In the day before the Internet , writing a letter to a celebrity and send it out via snail mail was almost a religious rite of passage . Nearly everyone did it . As a kid , I indite letters to my preferent athlete requesting autograph , and was always thrilled — and a trivial shocked — when I received a response back .

But now , celebrities typically connect with their lover via their own websites or on Twitter — so the magical quality of a write letter of the alphabet transmit to a fan has largely been forgotten . fortuitously , sit likeLetters of Note(where many of these came from ) are utter for documenting these delicious petty thicket with fame . Here are a few approaches stars have accept when write back .

1. Send A Handwritten Letter (Sort Of)

I first wrote about this onea few year back . Steve Martin was once known to answer to his fans with a hilarious physical body letter that mocked the entire idea of the fan - celebrity letter commutation by pretend not to even be a bod letter .

He even signed this highly personal answer to a lover advert Jerry with a postscript that recall a warm memory they once shared .

2. Check All That Apply

Whereas Steve Martin ’s anatomy varsity letter was a witty way of life of reply to his fan , scientific discipline - fiction authorRobert Heinlein used a standardized checklistto seemingly ventilate about the repetitious nature of the mail he got from readers . The letter is really just a collection of thing he might potentially have to say in reply to the fan ’s letter , so that the appropriate one could simply be set and send back . The list of potential responses include :

But it also includes this squeamish intellection :

3. Break Their Hearts And Blame Your Wife

When a teenage girlwrote Conan O’Brienasking if he ’d join her at her gamey school promenade , he institutionalise back a handwritten reply that included the following stock :

4. Have Your Wife Break Their Heart

After oneSinclair Lewis lover stepped over the line , his wife take the liberty of answer directly . The fact that she signed her name at the end , then threw in “ ( Mrs. Sinclair Lewis to you . ) ” is pretty great .

5. Call Them A Complete Moron

The Cleveland Browns are n’t exactly a “ famous person , ” butthis response is so amazingthat it merit to be included . Back in the seventy , a Cleveland Browns season tag holder wrote the team to inform them of the fact that fan at the sports stadium had begun the habit of make paper plane out of game programme and flying them through the crowd at the stadium . His varsity letter admit this Federal Reserve note of caveat :

In reply , someone inside the Browns organisation broadcast back this simple reply :

As an lend bonus , then Browns proprietor Art Modell is imitate on the alphabetic character .

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6. Just Show Up At Their School

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If you pen your favorite histrion a letter and he writes you back , you ’ll surely be excited . If he instead just storm you at your school in full dressed up as his most famous character , you may vamoose retiring excitement and go straight to take aback . That ’s what happened to one London schoolhouse fille after she wrote Johnny Depp — who was shooting aPirates of the Caribbeanfilm nearby at the time — to postulate for hisassistance in staging a mutiny against her teachers .

Ringo Starr was once known forresponding to many of his fans . But a few years ago , he place this video on YouTube imploring his fans to stop sending him mail .

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Afterbeing criticized for it , he explained that the video was " in direct response to an inordinate amount of item which have recently appear for sales agreement on E - Bay , and to those that repeatedly air cards and items to be signed . "