Mary Costa and Marc Davis Mary Costa and Marc Davis

Mary Costa, the 90-year-old voice of Princess Aurora in the Disney classic Sleeping Beauty, can’t keep up with Disney fans anymore.

The coronavirus pandemic, which has cooped up people at home, has resulted in an “exponential amount of mail” for Costa, who says she has received “more [mail] than I would ever possibly be able to answer.” As a result, the former opera singer says that she won’t be responding to any fan mail after August 20.

The digital letter she has released to the media (see below) additionally notes that any items received for autographing will be donated to charities. Judging from the hundreds of signed items by Costa currently available on Ebay, autograph seekers won’t find any shortage of her signature.

Costa is not the first Disney-connected artist to be overwhelmed by fan mail. Back in the 1980s, director and animator Ward Kimball used to complain that fans wouldn’t stop sending him mail and asking for answers to basic questions that they could easily look up in a book. On at least one occasion, Kimball wrote back a nonsensical letter to a fan, telling a friend that he hoped word would spread that he was no longer cognitively functional so that Disney fans would stop writing him.

Hopefully Disney fans get the message this time around and Costa won’t have to resort to such extreme measures. The full text of her letter is below:

Letter from Mary Costa

Amid Amidi

Amid Amidi is Cartoon Brew's Publisher and Editor-at-large.

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