Clifford Irving Born: 1930 Formerly a minor author—who had trouble sticking to the truth—Clifford Irving convinced his publisher to hire him to write The Autobiography of Howard Hughes. The trouble was, Howard Hughes had no involvement in...

Clifford Michael Irving (born November 5, 1930) is an American writer, best known for an "authorized autobiography" of Howard Hughes that turned out to be a...

Byline: Robin Pogrebin The New York Times James R. Phelan, an author and a dogged investigative reporter who made a crusade of exposing the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, died Sept. 8 at his home in Temecula, Calif. He was 85. The...

Byline: Colin Covert; Staff Writer Clifford Irving was at the end of his rope in 1971. A middling writer on the edge of the New York publishing world, he yearned for the celebrity and wealth that a bestseller would deliver, but he...

Lasse Hallström’s The Hoax, from a screenplay by William Wheeler, is based in part on Clifford Irving’s own confessional account (also entitled The Hoax) of his real-life 70’s scam at the expense of his credulous publisher, McGraw-Hill. Mr. Wheeler has added some fictional embroidery to...

Today is Tuesday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2007. There are 356 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On Jan. 9, 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif.On this date:In 1788, Connecticut became...