BING CROSBY’S MAIL

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

BING CROSBY’S MAIL

COSTS 5® CENTS A “FAN.” 3000 LETTERS A MONTH. Remarked the interviewer: “So it costs you 50 cents every time a ‘fan’ writes you a letter?” Bing Crosby blinked his eyes and said: “Yeah” with no little amazement. "I never looked at it that way, but that’s what it costs,” he said. Work it out this way; Bing receives about 3000 letters a month, by no means the Hollywood record, and he handles it all at his own expense, which averages 1500 dollars a month, or 50 cents apiece. Most stars’ mail is answered by their studios, with the cost levied against the star’s pictures. It is put with the “advertising and exploitation” charge. But Bing believes the contact means so much that he foots the bill himself. He has a staff of four who sort and answer his letters. Some require individual answers, which Bing or his manager brother, Everett, dictate. Only letters which have the appearance of having been individually typed are used. This is a more expensive process than either mimeographing or printing. Nor does the firm of Bing Crosby, Inc., make the usual charge of 25 cents for pictures; it sends them free. Crosby believes, through the medium of his letters, that he makes better friends of “fans,” who, in turn, make Crosby “fans” of their friends. He takes a particular delight in personally answering “knockers.”