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Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi, India, to James Ivory, New York, New York, 1967 June 26 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
450919
Accession number
MA 23840.406
Creator
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, 1927-2013, sender.
Display Date
Delhi, India, 1967 June 26
Credit line
Gift of James Ivory, 2021.
Description
1 item (6 pages) ; 22.8 x 14.7 cm folded (22.8 x 29.5 cm unfolded)
Notes
Year from context.
Written on three folded pieces of onionskin paper, forming six pages.
Provenance
James Ivory.
Summary
Saying she is enclosing "some more Sequel scenes" [not present]; confirming that the script for the "Shakespeare Wallah" sequel is, for all intents and purposes, finished; asking if he really believes, as he has previously stated, that they will be able to secure full financing on the basis of the finished script; thanking him for sending "the Ingres catalogue, which is superb and over which I have already spent many happy hours"; speculating on how the world looked to Ingres as he grew older, and whether Ivory sent her the book "to refresh my memory of European types & faces"; saying, to return the favor, that she is sending a set of photographs of the Cecil Hotel gala [not present]; adding that she is also forwarding "a letter from someone called Barjatya" [most likely film producer Tarachand Barjatya], from whom there might be a "slenderest of outside chance" of obtaining funding for a project; expressing contempt for Barjatya's "taste & talent" ("Have I seen 'Dosti'!") but some hope that "greed for foreign exchange" might translate into some funding for them; asking why Ivory hasn't sent her the article that appeared recently in the New York Times Magazine about Ravi Shankar and George Harrison-- "pure gold for us"; describing meeting Vilayat Khan and his wife; passing on some news of "Shakespeare Wallah": "I'm told that SW could easily have run much longer at Plaza [in Delhi], that it was packed for every performance & tickets were very hard to get. Yet no one seems to have liked the film ... Jhab says that is because they can't see the Buckinghams as in any way shabby or pathetic: that they see them still as sahibs"; quoting Marie Seton's recent negative review of the film; commenting on the enclosed sequel scenes, and noting that she imagines Saeed Jaffrey in the part of Arun; stating that she has confidence in Saeed's acting ability despite never having seen him act, based on the opinions of others, including Ivory and Madhur, "who should know"; commenting on the "decision with Paramount over V&H"; hoping they can now turn to "the Sequel & the Ustad film [i.e. "The Guru"] (in that order)."