Love Letter to Joan Blondell

Dear Ms. Blondell,

I realize that this comes to you at somewhat awkward time what with you being dead these past 29 years and all, but I just HAD to write. You see, despite your terminal condition, I have a mad crush on you. My feelings for you only intensified earlier this evening when I watched a double bill at the Pacific Film Archives here in Berkeley featuring none other than you. 

First I saw with you with Melvyn Douglas in There's Always a Woman. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the picture. I was just so terribly jealous because Douglas got to play your husband (tell me there was nothing between you). As you may recall Mary Astor was in the movie, too, and I've gotta tell ya, as much as I love Ms. Astor, she couldn't hold a candle to you. There are your eyes, like the biggest most beautiful round saucers in the universe. Oh and your body is so shapely and, let me just say, huggable. Now I know I risk embarrassing us both by adding this part but there was one scene in which you walked away and...well, your can just giggled so delightfully. 

Oh but please don't misunderstand Ms. Blondell, this is not just a physical attraction. It's always crystal clear that you're an intelligent woman, always one step ahead of everyone else. Maybe you're not always book smart, but definitely street smart and savvy.

I’ve seen lots of your pictures and loved you in every one of them. You stole the whole show in Gold Diggers of 1933. Sure Jimmy Cagney was great in Blonde Crazy, but that was YOUR movie. I don’t think of Night Nurse as a Barbara Stanwyck picture, I think of it as a Joan Blondell production. You don’t always have the biggest role, but you sure always have the biggest impact on the picture. I also admire how unpretentious you are (not like that stuck up Joan Crawford). Oh Ms. Blondell, you're obviously really fun-loving; it comes across whenever you’re on the screen. And Ms. Blondell I’m a fun-loving person, too.

Anyway, the second movie tonight was Three Girls About Town. You were hilarious again, smart again, and beautiful again. I just wish you'd have let your younger sister have that stupid old John Howard character so that WE could have run off together. I know this whole business about you being dead prohibits us ever getting together (and I don't think my wife, who's pretty terrific herself, would put up with it anyway) but if there's another life for us to live and we can be in the same place at the same time and be about the same age...well let’s just say I'd do anything to make you happy.

I love you Ms. Blondell -- may I call you Joan?

Sincerely,

Richard Hourula