HIGHLIGHTS, OF YESTERDAY'S NEWS"Off the record, on the Q.T. & very ...."
"Off the record, on the Q.T. & very ...."
2001
PLAGUE SEASON FILMING (7/8/01): E! featured an interview with Kurt Russell on the set of the new film on June 27, 2001. Questioned about the downbeat subject matter, Russell said, “I'm going into this with the notion nobody may see it. I just love the script." The E! piece also featured shots of staged riots on the streets of L.A. "PLAGUE SEASON" centers around two cops "on the eve of the Rodney King Verdict," who chase two "killers responsible for a horrible robbery and mass murder" (shades of "L.A. Confidential's" Nite Owl Massacre). The project has reportedly been renamed, "4-29-92" which is the date of the Rodney King beating (E! was still calling it "Plague Season"). Interestingly, one of the characters in the script shares a surname with a pivotal character in James Ellroy's novel, "The Cold Six Thousand": "Tedrow."
ELLROY TAKES A DETOUR (7/8/01): James Ellroy said in a recent exclusive interview with Ellroy's World that the final script for "Detour" is taking shape. "Detour," based on Cheryl Crane's memoir of the same name, will be produced as a TV-movie depicting the love affair between Crane's mother, Lana Turner, and Johnny Stompanato, a romance cut short when Crane fatally stabbed Stompanato in Turner's home. The film is being scripted by Mitch Brian, who wrote and directed the acclaimed short film, "Stay Clean."
USA TO PRODUCE ELLROY MINISERIES (7/1/01):The Associated Press puts it this way: 'USA Network will produce "James Ellroy's Los Angeles,' a miniseries that will weave together real and fictional characters as seen through the eyes of the author. The six- to 12-hour miniseries will air in September 2002. Robert Greenwald, director of the miniseries, is also turning 'My Dark Places,' Ellroy's investigation into the real-life murder of his mother, into a feature film. Shooting is slated to begin this year."
DEMON DOG COLLECTIBLE YOU NEVER KNEW EXISITED: A hastily thrown together booklet containing the first chapter of "The Big Nowhere" was created by Mysterious Press for distribution at the American Booksellers Association in 1998. Knopf prepared a similar (though more polished) preview of "White Jazz" in the form of a glossy cardboard-bound pamphlet in 1992. Interesting aside: "White Jazz" represents one of the few instances where the American and U.K. hardback editions boast similar design elements and the same cover art. Both covers feature the familiar photo of a Los Angeles police cruiser door shot full of holes. On the U.K. edition, however, just under the doorhandle appears the motto, "To protect and to serve." That phrase has been removed from the U.S. edition for reasons unknown.
DAHLIA DEBACLE: In one of the stranger twists involving the murder of Elizabeth Short, a new book fingers Hollywood endomorph/enfant terrible Orson Welles for the Black Dahlia murder. The author also takes swipes at Ellroy.
ELLROY TAKES A DETOUR: (9/8/00) James Ellroy has signed to executive produce a new film based on Cheryl Crane's autobiography, "Detour." The TV-movie to be produced for ABC details the ill-fated love affair of Johnny Stompanato, a stooge of L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen, and 1950s-era movie star Lana Turner. Crane, Turner's daughter, centers her memoir around her own fatal stabbing of Stompanato.
GRAVY TRAIN: (9/4/00) Ellroy's short story regarding an ex-con hired as caretaker for a bull terrier who inherits his head gangster owner's fortune is currently in development at Columbia. Richard Sakai may direct.
PLAGUE SEASON: (9/3/00) An original Ellroy screenplay is currently in development phase: "Plague Season" centers around two cops "on the eve of the Rodney King verdict, "who chase two killers responsible for a horrible robbery and mass murder" (shades of "L.A. Confidential's" Nite Owl massacre).
BROWN'S REQUIEM ON VHS, DVD: James Ellroy's first novel, "Brown's Requiem," is the most recent Ellroy work to make it to film. Never widely released, the film is now available on VHS and DVD. Director Jason Freeland adapted Ellroy's novel, shifting its time period from the early 1980s to the late 1990s with mixed results. Freeland also chose to incorporate significant voice-over narration by star Michael Rooker (apparently in an effort to mirror Ellroy's fairly rare use of first person POV). Rooker makes and effective Fritz Brown. Selma Blair appears as Jane Baker. While not entirely successful, the film is worth a look and succeeds on many levels as an adaptation of Ellroy's first work.
ATTENTION SERIOUS ELLROY COLLECTORS: U.K.-based Ellroy collectors should seek out the 2000 edition of "Breese's Guide To Modern First Editions" from Breese Books Limited. Michael Johnson of Scorpion Press, publisher of a first-rate ltd. edition of "My Dark Places," contributes an essay on Ellroy collecting, as well as an extensive bibliography of Ellroy's U.K. & U.S. 1st editions. Johnson assigns the highest value to Blood & Guts Press' limited hardback edition of "Silent Terror," valuing the signed and lettered edition of that version of the book at 325 pounds.
GIVE UP THE GRAIL QUEST: It appears, contrary to publishing info on the dedication page of the '88 Ultramarine ltd. edition of "Big Nowhere," the 40 #'d copies in half-leather and 10 lettered copies in full-leather were never bound. The only copies out there are the blue cloth copies in matching blue slipcase which serious collectors will have already obtained.
IT'S ACADEMIC: (3/18/00) James Ellroy is listed as a visiting fall 2000 faculty member in the New York New School University Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing Program. Call 212-229-5630 for more dope.
WRITE THIS WAY: (3/18/00) Ellroy is scheduled to participate in the Associated Writers Program conference to be held March 27-April 1, 2000 in the downtown Kansas City Marriot.
GELT TO WITNESS: (3/18/00) The National Endowment for the Arts has given Oakland Community College in Farmington Hills, Michigan $9,500 for promotion and production of a special issue of "Witness Magazine" that focuses on crime in America. The special issue features the works of James Ellroy and Joyce Carol Oates, among others.
ALL ELLROY EDITION: (2/16/00) The March 2000 edition of GQ reads like an all-Ellroy issue. For starters, the Demon Dog personally makes three contributions: First up is an essay, entitled, "I've Got the Goods," a tribute to the '50s scandal mags in which Ellroy purports to be flirting with launching a Lutheran ministry. Next up is another Danny Getchell short story entitled, "The Trouble I Cause." Topping the trifecta is a map of L.A. crime scenes illustrated by David Hughes. This little infographic is like an illustrated primer of Ellroy's oeuvre. Also included are interviews with Kevin Spacey, a photo layout of "Vanished Hollywood" that includes pics of "L.A. Confidential" alums David Strathairn and James Cromwell and a history of Confidential Magazine by Sam Kashner that reads like something Ellroy could have written.
1999
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: Ellroy announced at a Feb. 19 book signing in Ann Arbor, Michigan that the sequel to "American Tabloid" will be entitled "The Cold Six Thousand" and will be published in the fall of 2000 by Knopf. That title had once been puported to be the title of the fourth (and aborted) Lloyd Hopkins novel (and, no, Hopkins will not figure in volume 2 of "The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy"). The U.K. arm of Amazon.com is (rather prematurely) soliciting orders for the still-in-progress novel.
AGAIN, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: At the same event, Ellroy confirmed that volume three of the new trilogy will be entitled "Police Gazette."
CONFIDENTIALLY, I DON'T LIKE IT: Neither James Ellroy, or Curtis Hanson will be participating in the upcoming TV series based on Hanson's acclaimed adaptation of "L.A. Confidential." In fact, Ellroy was so incensed by "Confidential" producer Arnon Milchan's decision to go ahead with the series that Ellroy has decided not to name his new bull terrier after Milchan as originally planned. "Arnon seemed like a great name for a dog," Ellroy said. Hanson concurred with Ellroy's decision: "'Fuck Arnon,'" Ellroy quoted Hanson as saying, '"he could have had a dog named after him!'" Ellroy instead named his new dog "Dudley" in tribute to a certain demonic Irish cop.
THREE FACES OF DUDLEY: A new Ellroy compilation is available from Amazon.co.uk. "The Dudley Smith Trio" contains "The Big Nowhere," "L.A. Confidential" and "White Jazz." The paper omnibus is published by Arrow and retails in the U.K. for 12 pounds. With shipping, American collectors can expect to pay about $16.95.
EXPENSIVE ELLROY: "My Mother's Killer," published in 1998 by French limited-edition publisher Gregory Leroy, is currently the most expensive Ellroy book extant. The limited edition is a special treatment of the GQ article that prefigured "My Dark Places." The piece is illustrated with seven photographs by American artist David Levinthal and is limited to 55 copies. Each is signed by the author and the photographer. One copy of this book was sold at Christie's in Geneva in April, 1999 for more than $3,000. Copies of the book are in many prestigious public collections, including the New York Public Library, the Carpenter Center for the Arts at Harvard University, and the Musee d'Art Moderne in Beaubourg, Paris.
ELLROY ANTHOLOGY ANOMALY: One of the more peculiar Ellroy anthology appearances was issued in hardback in 1998. An excerpt from "Brown's Requiem" appears in Bishop Schulyer's "A Passion For Golf, The Best of Golf Writing." The hardback first edition was issued in 1998 by St. Martin's Press and weighs-in at 349 pages. The paperback edition is still available. Order A Passion for Golf : The Best of Golf Writing.
PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY: For a different take on the Dog, check out "Unchained Memories: True Stories of Traumatic Memories, Lost and Found," by Lenore Terr, M.D.The book contains a long chapter about Ellroy and the influence of his mother's murder entitled, "The Black Dahlia's Son." Terr interviewed Ellroy twice in 1991, once in his studio in Eastchester, N.Y. and the last time in L.A. just shortly after he completed his writing of "White Jazz." The interviews caught Ellroy some years before he began digging into his mother's murder and analyzes the crime's influence and effect on Ellroy's writing. Order Unchained Memories.
ROAD TRIP: In 1989, British journalist John Williams spent two months traveling across America and interviewing crime writers. The result was Williams book, "Into the Badlands, A Journey Through the American Dream," published simultaenously in a rare paperback edition and still rarer hardback edition by Paladin Books in 1991. Williams caught up with James Ellroy following publication of "The Big Nowhere." Among the interesting Ellroy nuggets is Ellroy's confession that longtime friend Randy Rice to whom Ellroy dedicated "Brown's Requiem" was the inspiration for the character of "Walter" in "Requiem." Fellow-writer Andrew Vachss also claims to have arranged for Ellroy to serve as a Big Brother to "a proper little sociopath."
MORE WEIGHTY THOUGHTS ON THE DEMON DOG: "Neon Noir," a survey of contemporary American crime fiction by Woody Haut contains extensive references to James Ellroy, as well as a rather long chapter filled with trenchant observations of the Demon Dog's novels up through "American Tabloid." Haut's book is a sequel to his earlier, highly-praised "Pulp Culture." It is published by U.K.-based "Serpent's Tail" as a 1999 paperback original. First edition string ends in "1." Order Neon Noir.
SECOND CHANCE AT AN ELLROY INTERVIEW: Ellroy is also one of 20 authors spotlighted in a collection of interviews conducted by Charles L.P. Silet and recently published in trade paperback by Ontario Review Press, Princeton."Talking Murder" features "Mad Dog and Glory: A Conversation with James Ellroy" that appeared in slightly altered form in "Armchair Detective," in 1995. Other authors featured include Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain and Andrew Vachss. Order Talking Murder.
