Clifford Irving
Clifford Michael Irving (born November 5, 1930) is an American novelist and investigative reporter. Although he has published 20 novels, he is best known for a fictional autobiography of billionaire recluse Howard Hughes, which was to be published in 1972. After Hughes denounced him and sued the publisher, McGraw-Hill, Irving and his collaborators confessed to the hoax. He was sentenced to 2 1⁄2 years in prison, of which he served 17 months.
Irving wrote The Hoax (1981), his account of events surrounding the development and sale of the fake autobiography. The book was adapted as a 2006 biopic of the same name, starring Richard Gere as Clifford Irving. He has continued to write, and publishes his books as e-books available via Kindle and Nook.
Irving grew up in New York City, the son of Jay Irving, a Collier's cover artist and the creator of the syndicated comic strip Pottsy, and his wife Dorothy. After graduating in 1947 from Manhattan's selective High School of Music and Art, Irving attended Cornell University. He graduated with honors in English.
Working as a copy boy at The New York Times, Irving wrote his first novel, On a Darkling Plain (1956), published by Putnam.
His first wife was Nina Wilcox. Their marriage was annulled in 1952.
Later, on the Spanish island of Ibiza, he met an Englishwoman, Claire Lydon; they married in 1958 and moved to California. She died the next year at Big Sur in an automobile accident on May 8, 1959.
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