Groucho Marx’s Funny Apology Letter to Woody Allen

After meeting in 1961, Woody Allen and Groucho Marx became fast friends, despite their 45-year age difference. Letters of Note has a letter Groucho wrote Woody in 1967, apologizing for being out of contact for a while and it’s SO great. It starts:

Dear WW:Goodie Ace told some unemployed friend of mine that you were disappointed or annoyed or happy or drunk that I hadn’t answered the letter you wrote me some years ago. You know, of course, there is no money in answering letters—unless they’re letters of credit from Switzerland or the Mafia. I write you reluctantly, for I know you are doing six things simultaneously—five including sex. I don’t know where you get the time to correspond.

He continues to talk about his bar mitzvah gifts and the critical reception of Woody’s play Don’t Drink the Water. Maybe the best part is the end, in which Groucho looks forward to seeing Woody again:

You wrote that you were coming out here in February, and I, in a frenzy of excitement, purchased so much delicatessen that, had I kept it in cold cash instead of cold cuts, it would have taken care of my contribution to the United Jewish Welfare Fund for 1967 and ‘68.I think I’ll be at the St. Regis hotel in New York. And for God’s sake don’t have any more success—it’s driving me crazy. My best to you and your diminutive friend, little Dickie.Groucho

Adorable.

Groucho Marx’s Funny Apology Letter to Woody Allen