In the fall of 1993 (when I was 13 and had just started 8th grade) I wrote a fan letter to Jason Priestley. At the time, I was crushing on him big time and watched 90210 diligently. I'd found his address in one of my sister's Teen Beat or Tiger Beat or one of those types of magazines.
Anyway, the letter ended up being several pages long (both sides), in which I told him all my ideas for movies, including one titled HIS THREE GIRLS that I wanted him to star in,. It was about a high school popular jock who is fought over by three female classmates, who were gonna be played by Goldie Hawn, Madonna, and a girl in my grade named Sarah Legere, who I was not even friends with but she was in the drama club and acted in local productions. (She didn't know I had cast her in my movie.) The fact that Priestley was 24, Hawn was 48, Madonna was 35, and Sarah was 13 didn't seem to matter to me or crossed my mind.
Also, the movie CALENDAR GIRL had just come out, which I'd learned contained a nude beach scene. This was confirmed by an Entertainment Tonight episode I watched, in which Priestley was interviewed to promote the film, and he stated that it was a real nude beach with actual nude patrons and that he was indeed fully nude, and that during takes someone would run up to him and put a robe on him. Anyway, I was intrigued by this tidbit, so I asked him in the letter if it was embarrassing/uncomfortable being nude on camera. Also, he'd recently appeared on Jay Leno with Penny Marshall (who produced the film), and I asked if Marshall got turned on seeing him naked? She'd joked on Leno about Priestley having 'nice buns,' so I took this to mean that she was there for the shooting. Much later I deduced that she probably wasn't there and that she had merely watched the film at the premiere.
Also, I included a pocket watch that I had stolen from my dad to give to him as a belated birthday present (his b-day is August 28). So I put the thick envelope stuffed with 10 pages of lined paper and a pocket watch in my mailbox and put the little flag up. I was disappointed the next day when the envelope remained and had a note on it saying that it was too heavy. So I took out the watch and tried again. The next day, it said 'insufficient postage' or something. Exasperated, I put about 8 stamps from my mom's desk and tried yet again. The third time was a charm! Now, all I had to do was wait.
I went through most of 8th grade until I finally got a reply in the spring of 1994. I was on my bed reading after school, when my mom came into my room and merely dropped the postcard on my desk, without saying a word. It was this very same photo of Jason Priestley (see below) and on the other side it read "Best of luck!" and signed "Jason Priestley." I was over the moon with joy! That is, until my siblings pointed out that the salutation and signature were clearly stamped. And that's the first (and last) time I ever wrote to a celeb.
However, in 1995, I did plan to send Jodie Foster an Oscar statuette I'd made in art class out of clay and spray-painted gold. On the base I had inscribed "To the REAL Best Actress Winner." I had been rooting for her for NELL and was so devastated that she lost. For many years afterward, the sight or mention of Jessica Lange made my blood boil. I hated her! haha Unfortunately, I was unable to find Foster's address, and the clay Oscar got lost over the next 8 years, when I moved a total of 5 times in that short span.
