Treasures in your attic: Letter’s value is personal, not monetary

By Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson

Q. During the early 1940s, I had a summer job working at Camp Tamiment in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.

One of my jobs was to sweep the summer theater each day. It was there that I met Imogene Coca.

She was just starting out in show business, and she made me — an awkward 13-year-old — feel special.

In the early ’70s, I wrote to her wishing her well after she had been in an automobile accident.

She sent me a nice handwritten letter to thank me. Does this letter have value?

A. Actually, in the early 1940s, Imogene Coco was a veteran in the entertainment business. But she was not yet the huge television star she would later become with Sid Caesar.

She was born Imogene Fernandez de Coca in Philadelphia in 1908, and died in 2001 at age 92.

There must have been show business in her blood because her father, Jose Fernandez de Coca, was a well-known violinist and orchestra leader for vaudeville, and her mother, Sadie Brady, a dancer and magician’s assistant.

Coca’s career started as a child acrobat in vaudeville, but she also studied piano, voice and dance so she could perform in stage musical revues, nightclubs (perhaps more politely called “cabarets”) and summer stock. She moved to New York City when she was still a teenager, and her first job on Broadway was in the chorus of “When You Smile” (1925).

From there she did “Garrick Gaieties” (1930), “Shoot the Works” (1931), “Flying Colors” (1932/33) and “New Faces of 1934.” This latter production was with actor Henry Fonda, and it was her first critical success. She was also a headliner in various New York night spots, combining music and comedy in her act, and this approach brought her some theatrical prominence.

Her real success, however, came on television.

In 1949, she played opposite Sid Caesar in “The Admiral Broadway Review.” Then she rocketed to immense popularity, starring alongside Caesar in NBC’s “Your Show of Shows” from 1950 to 1954.

Coca won an Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy Series in ’51. She also won a prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting in ’53 and, also in the ’50s, had her own television program, “The Imogene Coca Show.”

The letter she wrote to B.D.S. is very sweet and references “Your Show of Shows,” which raises the interest and helps the monetary value somewhat. The automobile accident mentioned is probably the one that happened in 1973 while she and her husband, King Donovan, were driving to a dinner theater in Florida. Donovan received only slight injuries, while Coca was blinded in one eye by the rearview mirror.

Coca is an early television icon, but her memorabilia does not — at this time — bring a great deal of money.

The greatest value of this piece is to you as a piece of memorabilia from your childhood, but for insurance purposes, you should probably value this charming letter in the $50 to $75 range (Coca’s signed photo usually retails for between $35 and $45).

Ÿ Contact Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson at Treasures in Your Attic, P.O. Box 18350, Knoxville, TN 37928.