Clifford Irving was named Time magazine’s ‘Con Man of the Year’ in 1972, the year a prestigious New York publisher printed his ‘Autobiography of Howard Hughes’, discovered it was a fake and threw every copy into a huge bonfire.
Two years earlier, Irving approached McGraw Hill to say the eccentric and reclusive billionaire had asked him to write his autobiography.
The editors were intrigued but wary and examined every detail Irving provided, including analyses of handwriting samples, voiceprints and timelines.
Hughes was a great ‘get’ - a multi-faceted legend, a Hollywood player, inventor and aviator who was now allegedly out of his gourd. It was hard to believe Hughes would approach anyone, let alone a failed author and especially not to make private life public.
Everything checked out.
Irving subsequently banked a big fat pay cheque made out to H.R. Hughes and a smaller one made out to himself.
Except it was all fake!
Irving was brilliant.
He was part way through the book when a box of authentic private Hughes files arrived at his door. They contained serious political poison, information that would compromise President Richard Nixon, detailing payoffs by Hughes in exchange for political favours. Nixon was horrified to read that he had accepted $400k; a figure Irving made up but says was probably near the truth.
The kickback revelations led to the Watergate break-in, as Nixon’s henchmen sacked the Democratic National Convention headquarters looking for the files.
The Irving - Nixon connection was allegedly the topic of conversation in the famous missing 17 minutes of surveillance audio tape and was the subject of an unpublished Senate Watergate Commission report.
Irving boasted about his scheme in the 1972 book ‘Hoax’, which is the basis of the movie - how he dreamed up and staged the most elaborate, infamous and damaging literary fraud in contemporary times.
It makes James Frey’s pathetic effort look like a Sunday school picnic.
Forget the newspaper guy.
Richard Gere is a sensation as this inspired, amoral but creative man who couldn’t sell a book or keep a marriage together. Gere takes us into Irving’s troubled soul, a brilliant failure who could not stop himself from doing what he did and ultimately believed what he made up.
Gere allows Irving a certain faded sexuality and charm, which somehow made the lies go down easier for his wife, ex-wife, writing partner and book editors.
The film plays as fast as a piston as we follow Irving’s dogged pursuit of the perfect swindle and that million-dollar paycheck.
It’s an extremely exciting film - kudos to Hallstrom and Wheeler, whose riveting interpretation of the book plays like a scary funhouse ride.
Clifford Irving’s still selling his fraudulent ‘autobiography’ thirty-seven years after he made it up. A 1999 private reprinting sold out, but chapters can be downloaded free and the whole book for $6 from Irving’s website www.cliffordirving.com .
The Hoax
Opens wide USA April 6. MPAA: Rated R for language
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