Lee israel biography

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The strange, true-life story of the literary scammer Lee Israel

This story contains spoilers for Lee Israel’s memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me? and its film adaptation.

Lee Israel was washed up. At age 50, the writer and biographer’s book ideas weren’t selling, and she wasn’t even being invited to martini lunches in Manhattan to get turned down. The woman who had profiled Katharine Hepburn and had a book hit the New York Times bestseller list was desperate.

In Can You Ever Forgive Me? out in US theaters yesterday (Oct. 19), Melissa McCarthy plays the disheveled real-life writer, who died in 2015. In her 2008 memoir of the same name, Israel describes the lengths she went to to make money once she had no book prospects, had been fired from several low-level editorial jobs, and was on welfare with a sick cat whose treatment she couldn’t afford.

That’s when Israel’s proclivity for gin-fueled prank phone calls to people who’d wronged her morphed into a brief but successful career as a literary forger.

In 1990, the real-life Israel started forging letters from famous writers, drawing on existing letters and blending the writers’ idiosyncrasies with real-life events. She made a light box from her broken TV, which let out just enough of a glow that she could trace signatures

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The Veracious Story business Lee Country and interpretation Literary Forgeries in Sprig You By any chance Forgive Me?

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Melissa McCarthy variety Lee Land (Photo Pinterest)
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Born Leonore Carol Israe

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About the Author

Lee Israel was born in New York City on December 3, 1939. She received a bachelor's degree in speech from Brooklyn College in 1961. In the 1960s and 1970s, she was a freelance writer, contributing articles on film, theater, and television to several publications including The New York Times and show more Soap Opera Digest. Her first book, Miss Tallulah Bankhead, was published in 1972. Her other biographies include Kilgallen and Estée Lauder: Beyond the Magic. In the early 1990s, she became a literary forger because her career was at a standstill and she could not handle getting a real job. She composed and sold hundreds of letters that she said had been written by the likes of Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Noël Coward, and Lillian Hellman. She dealt with typed letters, which only required her to copy the signatures. When talk concerning the authenticity of her wares made composing new letters too risky, she began stealing actual letters from archives and leaving duplicates in their place. She was captured by the F.B.I., and in June 1993, she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce. She was sentenced to six months' house arrest and five years' probation. This experience was documented in Can You Ever Forgi