Pete Nugent's letter from Caracas, to booking agent Eddie Smith [letter]

[Caracas, Venezuela]: [n.a.], 1950. Single stationary sheet from the Hotel Astor in Caracas, handwritten recto only, signed “Pete,” with the original air-mail envelope; letter folded twice for mailing, creasing; envelope has minor soiling, with tearing around the Venezuelan postage stamp.

Gary Lambert “Pete” Nugent (1909–1973), known as “Public Tapper No. 1,” was a prominent Harlem tap dancer, and a member of Pete, Peaches and Duke. His career connected Black vaudeville of the 1920s and ’30s with midcentury jazz and, later, the touring world of the Temptations. Nugent was also the brother of queer Harlem Renaissance writer Richard Bruce Nugent. This letter was written to theatrical booking agent Eddie Smith, just after Nugent joined Norma Miller’s company, and documents an early South American engagement.

The letter is an enthusiastic report written just after Nugent’s arrival in Venezuela. He describes flying from New York through San Juan, Puerto Rico, landing at Maiquetía, and traveling by car “straight up a mountain for 35 kilometers—to Caracas.” Finding the surroundings “very foreign and interesting,” he praises the climate as "a perpetual beautiful spring.” He explains that he is dividing his news among three letters and promises to give the recipients “the entire score in detail” upon his return.

Cat.No: 351163

Price: $195.00