This week’s National Enquirer has a sweet story about how a fan gifted a valuable piece of John Dillinger memorabilia to Johnny Depp. Johnny plays notorious Depression-era gangster Dillinger in the new film Public Enemies. While he was filming in Crown Point, Indiana, where Dillinger was locked up briefly in 1934, he supposedly got word that a collector had the original badge of the Sheriff who temporarily had Dillinger in custody. The way the Enquirer tells it, Depp asked to buy the badge for $10,000, but the owner said that it wasn’t for sale. Then, after Depp was just being himself and behaving graciously and generously with the locals, the guy decided to give him the badge for free just for being his normal, awesome self.

“Johnny desperately wanted a sheriff’s badge belonging to the person who locked up Dillinger in the ‘escape proof’ Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Ind. in 1934,” a source told The Enquirer.

“He offered the owner $10,000, but the man said he wouldn’t sell it at any price.”

All that changed when the owner heard how Depp stood in the rain to sign autographs and bought cases of soda at a local grocery to distribute to residents who watched him shoot the jailbreak scene at Crown Point.

Fans are “the only reason I’m here,” Depp said. “They’re keeping me alive. They’re keeping my kiddies fed, so they’re the boss as far as I’m concerned.”

After learning about Dillinger’s life while preparing for the movie, Depp decided that he really wanted the badge belonging to the late Lake County Sheriff Lillian Holley. She was responsible for keeping Dillinger locked up in Indiana while he awaited trail for the murder of a Chicago policeman.

Dillinger spent only a few weeks in Holly’s custody - because while she napped at home one afternoon, he managed to bust out of her jail using a toy gun.

While making his bold escape, Dillinger locked up 12 sheriff’s deputies before fleeing in Holley’s brand-new V-8 Ford!

The man who owned Holley’s badge - an employee at Ford Motor Co. Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights, Ill - also had several other objects of Dillinger memorabilia.

“The guy didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” said the source. “He just wanted Johnny to know how much he and the people of Crown Point appreciated his kindness. So he sent him the badge as a gift.

“Johnny was thrilled. He said he’d never forget the people of Crown Point, because they were some of the nicest people he’d ever met.”

[From the National Enquirer, print edition, July 13, 2009]

I don’t buy all of this, and think that if there was a badge exchanged the owner probably decided to gift it to Johnny Depp without needing to be convinced of his worthiness at all. That’s what I would do, but of course not everyone is as much of a star-struck fan as I am. It doesn’t take much to convert people, though, because all Johnny has to do is show up and do his thing. He’s super nice without any kind of artifice and you get the impression that he’s awed by his fame.

Johnny Depp is just about the only celebrity to whom I would hand away my most prized possessions, a look of wide-eyed wonder on my face and he gently brushes my hand to take it from me, all apologetic and smiling.

Depp is shown outside his hotel in Paris yesterday. Credit: ANG/Fame Pictures. He’s also shown at the Paris premiere of Public Enemies with Marion Cotillard, Michael Mann. Credit: WENN.com