Tale of U.S. book scam wins over Rome film festival

ROME, Oct 16 (Reuters) One of the biggest literary scams hit the screen with ''The Hoax'', the story of how a frustrated author conned America's publishing world into believing he had written the memoirs of Howard Hughes.

Richard Gere plays Clifford Irving, the writer who sold the bogus ''autobiography'' of the reclusive billionaire to publishers McGraw-Hill in 1971 for more than 1 million dollars.

Irving said he had had wide access to Hughes, a pioneering aviator and film producer whose eccentric lifestyle was legendary, and had interviewed him repeatedly for the book.

He was gambling that Hughes was so paranoid and media-shy -- at the time he had not spoken to the press for 15 years -- that he would not come forward to denounce the book as a fake.

But in 1972 the hoax unravelled. Hughes broke his silence to tell a stunned news conference by phone he had never met Irving, and the fraudulent writer ended up in jail for nearly 18 months.

Gere won warm applause for his performance at the Rome film festival, where the premiere of ''The Hoax'', directed by Swedish film-maker Lasse Hallstrom and based on Irving's published account of what happened, was screening yesterday.

It is all the more relevant after the recent string of U.S. media and literary scandals -- particularly author James Frey's admission earlier this year that he fabricated parts of his memoir ''A Million Little Pieces''.

Irving, in his mid-seventies, has said in interviews the screenplay had nothing to do with him and that he was upset to find his character in the film so unlikeable.

MURKY CONNECTIONS But Gere was more indulgent towards the writer.

''It (the scam) was actually quite innocent,'' Gere told reporters after a media screening of the film.

''There were no really harmed people. There were a lot of harmed egos, especially in the literary community, and it caused anxiety in the Nixon administration, but that anxiety was well-deserved,'' he said.

The film suggests a murky connection between Hughes, then President Richard Nixon, and the Watergate scandal that was about to explode.

''The film tells you about the kind of powers that existed outside government. Hughes was this God-like universal force controlling everything. In the film you never see him, he is this mythical creature. But he is the real puppeteer,'' he said.

''It's the same thing today. Most of these powerful people, we don't even know their names, but they control the judiciary, the administration, the legislators. It's frightening.'' The film was initially expected to be released in November, making it a potential Oscar contender next year. But Gere, busy on the set of a film about former Yugoslavia's war criminals, said ''The Hoax'' would hit U.S. screens only in April 2007.

Reuters AKJ DB0831