Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 21, 1992 TAG: 9202210108
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JOE TENNIS
DATELINE: FAIRLAWN LENGTH: Medium
A LETTER-PERFECT HOBBY
German P. Hatcher's mailman must be glad the Fairlawn resident has quit collecting autographs.In 23 years, Hatcher wrote 450 letters and received more than 250 responses from folks around the world: actors, musicians, political types, royalty - you name it.
Hatcher, 73, started collecting autographs - mostly signed photographs - when he wrote a letter to Jack Benny asking for the comedian's signature in 1960.
Benny scribbled across a black-and-white photograph, dropped it in the mail and helped Hatcher hatch his hobby. Today, the Fairlawn resident has 11 photo albums filled with 255 pictures signed by famous people he's met only through the mail.
"Over the years, I guess I wrote to just about every state in the union trying to get them," Hatcher said.
About a third of the folks - people like John Wayne, Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and Joan Crawford - are dead now. "There's so many of them dead. It's hard to keep up with them," Hatcher said.
"I never did join no fan club. . . . All these pictures I never paid a cent for, except for the stamps."
Once, a reply from Loretta Lynn asked for a dollar to cover the cost of a photo and postage. But Hatcher refused to send money. "I figured if I had to pay for one, it wasn't really that important," he said.
Most photos are marked by the actual artist's ink with short, personal messages. Others, products of the mass-production age, are stamped autographs.
A copy of Elvis Presley's scribble in Hatcher's collection, for example, was stamped on a printing press.
Hatcher's list of first families include shots and signatures from Harry S. Truman to the George Bush clan.
"I've even got ol' Spiro Agnew. He really messed up, didn't he?" Hatcher says, flipping through an album and chuckling about the former vice president.
Hatcher's movie-star list includes Bob Hope, Mae West, James Cagney, Joan Collins, Gene Autry, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Jimmie Walker, Groucho Marx, Faye Dunaway and dozens more.
He's also got a signed shot of Col. Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. "I got to the point that I wrote to just about anybody I could get a picture of," Hatcher said.
Perhaps the former Marine's favorite set of pictures is of four actors who played Doc, Festus, Matt and Miss Kitty on the long-running TV western "Gunsmoke."
Hatcher mailed all of his correspondence directly to the famous faces' homes. He obtained addresses whenever he saw one in a magazine or newspaper.
Hatcher quit collecting in 1983 when it became increasingly frustrating.
"It's hard to find addresses, you know. . . . I got to where I was getting all my letters back."
On some photos, subjects sloppily scribbled their names; and Hatcher and his wife, Christina, have forgotten who the faces are.
Still, the memories are there. And, Hatcher said, the couple has no plans to sell any of their photos. "I don't know whether there would be any demand from people for something that's autographed to so-and-so."