Clifford Irving

Clifford Michael Irving (born November 5, 1930 in New York City , † December 19, 2017 in Sarasota , Florida ) was an American author of several bestselling novels. But he was best known for forged handwritten letters in a so-called " autobiography " in the 1970s , with which he tried to convince his editors that they came from the reclusive eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes . After this high-profile telephone interview denied its accuracy and sued the editors, Irving admitted the forgery and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, of which he served 17 months.

Early life and writing career

Irving grew up as the son of Dorothy and Jay Irving, an illustrator of covers and creator of the comic strip Pottsy about a New York cop. After graduating from Manhattan High School of Music and Art in 1947, Irving attended Cornell University . He was married to Nina Wilcox for two years from March 1951. In 1956 he was employed by The New York Times and wrote his first novel On a Darkling Plain . During a trip to Europe in 1958, he completed his second novel The Losers . During a stay in Ibiza he met the Englishwoman Claire Lydon. They married that same year and moved to California . Claire Lydon died there, heavily pregnant, in a car accident on May 8, 1959.

Although his novels were not particularly successful commercially, they received positive reviews. Irving's third novel, the mythical western The Valley , was published in 1960. In 1962, he returned to Ibiza with his third wife, English model Fay Brooke, and son Josh. In 1967 he married again, this time the German-Swiss artist Edith Sommer, with whom he had sons Nedsky and Barnaby. He met the art forger Elmyr de Hory and was asked to write his biography Fake! (1969), which was filmed in 1974 by the US director Orson Welles under the title F for Fake ( F for falsification - Vérités et mensonges ) and in which Irving appeared as himself .

The fake Howard Hughes autobiography

From 1958 Howard Hughes withdrew completely from the public. Whenever someone was preparing to write an unauthorized biography, Hughes would trigger them with money. From the 1960s, Hughes also refused to appear in court. In rumors he was portrayed as terminally ill, crazy or even dead and represented by a doppelganger .

In 1970 Irving and his old friend Richard Suskind , also a writer, came up with a plan to write an "autobiography" about Hughes. They trusted that Hughes did not want to attract attention, publicly expose a biography as a forgery or bring a lawsuit and thereby put himself back at the center of news coverage. After researching Suskind's archives, Irving began forging handwritten letters in the spelling they found in Newsweek magazine .

Irving contacted the publishers McGraw-Hill claiming that he had corresponded with Hughes and that Hughes had expressed his interest in having him write his autobiography. During a visit to New York, Irving presented three fake letters in which Hughes stated, among other things, the alleged confirmation for the biography, which should be based on interviews with Irving, but also allegedly wanted the project to remain a secret. McGraw-Hill then signed a contract between Hughes and Irving that promised this $ 100,000 advance and Hughes $ 400,000 advance. Irving forged Hughes' signature. In the end, a check was actually paid out to Irving of $ 100,000 and $ 765,000 to Hughes, which Irving's wife Edith transferred to a Swiss bank account with the falsified identity of Helga R. Hughes .

Irving and Suskind did further research on Hughes and sought to further establish Hughes as a withdrawn eccentric , including alleged interviews in distant locations around the world, including an ancient Mexican pyramid. In reality, Irving met his lover, the Danish baroness and folk singer Nina van Pallandt .

Irving and Suskind were also given access to private files in Time-Life magazine and a manuscript by James Phelan, who was ghostwriting the memoirs of Noah Dietrich , a former senior business friend of Howard Hughes. Irving secretly made a copy of it for himself.

In the winter of 1971, Irving delivered the manuscript of the biography to McGraw-Hill, including a forged note from Hughes that an expert had verified the authenticity. Hughes experts at Time-Life also believed the document was genuine. McGraw-Hill announced the intention of publication for March 1972.

Various representatives of Hughes companies and other people who knew the businessman immediately expressed their doubts about the authenticity of the work in hand, to which Irving only replied that Hughes had just told them nothing about the book. Meanwhile, Frank McCulloch, who is known to be the last to actually interview Hughes, received a nasty phone call from someone claiming he was Hughes himself. McCulloch, however, confirmed after reading the manuscript. Journalist Mike Wallace, however, was told after a television announcement by his camera crew that Irving had not been telling the truth: “They understood. I didn't. He got me. "(" You understood - I didn't. He got me. ")

McGraw-Hill and Life magazine, who had paid for clippings of the book, continued to support Irving. Osborn Associates, a firm of typeface experts, declared typeface samples to be authentic. A lie detector test by Irving showed Although some inconsistencies, but no obvious lies. Weeks later there were still no signs from Hughes himself.

On January 7, 1972, Howard Hughes finally contacted the outside world. He arranged a conference call with seven journalists who had known him well before. The conference took place two days later and was eventually partially televised. Irving was exposed by Hughes - he never met Irving and he, Hughes, currently lives in the Bahamas . Irving promptly claimed that the voice was very likely a fake.

Hughes attorney Chester Davis sued McGraw-Hill, Life, Clifford Irving, and Dell Publications. Swiss authorities examined a bank account in the name of "HR Hughes" into which $ 750,000 had been deposited and which had been opened by Edith Irving under the name "Helga R. Hughes". When visiting the Swiss police in Ibiza Irving denied all the allegations and tried to suggest that he was an impostor fooled. Then James Phelan read through excerpts from the book and recognized some of the "facts" from his own book. Eventually the Swiss police identified Edith Irving as the depositer of the bank balance and the game was over. The Irvings gave up and confessed on January 28, 1972. On March 13, she and Suskind appeared in court on charges of fraud and were found guilty on June 16. Clifford Irving received two and a half years in prison, which he served in Danbury , Connecticut and Allenwood Prison, Pennsylvania , but only for 17 months. He voluntarily returned the stolen $ 765,000 to the publishers. Suskind was sentenced to six months, five of which he served.

After his release, Irving wrote other books, including the bestselling Trial , Tom Mix and Pancho Villa , Final Argument and Daddy's Girl . The forged biography also appeared in a private edition in 1999. In 2008 journalist John Blake published the book Howard Hughes: The Autobiography . The events are discussed in detail in Irving's The Hoax , published in 1981 by The Permanent Press .

filming

The hoax was filmed in 2005 in Puerto Rico and New York by director Lasse Hallström under the title The Hoax ( The Big Bluff - The Howard Hughes Plot ) . Starring acted Richard Gere as Irving, Alfred Molina as Suskind and Marcia Gay Harden as Edith. Julie Delpy played Nina van Pallandt, who had already been in front of the camera with Richard Gere in " A Man for Certain Hours " ( American Gigolo , 1980). The Hoax received good reviews, although Irving described the film as incorrect ("A hoax about a hoax") and contained scenes that would never have occurred. However, Irving is even given as the author of the sources.

Books by Clifford Irving

• On a Darkling Plain (1956)
• The Losers (1958)
• The Valley (1960)
• The 38th Floor (1965)
• The Battle of Jerusalem (1967)
• Spy (1968)
• Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time (1969)
• Autobiography of Howard Hughes (1971)
• The Death Freak (1976)
• The Sleeping Spy (1979)
• The Hoax (1981)
• Tom Mix and Pancho Villa (1981)
• The Angel of Zin (1983)
• Daddy's Girl (1985)
• Trial (1987)
• Final Argument (1990)
• The Spring (1995)
• I Remember Amnesia (2004)

Works on the Hughes autobiography affair

• Stephen Fay, Lewis Chester and Magnus Linklater: Hoax: The Inside Story of the Howard Hughes-Clifford Irving Affair (1972). Irving says of the book that it is mostly fiction .
• Clifford Irving and Richard Suskind. Project Octavio: The Story of the Howard Hughes Hoax (1977)
• F for Fake , documentary by Orson Welles (1974). Contains segments related to Irving and Nina van Pallandt, filmed at the time the scandal began.
• The check justifies the means , documentary by Henry Kolarz (1974) on German television. Richard Suskind played himself.
• The Big Bluff - The Howard Hughes Conspiracy ( The Hoax , 2006)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Clifford Irving, Author of a Notorious Literary Hoax, Dies at 87. In: The New York Times , December 20, 2017.
2. ↑ Lambiek Comiclopedia: Jay Irving .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Pittsburgh Press: Clifford Irving As Big A Mystery as Howard Hughes? , February 5, 1972.
4. ↑ The Fabulous Hoax of Clifford Irving. In: Time , February 21, 1972.
5. ^ The Secret Life of Clifford Irving. In: Time , February 14, 1972.
6. ↑ http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/cops_others/clifford_irving/7.html
7. ^ Howard Hughes: The Autobiography , John Blake Publishing.
8. ↑ Internet Movie Database: The Hoax (2006) xxx , full cast and crew
9. ↑ Arrest? Me? What for? , in: Stuttgarter Nachrichten on December 21, 2017, last accessed on November 5, 2018.