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With love from my heart to your heart.

Baretta
Personal Time
Baretta
Johnny Carson
Humphrey Bogart
Cowboy Days
Sunny & Me
Electric Glide
Me & Elliott Gould
Baretta

Dear Friends,
You must be interested for one reason or another or you wouldn't be reading this. So I'll just tell you what's in my heart after reading all of your emails when you tell me what's in your heart. So here goes.
And I wonder where the hell it will go.

The film Chorus Line is not about dancing. It's about finding a home, finding a way of life, finding family and all the things that go with human intimacy. People who are born into a real family don't have to go out looking for one. They go out looking for career, money, and building another family like the one they left. But in my life, I find that most people who enter show business early in life or late in life are not looking for money, career, or any of those normal pursuits.

Now about me in relation to all this.
I think I'm the luckiest person who ever lived because while being born into a septic tank, I didn't have to look far to find my home. I walked down three flights of wooden stairs in a busted up apartment building in Jersey, I hit the sidewalk, my feet started moving, they started throwing money, and I found my place in the chorus line.  And for 78 years, it never left me and I never left it.

I probably would have stayed with dancing forever if I didn't happen to have some mysterious talent for acting. When I walked in MGM at five years old, all I had to do was peel back the layers of childishness which other children are allowed to live their way through for 10 or 15 years and what was left was the gift, acting. I would rather have been Gene Kelly. But I was stuck with being a combination of Bob Steele, John Garfield, and who the hell knows who else.

I know this is a crazy way to answer fan mail. But what about my life has not been crazy since I was conceived. But you people who write these letters and emails and such are the people that have allowed me to find my home in show business and have had the privilege and the great luck to have you live through it with me for all these past 70 some years. And as I go to my friends' computers and have them help me wander through my life on the internet, I see your love and support swirling all around my soul, but I also see negative stuff, I see offensive stuff, I see degrading stuff, but that's been with me all my life. And I wear those scars with great pride and dignity. I'm honored that people choose to take cheap shots at me. I hope it makes them feel better, because I know it makes me feel better. The envier is always the one who hurts and the envied is always the one who feels secure.

I wish I could answer each of you separately, maybe someday, when I learn how to type and use a computer, I'll try that. But for now, please excuse me for tending to bunch you all together, and I don't know what to call you-my fans, my friends, my family, my honored guests, all I know is that all my life I have welcomed you as I welcome the sunrise and welcome every breath I take.

And so for now, this busted up old, long-winded cowboy will close with so many many thanks and a prayer that I can honor you by performing for you once again on the highwire without a net before I pack up my guitar and my dancing shoes and go dance for the boss.

God bless you and keep you all always,
Robert

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