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Candice Bergen | 10/26/2009 12:00 am

Candice Bergen Recalls the 'Gutsy' Clifford Irving

By Candice Bergen

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In response to: From the Hitler Diaries to Balloon Boy, what are the greatest hoaxes you remember?

I remember vividly the Clifford Irving/Howard Hughes hoax for its utter chutzpah and weird details on Hughes. Don’t remember the year but maybe the ’70s? And it was riveting. Everyone was convinced. And wasn’t that forger involved? Elmyr de Hory? They were accomplices somehow and lived in Ibiza? Then Bermuda entered into it? Or am I hallucinating all of this. There was a great detail that Hughes carried a paper bag of prunes! It was fantastic. Really detailed and gutsy. The guy had balls … or something. When it was exposed (after a long time), it was such a letdown. We all bought into it.

Read more about: Culture, Entertainment, History, Howard Hughes, Humor, News, Society

5 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

I love that one! The movie "Hoax" with Richard Gere is great. That having been said, I’m madly in love with both Richard Gere and George Clooney so I think anything there in is an amzing work of art (and the vast majority of the time, it actully is!).

I think my favourite of all hoax’s would be the enduring crop circle saga because it always comes back to the same old question "is it or isn’t it real"?

By Bianca Moon on 10/26/2009 5:30 am

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I know the real Clifford Irving, and he’s still writing. An excellent novelist, he contributed an excerpt from his latest (still-unpublished) novel to my literary magazine Cantaraville. Find it here: http://cantara.squarespace.com/cantaraville-five.

By Cantara Christopher on 10/26/2009 7:45 am

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I saw the movie Hoax as well and watched it with my mouth hanging open thinking "you’ve GOT to be kidding me!" That could never happen today with the interwebs… although Rush and co. bought into a faux hoax about Obama’s thesis last week, so who knows.

By Sarah Burris on 10/26/2009 9:19 am

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Thanks for the post, that was funny! You’d think RL would have better researchers with all his money. Just for clarity though,wouldn’t a "faux hoax" be a fake hoax? It’s either one or the other but together it’s a double negative which makes it true. ;) (Sorry, I channel my 7th grade English teacher sometimes, RIP Mr. Einhorn.)

By june sechowski on 10/26/2009 10:48 pm