Clifford Irving: America Seduced By the Absurd

Howard Hughes may be the first figure in US history famous simply for being famous. Outside of having been born into a massive fortune and a few successful business ventures, mostly family supported, there wasn't a whole lot that he did that would give him the renown that the country placed upon him in the middle portion of the 20th Century. Sure, he had some very high-profile girlfriends, he funded some poor but reasonably successful films, and he had crazy schemes like the "Spruce Goose" Hercules aircraft. None of this warrants the fervor that overcame the nation when Hughes went nuts and retreated to his various hotels around the world, never to appear in public again. If Paris Hilton goes mad and retreats to daddy's hotels for the remainder of her days, will we go through the same withdrawls? I sure hope not.

Through these clouds of confusion surrounding the billionaire comes a young writer named Clifford Irving. Irving had a few critically acclaimed novels, but was struggling with popular sales. While travelling in the late '60s, Irving became acquainted with art forger Elmyr de Hory, about whom he wrote Fake! in 1969 which was, ironically, the last "true" thing he would write for many years (Irving, and Elmyr are also the main subjects of Welles' F for Fake). That next year, while on his way to Ibiza where he'd settled, he ran into fellow author Dick Suskind and the two conceived of a plan to fake an authorized biography of Howard Hughes, who had beat back all attempts to document his life in print. With seemingly nothing to go on except the outrageous claim that he'd been approached by Hughes himself, as an admirer of Fake!, to assist in writing his memoirs, publisher McGraw-Hill brought him to New York for a conference. There he produced three signed letters by "Hughes" which confirmed Irving's statements. How the Hughes forgeries came to pass is unclear, maybe they are genuine Elmyr de Horys, but McGraw-Hill believed them, in any case, and paid out a $500,000 advance on the book. Now that Irving and Suskind had the money and the publisher, all they needed was information on Hughes, which had proven absolutely impossible for everybody who had previously tried. Then, in an act of serendipity that should be too good to be true, Irving met with an old friend of his, Stanley Meyer. Meyer just so happened to be on the lookout for somebody to help rewrite his colleague, James Phelan's biography of Howard Hughes, as told by Noah Dietrich, Hughes' former accountant. While Irving had no interest in helping Meyer, he did have interest in what the text contained, so he agreed to "help" and used this manuscript to create a wealth of detail that convinced everybody who saw it of it's indisputable authenticity.

McGraw-Hill was thrilled with what Irving presented to them and, in collaboration with Life Magazine, who would publish excerpts from the book in the weeks leading up to release, announced that Howard Hughes' autobiography would soon be in the marketplace. The book was likely going to have been a massive success, with the public's interest in the recluse growing all the time, but as soon as the announcement was made, questions began to arise about its veracity and close associates of Hughes flatly denied their employer's participation. Even while his story was unravelling, though, Irving was able to continue to convince the publisher that the deniers were the real frauds. McGraw-Hill still held out hope for it after the Phelan manuscript came to life. Irving denied the fraud on national television in an interview with Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes, passed lie detector tests, remained unphased when Hughes himself finally came out of the woodwork to appear on TV (well, at least his voice appeared, broadcast through a speaker and filmed), and would continue to deny the fraud until they appeared before the grand jury. In addition to the falsified documents from Hughes, Irving had directed about $750,000 that was supposed to go to Hughes to a bank account, under the name H.R. Hughes. The money was then withdrawn by a Helga R. Hughes (Irving's then wife Edith). Irving would go on to spend two years in prison for the fraud.

However, this is the writing game. Just because you con the highest levels of the publishing industry out of hundreds of thousands of dollars doesn't mean you'll be blacklisted from publication. On the contrary, after his sentence, Irving has published several novels, has become much more successful, and will now be immortalized by Richard Gere. Irving has recently come out against the film, saying that it is mostly made up; a laughable statement from Irving since everything in his life is based on mounds of lies. As a con artist, though, he clearly realizes that everything negative he has to say about the movie (which he calls "a hoax about a hoax") will help sell the film and every person who sees the film is one more potential buyer of his books. It's the perfect con, 35 years in the making, where everyone comes out smelling like roses and Irving goes home laughing all the way to the bank.

The original Time article from 2/21/72 in which the magazine declared Irving, on the cover, as "Con Man of the Year"

Clifford Irving's website, where he has more information from his own perspective

CBS News revisits the story in 2000 with then current comments from Irving