Ringo Starr: No more fan mail

[October 14, 2008]  LONDON (AP) -- Ringo Starr doesn't want to hear from you. If you do write, your letter will end up in the trash. That's the message from Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr. After 45 years of stardom, he doesn't want to spend any more time answering mail or sending signed photos back to fans.

The fan fatigue led the former Beatles drummer to post a sometimes angry-sounding short video clip on his Web site telling fans that any mail sent to him after Oct. 20 will not be read or answered. British television stations broadcast the video on Tuesday.

"It's going to be tossed," he says on the video. "I'm warning you with peace and love, I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed. Nothing. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love."

The drummer and singer did not elaborate on the reason behind his decision to cut off a major point of contact with his many fans.

Starr, 68, has maintained a very active touring and recording schedule in recent years, drawing large crowds for performances with his All-Starr band.

The band plays a mix of old Beatles hits, Starr's many solo offerings, and other classics from the 1960s and 1970s. Starr usually serves as front man, though he sometimes plays the drums.

But he has angered longtime fans in Liverpool by telling interviewers that he does not miss his native city. Vandals there beheaded a topiary sculpture of Starr earlier this year -- he was the only one of the four Beatles whose likeness was desecrated.

The good-natured drummer, who also enjoyed a brief acting career after star turns in Beatles' films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!," guest-starred on a 1991 episode of "The Simpsons" in which he is shown scrupulously answering every piece of fan mail that comes his way.

"They took the time to write to me, and I don't care if it takes 20 years, I'm going to answer every one of them," Starr says on the show.

In his mail, he finds a package from Marge Simpson that contains a portrait she painted of him back in the Beatles heyday. He puts it on his wall and writes back to tell her -- a few decades late -- how much he likes her painting.

[Associated Press; By GREGORY KATZ]

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