Howard Hughes

In late 1970, New York author and journalist Clifford Irving ran into an old friend and fellow scribe, Richard Suskind. The two men struck up a conversation about the legendary Hughes, which gave Irving the idea to write the 'autobiography' of Howard Hughes. Skillfully convincing the publishing world that he had the direct input of Hughes himself, his colleagues and friends, Irving wrote his book, interweaving accurate research with outlandish fiction, and sold it to a publisher for a record advance of $1m, hitting headlines around the world... But eventually the tall tale unravelled - the book was unmasked as a hoax. Irving went to prison and the sensational manuscript, described as 'the most famous unpublished book of the century', lay untouched for over 30 years - until now.