The history behind ‘The Hoax’
We all tell lies, of course. But most of us stick to the little white ones. We’re bush league liars, telling minor fibs to disguise our own failings, or to spare another’s feelings.
But a few among us take lying to a whole different level. These masterful deceivers tell outrageous and audacious whoppers so convincingly that, for a time anyway, they fool us all.
“The Hoax” chronicles the story of one such liar, the author Clifford Irving, who in 1971 spun a complex tale of befriending Howard Hughes, and getting hired by him to write his autobiography. Though Irving had never actually met the notoriously reclusive billionaire, his hoax fooled Hughes’ acquaintances, handwriting experts and, most significantly, McGraw-Hill publishers, who handed Irving a million dollar advance for the “Autobiography of Howard Hughes.”
Irving’s fraud seems so implausible that director Lasse Hallström frets in interviews that filmgoers will view it as fictional.
“I worry,” Hallström said in interviews. “I wish it was more clear that this is basically a true story.”
Well, mostly true, anyway. Like its subject, “The Hoax” is a complicated mix of facts and fibs. Here’s a guide to help untangle them.
Q. In the film, Irving dreams up the hoax at the spur of the moment. True?
A. No. He had been planning the scheme for about a month before contacting his publishers, prompted by a recent flurry of news stories about Hughes’ eccentricities. The billionaire’s self-imposed isolation had stoked the public’s interest, and Irving realized that an “authentic” story of Hughes’ life stood to make money. A great deal of money.
But perhaps the hoax was really born while Irving was writing his previous book, about an art forger who successfully fooled the world with his reproductions of the masters. The book was called, quite presciently, “Fake.”
Q. Did Irving’s forged letters actually pass muster with a handwriting expert?
A. They did. Irving had practiced forging Hughes’ handwriting, and wrote numerous letters in Hughes’ name, which assured McGraw-Hill editors that the rich old recluse was actually in contact with Irving.
But before committing to Irving’s book, McGraw-Hill sent the letters off to a handwriting expert, who compared them with other specimens of Hughes’ handwriting. His conclusion must have thrilled Irving, the forger. “The chances that [the letters are forged,]” said the expert, “are less than one in a million.”
Q. In the film, Irving’s friend, Dick Suskind, seems far more ambivalent about the hoax. Was that true?
A. Not really. Dick Suskind was eventually arraigned as an alleged co-conspirator, and by all accounts he was neck deep in the whole affair. And Irving never had to trick him to keep him involved, as the film suggests. The filmmakers added that detail to emphasize Irving’s willingness to deceive everyone and anyone.
“Clifford was lying to everyone close to him,” screenwriter William Wheeler said. “I wanted to follow that trajectory in his relationship with Dick.”
Q. Did Irving use his wife to cash the checks he received for Howard Hughes?
A. Yes. He insisted that McGraw-Hill make the checks out to “H.R. Hughes,” then sent his wife to a Swiss bank to cash them as “Helga R. Hughes.” Later, when the scheme began to unravel and the press began to question Irving about his wife, Edith’s, involvement, Irving responded: “Do you really think I’d involve my family in an enterprise like this?” he would thunder. “My wife, my children, whom I love?”
Q. Children? The film never showed any children.
A. Clifford and Edith Irving had two sons, who were just two and four years old at the time. The filmmakers cut them, apparently to keep the attention on the couple’s own rocky relationship.
Another change the film made was to relocate the Irvings and Suskind from Ibiza, Spain, where they actually lived, to suburban New York, presumably to more easily show the two men racing around the country digging up material on Hughes.
Q. Did they really steal the manuscript of Noah Dietrich, who was trying to peddle a book about his many years working for Hughes?
A. Not exactly. Dietrich never actually wrote a book. Instead, he hired a writer, Jim Phelan, to interview him and use the material for a book. Phelan’s book didn’t make it into print, but it circulated among publishers for a time. Somewhere along the line, Irving got a copy, and ripped off huge sections of it for his “autobiography” of Hughes.
Q. Could Watergate really have been caused by Irving’s hoax?
A. It’s one of the more dramatic suggestions of the film, and it may very well be true. Irving’s book contained information on shady loans between Hughes and Nixon. According to memoirs by numerous Nixon insiders, the leaking of that information caused Nixon to panic, and he ordered the burglarizing of the Democratic headquarters at Watergate to see what other dirt Irving might have leaked to his enemies.
Q. What to read for more information?
A. You can look at “The Hoax,” Clifford Irving’s own account of his deception. Though, be careful. As the filmmakers discovered on interviewing him, Irving frequently changes his stories about his great con. At one point he described in vivid detail a helicopter he had hired to bring a fake Hughes to McGraw-Hill, a scene that appears in the film. Later, he said, well, maybe that didn’t happen after all.
Cathy Schultz, Ph.D., is a history professor at the University of St. Francis in Illinois. You can reach her through her Web site at www.stfrancis.edu/historyinthemovies