Has anyone ever written a fan letter?

[Quantess]

In San Francisco, I once lived in a house where a minorly famous punk rock band lived. Not a household name, by any means, but they had accumulated a cardboard box full of fan letters, even though they had been defunct for a while. They moved out long ago but left the box of letters behind.

Soon after I moved in, my roommate took down the box from the top of his closet and chuckled as he read some of the fan letters. I got a pretty good laugh, as well, at some of them.

My question is: What happens to fan letters when they are left behind?

Begging the question: does/do the celebrity/ies ever read their fan letters?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. YES! To legendary Marvel Comics artist Gene Colan...

...about a year ago, as a belated thank-you for his decades of awe-inspiring art (ESPECIALLY the "Tales of Suspense" Iron Man years...WOW).

And he replied, very graciously, saying how much he appreciated the letter. Wish I'd done the same for Jack Kirby before his passing, because in my youth, Kirby and Colan were GODS to me. But I guess thanking ONE was better than thanking NONE, ya know?



:toast:

[Brickbat]

2. Several: Bo Schneider and Tom Wopat (when I was, like, NINE); Michael Jackson; Mike Royko; and some

minor bands. I would cringe if I saw any of those letters now.

[riverwalker]

3. Captain Kangaroo

I wrote and asked for one of the puppies on his show. He wrote me back too.....but no puppy.

[doodadem]

4. To Joan Benoit Samuelson

Winner of the first Women's Olympic Marathon in 1984 in L.A. I was also in running prime back then, and she was such an inspiration. She sent me back an autographed photo from the event. I met her at an expo a few years later when my husband was running Boston. Such a little tiny thing! And very gracious.

[Ferret Annica]

5. No fan letter, but Steve Prefontaine

who lived four houses down from us in Eugene, Oregon - and who had a mustard/gold MGB walked into the house after a knock, complimented my Mom's new MG midget. He saw a set of keys on the table and took them saying he'd bee right back with the car after a spin.

I called my Mom who was in San Francisco on Business and told her her car was being joy ridden. She was freaked and asked who took it. I said, "Pre." Someone we did know fairly well on neighbor's speaking terms.

She was silent a long while and then said, "I want you to call me when he gets back." She of course let him get away with this. Everyone let Pre get away with many things when he lived here.

And we still miss him deeply.

[Captain Hilts]

10. That's a neat story.

And,yeah, Ilet a friend take my VW out for a spin because I had the keys to his.

[Jamastiene]

6. Joan Jett reads hers.

I used to write her a lot as a kid. She would answer my questions from my fan letters to her when I went to one of her concerts. It went on like that for years. Every time I would meet her, she would remember my question and my name and answer whatever I asked.

Chris Stein reads his and so does Deborah Harry. They did something special for me down in Myrtle Beach. I'll never forget it.

Other than those three, I don't know.

[Captain Hilts]

11. GREAT about Joan! I have my Deborah Harry, Stein and Nick Lowe autographs. Blondie is a horribly

under-rated group.

[cbdo2007]

7. When I was in High School I use to collect autographs through the mail.

It was a fun hobby. Most replied with preprinted or autopen ones but I got a lot of real signatures as well - Ringo Starr, Bill Cosby, Bozo the Clown, Eddie Murphy, and many more. They're in a box around here somewhere.

I'm sure they didn't read the letter, but their assistants would pull out ones that sent a pic asking for an autograph and put them in a pile for whenever the celeb had some spare time. I belonged to some newsgroups that did this and they were experts so knew all about it. They had pre-compiled lists of who would return real sigs vs fake ones so we pretty much knew ahead of time what to expect.

[Guilded Lilly]

8. Siggghhh, yes,

I was nine years old.
Paul McCartney :)

....(small little happy voice...i love you Paul).

lol
peace,
Lilly

[Captain Hilts]

9. I wrote a 'get well' letter to Katharine Hepburn in which I promised to send her an

autographed photograph of myself.

[njlib]

12. I've e-mailed Henry Rollins a few times

and have gotten responses every time. He even hand addresses the boxes for merchandise that's ordered from his website. My last message was to tell him he's gotten me hooked on "Sons of Anarchy" or as I like to call it, "Sopranos on Wheels"!

[Quantess]

13. I wrote a fan letter to Dan Clowes, for Eightball comics

I sent it to his Chicago address. I'm not sure whether I saw his photo and interview in a magazine before or after I sent him the fan letter.
I'm fairly sure that as soon as I saw his photo that I decided he was really cute.

I sprayed the letter with perfume to try to make it into an ironic "joke" fan letter. But I kind of meant it.

God, how embarrassing. Now his friends/coworkers/relatives are probably shuffling through his fan letters, laughing.

[elocs]

14. Not exactly a fan letter, but a personal letter to my childhood hero, Chuck Connors.

I grew up in the late 50s and the early 60s, a boy without a father and Chuck Connors as The Rifleman became my father figure. It was easy to see why: a young boy being raised by a single father who was open and affectionate to him. My own father died just after I turned 18 and although he wrote to me, like most boys I did not like to write letters and after all, your parents were going to live forever, then it was too late.

Well in 1986 when I was about 33 years old I read in the paper that Chuck Connors was in the hospital and I thought he might die do I decided I should write him a letter and tell him what he meant to my life. I did it more for my benefit, but a month or so later I received a big envelope in the mail. Chuck Connors had written me a letter telling me how honored he was to have played such a role in my life. He also included an 8x10 photo of himself on which he wrote:

Steve, be happy. You're a great guy.

Chuck Connors
7/86

He did not die from that illness, but lived until November of 1992. Here is the same photo he sent me:

[bermudat]

15. Nope