RICHARD GERE EXAMINES THE HOAX

Richard Gere stars as writer Clifford Irving in The Hoax who was short on ideas for his next biggest novel and came up with a best selling pitch, to write the autobiography on oil tycoon Howard Hughes.

The trick was to continue this publishing ruse as the reclusive Hughes rarely gave interviews. Gere talks about why he thinks Clifford fooled so many people.

“A comment on fame, a comment on the literary world, a form of pop art; a form of Warholian portrait and people bought into it and it started to snowball and became real. And the more real it became the more crazy Clifford got, the more he started to identify with Howard Hughes. There are pretty crazy scenes in this one where psychologically he crosses a line.”

Richard says Clifford Irving chose the elusive Howard Hughes as his subject because he was always fodder for stories true or false.

“He was a director, a producer, a womanizer, wonderful scandalous stories about him but he was always the beginning of the oil business, multi billionaire. At the time he was the richest or one of the richest men in the world and deeply mysterious. People made up all kinds of crazy stories about him some of them true some of them not, but deeply compelling. One of those eccentric characters of the twentieth century.”

The silver-haired Gere pulled off his own hoax. In order to look more like Irving he faked his appearance by dying his hair brown, shaving his hairline back for a more professorial forehead, and getting a perm to add curls to his straight hair. Richard also took to wearing lifts in his heels so he would match Irving’s 6’ 2” height and not be dwarfed by co-star Alfred Molina.