Not long after Lee Heidorn took over the running of Billie Dove’s fan club, she met one of her all-time favorite movie stars. Living in Chicago afforded Lee the opportunity to meet many who were making personal appearances along with the opening of their pictures. Said Lee, “It was surprising to find that very few of them refused to see you when you went backstage to see them. Those I met on personal appearances were people like John Boles, Mary Brian, the Boswell Sisters, Jackie Cooper, Esther Ralston, Bing Crosby, Buddy Rogers, and Mary Pickford, who had a group of us up to her hotel suite for tea!”
Lee had written to Jean Harlow after seeing her in Hell’s Angels. The blonde bombshell wrote back almost immediately and enclosed a signed portrait. A few weeks later, Lee received a telegram from Jean, asking her to visit her when she was making a personal appearance at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago.
“Nervous I was when I was escorted to her dressing room while she was on stage,” Lee recalled. “As soon as she came off stage, she rushed up to her dressing room to see me. We had a grand visit and when it came time for me to leave, she came down with me and the doorman took pictures of us. Later, every time she and her mother came through Chicago, I would get a telegram from her and while our visits were necessarily short, I’ll never forget them.
“After one of our visits, Jean went on to New York. She sent me a beautiful white-beaded evening bag from Magnin. She even wrote a letter on the day she married Paul Bern, and later, sent me a piece of her wedding cake. After Jean died, her mother would call me and send me gifts when she’d pass through Chicago. Jean is one of my fondest memories.”
In the meantime, Lee got business with Billie’s fan club, which was operated much like the other fan clubs of the day, said Lee.
“Most of them were sponsored by the stars. They would provide an autographed photo and would usually write a letter to go along with a club letter or magazine. Since this was the Depression, these magazines were not on a regular basis since the president usually had to pay for them.”
“In my day,” Lee remembered, “running the club was usually at the expense of the club president, helped by minimal dues (usually a couple of dollars a year) and sometimes the star would make a small donation. At that time, the stars were proud of their clubs and I found proof in that, not only in my association of Billie Dove, but of those other stars whom I became acquainted with at that highlight time of my life.”
In 1933, a group of clubs that were located in Chicago formed the Movie Club Guild. “We published a beautiful magazine called The Audience. Billie and her new husband, Robert Kenaston, were on the cover of our first issue. Presidents of the clubs wrote articles about their ‘stars’ and had interviews with others when they were in Chicago. For a couple of years, we had a so-called fan club convention, and presidents from clubs around the country came.”
After that first convention, Billie wrote Lee a letter congratulating her on the accomplishment and inviting her to visit her in California. That invitation from Billie started Lee to seriously consider a trip West to meet her favorite Hollywood movie stars.
In my next post, Lee recounts her adventures in Hollywood!
Closeups and Canvases 
2 responses to “Dove Tails — Meeting Jean Harlow and other Adventures of a Fan Club President”
I put a letter on my blog at http://benny-drinnon.blogspot.com/2013/12/thelma-todd-letter.html that I believe Thelma Todd wrote to Lee Heidorn. – Benny Drinnon
It is, Bobby. Thanks!