14 DAY TRIAL // A personal letter sent by Ernest Hemingway to German actress Marlene Dietrich will be put up for auction later this month, along with a series of other belongings of the late movie star.
The racy letter was written by Hemingway in 1955 from his estate in Cuba. It is addressed to “Dearest Kraut” and signed “Papa.” The famous novelist uses suggestive expressions and imagines the actress naked and drunk trying to recommend some solutions to Dietrich's complaints about her show in Las Vegas.
Some say that it clearly illustrates the prize-winning author’s characteristic machismo.
“If I were staging, it would probably have something novel, like having you shot onto the stage, drunk, from a self-propelled minnenwerfer,” says the letter.
“As you landed on the stage drunk and naked I would advance from the rear, or your rear wearing evening clothes ... and announce that we were sorry that we did not know the lady was loaded,” it continues.
Hemingway and Dietrich began a lifelong friendship after meeting on the New York-bound liner Île de France in 1934. They were writing to each other regularly, and although their letters were full of feeling, they never become romantically involved.
They shared a “love affair” that unfortunately never got past a series of letters and telegrams. In one occasion, Hemingway affirmed that they were “victims of un-synchronized passion.”
A cache of thirty love letters are housed at the John F Kennedy library in Boston, but a few of the letters were kept by Dietrich's grandchildren. The correspondence sheds light on what has been a decades-long secret love that was passionate, flirtatious but mostly just platonic.
This particular letter was written during the filming of the movie adaptation of his novel The Old Man and the Sea, six years before Hemingway committed suicide.
The letter is one of Dietrich's possessions that will go on sale later this month at an online auction, and is expected to fetch up to $50,000 (€36,000).
Dietrich’s three grandchildren are auctioning off more than 250 items which once belonged to the popular German star via website Auctionmystuff.com.
The set of memorabilia includes one of Dietrich's iconic black tuxedos, which is expected to sell for between $3,000 (€2,163) and $5,000 (€3,605), clocks, sunglasses, a typewriter, cigarette lighters and photographs.
The online auction will take place between March 19 and April 6, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and some of the belongings are currently exhibited at The Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles.