The Hoax

Richard Gere as Clifford Irving in "The Hoax"

Matt and I had taken a break from our Netflix queue over the last couple of weeks and hadn't been able to sit still long enough to catch up on some of our movies. Last night, we found some time to watch The Hoax, a film loosely based on the false "autobiography" of Howard Hughes, written (made up) by Clifford Irving.

Matt is really interested in the life of Howard Hughes (probably due in large part to his huge influence on the design and manufacturing of several aircraft), and has read a lot about him. He thought I wouldn't like the movie, but it was actually very interesting.

There were several scenes in the movie that were completely fabricated, but the gist of the story was true. Clifford Irving fabricated a book and claimed it to be Hughes' autobiography. He relied on the fact that Hughes was widely thought to be a complete recluse and possible mental case who would either pay him off to stop the book from being published, or refuse to come into the public arena to discredit Irving.

Irving forged several letters that he claimed to have received from Hughes to secure a $765,000 book advance ($100,000 of it was to be written out to himself, the rest to H. R. Hughes), and had his wife deposit the Hughes money into a Swiss bank account under the false name of Helga R. Hughes (in the movie, this amount was inflated to $1 million). Irving invented elaborate tales of his meetings with Hughes, claiming to hold his interviews all over the world, when he was, instead, meeting with several of his mistresses.

This guy is a real jerk (in the movie and in real life), and a pretty worthless husband, friend, and employee. But, he still managed to pull off a huge hoax that fooled a lot of people until Hughes conferenced-called seven reporters who he'd had interactions with in the past, part of which was televised, to denounce the manuscript. Irving returned the book advance and ultimately served seventeen months in federal prison for fraud. He has since published several best sellers and now lives in Aspen, Colorado.