[Walter Rilla, German actor in more than 130 films.] Autograph Letter Signed ('Walter (Rilla)') and Autograph Card Signed ('Walter'), in English, to playwright Christopher Fry, recalling with affection happy times travelling together on the Rhine.

Both items in good condition, but the postcard (of a Viennese street scene) with stamp torn off. ONE: ALS. Signed 'Walter (Rilla)'. Vienna; 7 November 1966. 1p, 8vo. Twenty-six lines of text, in a neat close hand. An affectionate and intimate letter, addressed to 'My dear Christopher Fry' and beginning: 'The reason I am not calling you by the abbreviated & more intimate form of your Christian name – the one I used to call you by eighteen years ago when we travelled up & down the Rhine together – is the same that prevented me from calling on you when I was in London recently & happened to pass through Little Venice. Eighteen years is an appallingly long time (my old enemy, Time, my old friend) - & you might not remember me any more. But when to-day I read about you in the Atticus column of the Sunday Times, and saw your picture, & learned that you were “the world's most desirable screenplay writer” but still “a very restrained, reticent, self-effacing man of fifty-eight” - - - Good Lord, fifty-eight, & I am sixty-seven, & what is eighteen years after all, & I once felt very close to you & have never forgotten you & the sound of your voice, & a year or so ago I even saw you on TV in my home in the Bavarian mountains, giving Houston [the film director John Houston, for whose 1966 biblical epic 'In the Beginning' Fry wrote the screenplay] his ones through a megaphone on the set of Noah's Ark – well, I thought I must drop you a line & send you love & greetings for old time's sake.' He invites him to visit, and meet his wife, 'For I am married again, for nearly eight years now – my wife is not only young & beautiful but a very gifted writer [the French writer Alix Degrelle-Hirth du Frênes] - & I must be the happiest man on earth.' He ends with details of the play he is acting in in Vienna. TWO: ACS. Signed 'Walter'. 26 November 1966. Begins: 'Thank you very much, my dear Kit, for your letter – it was good to hear from you after all these years & see your familiar handwriting again which hasn't changed at all'. He is delighted to learn that Fry is working on a new play, and adds: 'I haven't seen Curtmantle, only read it & liked it very much!' He asks him to remember his address, as he and his wife Alix would be delighted with a visit.