From Burning Ambition To A Candle In The Wind
You’ve probably heard the news that Princess Diana herself was the main source for the 1992 book “Diana, Her True Story.”
What you may not have heard is that author Andrew Morton never actually talked to Diana.
Instead, “a trusted intermediary” carried handwritten questions to her and returned with the answers. That way, he explained, she could say she had never met Morton.
Di also received copies of the working manuscript and made handwritten corrections.
She revised a reference to Prince Charles as the man she “longed to marry” by crossing out those words and writing in “was in love with.”
She wrote “not true” next to a phrase saying her father was unhappy with her for having left school early. And where the text said that as a teen-ager she had “no burning ambitions,” she penned in “Did!”
Loose talk
Writer Calvin Trillin, on his education: “Math was always my bad subject. I couldn’t convince my teachers that many of my answers were meant ironically.”
Hope nobody leaves his cake out in the rain
Richard Harris turns 64 today.
It wasn’t libel, just some biting commentary
Elsewhere in the literary world, a New Orleans judge has dismissed a libel suit against author Anne Rice (“Interview With the Vampire”) by Al Copeland, founder of the Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken chain. In a full-page newspaper ad, Rice called Copeland’s Straya California Creole Grand Cafe on historic St. Charles Avenue an “abomination” with “less dignity than a flophouse.”
Call it another open and shut jewelry case
Crime novelist Mary Higgins Clark lost several pieces of jewelry, including the diamond starburst pin pictured on the cover of her book “The Lottery Winner,” in a burglary at her New Jersey home. Asked if she would write about it, Higgins Clark replied: “I don’t do thugs.”
We might as well leave the thugs to this guy
As a follow-up to his best-selling “Murder in Brentwood,” former Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman is writing a book about the unsolved 1975 murder of a New York teen-ager who spent the night before her death with two nephews of Ethel Kennedy. “This case involves money, power and influence, something I know about,” Fuhrman told Newsday.
You could say he’s had a rather universal life
Don’t expect to see any more books from Kurt Vonnegut (“Slaughterhouse-Five”) following his latest novel, “Timequake.” Says Vonnegut: “There’s nothing prophetic about it. I’m 75 years old. Any insurance agent would say it better be his last novel.”
What can cure you? Sometimes, a great potion
Oregon author Ken Kesey could make a full recovery from the stroke he suffered last week, thanks to prompt treatment with a clot-busting drug called t-PA. Said the 62-year-old Kesey’s wife, Faye: “I almost wish it had scared him a little more than it did.”
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Rick Bonino