I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that racy-sounding headline that drew your attention here merely means that I am both a stamp collector and a movie buff (boy, hard to believe I’m still single). These dual obsessions interests don’t at first glance seem like they’d have much in common, and up until the past quarter-century or so in this country you’d be right in thinking that. But over the last several years, there’s been a noticeable increase in overlapping. As the U.S. Postal Service has seen its revenues dry up due to the rise of e-mail, text messages and other forms of instant communication, they’ve searched for new ways to drum up business, and one of those ways is to release more pop culture-friendly items featuring entertainment notables (as in the 1993 Elvis Presley stamp and the “young Elvis/old Elvis” poll that preceded it).
Thanks to an album my late Uncle Jim left me that I’ve been trying to complete, my field of interest is limited to U.S. postage stamps. But, just as some folk specialize in a country or region of the world, there are also “topical collectors”: those who focus on stamps relating to a particular subject, such as dogs, lighthouses or space exploration. And since one can now put together a nice little assortment by amassing movie-themed issues put out by the USPS, I thought I’d combine two of my areas of geekdom and offer a list for any would-be collectors out there. Please note, I’m going to be skipping over subjects who occasionally appeared on film but are better known as singers (Bessie Smith), musicians (Bill Haley) or TV stars (Edward R.Murrow).
1944: The first cinema-related postage stamp put out by the U.S. wasn’t to honor an actor, actress or director, but instead noted “the 50th anniversary of motion pictures” by depicting a makeshift outdoor theater, with an audience of soldiers on the frontline (this was during World War II, after all) watching a film projected on a sheet or canvas.
1947: He was being recognized for much more than just his contribution to the development of motion pictures, but no movie-themed collection would be complete without a Thomas Alva Edison memorial stamp.
1948: As popular on the big screen as he was in vaudeville or on Broadway, cowboy comedian/social critic Will Rogers is the first movie star to be featured on a postage stamp.
1967: The man whose name became synonymous with cartoons and family entertainment, Walt Disney, is featured–surrounded by children from around the world–in a fitting philatelic tribute.
1975: Famed early director D.W. Griffith (Birth of a Nation, Intolerance) is honored.
1977: A half-century after Al Jolson said “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” a stamp marks the “50th anniversary of talking pictures.”
1980: After another Rogers stamp is released the year before, cantankerous comic/curmudgeon W.C. Fields becomes the fourth subject of the new Performing Arts series.
1982: America’s “First Family of Stage and Screen,” the Barrymores, are remembered with a stamp featuring the likenesses of siblings Ethel, John and Lionel.
1984: Silent swashbuckler and heartthrob Douglas Fairbanks is the Performing Arts hero of the year.
1989: A set of four stamps (see above) feting the 1939 films Beau Geste, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, and The Wizard of Oz marks the golden anniversary of what many movie fans consider “Hollywood’s Greatest Year.”
1991: Al Hirschfeld caricatures of Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen (and Charlie McCarthy), Fanny Brice, and Laurel and Hardy grace stamps saluting the comedy greats.
1993: The King of Rock and Roll–who makes this article by virtue of his more than 30 film appearances–sets all-time Postal Service sales records, as the young Elvis Presley stamp makes its debut. Also that year, screen princess-turned-real-life royal Grace Kelly is honored.
1994: More Hirschfeld illustrations spotlight 10 idols of the silent screen: Theda Bara, Clara Bow, Lon Chaney, Sr., Charlie Chaplin, John Gilbert, Buster Keaton, the Keystone Cops, Harold Lloyd, ZaSu Pitts, and Rudolph Valentino. Another set featuring singers who also had acting screen time includes Jolson, Nat “King” Cole, Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, and Ethel Waters.
1995: The USPS kicks off its new Legends of Hollywood series with quintessential screen sex symbol Marilyn Monroe.
1996: Timeless teen icon James Dean is the second Legends honoree.
1997: With the release of the Humphrey Bogart Legends issue, fans can now re-create that Nighthawks-like diner poster by combining the Presley, Monroe, Dean, and Bogey stamps; screen scream fans mark the debut of five Universal Monsters stamps featuring Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolf Man, Chaney, Sr.’s Phantom of the Opera, Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein Monster and the Mummy, and Bela Lugosi’s Dracula; and “that Oscar-winning rabbit,” Bugs Bunny, kicks off a series saluting Warner Bros. Looney Tunes characters.
1998: Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock gets the Legends of Hollywood treatment; Tweety and Sylvester are the year’s cartoon subjects; and a series of ten Celebrate the Century commemorative sheets features stamps spotlighting The Great Train Robbery, Chaplin, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Citizen Kane, drive-ins, 3-D movies, E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Titanic.
1999: This year’s legend is famed tough guy James Cagney, and Daffy Duck is the featured Warners toon. Also, an interesting set of six stamps commemorates renowned Hollywood composers Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman (no, not the Mad Magazine cover boy), Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Franz Waxman.
2000: Cagney’s fellow ’30s hoodlum, Edward G. Robinson, gets a Legends stamp of his own, while the Road Runner and his relentless pursuer, Wile E. Coyote, share a Looney Tunes issue.
2001: Screen and TV funny gal Lucille Ball (who had a 1950s Celebrate the Century stamp opposite hubby Desi Arnaz) shows off her red hair in a Legends tribute. And Porky Pig is joined by his previously featured animated co-stars to say “That’s All, Folks!” to the Warners cartoon collection.
2002: A dapper Cary Grant graces the Legends of Hollywood series as its eighth subject.
2003: Along with a Legends stamp of Audrey Hepburn, a special American Filmmaking: Behind the Scenes sheet offers ten stamps with such behind-the-camera talents as director John Cassavetes, art director Percy Ferguson, costumer Edith Head, make-up artist Jack Pierce (with Karloff), and more.
2004: It’s a bountiful year for film buffs, with a John Wayne Legends stamp, a Black Heritage issue for singer/actor Paul Robeson, a salute to composer Henry Mancini, and the first in a new series with the Disney studio’s cartoon characters (a Friendship foursome with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pinocchio, Bambi, the Lion King, and more) .
2005: An actor-turned-U.S. President (Ronald Reagan) and an actor who played a president more than once (Henry Fonda) are postal subjects, as is Swedish-born siren Greta Garbo. The festive second Disney set has Mickey, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, and the Little Mermaid, and a sheet memorializes puppeteer Jim Henson and his beloved Muppets.
2006: Little Dorothy from the 1989 Oz stamp grows up, as Judy Garland receives a Legends stamp; the year’s Black Heritage honoree is the first African-American Academy Award-winner, Gone with the Wind’s Hattie McDaniel; and Disney Romance stamps feature Mickey and Minnie, Cinderella and Prince Charming, Lady and the Tramp, and Beauty and the Beast.
2007: It’s a wonderful Legends release for James Stewart, and the final Disney quartet spotlights Magic with Mickey, Dumbo, Peter Pan, and Aladdin, but the most popular designs of the year are on a ten-stamp sheet marking the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and all the most popular characters (not the actors per se, the USPS says, so as to skirt a regulation that keeps living persons’ likenesses off stamps) are there, and Yoda also gets a separate stamp all to himself.
2008: The Bette Davis Legends of Hollywood stamp debuts in a year that also includes a salute to singer/actor Frank Sinatra and a set featuring posters from five vinatge all-black films: Black and Tan, Caldonia, Hallelujah, Princess Tam Tam, and The Sport of the Gods.
2009: Gary Cooper is the fifteenth Legends subject, and famed funnyman Bob Hope is also feted. Meanwhile, an Early TV Memories sheet includes several big-screen favorites, among them Ball, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Milton Berle, William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd, Raymond Burr, Hitchcock, Lassie, Groucho Marx, Rod Serling, Red Skelton, and Jack Webb.
2010: Already out this year are all three scheduled USPS releases: a four-stamp round-up of Cowboys of the Silver Screen (Gene Autry, William S. Hart, Tom Mix, and Roy Rogers), a Legends of Hollywood issue for four-time Oscar-winner Katharine Hepburn, and a Black Heritage salute to pioneering filmmaker Oscar Micheaux.
As for 2011 and beyond–assuming there’s still a U.S . Postal Service in the future–who will be next? Legends stamps for Ingrid Bergman, Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, or Steve McQueen, perhaps? A four-stamp tribute to directors Frank Capra, John Ford, Preston Sturges, and Billy Wilder? How about a series on vintage American movie theater facades, or classic movie posters from such films as Casablanca, Ben-Hur and The Godfather? And what the heck is keeping them from putting out a Three Stooges comemmorative stamp? I mean, I like ZaSu Pitts and Ethel Merman as much as the next person, but they have stamps, and Moe, Larry and Curly don’t? Come on, USPS, do you want to make money or not?