Thanks for the post, but isn’t the “C” in “Christian” supposed to be capitalized?
Authors Kelley Armstrong, Holly Black, and J.W. Ocker, Sam Ernst (senior writer for Haven), actors Emily Rose and Eric Balfour have all tweeted me back at least once, most more than that.
I emailed Desmond Morris about his paintings, and received a lovely reply.
In 1998 or 1999, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was on a visiting professor at a university where I lived. I wrote him a gushing letter, how much I admired his work, that it had been my dream to meet him since I was a child etc. I got a call from his secretary (yes that is what she was called) to say that if I were to come to the Theology or Divinity (can’t remember which) department at such and such time, he would meet with me. I only met with him for a very few minutes, but he was everything I expected. I swear that I was floating on a cloud for weeks. Though I have kicked myself ever since for not being prepared. I didn’t prepare any questions to ask him, didn’t ask for his autograph and didn’t take my camera.
Note I was not a student at that school (nor in any way associated with it) and at the time he was a Nobel prize winner and a huge international celebrity because of his work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I was a just a middle manager working at some random company.
I promised him I would tell my grandchildren about this (I wasn’t even married at the time). Now I realize my grandchildren will be Americans and care nothing about what happened in South Africa in 1980-1996.
I have written a few.
Pete Seeger responded with a nice hand written note with a doodle of a banjo.
Colin Mochrie sent a signed photo.
Back in 1994 when I was a total Billy Joel fangirl (shut up), I read in People magazine that he liked to relax backstage before concerts by reading fan mail. So a week or so before his upcoming concert at County Stadium in Milwaukee, I wrote him a letter c/o the stadium thanking him for writing my favoritest BJ song ever, Vienna, and telling him a little about what it meant to me.
About halfway through the concert, he said something like, “We don’t usually do this song in concert, but I got a letter . . .” and then he played it.
Cue Scarlett going stark raving apeshit. Mr. S says it was pretty embarrassing. Still, one of the neatest things that ever happened to me.
When I was in high school and my friends were writing fan letters to Farrah Fawcett and Burt Reynolds, I was writing to Lillian Gish, Joan Crawford, Erte, Blanche Sweet, Bette Davis, Mae West, Mary Astor–and yes, I got either letters or autographed photos!
Kinda grew out of it by college, though. Now I write letters to celebs for business reasons, and the SOBs never get back to me.
I’ve e-mailed back and forth with Colby Keller (Colby like the cheese and Keller like Helen) for a while. He just sent me an autographed DVD and some goodies from his latest shoot last week…
I sent all kinds of fan letters to TV stars in the mid sixties and got quite a few autographed photos in return. I had signed pics from Get Smart, Hogan’s Heroes, McHale’s Navy, The Man From UNCLE, The Addams Family, Beverly Hillbillies, etc. I also sent letters to NASA and got not only group photos of the astronauts, but a really nice collection of everyone’s 8x10 head shots.
I exchanged some nice letters with author Carol Shields.
Years after I had a nice conversation with Stephen King, I sent a follow up letter and got a canned response saying he wouldn’t be able to write if he took the time to answer all that mail.
I wrote a letter to Isaac Asimov. He sent a postcard back with a reply.
I wrote to Paul and George, and if I tell you I’m in my sixties, you can probably guess which Paul and George I mean.
Anyway, I picked interesting writing paper so they would stand out, and doused them in my perfume, too. Of course they never saw them, and there were too many letters from girls like me to even send a form letter back.
But I tried!
Never wrote to John or Ringo, though.
I always wanted to write a letter to Dick Van Dyke because watching him filled some kind of gap for me after my parents divorced, but I never have. I guess I’d better get started on that :D.
I’d never say he was my favorite celebrity, but I once wrote a letter to Dick Fick, who was the basketball coach at Morehead State at the time. He became famous because of his antics during games, which resulted in an ESPN commentator inventing the weekly Dick Fick Award for the most animated coaches around the country. (I’m pretty certain his name also had something to do with his fame.) He sent me back a handwritten letter, which I still have after 20 years. I don’t remember what my letter was about, but the gist his response was about what teams they’d play the next year, who the newcomers on the team would be, and the like.
Here is an article about the tragic fate of Dick Fick.
My favorite celebrity now is Ke$ha, but I figure she has way too many fans to write back personally, so I haven’t bothered trying to write her.
Nope, it seems that Firefox’s dictionary is a heathen! 
Back in the 50’s, lots of singers and actors, who’d respond with photos. I don’t think a single one had a genuine autograph, but writing letters, collecting 8x10 glossies, and joining fan clubs was fun.
In the 80’s I had a brief correspondence with author T.E.D. Klein, after he wrote The Ceremonies. He had friends in Seattle and there was a remote connection, on the order of “Yeah, I went to school with that guy”. I was tickled pink.
Dan Simmons, Charles Dickinson, Harry Dolan, Ray Garton and a few other authors have responded to e-mails. Seems like some of them actually like hearing from readers, clearing up a plot point, discussing a character.
I had a crush on Lynda Carter when I was 5 years old. I made my babysitter write her love letters every week. She said she mailed them (liar!) but I never got anything back. As fate would have it, I stumbled across Lynda Carter’s real e-mail address a few ago so I decided what the hell and wrote her. I explained the great deception my babysitter had done to me when I was little and I just wanted to make things right. We wrote back and forth a few times and even had a few personal things in common. I stopped writing after that early injustice was corrected but I still have her address. She is very nice and knows me now so I sleep tight knowing Wonder Woman is just a message away if trouble springs up.
I wrote a letter to David Mitchell - not the author, the British actor from Peep Show. Never heard back.
I wrote to Ade Edmondson’s (another British actor) agent and she helped me send him a letter and a cricket bat to sign. It took forever, and a lot of money but he sent it back signed. I paid for shipping.
When I was in third grade, everyone in my class had to write a fan letter to a celebrity. All the other kids wrote to famous actors, singers and politicians. I wrote to the mayor of our little suburb. At best, the other kids got a form letter back; many got nothing. I, however, got to meet the mayor, and an article about me, with photo, was printed in the local newspaper.
That was my 15 minutes of fame. Some of the other kids said I cheated, because the mayor wasn’t a true celebrity.
In the early “The X-Files” heydays, I contacted Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Got an almost immediate response from GA (within the month!) and one from DD about 3 months later. His was a straight forward autograph (no personalization), hers was a short note on the back of the final dialogue page for the episode “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”. I also actually met her about a year later, chatted a bit and she sent me a nice 8x10 with a little note on it about 2 weeks later.
Sent an autograph request to Charles Dance in 1992 and didn’t hear anything from him for months, to the point where his agent/representative actually sent me a nice note apologizing for the delay, but that Mr. Dance was out of the country filming at that time. (The dreaded “The Last Action Hero” perhaps?) But I did eventually get the Alien3 trading card back that I sent him, autographed to me.
Never did hear back from Tommy Lee Jones.