Dear Friends,
Something really great has happened to me. This letter is to say thank you, because I owe this incredibly wonderful thing to you, to the thousands of you who wrote to me via Modern Screen.
I have read and re-read the mountains of letters that were sent to me after Modern Screen published "If You Love Mario." Letters that tell me I have been given a great gift. Letters that say, "You have brought me courage..." "We need your voice in these troubled times." Letters from children, from invalids, from countries far away. Letters that close with, "God bless you, Mario." I am deeply touched.
For God has blessed me. And I have never forgotten that there is a very special tie between me and the people I sing to. It's something much more than the usual bond between an artist and the public; it's as though there is a real, living, flowing love between us, as though you people have reached out in some mysterious way and taken me to your hearts.
Mind you, I don't feel that I have made this happen. It's just there, that's all. And I feel, very strongly, that my responsibility is not to harm this wonderful love by ever doing anything cheap or shoddy or unworthy of it. That's why, for a while, I stopped singing. Now that I feel I can live up to what you have a right to expect, I am going to make more movies, starting with Warner Brother's Serenade. I hope these movies will be good ones. If so, it will really be due to you. Because there is no better way to create something good than by going into it with the knowledge that you are loved and wanted and needed. You have given me that knowledge. I feel well and strong and able to work.
Thank you for your wonderful gift.
And God bless you all.
