Lot 5218: SAROYAN, WILLIAM. 1908-1981.

5 Typed Letters Signed ("Bill Saroyan" and "Bill"), 5 pp, quarto, Fresno, CA, May 5. 1965 to January 19, 1966, to his agent H.N. Swanson, with annotations in Saroyan's hand, fine. Novelist and playwright William Saroyan writes a series of chatty, newsy letters to his agent, discussing his long-running feud with M-G-M stemming from their production of The Human Comedy . From May 6, 1965: " I believe at one time you had great expectations, so to put it, for a novel serialized in the Post?Mama Girl, I Love You, which the Post shortened to Mama, I Love You, which was the title the book publisher used?the wrong title I may say. Now, Metro phoned me and wanted to make a deal but I drove them off, because Mayer cheated me on The Human Comedy, and because the new mob there refused to release TV rights in the book to me, and so on and so forth. Drove them off by saying I wanted a percentage and a quarter of a million dollars. O.K., the hell with it: now, though, may just be the time to make a deal on this novel ." In other letters, Saroyan described a project he is trying to get off the ground documenting the rapidly disappearing historical districts of his native Fresno. When he tried to ask his movie friends for a little help, he gets nowhere. From June 9, 1965: " Dear Swanie: How come nobody connected in any way with the movie business knows anything about the camera. That's what the things are made with, and I have got to make me a little 5-hour movie about Fresno before the best part of it is torn down and forgotten, and that's happening right now. "