Living with Legends

Filming in the neighborhood has started for Lasse Hallstrom’s upcoming biopic "Hoax," a drama about Clifford Irving, the former Hotel Chelsea resident who wrote and sold a bogus biography of Howard Hughes to McGraw-Hill for a considerable advance.  Richard Gere stars along with Julie Delpy.  Friday night, scenes were filmed inside of the Capitol Fishing & Tackle shop located next door to the Chelsea. 

"…The Chelsea was my hideout and hideaway at a time when I went involuntarily public and needed a secure nest, friends, buffers.  Stanley and staff understood.  My wife and I were broke, too.  Stanley arranged an auction of my wife’s paintings in the lobby; Cliff Gorman, the comic, was the auctioneer.  We must have sold a few canvases and there was a fine party afterward.  The tribe came through.
When I got out of prison in 1974 I stayed there again.  My sensuality had been stifled for sixteen months.  I felt cold, out of it.  Chelsea girls lit another fire."   Clifford Irving, p 111, Chelsea Photographs by Claudio Edinger.

I could be wrong, but I have a hunch that we’ll see Lasse and crew inside of the Chelsea in the near future. (Irving and his wife Edith in photo)