Bags of Fan Mail! Do they still exist?
When you think of fan mail, do you imagine large cloth bags filled to the brim with envelopes of varying colors, sizes and shapes? Being a life long lover of mail, I was always envious of the movie stars, sports heroes, political figures, famous musicians and celebrated authors who received such an outpouring of papery affection.
There have been a few memorable scenes from movies that have shown what it’s like to get inundated with fan mail. The first that comes to mind is the Christmas movie classic, ‘Miracle on 34th Street‘ starring Maureen O’Hara and Edmund Gwenn. The letters delivered to Kris Kringle at the end of the movie probably weren’t technically fan mail, but you get the picture.
Another movie more recently released was the 1997 British comedy, ‘Calendar Girls’. The movie featured Helen Mirren as Chris Harper and her best friend, Annie Clarke (played by Julie Walters). These two lead the group of women to create their charity calendar in an effort to raise money to replace the uncomfortable waiting room furniture in the hospital where Annie’s husband lost his battle with cancer. Along the way, Annie unwittingly builds a fan base as others who are sick or are caring for someone who is sick, begin writing to her and she finds comfort and purpose in writing to them.
What Letters & Journals wants to do is take a peek into the fan mail of today’s personalities. What does it look like? Do they take the time to write back? How has their fan mail changed with social networks such as facebook, twitter and their own personal websites? This regular column of the magazine will feature pictures and interviews answering these questions.
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Fan Letters To Music Idols
Interesting blog post on Carrie Brownstein’s ‘Monitor Mix’ at NPR where she talks about writing to her favorite musicians as a teenage girl. Sometimes they wrote back. Sometimes they didn’t. Who were the actors and musicians you wrote to? I can relate to writing to some of the Days of Our Lives cast and somewhere in the back of an old scrapbook I have a few of their signed photos. More recently (about 5 years ago) some friends of mine were going to a car show where there was going to be an appearance by Bo Hopkins who I said I had liked when I was younger. They brought me back a signed 8×10. Pretty cool. A 40 something woman getting fan mail from a teenage crush 30+ years later.
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Librado Romero/The New York Times
Dear Donna: A Pinup So Swell She Kept G.I. Mail (NY Times Article) Donna Reed saved hundreds of letters from star-struck World War II servicemen. Her children discovered them in a shoebox. (May 2009)
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