[Jazz & Song] Holiday, Billie. (1915-1959)
Important Autograph Letter to Walter Winchell
Typed letter signed to Walter Winchell, dated July 15 1945, one page. Attractively matted and framed with a half-tone image of the singer. Mailing creases, else fine.Holiday thanks Winchell for an item he had printed recanting an earlier gossip item (presumably printed in the Daily Mirror, as she uses that newspaper's address), and asks him to clarify a further issue. On the reverse of the frame is mounted a letter to Winchell from Al Rylander at Columbia Pictures, apparently the source of the Winchell piece, describing how Holiday had disappeared, supposedly drunk, for several days.
Revered as one of the greatest and most individual vocalists in the history of blues and jazz, she died from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 44. Autograph material of such content is very rare.
Walter Winchell (1897 - 1972), American newspaper and radio gossip commentator, a familiar voice on radio, from 1929 through the mid-1950s, with his staccato delivery punctuated by the sound of teletype keys. (8105)
Autograph Letter Jazz