This story is so romcommy and superficially sweet. I know Willie Aames, now 62, as a child actor on the family drama series Eight is Enough, which aired from 1977 to 1981. He was the older brother with the big mop of curly hair and was a heartthrob at the time. Like a lot of other former child actors, Willie’s life has been rough, with a bout of homelessness and addiction followed by sobriety and a career as a cruise director in his late 40s. He’s now back to acting and is producing.
Willie’s latest production is a Hallmark movie called Love in the Limelight, based on his own true life story about reconnecting with a woman he started corresponding with as a teen. He literally picked her letter out of a fan mail bag and called her. They would talk on the phone occasionally over the years and shared a long distance friendship that lasted decades. When he met her after they reconnected over social media a few years ago he knew she was the one.
“It’s my favorite story in the whole wide universe,” Aames, who is best known for playing Tommy Bradford in the 1970s television series Eight Is Enough and Buddy Lembeck on the 1980s sitcom Charles in Charge, said. “Winnie had started sending me letters when she was just a kid. I used to receive thousands of letters a week. I used to pick letters out of the bag and I would read a couple of them and they’d always put their phone number there. It was always like, ‘Please call me sometime if you ever need a friend.’ And I was thinking, ‘These poor girls. They’re never going to get a phone call from somebody.’ So I thought, ‘I’m going to do it. I’m going to call.'”
After pulling out a letter, Aames picked up the phone. “I was like, ‘Hi, is this the Hung residence?’ And she’s like, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Hi, this is Willie Aames calling from Universal Studios.’ She hung up.
“I called back and she was like, ‘It can’t be you,'” he recalled. “We started chatting and became pen pals for 30 years. We never met, but chatted on the phone a few times. We’d catch up, lose track, catch up, and lose track.”
After years of corresponding, the duo lost touch for a brief period of time — during which Aames battled addiction and became homeless at one point.
“When I started my life over at 48, I had to learn everything new again,” said Aames, who began working as a cruise director on Oceana at the time. “I had to learn who I was again. I had to get over all of the past mistakes.”
The timing was perfect when Aames heard from Hung, now 50, again via social media. So the duo decided to finally meet during a cruise stop in Vancouver.
“That afternoon, I took one look at her and I knew,” Aames said of their first interaction. “There’s no getting around it. That afternoon, I went and I bought Winnie a little Pandora charm, that says ‘Fairytale’ on it. That was one of the things that I told her because she was so dead set against going out with me that I said, ‘Don’t miss out on your own real-life fairy tale.’ ”
“I feel like everything worked out timing-wise, the way it was supposed to be,” said Hung, an actress and producer. “So by the time we actually met in person, I already trusted him as a human being.”
“I had literally sort of healed into something new,” added Aames, who was previously married to Vicki Weatherman in 1979 and Maylo McCaslin in 1986. “Had I not gone through the ups and downs in my life that I did, I would not have been the right man for Winnie.”
After a dreamy first meeting, Aames was set to travel to France for work, but couldn’t get Hung out of his mind.
“I flew back up to Canada, and as I came through immigration, she was standing there, and I walked up to her, and I said, ‘I’m going to marry you.'”
Ten months later, and with the approval of Hung’s family, the duo married in 2014.
“I never once, ever in a million years thought he would the one,” said Hung, who waited all her life for the perfect man. “It was such an innocent writing back and forth. I never ever once thought it was even a possibility.”
“It’s so funny, we still sit across the table from each other and look at each other and go, ‘I can’t believe it’s you. You’re the one.'”
Their story is so remarkable that the couple decided to write and produce a movie loosely based on their journey.
Mild spoilers for Hallmark movie Love in the Limelight, but can you spoil those movies?
I watched about half of this show while I played a game on my phone. The lead was a down on his luck singer in a former boy band who had a comeback gig in the fan’s town. It’s standard Hallmark fare and wasn’t bad for what it was. I didn’t feel the chemistry between the leads but that’s often the case with those shows. There are spoilers here if you care, but the woman was grown and her family was so protective of her! Her dad was really creepy and wanted to vet her boyfriends even though she was clearly in her mid to late 30s. It makes me think that Winnie’s family must have been like that with her relationship with Willie.
As cheesy as it is I got the warm and fuzzies from the story! Plus, how cute is it that their names are Willie and Winnie? My only question is why was he calling a little girl when he was a teenager? It seems questionable, but it was hopefully innocent. Maybe she’s older than 50 and is fudging her age, but either way they didn’t meet in person until much later in life.
How Eight is Enough Star Willie Aames Found True Love with a Former Fan: 'It Was Meant To Be' https://t.co/1a7DiisxSW
— People (@people) August 6, 2022
My five-year-old grandson has the same hair as “Tommy” – same colour, same length, same curls.so cute!
I could not place this actor; I got Eight Us Enough mixed up with Seventh Heaven, and then I remembered the dad from SH turned out to be a creep.
I literally just saw that movie last night! I had no idea it was based on a true story. Lol at your not finding chemistry between the two leads – they’ve been married to each other for years and work together a lot.
This actually happens a lot. Two actors in a real life relationship/marriage are a dud onscreen. I think it’s the familiarity. There’s a comfort level that vs. the uncertainty of the new/unknown that translates as ‘no chemistry’ onscreen.
I hate to say it as the couple is cute as pie, but their onscreen chemistry is a dud. Their show was alright, but I never got the one true pairing vibe from their characters. It might have got there if they’d had more seasons.
He was actually the middle brother in the show.
That’s a great story. I adored him back in the day.
I was ready to be creeped out, but I guess it’s a heartwarming tale of true love?
I do agree a teen or young adult actor contacting a child personally today would be a red flag, but I am going to go out on a limb and say this was more normal for child/teen actors to do in the 70s and 80s before there was social media? It was sort of for PR to keep up their popularity, and teen mags would sometimes have photos of “so and so from Oshkosh junior high wins a contest to meet her crush Scott Baio and they had ice cream together.” I also remember a couple times elementary school friends getting supposedly personal letters and photos from teen soap stars to whom they had written fan mail. And actress Rebecca Schaefer was murdered by a teen after she personally responded to a letter from him.
I totally read it as he was thinking of how to make a kid’s day and thought a phone call would do it, so he called. He was still a kid himself, albeit an older one. It certainly sounds innocent, kind of like when The Rock or whoever surprises the fans on a celebrity home tour by greeting them in person.
I have a nine year-old and she would lose her MIND if a celebrity she thought was cool called her. I don’t think it’s troubling in the context presented here, almost like a meet-and-greet but personalized. I can see where it would go sideways if the intent were different, but this sounded completely innocent and sweet to me.
I’m so happy for him. I remember how bummed I was when I’d heard he was homeless, etc. and that he’d been hit with the child actor curse. Same with Leif Garrett.
He sounds so positive now, I’m glad it’s a good story this time.
God, my 9 year-old self loved this man! At the time, celebrities answered fan mail and some of the stories were publicized in Teen Beat, my older sister’s favorite magazine. Shaun Cassidy was big! Peter Frampton, and Willie, too. This is such a feel good story. It’s nice to hear that he is thriving and that they are happy. Thanks, CB.
Excuse me as I forward this to my sister.
I think this is a cute story! It doesn’t say how old he was when he first called her but in any case, they only met in person as adults and it sounds like they went through periods of no contact.
My parents also have a cute story. My mom studied abroad in France in college and ended up with my dad’s family as her host family, she married her host brother lol. When my dad moved to the US, he had no job and couldn’t speak English much and obviously not a US citizen, traits that did not endear him to his in-laws. He is however an amazing cook and won over my grandparents with his food and he eventually got a job (after a year of searching and this was pre-Internet!). My parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary in a few weeks! And throwing a huge party for it too. Oh and my dad’s younger brother met his American wife the exact same way too, my grandparents were basically running a matchmaking service for their sons haha.
That’s hilarious! Chemistry and love can’t be manufactured, but it was also a different time. Sweet family history. Thanks for sharing. It’s theatrical!
Had no idea this was a true story. The leads are married (their Hallmark murder mystery show was canceled), so I thought the movie was something they wrote so they could star in it together. How awesome to find this is Willie & his wife’s love story. That makes me want to go back and watch it.
So cute and sweet! Love it!