NiceguyEddie Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Anne Perry is a convicted murderess. As featured in Heavenly Creatures. Does anyone else have any surprising bits of information about famous authors? Quote
Kell Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Agatha Christie, arguably the world's most famous mystery writer, was part of a mystery herself! From Wikipedia: On 8 December 1926, while living in Sunningdale in Berkshire, she disappeared for ten days, causing great interest in the press. Her car was found in a chalk pit in Newland's Corner, Surrey. She was eventually found at the Harrogate Hydro hotel under the name of the woman with whom her husband had recently admitted to having an affair. She had suffered a nervous breakdown and a fugue state caused by the death of her mother and her husband's infidelity. She could not recount any information as to her disappearance due to amnesia. Opinions are still divided as to whether this was a publicity stunt. Public sentiment at the time was negative, with many feeling that an alleged publicity stunt had cost the taxpayers a substantial amount of money. Quote
thelastwatcher33 Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Well, I was watching this BBC three show with Ian Rankin ages ago and he was talking about when he first got started writing the Rebus novels (detective thriller type books for anyone who doesnt know his work). He decided to write about a case where two girls have gone missing.He started his research by visiting his local cop shop and asking about how they d go about investigating a crime like that. So, a detective took him into an interview room to talk to him and started asking him questions. Alot of questions. Rankin suddenly realised he was actually the one being interviewed, turns out a similar crime was just being investigated by the police and they suspected him because of the nature of his questions! He had quite a job of explaining that he really was just an author because at that time he wasn't published (I think). Weird. Quote
Echo Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Tom Clancy, after years of being investigaged by the CIA for "knowing too much", has finally been allowed to "know" only certain things. Basically, they're feeding him information about normally secret things to stop him from investigating them. I think he has found out things they didn't want him to know! Quote
Guest Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once sent a message to five of his friends for a laugh, saying, "We are discovered - flee!" One of his friends disappeared. Quote
supergran71 Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Well, I was watching this BBC three show with Ian Rankin ages ago and he was talking about when he first got started writing the Rebus novels (detective thriller type books for anyone who doesnt know his work). He decided to write about a case where two girls have gone missing.He started his research by visiting his local cop shop and asking about how they d go about investigating a crime like that. So, a detective took him into an interview room to talk to him and started asking him questions. Alot of questions. Rankin suddenly realised he was actually the one being interviewed, turns out a similar crime was just being investigated by the police and they suspected him because of the nature of his questions! He had quite a job of explaining that he really was just an author because at that time he wasn't published (I think). Weird. I remember that programme:D Quote
Weave Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Theodor Geisel's aka Dr Seuss real middle name was actually Seuss. Quote
Kylie Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Ooh, excellent idea for a thread! I'm forever looking up authors' backgrounds when I'm reading a book and am constantly surprised by the lives they've led! Oscar Wilde was gay and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of 'gross indecency'. The French novelist, Colette, was said to have been locked into a room by her husband, Willy, until she produced a satisfactory number of pages for her Claudine novels, which were then published under her husband's name. Jack Kerouac was arrested as an accessory to murder (he helped to dispose of evidence). He wrote On the Road in 3 weeks on a 120-foot long 'scroll' of paper that he taped together. It was typed single-spaced, paragraph breaks or margins. Quote
Kell Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 (edited) Arthur Golden based Memoirs of a Geisha partially on fact, using a real-life Japanese Geiko called Mineko Iwasaki as his model for the lead character, and in revealing his source he very much upset her as he had promised her anonymity. From Wikipedia: After the Japanese edition of Memoirs of a Geisha was published, Arthur Golden was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel. The plaintiff asserted that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity, due to the traditional code of silence about their clients, if she told him about her life as a geisha. However, Golden listed Iwasaki as a source in his acknowledgments for the novel. In 2003, Golden's publisher settled with Iwasaki out of court for an undisclosed sum of money. Iwasaki later went on to write her own autobiography, an account vastly different from Arthur Golden's novel, published as Geisha, A Life in the U.S. and Geisha of Gion in the UK. It's worth mentioning that Iwasaki's autobiography is far more interesting and far better-written than Golden's fictionalised account! Edited May 22, 2008 by Kell Quote
~V~ Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 It's worth mentioning that Iwasaki's autobiography is far more interesting and far better-written than Golden's fictionalised account! Odd that's he's written nothing since. Or if he has, I've not seen it or been interested in it. I did love the book though but read it way before all the hype so I feel that does affect how you view a book Quote
LucyD Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 Agatha Christie, arguably the world's most famous mystery writer, was part of a mystery herself! From Wikipedia: Ahh...now, if you'd have watched Doctor Who on Saturday you'd have seen that it was all due to a giant wasp! Quote
NiceguyEddie Posted May 22, 2008 Author Posted May 22, 2008 I do remember the film from many years ago about this. With Dustin Hoffman if memory serves. Very good it was too. Quote
Guest Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 I saw a docudrama the other night with Olivia Williams and her first husband was played by the gawjus Raymond Coulthard. Quote
~V~ Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 Is he gorgeous? I never can quite tell. i quite liked him in Love Soup but as i know him primarily from HB, I kind of think of him as a bit of a drip Quote
Janet Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 HB? Am I having a brain fart as the penny hasn't dropped? Hotel Babylon? Quote
~V~ Posted May 22, 2008 Posted May 22, 2008 She is and he is. He's been in it from the start, pretty well a mainstay character in it - he plays the ineffectual, slightly effete Restaurant Manager Quote
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