As Clowns Go, This Guy Was Quite The Cutup
Before he was executed for the murders of 33 young men and boys, John Wayne Gacy spent hundreds of hours with a writer curious to know how a person becomes a serial killer.
The result is “Fall of the House of Gacy,” a book due out next month that author Harlan Mendenhall insists is the Chicago killer’s only authorized biography.
Mendenhall, a retired journalism instructor, hardly even mentions the amateur clown’s crimes. He instead focuses on Gacy’s abuse by a domineering father, epilepsy and other health problems, repressed homosexuality and drug and alcohol addiction.
“I think in all of us, we have our good side and our bad side, and one of them is eventually going to dominate,” Mendenhall says. “With John, the bad side won out.”
Loose talk
Actress Ming-Na Wen, on her literary pick of the past year (in People magazine): “My favorite book was ‘Miss America’ by Howard Stern. He has the pulse of America in his private parts.”
Forget the birthday cake, he’d prefer a pie
Soupy Sales turns 66 today.
In his time, he was the ultimate U.S. male
James Dean is the latest dead celebrity to be honored with a postage stamp, which will go on sale in June. Said Postmaster General Marvin Runyon: “His very name stirs up powerful memories of leather jackets, diners and drive-ins, and living on the edge.”
Not that you hear any grandpas complaining
“Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, on the difference between the East and West coasts (on “Entertainment Tonight”): “I grew up in the East, so on Sundays you go to grandma’s house for dinner … I don’t know anyone that has a grandma in Los Angeles. There don’t seem to be any grandmas. If they have, they’ve all had face lifts and tummy tucks and buttock separators.”
She should get those tears in her tepee fixed
Wynonna (nee Judd), pregnant with her second child by boat salesman Arch B. Kelley III, is finally getting married to him. The country singer said Kelley proposed to her in a tepee on her farm: “It was on bended knee, there was a candle and there were tears.”
The pen is not mightier than the semiautomatic
Back on the book beat, kidnap-victim-cum-bank-robber-cum-actress Patricia Hearst is writing a murder mystery about her grandfather, William Randolph Hearst, called “Murder at San Simeon.” Says collaborator Cordelia Francis Biddle, a fellow post-debutante and author: “I don’t know how to handle weaponry the way she does.”
And they’re not getting any warmer these days
And more than six years after her death, a recently discovered autobiography by Lucille Ball is about to be auctioned to publishers. In a statement, daughter Lucie Arnaz said: “I was as shocked as everyone else. I think she just forgot about it. Maybe she got cold feet.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino