Racy Hemingway letter to Dietrich headed for auction

NEW YORK, March 11 (UPI) -- A racy love letter from Ernest Hemingway to Marlene Dietrich is among items being put up for auction by the actress' grandchildren.

The 1955 letter, signed "Papa" and addressed to "Dearest Kraut," uses numerous sexual innuendos to suggest solutions to Dietrich's complaints about her show in Las Vegas, the Guardian reported Tuesday.

"It would probably have something novel like having you shot onto the stage, drunk, from a self-propelled minenwerfer," the letter reads. "As you landed on the stage drunk and naked I would advance from the rear, or your rear wearing evening clothes ... and announce that we were sorry that we did not know the lady was loaded."

Hemingway and Dietrich began a lifelong friendship when they met on liner Ile de France on their way to New York in 1934. The two exchanged flirtatious and sexually charged letters, but were never lovers, with Hemingway once remarking they were "victims of un-synchronized passion."

The letter is among items once owned by Dietrich being auctioned by her grandchildren on website valuemystuff.com.