I was thinking of emailing themself after web searching for about 45 minutes turned up nothing for me, but figured I'd come off sounding dumb and got cold feet.

I would say it's a valid source, why would you or them lie about it? Esp. if you can put up a screen shot of the email, I'd vote yes in a second.
I don't think I'd want to email them myself to double confirm, they may get annoyed with never ending emails asking for BY's. Then if like me, they'll start messing with everyone, giving each different dates.

Oh yeah, never try this with an actress! 

Thanks for going above and beyond with the email Astrakan, enjoy the well earned green arrow.

I've done this, with the salient part of the email response quoted in the contribution notes, and adding that I can provide the actual email to Ken or Gerri if requested for verification and gotten nothing but positive votes.  It is fun to track these folks down and let them know that people are interested in their careers, especially since these tend to not be the big stars--we know who they are, ad nauseam.