I've written before how big an impact it can have when you write a letter. Recently actor Simon Callow told the (London) Times about how this affected his life:
"I was obsessed by the theatre and the idea of the theatre, and was a regular visitor with grandmothers and school parties to the West End and Old Vic, in its last days before Olivier took it over, and then in the glorious seasons at the National Theatre he led there in the 1960s.
Such was my obsession with him and his theatre that I wrote him a letter, in which I explained over three closely typed foolscap pages what a fine organisation he was running, and he wrote back by return of post to say would I like a job in the box office? And so it came to pass that I was able to watch him and his extraordinary fellow actors night after night and formed the absurd idea that I – who had never acted at all before – might possibly become one too."
The rest of his story is here.
I've had a few remarkable experiences as a result of writing letters, too. I've told before the story of writing a letter to Rod Serling, creator of "The Twilight Zone," when I was a teen-ager, and the thrill of getting a nice note back from him. Later I wrote to Walter Lantz, the cartoonist creator of Woody Woodpecker, whose drawing lessons on TV I loved when I was a kid. Not only did I meet him, but he did a drawing of Woody for me (unfortunately, both Serling's letter and Lantz's drawing were destroyed in the fire that consumed my house, but they live on in my memory!).
