt a one who could hold a candle to my Baby & that is why I am here to tell you so. I came right up to the room to tell you Dear how much better you are than they — I didn’t see one in all their finery that could compare with you in your sweater & skirt
PAGE 2
You are so much sweeter and more beautiful than any of them and I love you so much God Honey it hurts. Ive had a good day today & hope it wont be long before I can head back to my baby & the sweetest little girl in all the world — Honey you are sweet Believe Me — I wish I had money to doll you up in all the finest clothes in all the world and just sit back and admire you because I am proud I know you & love you Dear because you are beautiful and I want you always. Dear — If I could & I can some day put the best of everything on you & make your life easy or else I wont try. But I can & will because you are Dear to me — I want to mail this tonight — Good Night My Sweetheart. I love you with all my heart.
As Ever
Joe
Notes & context
The date. Joe wrote only “Tuesday Eve, 9:30,” but Billy Rose’s Casa Mañana opened on Tuesday, 18 January 1938, so the date is certain. It is his third letter that day: at noon he wrote Ask Me, ending “More tonight”; at 1:30 You Were Made for Me; and this is the promised evening letter. The next evening he wrote A Light in Your Mother’s Window after a much harder day.
Billy Rose’s Casa Mañana. The showman Billy Rose turned the former Earl Carroll Theatre — later the French Casino — at Seventh Avenue and 50th Street into a huge theatre-restaurant, named after the Casa Mañana he had built for the Fort Worth Frontier Centennial in 1936. It stood directly across Seventh Avenue from the Taft. Opening night drew a celebrity crowd in evening dress.
Who Joe saw. Walter Winchell, the most powerful gossip columnist and radio broadcaster in America (whose word “infanticipating” Joe used in Convict Catcher); O. O. McIntyre, whose syndicated column “New York Day by Day” was read in newspapers across the country, probably including Ruby’s; and Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York, with his wife Marie.
“Like a mouse can look at a queen.” The old proverb is “a cat may look at a king.”
“Ive had a good day today.” It fits the noon letter, where Joe had “some good leads out,” and contrasts sharply with the next day: “I worked like H— today and didnt get anywhere.”
Uncertain reading: “bitter” could also be read as “better.” La Guardia’s name is spelled as Joe wrote it.
