[PREV - UNCTUOUS]    [TOP]

CHASING_GHOSTS

                                                  September 28, 2005     
                                                                         
   Leslie Charteris had other
   writers ghost some of the
   Saint stories.

   The most remarkable claim
   is that some of them were
   written by Thedore Sturgeon:                     Theodore Sturgeon
                                                    and Jean Sheppard
           "The Saint Sees it Through"              once collaborated
                                                    on the "I, Libertine"
           "Darker Drink"                           project, nominally
                                                    written by a
                                                    "Frederick R. Ewing".


"The G-String Murders" was sold
as a novel by Gypsy Rose Lee,
but was actually by Craig          A very weak book.
Rice -- in one of the Malone       The Barbara Stanwyck
stories she has a character        film under the
talk about what a bad idea         name "Lady of
it is to do ghost writing:         Burlesque" worked
"never be a ghost, or you're       a lot better.
stopped before you start"
or something like that.



A note I came across (back on  July 6, 2004)
on the web page

    [ref]

The George Sanders books
"Crime on My Hands" (1944) and
"Stranger at Home" (1946)
were actually written by               The once ubiquitous, if
Craig Rice and Leigh Brackett,         never terribly famous
respectively.                          Leigh Brackett is probably
                                       best known as the author
                                       of the script for the
                                       second Star Wars movie--
                                       arguably it was the only
                                       real script written for
                                       any of them-- "Episode IV:
                                       The Empire Strikes Back".


    George Sanders
    played an early
    film version of      NAME_OF_THE_SAINT
    the Saint...



               The Harlan Ellison story
               "All the Lies That Are My
               Life" has an author's
               shameful deathbed confession
               that a few of his works
               were actually ghost written.

                   Presuming that's an autobiographical
                   hint, a quick look through Ellison's
                   oeuvre reveals an obvious candidate:
                   His *one* novel, which he has consistently
                   refused to have reprinted: "Doomsman".
                                                     
                   Ellison has always had trouble           
                   working at longer lengths... it's        
                   not hard to imagine the young            
                   Ellison signing a book deal and then     
                   realizing he couldn't deliver.           
                                                            
                     And if I remember right, his          
                     roomate in that period was      Early in his career, Robert
                     Robert Silverberg...            Silverberg was a total
                                                     machine, a creative typist
                                                     extraordinaire who could
                                                     crank out any amount of
                                                     word wooze on demand...




--------
[NEXT - THE_WHITE_RIDER]