Crushing on Val! Plus, Christina Perri

A Monday morning hello.

When I was a kid, I went through a phase where I regularly wrote to celebrities in the hopes that they would write back. Occasionally, I was pleasantly surprised. Olivia Newton-John’s team sent me a press packet with an autographed photo and an “A to Z about Olivia” page. (The only letter I remember is H, for her love of horses.) Ari Meyers, who played Emma on the ’80s sitcom Kate & Allie, sent me a handwritten letter, answering every one of my questions. Prince…well, he never replied.

Back in the 1900s (as my son would call it), we had no IMDb to find celebrity contact info. I’m not entirely sure how I even got the info for Olivia, Ari, and Prince. What I do remember is that I really, really wanted to write to my mid-80s crush, Val Kilmer. Most girls at the time were Tom Cruise fans, but when it came toTop Gun, Iceman was the only one for me. I couldn’t figure out how to reach him, though, so I used the 1980s version of Google—I wrote an actual letter to my actual hometown newspaper.