Entertainment Weekly has an article on its website about actor James Franco getting a short story published in Esquire magazine. There's a little bit of a review, but mostly it talks about how he was published because of the name recognition, not because of his amazing talent.
Must be nice. It's a little discouraging to keep digging away in the trenches when, if only I were famous for doing something completely unrelated, the path would be much easier. But now that I think about it, that's not so unusual. Politicians, actors and sports figures get their books published all the time simply because of who they are. Usually, though, it's not short fiction.
Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :
Short iction, no, but quite a few famous people have turned their hands to novels or particularly to children's books (with that wonderfully patronising "it's only for kids so it must be easy") approach.
How many of these are actually ghost-written is, of course, open to significant question. It's normal for autobiographies, and often credited, but for novels it's a different matter entirely.
Posted by WBSchmidt (Member # 8533) on :
tchernabyelo, a bit of irony. When I visited, the advertisement on the right was for the upcoming movie by Roman Polanski: GHOST WRITER.
--William
Posted by Corky (Member # 2714) on :
I recently found out that Bruce Boxleitner (BABYLON 5, etc) wrote a science fiction novel that got good reviews on Amazon. I don't remember having heard about it, though (it's an "aliens invade and impersonate humans and cause the Gunfight at the OK Corral" story). I'd be very interested to know if it was ghost-written.
Speaking of ghost-writers, I understand that William Shatner's science fiction books have all been ghost-written by Ron Goulart.
It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and it may give you enough money to be able to write your own stuff and not worry about whether it sells or not.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
quote:I understand that William Shatner's science fiction books have all been ghost-written by Ron Goulart.
I think it was just the "TekWar" series with Goulart...I heard somewhere he's "collaborated" with two "Star Trek" writers (last name: Stevens or Stephens, first names escapes me, either husband-and-wife or brother-and-sister) on his "Star Trek" stuff...
*****
Again, to return to a favorite theme, I think a lot of this celebrity writing gets out there 'cause of "who the writer is," not "how good the story is."
If I could get a gig ghostwriting, I'd take it. (I have a cousin-by-marriage-at-several-removes who's actually done it, but I've never met the guy, unless it was when I was much younger.)
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
Ah! That would be Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, then. They're quite good. I remember a hard science fiction serial killer mystery, DARK MATTER, that was particularly well done.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Yeah, that's it...I just saw them in some of the commentary on my "Star Trek" Blu-Ray DVD timewasters, but still drew a blank on the name.
Posted by billawaboy (Member # 8182) on :
Hey I don't mind if Franco cashes in on his fame - a writer needs all the help he can get, especially since there's seems to be a stigma that certain chimps could write better than some actors. But I say if an actor wants to be a writer, let's be supportive.
But it's a double-edged sword, hehe - he might regret that story later on if it was shoddy and only accepted for his name.
Speaking of which, one really good actor/author is Hugh Laurie (of House MD fame) - his The Gun Seller is brilliant. Sigh. Some people have much too much talent.
Posted by rich (Member # 8140) on :
Yeah, celebrities have the name recognition to publish a book. Richard Dreyfus co-wrote an alternate history book with Turteldove, Ethan Hawke's written a couple of novels. Hell, Greg Kihn wrote a horror novel not too long ago.
So there's another way to get published: become a famous actor or musician.
As far as Franco, I never really paid much attention to him, other than he did okay in the Spider-Man movies. I became a fan, though, after seeing him in Pineapple Express. A so-so movie that was helped tremendously by a savvy performance by Franco. It is unbelievably difficult to play someone who's stoned all the time, without it being a caricature or boring. I believe he's kind of artsy-fartsy anyway so the writing thing probably isn't that much of a stretch for him.
Posted by Violent Harvest (Member # 9038) on :
Franco is hilarious .... not sure if he's a good writer, but I would read his material, just because I think he's a pretty good actor.