CONFIDENTIAL FILE

Mash Notes and Comments

"Dear Coatsee–

"This week OSCAR will be taping the OSCAR LEVANT show. We think this is an occasion worth noting and celebrating.

"It has been a wonderful and dramatic year for the multitudes of LEVANT fans:

"We can remember with fond smiles the first day he appeared with KCOP.
The show was later at night and it was so cold you could build igloos
out of your frosty breath, but people came in droves to see the
fabulous man.

"Remember the time OSCAR took the sponsor’s word
for it and threw the ‘unbreakable’ radio on the floor, only to have it
fly into two parts?

"Remember OSCAR distributing daily piles of lye, grease and ink on the floor to mop up for the linoleum sponsor?

"Remember
how the camera rushed over to capture the intriguing sight of OSCAR
with his head hidden under the shade of a gigantic lamp another sponsor
was displaying?

"Remember once, during a commercial, when one
of the huge backdrop pieces fell over and missed hitting him on the
head by not more than an inch? . . ." (signed) Some of OSCAR’S Fans,
Maggie Rose, Rita Carter, ShirleySiegel, Diane White. 

— It missed him? Seems to me SOMETHING must have hit him on the head.

"Mr. Paul Coates,

"Recently you wrote about being in the hospital for a check-up. A doctor once asked me, ‘How long since you had a check-up?’

"I told him, ‘I never had one.’

"Trouble
with you is that you have been placed in the wrong economic bracket by
the doctors. If you had been Bill Jones, a garbage collector, the
doctors would not find a thing wrong with you.

"The doctors
have made the wrong diagnosis of your financial status. Don’t try to
fool me. You must follow your destiny and you better like it.

"Send $2.00 for complete horoscope and analysis." (signed) Gordon Stuart, 1015 Galloway Street, Pacific Palisades.

— Sorry. One check-up a year is all I can afford.

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writing on the assumption that you and your firm are in business for
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"We’ll
risk a categorical ‘No’ for both of us, trusting you go along with
Churchill’s dictum, ‘Never do anything for money alone.’

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This offer must be withdrawn shortly. So please airmail your order card
TODAY." (signed) David Forrest, Fortune Magazine.

— Are you sure you’re not in this for the money?