"The mail lady thinks I'm a talent agent..."
"My mother turns 65 years old next April (2008), she's one of those old school celebrity lovers who watches all the gossip shows, dresses up for the Oscars, and watches all the red carpet interviews while drinking wine and eating maple nut ice cream.
She's always been big on autographs so I decided the best birthday gift to give her next year would be an album of celebrity headshots wishing her a happy 65th birthday. I thought 65 personal celebrity wishes would be a good goal.
In March I wrote a hand written two paragraph note stating my intentions, made copies and used your book to send requests to celebrities from all walks of life. While this method may seem a bit impersonal, I figured I was better off going for quantity rather than quality....hell, it works for the credit card companies.
Over the past few months whenever I had some time to kill I'd pull out your Celebrity Black Book, highlight some celebrities, address and stuff envelopes, and mail my next batch. I've sent out around 800 requests thus far with about 10% being returned with outdated addresses.
My success rate has been between 15-20 percent with many of my earlier requests still producing. While I do get some "generic" autographed copies of headshots sent by studio reps, I still have over 100 quality personalized birthday wishes to my mother Barbara.
While my celebrity wish list is dwindling, I am confident that with what requests I still have in play I should wind up with over 150 quality birthday wishes from A-D List celebrities, sports stars, and politicians.
Everybody wins with what I'm doing. First my mom. Secondly the celebrities, some of whom are just flattered to be remembered, and finally me.
I can't tell you how exciting it is to come home and check my mail for something other than bills. My mail lady things I'm a talent agent, she keeps asking me to audition her nephew.
The thought of Phyllis Diller or Betty White sitting at their kitchen table wearing a housecoat and writing a birthday wish to my mom and sending it to me cracks me up.
Here is a sample of some of the personalized celebrity birthday wishes my mom has waiting for her so far: Phyllis Diller, Betty White, Paul Anka, Regis Philbin, Arnold Palmer, Paul Newman, James Garner, Tom Sellick, Ruth Buzzi, Mary Lou Retton, Don Rickles, Jane Fonda, Bob Dole, Dawn Wells, Bart Conner, The Smothers Brothers, Lovie Smith, the late Jerry Fawell, Candice Burgen, Vidal Sassoon, John Grisham, Pat Summit, Chad Everett, Henry Winkler, Tom Dreesen, Rose Marie, Bonnie Franklin, and many more."
- Jerry Wolski (Chicago)
