1. For my next experiment,
ladies and gentlemen...Copy !req
2. I would appreciate the loan of any
small personal object from your pocket -Copy !req
3. a key or a box of matches, a coin.Copy !req
4. Ah, a key it is. Good sir.
Hold it up 10 feet over your head.Copy !req
5. And watch out for the slightest hint
of hanky-panky.Copy !req
6. And behold, before our very eyes...Copy !req
7. a transformation.Copy !req
8. We've changed your key...Copy !req
9. into a coin.Copy !req
10. What happened to the key?
It's been returned to you.Copy !req
11. Look closely, sir.
You'll find the key...Copy !req
12. back in your pocket.Copy !req
13. May we see it, please?Copy !req
14. Up to your old tricks, I see.Copy !req
15. Why not? I'm a charlatan.Copy !req
16. What's that, sir?
Did I used to be a magician?Copy !req
17. Sir, I'm still working on it.Copy !req
18. As for the key,
it was not symbolic of anything.Copy !req
19. This isn't that kind of movie.Copy !req
20. You'll find the coin now
in your pocket, sir.Copy !req
21. Keep your eyes on that coin, sir...Copy !req
22. while it's returned to you as your key.Copy !req
23. Shall we return you to your mother?
Is this your mother? No, of course not.Copy !req
24. Open your mouth, wide...Copy !req
25. and we'll return you your money.Copy !req
26. And by the way, have you ever
heard of Robert-Houdin?Copy !req
27. Speaking of magicians, I mean?
No, of course not.Copy !req
28. - But of course you do know my partner,
François Reichenbach? - Hello.Copy !req
29. Houdin was the greatest magician
who ever lived.Copy !req
30. And do you know what he said?Copy !req
31. - “A magician,” he said, “is just an actor.”
- Well, good luck to you.Copy !req
32. Just an actor
playing the part of a magician.Copy !req
33. - Very nice.
- And she's fabulously rich too.Copy !req
34. - There's a good story about it.
- Do you want to tell it?Copy !req
35. We'll come to that one later.Copy !req
36. No, it's time for an introduction.Copy !req
37. Ladies and gentlemen,
by way of introduction...Copy !req
38. this is a film about trickery and fraud...Copy !req
39. about lies.Copy !req
40. Tell it by the fireside or
in a marketplace or in a movie...Copy !req
41. almost any story is almost certainly...Copy !req
42. some kind of lie.Copy !req
43. But not this time.
No, this is a promise.Copy !req
44. During the next hour, everything
you'll hear from us is really true...Copy !req
45. and based on solid facts.Copy !req
46. You don't talk about
Napoleon or Julius Caesar.Copy !req
47. - You're talking about Elmyr.
- Elmyr?Copy !req
48. - Elmyr?
- Who is Elmyr?Copy !req
49. That question has yet to be answered
with any real precision.Copy !req
50. - Can I kiss you too?
- Certainly.Copy !req
51. Anybody want to eat?Copy !req
52. In the world of the jet-setters,
among us beautiful people...Copy !req
53. everybody knows Elmyr,
but Elmyr what?Copy !req
54. - He has about 60 time the same name.
- De Hory?Copy !req
55. He's called his name Hory, Heury,
Bory, Sury, Kury, Bury, Dury - All the -Copy !req
56. With put U-R-Y. Sixty names.Copy !req
57. - His real name was Elmyr Ferenc Huffman.
- Then 60 personalities...Copy !req
58. as much lies and as much real.Copy !req
59. Well, it sounds very jesuitic.Copy !req
60. Yes, his world
is a world of make-believe.Copy !req
61. - I'm not an actor.
- Not an actor? Elmyr?Copy !req
62. I'm not an actor.Copy !req
63. - I am not a professional actor.
- He's a leading actor in this mo vie.Copy !req
64. His profession, it's true,
is painting - painting fakes.Copy !req
65. Among all fakers,
Elmyr is number two.Copy !req
66. Once I saw a man from Ibiza...Copy !req
67. writing a book on fake,
who came to see me to Paris.Copy !req
68. He said, “I heard you are
the first man who bought an Elmyr.”Copy !req
69. - And that man's name was -
- Clifford Irving.Copy !req
70. The important distinction
to make when you're talking about...Copy !req
71. the genuine quality of a painting...Copy !req
72. is not so much whether
it's a real painting or a fake.Copy !req
73. It's whether it's a good fake
or a bad fake.Copy !req
74. Her name...Copy !req
75. is Oja, Oja Kodar.Copy !req
76. And this, by the way,
is from quite another film...Copy !req
77. a sequence on the fine
outdoor sport of girl-watching.Copy !req
78. Our sneaky crew of cameramen hidden away
in camouflaged trucks and packing boxes...Copy !req
79. arranged for her to act for them.Copy !req
80. To act as bait.Copy !req
81. You see how it worked.Copy !req
82. The entire cast...Copy !req
83. all the performers, except one...Copy !req
84. acting away like crazy for us
without getting paid for it...Copy !req
85. - without even knowing they were movie actors.
- Mama mia!Copy !req
86. - Simple larceny. Well, maybe not simple.
- Mama mia!Copy !req
87. That year nothing was simple...Copy !req
88. least of all the larceny.Copy !req
89. Now in this little gag,
Lawrence Harvey...Copy !req
90. our leading man
from yet another movie...Copy !req
91. couldn't arrange space
for Miss Kodar on a plane.Copy !req
92. Well, there's no room in this movie
to tell you why in that other one...Copy !req
93. we squeezed Miss Kodar into
a more convenient size for traveling...Copy !req
94. by a magical illusion.Copy !req
95. But you really must believe that
what comes afterwards is solid fact.Copy !req
96. Yes, after this bit of hocus-pocus,
the next thing we heard about her...Copy !req
97. was not as an actress...Copy !req
98. but as the leading figure
in a notorious swindle.Copy !req
99. I took another plane,
grew another beard...Copy !req
100. made another movie
and well before Miss Kodar -Copy !req
101. We'll leave Miss Kodar
aside for the moment.Copy !req
102. But in case that mumbo jumbo
might make it seem...Copy !req
103. that there is going to be some trickery
in this film about trickery - .Copy !req
104. We'll repeat our promise...Copy !req
105. in writing.Copy !req
106. The girl-watching was evidence
of how much of all this was filmed...Copy !req
107. in blissful ignorance of the facts...Copy !req
108. about some of the various characters...Copy !req
109. who found their way
in front of our cameras.Copy !req
110. Well, Clifford Irving told
the story in the book.Copy !req
111. Maybe.Copy !req
112. Well, by now, you understand,
I'd fallen in with François.Copy !req
113. And on the island of Ibiza...Copy !req
114. we'd fallen smack into
the biggest series of scandals...Copy !req
115. in the whole history of hoaxing.Copy !req
116. It was a pretty queer experience
to start making yet another movie...Copy !req
117. and end up making yet another...Copy !req
118. with a story line
rotten with coincidence.Copy !req
119. For instance, that the author of
Fake! a book about a faker...Copy !req
120. was himself a faker and the author
of a fake to end all fakes -Copy !req
121. and that he must have been cooking it up
when we were filming him.Copy !req
122. - Well.
- [Man ] Quiet, please. Edith Irving.Copy !req
123. - Take three. - Look, you've known Elmyr
longer than anyone else on this island.Copy !req
124. Do you really believe
he did all those fakes?Copy !req
125. - No, I really don't believe it.
- Sony.Copy !req
126. I've been jumping around like this
because that's the way it was.Copy !req
127. - Clifford Irving, take two.Copy !req
128. Let's pull ourselves together if we can
and begin at the beginning.Copy !req
129. Now, on this tablecloth, which is decorated
with a map, is where everything -Copy !req
130. - Which I've just loused up with some wine.Copy !req
131. But I understand wine
brings good luck behind the ear.Copy !req
132. Well, we can use a little luck anywhere.Copy !req
133. And here is -
I'll have to mark it in.Copy !req
134. On this tiny island is where the two
great hoaxes were hatched - Ibiza.Copy !req
135. One island, two Ibizas.Copy !req
136. The serious, indeed,
the very sober part...Copy !req
137. is part of Spain.Copy !req
138. And the other, “An island in the sun,”
Life magazine calls it...Copy !req
139. “where restless souls
may find each other.”Copy !req
140. The restless souls being, I guess...Copy !req
141. Cliff Irving, over there -Copy !req
142. and Elmyr.Copy !req
143. Coincidence number one:
that these two world leaders in fakery...Copy !req
144. operated, quite separately,
on the same tiny island.Copy !req
145. That's Mrs. Irving.
Elmyr and Mrs. Irving.Copy !req
146. Clifford Irving,
who declared that he himself...Copy !req
147. had delivered to
Howard Hughes or his aides...Copy !req
148. the quarter of a million dollars
publisher's advance...Copy !req
149. suddenly confessed today
that Mrs. Irving...Copy !req
150. is the same Helga R. Hughes
wanted by the police -Copy !req
151. “If Clifford dragged Edith
into this,” said Elmyr...Copy !req
152. “I spit on his face.”Copy !req
153. This was later, of course,
when everything was finally hanging out...Copy !req
154. or as much of it as I guess
any of us will ever get to see.Copy !req
155. And then we had to stop these Moviolas,
use them as time machines...Copy !req
156. and then roll back and come in again...Copy !req
157. to the days when Clifford Irving,
as far as any of us knew...Copy !req
158. - was just a researcher into someone else's fakery.Copy !req
159. And now for the truth, Clifford.Copy !req
160. We'd like to ask you a few question.Copy !req
161. My personal feelings
about Elmyr are... very mixed.Copy !req
162. He has developed
a fiction about his life...Copy !req
163. and to destroy that fiction...Copy !req
164. would tear down the whole castle
that he's built...Copy !req
165. of his illusions.Copy !req
166. The illusion, for example,
that he has not broken any law.Copy !req
167. As long as people enjoy it...Copy !req
168. and it gives them pleasure,
why shouldn't they have it?Copy !req
169. The illusion that the world
has always taken advantage of him.Copy !req
170. - Why they shouldn't have it? Why?
- If you were to put it to Elmyr...Copy !req
171. that he had taken advantage
of the world...Copy !req
172. that he had cheated people,
he'd be horrified.Copy !req
173. These two
have made each other famous.Copy !req
174. They have much in common:Copy !req
175. - one of them is talent.Copy !req
176. Well, let's start again.Copy !req
177. We'll patch this film together...Copy !req
178. and we'll try to patch together
Elmyr's version of this story.Copy !req
179. I came to Ibiza in 1959...Copy !req
180. after I found certain aspects
of m y life in America...Copy !req
181. becoming too difficult.Copy !req
182. I wandered around Europe for a time.Copy !req
183. I eventually came here.
I liked life here.Copy !req
184. I liked the island.
I liked the atmosphere. I liked the people.Copy !req
185. And so I decided that is the place
where I want to settle.Copy !req
186. The island is, uh, simpatico...Copy !req
187. as they say in Chinese.Copy !req
188. There is always a group
of interesting people here.Copy !req
189. Uh, I find the people amusing.Copy !req
190. Sandy, come and say something witty.Copy !req
191. Ibiza is not a place
for snobbish society.Copy !req
192. It's not London.
It's not Paris. It's not Omaha.Copy !req
193. It is Ibiza, and that's
the charm of Ibiza.Copy !req
194. That's what makes Ibiza
why we like to live here.Copy !req
195. Ibiza is Ibiza, and here people
are themselves, you know...Copy !req
196. doing rather strange things
all the time, you know.Copy !req
197. So they shouldn't really be shocked.Copy !req
198. - And, uh, e everybody minds e everybody else's
business very intensely. -Copy !req
199. [Man ]
Several months ago, I read an article...Copy !req
200. about Elmyr de Hory...Copy !req
201. and I was so impressed...Copy !req
202. that I decided to come from Minnesota...Copy !req
203. to Ibiza...Copy !req
204. in the hope of meeting Elmyr.Copy !req
205. And now I have become...Copy !req
206. his bodyguard.Copy !req
207. That's Mark speaking, Elmyr's friend.Copy !req
208. He takes his duties seriously.Copy !req
209. Elmyr himself swears that he goes
in daily dread of being murdered.Copy !req
210. This takes us into murky waters...Copy !req
211. where the lawyers tell us
we'd be rash to go fishing.Copy !req
212. In Fake! there's just a hint or two
about this violence and danger...Copy !req
213. as a result of which, Irving,
on top of all his other troubles...Copy !req
214. is being sued for
$55 million worth of slander.Copy !req
215. Interesting question: Is Clifford Irving
being sued for telling the truth?Copy !req
216. What makes a slight legal difference -Copy !req
217. Well, if you buy the notion that
Cliff Irving turned to forgery...Copy !req
218. before he turned to Elmyr...Copy !req
219. then I guess you can keep right on
through the looking glass...Copy !req
220. and believe that his book
about Elmyr is a pack of lies.Copy !req
221. I'm sorry.
A lie about what?Copy !req
222. That Fake! is a fake,
and Elmyr himself...Copy !req
223. is a fake... faker.Copy !req
224. - Fake fakes!
- Fake, nothing.Copy !req
225. Elmyr's a true faker.Copy !req
226. Here, for instance,
is a van Dongen by Elmyr.Copy !req
227. Van Dongen studied it carefully...Copy !req
228. and then swore that
he'd painted it himself.Copy !req
229. He's now known as the greatest
art forger in the world.Copy !req
230. Well, I don't admit anything,
I just talk about it.Copy !req
231. 'Cause he's scared. You know, there could
be a jail sentence hanging over his head.Copy !req
232. “Elmyr,” cries a French newspaper...Copy !req
233. “has sold his soul to the devil. ”Copy !req
234. They said that about
a wizard of the fiddle.Copy !req
235. Elmyr's another wizard
of another sort of fiddle -Copy !req
236. a true Paganini of the palette.Copy !req
237. l! is no wonder
that a faker like Elm yr...Copy !req
238. can get away with it for 22 years.Copy !req
239. If you hang them in a museum
or your collection of great paintings...Copy !req
240. and if they hang long enough there,
they become real.Copy !req
241. Because there's always
a market for it.Copy !req
242. How much is that drawing worth
on the market today?Copy !req
243. Probably around $8,000 till $10,000.Copy !req
244. To my knowledge,
he has never made a mistake...Copy !req
245. when identifying a painting.Copy !req
246. - What period is that Matisse?
- Uh, '36.Copy !req
247. I, uh, feel that we should burn it.Copy !req
248. When he looks at a painting -
a Matisse, a Chagall -Copy !req
249. and says, “That's mine, I did it,”
he is always right.Copy !req
250. Elmyr.Copy !req
251. There is just no way
of talking about Elm yr. - .Copy !req
252. And leaving out Cliff Irving.Copy !req
253. Not any longer.
Right up to the finish...Copy !req
254. Elmyr plays a very important role
in his biographer's own story.Copy !req
255. Now, just here, of course,
he's stage center.Copy !req
256. Willkommen! Willkommen.Copy !req
257. And Irving,
who, I'll have to admit...Copy !req
258. is a much better magician than I am...Copy !req
259. has yet to transform himself
before our very eyes...Copy !req
260. into a superstar.Copy !req
261. François, you know,
we talk about your shirt, Reichenbach.Copy !req
262. It was indecently ugly.Copy !req
263. - I can assure you.Copy !req
264. - I must tell you something.
I went to the airport today. - Oh.Copy !req
265. I picked up a copy of
the London Daily Express.Copy !req
266. And there was an article:Copy !req
267. “Exposed: A Man Who Holds
the Art World to Ransom.”Copy !req
268. - Exposed! Darling, we can 7 ha ve
you exposed! - “Sitting in the sunny studio -”Copy !req
269. And then it goes on to tell
the story of how I took the Modigliani...Copy !req
270. - to the Metropolitan Museum of Art”-
- There's a big article!Copy !req
271. “A profound embarrassment to them all.”Copy !req
272. Elmyr is a profound
embarrassment to them all.Copy !req
273. The art world,
as it were, has been...Copy !req
274. a huge confidence trick.Copy !req
275. “Exposed: A Man Who Holds
the Art World to Ransom.”Copy !req
276. - 'Sitting in the sunny studio of his
£60, 000 villa. — - it's fantastic.Copy !req
277. “on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza...Copy !req
278. “it took Elmyr Dory-Boutin,
the world's greatest art forger...Copy !req
279. just one hour to draw
an original Modigliani.”Copy !req
280. Today, on a sale,
it would bring somewhere around...Copy !req
281. $15,000.Copy !req
282. There was really no time
when he ever could have done it.Copy !req
283. And also as a man,
how I knew him...Copy !req
284. it was all much more a joke.Copy !req
285. The world has yet to hear a word
about that wig she wore in the Swiss bank.Copy !req
286. There hasn't been a breath
about funny passports...Copy !req
287. or phony signatures,
and here's Edith...Copy !req
288. telling Clifford Irving
that she can't believe Elmyr...Copy !req
289. had anything to do with fakery.Copy !req
290. Therefore I never could think
or will even think now...Copy !req
291. that he sat down
and did those paintings.Copy !req
292. - it's a good drawing.
- If he did it, my compliment.Copy !req
293. - Should we burn it? - [ Edith [And I only
hope there are more people who do them.Copy !req
294. Irving's book about Elmyr...Copy !req
295. is the story of a man of talent taking the
mickey out of those who had rejected him...Copy !req
296. translating disappointments
into a gigantic joke.Copy !req
297. — You think I should
keep it for my old age?Copy !req
298. All right, I will.
So I put it back in.Copy !req
299. You're a painter.
Why do you want people to do fakes?Copy !req
300. Because the fakes
are as good as the real ones...Copy !req
301. and there's a market,
and there's a demand.Copy !req
302. If you didn't have an art market,
then fakers could not exist.Copy !req
303. - So, the more, the better. No?
- If you say so.Copy !req
304. Here's another little coincidence.Copy !req
305. A peculiar moment during a lunch party.Copy !req
306. And in Switzerland,
checks are not accepted.Copy !req
307. You pay cash on the table.Copy !req
308. - That's Switzerland. You are Swiss.Copy !req
309. And you know it.Copy !req
310. If you did those paintings,
my compliments.Copy !req
311. And I only think it's a pity that
there are not more people like you.Copy !req
312. And we only pray that
he doesn't exist again!Copy !req
313. Mrs. Irving now claims
Mr. Hughes himself asked Mrs. Irving...Copy !req
314. to deposit the money in a Swiss bank
and then draw it out.Copy !req
315. The manuscript itself, however...Copy !req
316. he maintains is genuine.Copy !req
317. I've known Elmyr for about eight years.Copy !req
318. We met when I was broke -Copy !req
319. when I was writing fiction
and wasn't selling it very well.Copy !req
320. His fiction didn't sell.Copy !req
321. Elmyr's biographer
is a highly gifted writer.Copy !req
322. Does it say something
for this age of ours...Copy !req
323. - that he could only make it big by fakery?
- Je crois.Copy !req
324. - That a hoax has made him the most famous
writer in the world? - La grande suprise.Copy !req
325. Cliff Irving's caper
may well be the hoax of the century...Copy !req
326. but really, this is not, you know,
in any way, the century of the hoax.Copy !req
327. We hanky-panky men
have always been with you.Copy !req
328. - That's a fact. - What's
new are the — The experts.Copy !req
329. - The experts.
- The so-called experts.Copy !req
330. - Experts are the new oracles.
- While greatly pretentious -Copy !req
331. They speak to us with the absolute
authority of the computer.Copy !req
332. Pretend to know something...Copy !req
333. what they only know
very superficially.Copy !req
334. And we bow down before them.Copy !req
335. They're God's own gift to the faker.Copy !req
336. All the world loves to see...Copy !req
337. the experts and the establishment
made a fool of.Copy !req
338. Let's say we could find...Copy !req
339. a Modigliani made by Kisling...Copy !req
340. a Modigliani by Elm yr. - .Copy !req
341. And one Modigliani by Modigliani.Copy !req
342. It could be anyone from Knoedler
to Paris or any of the great ones...Copy !req
343. who consider themselves
great and experts.Copy !req
344. If any of them recognize
which one is which -Copy !req
345. And if the lawyers would just let us...Copy !req
346. we could name you
one highly respected museum...Copy !req
347. which boasts of an important collection
of Postimpressionists...Copy !req
348. every single one of which
was painted by Elmyr.Copy !req
349. Elm yr, as the great faker
of the 20th century. - .Copy !req
350. Becomes a modern folk hero
for the rest of us...Copy !req
351. who have a bit of larceny
in ourselves...Copy !req
352. but simply don't have the courage
or the opportunity to express it.Copy !req
353. When you wrote his biography, you don't
think you've been a little hard on him?Copy !req
354. Some people even say, “After I did read
the book of Clifford Irving about you...Copy !req
355. I like you even more than before.”Copy !req
356. You exploded the myth
of the infallibility...Copy !req
357. of the art dealers
and museum directors...Copy !req
358. in that you exposed
their crookedness...Copy !req
359. their evilness and viciousness.Copy !req
360. I went around to the art galleries.Copy !req
361. Not with my book...Copy !req
362. but with a catalog...Copy !req
363. which included
a great many paintings...Copy !req
364. that had been sold
over the past few years.Copy !req
365. In this catalog was this Modigliani...Copy !req
366. which is a Modigliani by Elmyr.Copy !req
367. He worked very little.
He died very early...Copy !req
368. so if they're added to
a few paintings, a few drawings...Copy !req
369. it's not going to destroy his oeuvre.Copy !req
370. I would say, “This is a fake”...Copy !req
371. and the art gallery owner
would say, “Well, yes, of course.Copy !req
372. “L mean, you can see it's a fake,
because Modigliani...Copy !req
373. “would never have drawn
the line of the arm...Copy !req
374. “parallel to the line
of the dress that way.Copy !req
375. And the background is very badly done,
and the signature isn't right.”Copy !req
376. In the next gallery, I would show them
this Modigliani in the catalog and say...Copy !req
377. - “That's a genuine Modigliani.”
- Possibly, yes.Copy !req
378. And they would look at it and say,
“Yes, you can see it's one of his finest.Copy !req
379. “It's a portrait of Mademoiselle Hébuterne,”Copy !req
380. and “We know it very well,”
and “It's reproduced everywhere.”Copy !req
381. After that, I must say...Copy !req
382. I lost my faith
in the concept of expertise.Copy !req
383. I don't feel bad for Modigliani.
I feel good for me.Copy !req
384. You name them.
He paints them.Copy !req
385. He'll do you a Dufy,
a van Dongen...Copy !req
386. a Derain, a Braque,
a Bonnard, a Vlaminck.Copy !req
387. - Would you like a nice Matisse?
- Many of these drawings...Copy !req
388. are very weak.Copy !req
389. Matisse's lines
were never that sure as mine.Copy !req
390. He was hesitant when he made
the drawing, you know?Copy !req
391. He added to it a little more
and a little more.Copy !req
392. It wasn't as flowing,
it wasn't as sure as mine.Copy !req
393. I had to hesitate...Copy !req
394. to make it more Matisse-like.Copy !req
395. Et voilà.Copy !req
396. I would like to see any expert...Copy !req
397. or any museum director,
or any art dealer...Copy !req
398. who'd know which one is a Matisse...Copy !req
399. and which one is by Elmyr.Copy !req
400. And I am ready
to accept the challenge.Copy !req
401. One nod from an expert...Copy !req
402. and that piece of canvas
would be worth...Copy !req
403. maybe a couple of
hundred thousand dollars.Copy !req
404. And now, with your permission,
a bit of verse... by Kipling.Copy !req
405. “When first the flush of a newborn sun
fell on the green and gold...Copy !req
406. “our father, Adam, sat under the Tree...Copy !req
407. “and scratched with a stick
in the mold.Copy !req
408. “And the first rude sketch
that the world had seen...Copy !req
409. “was joy to his mighty heart.Copy !req
410. “Till the Devil...Copy !req
411. “whispered behind the leaves...Copy !req
412. “'It's pretty, but is it Art?”Copy !req
413. it's pretty, but is it art?
Well, how is it valued?Copy !req
414. The value depends on opinion.
Opinion depends on the experts.Copy !req
415. A faker like Elmyr makes fools of
the experts, so who's the expert?Copy !req
416. - Who's the faker?
- I know one thing.Copy !req
417. I never offered a painting
or a drawing...Copy !req
418. to a museum who didn't buy it.Copy !req
419. They never refused one. Never!Copy !req
420. What's he up to now?
This - This isn't a forgery.Copy !req
421. No, not this time.
This is a portrait by Elm yr...Copy !req
422. - Et voila'.
- of another famous art forger.Copy !req
423. - Michel-Ange.
- Michelangelo, no less, signed -Copy !req
424. I must say I'm honored.Copy !req
425. My signature,
forged by Elmyr on a real Elmyr...Copy !req
426. is really something.Copy !req
427. You know, art forgery
used to be admired as an art.Copy !req
428. And though Michelangelo even used smoke
on some of his fakes to antique them...Copy !req
429. like some of the rest of us,
he finally went straight.Copy !req
430. Et voilà.Copy !req
431. Elmyr, reformed...Copy !req
432. and exposed -
in the reverse order -Copy !req
433. was till just recently
the island's number-one celebrity.Copy !req
434. But now the crown has passed
from the old emperor of the hoax...Copy !req
435. to the pretender.Copy !req
436. Tomorrow at the party.
There's a big party.Copy !req
437. - Don't miss it. Tomorrow at 8:00.
- What time?Copy !req
438. The ex-grand master of fakery,
not only unmasked, but eclipsed...Copy !req
439. by his own biographer...Copy !req
440. is putting a brave face on it...Copy !req
441. - and giving another party.
- Eight o'clock.Copy !req
442. At your house?Copy !req
443. - [ Welles [And here...
- I come to invite you for a big party.Copy !req
444. yet another painter from Ibiza.Copy !req
445. Ute hired him to illustrate
the tale as Irving told it.Copy !req
446. Nice to see you. Great.
Hello, David.Copy !req
447. David Walsh.Copy !req
448. And this is his impression,
based on Irving's report...Copy !req
449. of that secret meeting on the Mexican
pyramid with Howard Hughes.Copy !req
450. Here's how he's supposed
to have looked...Copy !req
451. based on Irving's reports of those secret
meetings which in fact never happened.Copy !req
452. But who cared about facts?Copy !req
453. Was Mr. Hughes a vegetable?
A spook?Copy !req
454. A gibbering lunatic?
Was his hair down to his knees?Copy !req
455. Were his fingernails nine inches long?Copy !req
456. Did Howard Hughes exist?Copy !req
457. Irving insisted that he did.
Hughes denied the existence of Irving.Copy !req
458. No, and I never saw him.
I never even heard of him.Copy !req
459. “Don't believe a word of it,”
said Irving.Copy !req
460. And believe it or not,
almost nobody did.Copy !req
461. Why, they were partners,
Hughes and Irving, said Irving.Copy !req
462. They were doing a book together.
No w the Hughes m mystery would be solved.Copy !req
463. Now, of course Irving knew very well
that whatever made Hughes a mystery...Copy !req
464. was whatever had made Hughes himself
a born mystery maker.Copy !req
465. Here in the smoggy wonderland of Hollywood
is where I last had to talk to him.Copy !req
466. It was 5:00 in the morning
25 years ago.Copy !req
467. And I found him, as usual,
very bright, and pleasant, and polite.Copy !req
468. Well, now this is like most
of the Hughes legends.Copy !req
469. It's just something you hear,
and nothing you can prove...Copy !req
470. but for what it's worth,
it seems that hotel bungalow...Copy !req
471. was supposedly the H.Q. of that rather
spooky brigade of midnight minions...Copy !req
472. we used to call
“l-lo ward's secret police- ”Copy !req
473. That's where that tree comes in.Copy !req
474. Just precisely there, at 1:30 every morning,
for who knows how many years...Copy !req
475. some chosen operative placed,
at precisely the same angle...Copy !req
476. a small and very carefully
wrapped package.Copy !req
477. Howard Hughes in his nocturnal
wanderings never once paused there...Copy !req
478. but it was always ready for him
in case he should.Copy !req
479. What was it that
that mystery package contained?Copy !req
480. A ham sandwich.Copy !req
481. How can we believe that is true?Copy !req
482. François is referring,
of course, to Elmyr.Copy !req
483. But about Hughes...Copy !req
484. well, who could blame
Cliff Irving for believing...Copy !req
485. that Hughes himself wanted us
to believe almost anything?Copy !req
486. Look where we are now. When the old
Hollywood swinger turned hermit...Copy !req
487. - this is the hermitage he picked - his hideaway...Copy !req
488. - his desert retreat.Copy !req
489. The desert had retreated first,
of course...Copy !req
490. to make room for the slot machines
and the crap tables.Copy !req
491. Then came Hughes. He chased out
or bought off most of the mafia...Copy !req
492. bought up most of the hotels,
and settled down up there...Copy !req
493. in a few rooms in the top floor
of that one.Copy !req
494. And all through the long years...Copy !req
495. not a shadow was seen
moving in that Window.Copy !req
496. The good people of Las Vegas
kept their eyes peeled, saw nothing...Copy !req
497. and believed everything
they told each other.Copy !req
498. More than one bemused observer...Copy !req
499. claims to have seen
the whimsical tycoon...Copy !req
500. at 4:00 in the morning,
promenading this highway...Copy !req
501. with no socks on...Copy !req
502. and wearing, instead of shoes...Copy !req
503. a pair of empty Kleenex boxes.Copy !req
504. Do I believe that?Copy !req
505. But people pretend to be shocked.
They like to be shocked, you know.Copy !req
506. It's in their nature.
It's in human nature, you know.Copy !req
507. What was he doing up there?Copy !req
508. What were they doing to him?Copy !req
509. If he broke his silence,
would it be a...Copy !req
510. Cry for help?Copy !req
511. Well, if Hughes couldn't speak,
or wouldn't...Copy !req
512. then somebody -
and why not Clifford Irving -Copy !req
513. could do the speaking for him.Copy !req
514. Nobody got near the man.
Just a tiny band of mystery Mormons...Copy !req
515. were admitted to his presence.Copy !req
516. Even high executives
in the Hughes empire...Copy !req
517. never so much as laid eyes on him.Copy !req
518. One man alone laid claim to
having made it into that fortress...Copy !req
519. and you can guess who that was.Copy !req
520. How had Irving got to Hughes
in the first place? “Simple,” said Irving.Copy !req
521. He'd just mailed him a copy of Fake!
with a friendly, sincere dedication...Copy !req
522. and the partnership was formed.Copy !req
523. And if you can believe the ham sandwich
and the Kleenex boxes...Copy !req
524. I guess you can swallow that.Copy !req
525. I mean,
this episode is just so fantastic...Copy !req
526. that it taxes your imagination...Copy !req
527. to believe that a thing
like this could happen.Copy !req
528. Was that the voice
of the real Howard Hughes?Copy !req
529. I only wish I was still
in the movie business.Copy !req
530. Well, now he's on television...Copy !req
531. and a committee of journalists
are interviewing his voice.Copy !req
532. No, I don't remember any scripts...Copy !req
533. as wild or as stretching
of the imagination...Copy !req
534. as this yarn has turned out to be.Copy !req
535. Now remember how this went.
Irving announced that Hughes had decided...Copy !req
536. that Irving was just
the writer he could trust...Copy !req
537. not only with his book,
but with the money for it.Copy !req
538. And this involved an advance of some
three-quarters of a million dollars...Copy !req
539. and he had notes, memos
and manuscripts in what he claimed...Copy !req
540. was Hughes's own handwriting to prove it.Copy !req
541. Now they brought in
the handwriting experts.Copy !req
542. Now just here Irving should have
been feeling a bit nervous.Copy !req
543. Well, maybe he was
just as cool as he acted...Copy !req
544. remembering what he'd learned
from the old maestro himself.Copy !req
545. Elm yr was a good teacher,
if only by example...Copy !req
546. and his most valuable lesson was this:Copy !req
547. Don't be spooked by the experts.Copy !req
548. My opinion about experts is
that it's something far too overestimated.Copy !req
549. It's a métier which
shouldn't even exist.Copy !req
550. And how right he was!Copy !req
551. It should not exist that one
single person makes a decision...Copy !req
552. about what's good or what's bad.Copy !req
553. Sure enough,
after much study and analysis...Copy !req
554. the experts on handwriting
handed in their verdict.Copy !req
555. The forgeries were genuine.
The proof, and I quote, was “irresistible...Copy !req
556. unanswerable, and overwhelming.”Copy !req
557. Thus Irving's papers,
like Elmyr's paintings...Copy !req
558. were authenticated.Copy !req
559. I wanted to find out what it was really like
to try and get an expertise on a fake...Copy !req
560. and I asked Elmyr to do
three drawings for me:Copy !req
561. two Matisse and a Modigliani -Copy !req
562. which he did before lunch...Copy !req
563. and put a little coffee stain
on the edge of the Modigliani...Copy !req
564. to make it look really as if Modigliani
had done it in some Paris café.Copy !req
565. — I then took the three
drawings to the Museum of Modern Art.Copy !req
566. The museum examined them
for two hours...Copy !req
567. and came back with the verdict
that they were absolutely genuine...Copy !req
568. and, in fact, were horrified
that I wanted to sell them.Copy !req
569. Besides, it's a true story.
The story's absolutely true.Copy !req
570. Well, Mr. Irving pretends
that he destroyed them.Copy !req
571. I don't think that
Mr. Irving's character...Copy !req
572. is exactly a character
who would destroy something...Copy !req
573. what he got an offer of 15,000.Copy !req
574. I think ifs a nice security
in a bank vault...Copy !req
575. what could be unwrapped
in 15 years again.Copy !req
576. All the tales he tells now...Copy !req
577. are things that he has built up
in his imagination over the years...Copy !req
578. and come to believe as true.Copy !req
579. “The tale is as old as the Eden Tree -Copy !req
580. “and new as the new-cut tooth -Copy !req
581. “For each man knows
ere his lip-thatch grows...Copy !req
582. he is master of Art and Truth.”Copy !req
583. This created in him,
I think, the ability to live -Copy !req
584. I hesitate to say, a criminal life,
because I don't think of him as a criminal.Copy !req
585. - He doesn't think of himself as a criminal.Copy !req
586. To fool, once in a while,
somebody very, very pompous...Copy !req
587. - or somebody very -
- Pretentious.Copy !req
588. Pretentious, that, I like.Copy !req
589. Now that it's out in the open...Copy !req
590. that the world knows
who Elmyr is and what he's done...Copy !req
591. and now that Elmyr accepts it
and says to the world...Copy !req
592. “Yes, it's me. I am the great
art forger of the 20th century.”Copy !req
593. Now I think he can recapture
that personal honesty.Copy !req
594. - Good-bye, Matisse.
- I think Elmyr's problem for years...Copy !req
595. and the reason why he could not succeed
as a painter in his own right...Copy !req
596. was that the type of life he led...Copy !req
597. prohibited him from
having a personal vision.Copy !req
598. “And each man hears
as the twilight nears...Copy !req
599. “to the beat of his dying heart...Copy !req
600. “the Devil drum
on the darkened pane:Copy !req
601. “'It's pretty...Copy !req
602. but was it Art?”Copy !req
603. Art. Take two.Copy !req
604. And when an artist
has no personal vision...Copy !req
605. what can he communicate
onto the canvas?Copy !req
606. - Et voilà.Copy !req
607. It's pretty, but is it rare?Copy !req
608. Lots of oysters, only a few pearls.Copy !req
609. Rarity.Copy !req
610. The chief cause and encouragement
of fakery and phoniness in everything...Copy !req
611. even what we're given to eat -Copy !req
612. an awful lot of forgery is committed
these days in the kitchen.Copy !req
613. Oja?Copy !req
614. The seafood
isn't phony in here, thank God.Copy !req
615. You can take the word
of an expert.Copy !req
616. Three friends from the old days
who used to eat here were real painters:Copy !req
617. Jean Cocteau,
the poet and filmmaker -Copy !req
618. Well, you might call him
a Monday painter.Copy !req
619. He drew the picture on the menu
and signed his name, as you know...Copy !req
620. to a whole epoch.Copy !req
621. Here on the walls
are samples of the famous charm. - .Copy !req
622. Of Christian Berard -
“Baby,” as we called him.Copy !req
623. And speaking of charm,
here's Vertés all around us.Copy !req
624. Vertés had to be charming.
He was Hungarian.Copy !req
625. He started his career -
and he told me this right here at this table -Copy !req
626. “As a charlatan.
I painted fake masterpieces.Copy !req
627. I began,” he said, “as Lautrec.”Copy !req
628. A woman, a titled English woman...Copy !req
629. walked in one day to my room...Copy !req
630. and she saw on the wall -
pinned on the wall, a drawing.Copy !req
631. Say, “Hey, where you got that Picasso?”Copy !req
632. I say, “Well, do you think it's a Picasso?”Copy !req
633. “And there was this art dealer” -
I won't give you his name -Copy !req
634. “turning down everything I showed him” -Copy !req
635. this is Vertès speaking -
“when something caught his eye.Copy !req
636. “'Where did you get that?' he said.Copy !req
637. “'That nice little Lautrec.'Copy !req
638. “I told him it was a very nice
little Vertés.Copy !req
639. “'I'll take the Lautrec,' he said.Copy !req
640. 'And If you happen to find
any more, bring them in.”'Copy !req
641. She said, “Would you sell it?”
I said, “Well, delighted.”Copy !req
642. And I suddenly realize
I can sell something...Copy !req
643. absolutely unexpectedly
for quite a great deal of money...Copy !req
644. in a time when I was unable,
but absolutely unable...Copy !req
645. to sell any of my paintings.Copy !req
646. “How could you blame me?
I had no money in my pocket...Copy !req
647. no socks in my shoes,
no real painting style of my own.”Copy !req
648. Even the amount of five dollars
meant that am I going to eat.Copy !req
649. I don't meaning go home
and be full, but to eat.Copy !req
650. I would like to see that
poor Hungarian refugee...Copy !req
651. who would have resisted
of that temptation.Copy !req
652. Well, Vertès didn't either.Copy !req
653. Like all Hungarians,
he told the best Hungarian jokes.Copy !req
654. The omelet,
you know that, don't you?Copy !req
655. Sure. It's a classic.Copy !req
656. An omelet,
it's in our Hungarian cookbook.Copy !req
657. “To make an omelet,” it says...Copy !req
658. “first, steal an egg.”Copy !req
659. Well, naturally,
to be Hungarian is not a nationality.Copy !req
660. It's a profession.Copy !req
661. But the truth about Hungarians,
which they do try to cover up...Copy !req
662. is that they're not any more
crooked than the rest of us.Copy !req
663. But not the way they like to tell it.
Of all the Hungarian friends I've ever had...Copy !req
664. I can't remember one
who didn't want me to think of him...Copy !req
665. as a king of con men.Copy !req
666. As for this Hungarian's own tales
of his own lurid past...Copy !req
667. they don't,
according to his biographer...Copy !req
668. jive exactly with versions
of the same events...Copy !req
669. as told by certain art dealers.Copy !req
670. I do think art dealers...Copy !req
671. are crooked.Copy !req
672. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury...Copy !req
673. I put it to you that
between such witnesses...Copy !req
674. your choice, to phrase it nicely,
is not easy.Copy !req
675. Even if Clifford Irving
mentions in his book that -Copy !req
676. I must insist that
I never sell to privates.Copy !req
677. Some friend of mine say
you should buy a fantastic drawing...Copy !req
678. that own a refugee of Budapest.Copy !req
679. “Budapesht.” it's not with a “pest.”
it's with a “pesht.”Copy !req
680. He want to sell 10 Modigliani
and 10, uh, Matisse.Copy !req
681. At that time,
when I sell to François...Copy !req
682. he was not a movie director.Copy !req
683. He was an art dealer.Copy !req
684. I tried to put it in art gallery.
Then it was an occasion...Copy !req
685. - because they were to sell for $200.
- “Occasion ” is a bargain.Copy !req
686. [ Laughing 1Copy !req
687. Our whole story really starts, you know...Copy !req
688. with two famous collections of paintings.Copy !req
689. One belonged to the Reichenbachs
and was real...Copy !req
690. the other Elmyr was supposed
to have smuggled out of Hungary.Copy !req
691. - From his family.
- Oh, no, that's a complete fabrication.Copy !req
692. I can tell you exactly who he was.Copy !req
693. After the book was published
I got a letter from a man...Copy !req
694. who had known him in
a concentration camp in Hungary.Copy !req
695. And he said he was not
from the aristocracy...Copy !req
696. but that he was from a normal
lower middle-class home...Copy !req
697. and since then
has refused to discuss it.Copy !req
698. He just evades the subject
whenever it's brought up.Copy !req
699. It's terribly convenient,
beside everything else!Copy !req
700. François bought
some of Elmyr's paintings...Copy !req
701. and sold them again in his art gallery
for a couple of fast bucks.Copy !req
702. For double the price.Copy !req
703. - You sold them for double
what you bought them for? - Exactly.Copy !req
704. Before he did pay me
for the drawings he did buy...Copy !req
705. he sold it already
before he paid me.Copy !req
706. Then the third year,
I went back and -Copy !req
707. He came to see me.
He said, “I have other Modigliani.”Copy !req
708. - I was a ittle suspicious.
- Elmyr said he has more.Copy !req
709. - More, but you see, last time — And you thought
maybe that is a little too many Modigliani.Copy !req
710. Because the last time he say,
“It's my last one. Take it.”Copy !req
711. Then, when he had others...Copy !req
712. I say, “Where they come from?”
But I didn't try to investigate too much.Copy !req
713. - But I kept -
- Why didn't you?Copy !req
714. - Like everyone.Copy !req
715. Because they were very -
I didn't want to -Copy !req
716. - You didn't want to know!
- Not too much.Copy !req
717. The year after, he call me.
He say, “I have three mores.”Copy !req
718. - Three more Modigliani.
- I say, “I have already 1O in my rooms.Copy !req
719. “I'm not a collector of Modigliani.Copy !req
720. “Of course, if you had a dessin -Copy !req
721. A portrait of Soutine.
I love so much Soutine.”Copy !req
722. - Bu! why did you want a portrait of Soutine?
- Because I like Soutine.Copy !req
723. - I see.
- And I asked to Elmyr if he had one.Copy !req
724. He say, “I don't have any Soutine
by Modigliani. Why?”Copy !req
725. Soutine was a friend of Modigliani.Copy !req
726. - Exactement.
- You asked him if he had it.Copy !req
727. He say, “I don't have it.” I say, “Then keep your
three others, even if they were very cheap.”Copy !req
728. They were the double price,
but they were still very cheap.Copy !req
729. Then the night, during the night,
he call me.Copy !req
730. He say, “François, you are a genius.
You guessed I had one.”Copy !req
731. “How could you know?
I found one in my drawer.Copy !req
732. A beautiful portrait of Soutine
by Modigliani. ”Copy !req
733. And now there's something else
again what I'm doing here.Copy !req
734. That is Picasso.Copy !req
735. And now the scene changes...Copy !req
736. from New York to Pamplona.Copy !req
737. This deep in the Hemingway country...Copy !req
738. you might not expect to find Elmyr.Copy !req
739. And he said,
“I'm going to reimburse you.”Copy !req
740. - I said, “What are you” -
- Reimburse you for what?Copy !req
741. - For the fake I sold you.
- Yeah, but you made a lot of money on it.Copy !req
742. - Yes, but he didn't know.
- I see.Copy !req
743. And you know what he did?Copy !req
744. He gave me a check,
and the check had no money in the bank.Copy !req
745. - He gave you a false check.
- Yes.Copy !req
746. - For a false painting.
- Yes.Copy !req
747. There's a certain justice.Copy !req
748. Well...Copy !req
749. good-bye, Picasso.Copy !req
750. It's a fact of record that art dealers -Copy !req
751. Would you take this away, please, and -
and bring me the steak au poivre?Copy !req
752. Thanks a lot.
That art dealers, either in ignorance...Copy !req
753. innocence, or simple greed...Copy !req
754. have made themselves fortunes
on the paintings of Elmyr.Copy !req
755. I have not the vaguest idea
the money they got.Copy !req
756. Those paintings
must have been pretty good...Copy !req
757. or the dealers must have been...
pretty bad.Copy !req
758. I could not estimate
if it was 10 million, 20 million -Copy !req
759. dollars, pounds, uh, zlotys.Copy !req
760. A whole lot of them anyway made profits of
a hundred percent and more on these affairs...Copy !req
761. and Elmyr himself
has really made very little.Copy !req
762. All I got was a little television
of that size for the $250,000.Copy !req
763. Even that handsome house of his, that isn't his.Copy !req
764. A dealer has a deal with him.Copy !req
765. Somebody must have made
some kind of strange -Copy !req
766. - Deal.
- Deal.Copy !req
767. I was fooled.Copy !req
768. I was used.Copy !req
769. And I was squeezed out -
squeezed out like the last drop.Copy !req
770. Because even the roof of that house
doesn't belong to me.Copy !req
771. I don't have a dime to my name.Copy !req
772. So after all these long years on the run...Copy !req
773. even now,
after his final reformation as a forger...Copy !req
774. Elmyr can't feel much real security
in this last refuge...Copy !req
775. in what people like to call...Copy !req
776. “the golden years.”Copy !req
777. - A little bit of luck.
- And a dash of larceny.Copy !req
778. You've been freely
owning up to your own past.Copy !req
779. I'd better do some confessing myself.Copy !req
780. François was an art dealer, and I -
well, I was an artist.Copy !req
781. I thought I was anyway.
Like Elmyr, I too was once a hungry painter.Copy !req
782. But not here in France.
No, I was hungry in Ireland.Copy !req
783. I 'd come there to paint,
bought a donkey and earl...Copy !req
784. filled the cart with paints and canvases
and went traveling.Copy !req
785. - At night I slept under the cart.Copy !req
786. It was a very nice summer.Copy !req
787. But then when I got to Dublin...Copy !req
788. the donkey had to go up for auction.Copy !req
789. And so did I.
My paintings were gone...Copy !req
790. all given away to the Irish farmers
who'd given me food.Copy !req
791. I'd run out of paint and money.Copy !req
792. I was 16 years old,
and my career, as you might say...Copy !req
793. was at the crossroads.Copy !req
794. Winter was coming in.Copy !req
795. Oh, I guess I could have
found myself an honest job...Copy !req
796. as a dishwasher or something,
but, no, I took the easy way.Copy !req
797. I went on the stage.Copy !req
798. I'd never been on the stage,
but I told them in Dublin...Copy !req
799. I was a famous star from New York,
and somehow got them to believe me.Copy !req
800. That's how I started.Copy !req
801. Began at the top, and have been
working my way down ever since.Copy !req
802. If acting is an art, cooking up
that bogus Broadway career. - .Copy !req
803. Was a fine case of art forgery.Copy !req
804. And then later, on the radio -
Well, we've seen how Elmyr started.Copy !req
805. In my past there aren't any Picassos.Copy !req
806. No. My next flight into fakery
was by flying saucer.Copy !req
807. We interrupt
this program to bring you a news bulletin.Copy !req
808. High government sources have ceased to deny...Copy !req
809. the presence in many parts of the country
of nonterrestrial objects.Copy !req
810. We return you now to the Starlight
Terrace of the Hotel Glory in Scranton...Copy !req
811. - to the singing strings of Laszlo Gabor
and His Melodeons. - ♪♪Copy !req
812. On the radio, I got my first job from Paul Stewart...Copy !req
813. and we were lucky enough
to have him join us later in the Mercury.Copy !req
814. Paul was a real capo mafia
in the Martian caper.Copy !req
815. “The War of the Worlds” was
before World War ll, remember.Copy !req
816. Before television,
in the great days of radio.Copy !req
817. Maybe that's what made it all possible.Copy !req
818. Another bulletin, ladies and gentlemen.Copy !req
819. The latest word on the monsters
from outer space.Copy !req
820. Correction, from Mars.Copy !req
821. Sorry, folks, that's what experts are saying.
They are Martians.Copy !req
822. TV would have shown us up.
Half the population...Copy !req
823. got the screaming jeebies
just because they couldn't see...Copy !req
824. how silly it all would have looked.Copy !req
825. We said that the Martians
were releasing a noxious gas...Copy !req
826. across the Jersey meadows
that was drifting towards New York.Copy !req
827. So, people took to the hills.Copy !req
828. I met a welfare worker years later...Copy !req
829. who told me he spent weeks trying to woo
some of the refugees back to civilization.Copy !req
830. The entire state
of New Jersey has now been cordoned off.Copy !req
831. State highways - Uh, yes?Copy !req
832. Ladies and gentlemen,
a special news flash from Washington.Copy !req
833. Any moment now,
President Roosevelt will be receiving...Copy !req
834. a delegation from Mars.Copy !req
835. From Mars.
Peace talks are expected -Copy !req
836. A woman - you just have to believe this -Copy !req
837. rushed into a police station out in San Francisco
with her clothes in tatters...Copy !req
838. to report that she'd been
repeatedly attacked by Martians.Copy !req
839. She tried to take poison
for the shame of it...Copy !req
840. and they stopped her just in time.Copy !req
841. Were they little green men, or what?Copy !req
842. “I can't describe it,” she said. “It's hell.”Copy !req
843. Somebody down in South America...Copy !req
844. did an imitation of that broadcast...Copy !req
845. and he ended up in prison.Copy !req
846. So I shouldn't complain, I guess.Copy !req
847. I didn't go to jail.Copy !req
848. I went to Hollywood.Copy !req
849. And to testify to yet another coincidence,
here is a leading film director.Copy !req
850. All those years ago, he went west with the rest
of us to make our first movie. Richard Wilson.Copy !req
851. Our first movie?Copy !req
852. Well, among the first of our projects
was to be a story...Copy !req
853. based on the fictionalized life
of a certain famous tycoon.Copy !req
854. Joe Cotten was to
have played the part.Copy !req
855. That certain famous tycoon, yes.
But when the character was changed...Copy !req
856. to the famous newspaper tycoon,
it became obvious...Copy !req
857. that Orson should play the part,
which, of course, he did.Copy !req
858. Oh, I'm not complaining.Copy !req
859. No. I had a fine part in Citizen Kane.Copy !req
860. But I was just wondering.Copy !req
861. That original concept
may have been fun.Copy !req
862. Yes, I was just wondering...Copy !req
863. if I would have been the first or the last...Copy !req
864. to impersonate...Copy !req
865. Howard Hughes.Copy !req
866. N'Copy !req
867. This week, as it must to all aviation's pioneers...Copy !req
868. the great heart
of a welcoming nation went out...Copy !req
869. to handsome, well-heeled hero, Howard Hughes.Copy !req
870. Broken for speed are all records
for round-the-world solo flights.Copy !req
871. Broken, too, is the garbage man's record
for sheer tonnage in ticker tape.Copy !req
872. Well noted by observers is
the appropriate nature of ticker tape...Copy !req
873. as a tribute to the high-flying
Mr. Moneybags himself.Copy !req
874. Why did we change our minds?Copy !req
875. Change tycoons?
Of course, we'd have to change his name.Copy !req
876. And as a character in fiction...Copy !req
877. who could believe that a man
like Howard Hughes could exist?Copy !req
878. I put the sweat of my life into this thing.
I have my reputation rolled up in it.Copy !req
879. Hughes fighting here
for the future of a controversial airplane...Copy !req
880. an all-wood behemoth, the Spruce Goose.Copy !req
881. Other inventions had more success.Copy !req
882. One example, the brassiere.Copy !req
883. Hughes's design for
a Hughes-directed hit movie...Copy !req
884. was, for mammary America...Copy !req
885. the cause of a great uplift.Copy !req
886. - Less uplifting was the Spruce Goose...Copy !req
887. The biggest thing with wings
that ever happened -Copy !req
888. — In fact, it fiew
for a few minutes only, a few feet in the air.Copy !req
889. And I have stated several times
that if it's a failure...Copy !req
890. I'll probably leave this country
and never come back, and I mean it.Copy !req
891. And that's what he did, finally.Copy !req
892. The supersecretive celebrity...Copy !req
893. went all out for world fame...Copy !req
894. won it, and then got to be
more famous trying for privacy.Copy !req
895. Maybe he's a loser after all.Copy !req
896. A lady from his past once told me
that's part of his charm.Copy !req
897. But this lady-killing, wheeling, dealing...Copy !req
898. death-defying, life-defying
mystery man supreme...Copy !req
899. has a strange habit of winning somehow -Copy !req
900. sometimes anyway -
just at the end.Copy !req
901. Is he winning now,
at the end of this story?Copy !req
902. I only wish I was still in the movie business.Copy !req
903. Our semimythological
night bird of a billionaire...Copy !req
904. has flown his Vegas coop.Copy !req
905. But only to go on mutely roosting...Copy !req
906. on the top of various other holiday hotels...Copy !req
907. in germfree...Copy !req
908. air-conditioned solitude.Copy !req
909. Ah, it's his decision.Copy !req
910. On this planet...Copy !req
911. crowded and computerized...Copy !req
912. being yourself-
whatever that may be -Copy !req
913. and keeping yourself to yourself isn't easy.Copy !req
914. Make what you want of Howard Hughes,
but not a movie.Copy !req
915. Cliff Irving had
more courage than we did...Copy !req
916. and as sure a hand,
certainly, at fiction.Copy !req
917. Also, I'll admit that he's nudging
the Martians a bit...Copy !req
918. for the championship title.Copy !req
919. it taxes your imagination
to believe that a thing like this could happen.Copy !req
920. “I do not know Clifford Irving,” said the voice.Copy !req
921. Until a matter of days ago,
when this thing first came to my attention.Copy !req
922. All over the world, people were saying
that the fishiest thing in this whole business...Copy !req
923. was not Irving's part in it...Copy !req
924. but the identity of whoever it was
who claimed to Irving he was Hughes.Copy !req
925. And who do you think
is still mixed up in all this?Copy !req
926. According to one theory, who else but Elmyr,
a man so skilled in an' forgery...Copy !req
927. could have forged that manuscript?Copy !req
928. Irving's lawyer is speculating
about a host of theories.Copy !req
929. Theories, if, for instance,
that telephone voice...Copy !req
930. was Hughes and was telling the truth,
we should remember. - .Copy !req
931. That Hughes had been known
to make use of doubles.Copy !req
932. And here comes another theory:Copy !req
933. Now a double might be
making use of Hughes.Copy !req
934. According to informed sources,
high officials in the Hughes empire...Copy !req
935. are not even now fully satisfied
that the mystery is completely unraveled.Copy !req
936. They are searching for
a “Mr. Big” behind it all.Copy !req
937. Was “Mr. Big” Mrs. Big?Copy !req
938. - Edith, maybe?Copy !req
939. Cliff Irving topped all this
and stopped it dead...Copy !req
940. with a confession.Copy !req
941. Charges could result
in as much as 100 years imprisonment.Copy !req
942. But this may be softened
if Clifford Irving...Copy !req
943. agrees to come clean on the whole story.Copy !req
944. He did. He told it all...Copy !req
945. not only to the courts, but in a book.Copy !req
946. And now, as Elmyr leaves that story...Copy !req
947. and a chapter in ours
comes to a close...Copy !req
948. things may Well
be looking up just a bit...Copy !req
949. for his biographer, jail or not.Copy !req
950. This is a headline
in London's Sunday Times:Copy !req
951. “Hoaxer Irving Makes a Handsome Profit.”Copy !req
952. - No, no, no.
- And for Elm yr, at least and at last...Copy !req
953. that story has a happy ending:
He is in the clear.Copy !req
954. Here's another coincidence for you.Copy !req
955. To Connecticut, yeah.Copy !req
956. Somebody else from Ibiza.
This is our coproducer.Copy !req
957. - Who's calling?
- Richard Drewett.Copy !req
958. Richard Drewett, the only simon-pure
noncharlatan in this movie.Copy !req
959. Irving just now is holed up in Connecticut,
and we're calling him from Paris.Copy !req
960. And so excruciating is Richard's honesty,
that he's insisted on warning...Copy !req
961. Time magazine's nomination
for con man of the year...Copy !req
962. that our call to him is being taped.Copy !req
963. - Hello?
- The book.Copy !req
964. Can you say anything
about the, um -Copy !req
965. the deal that you've managed
to do with the book?Copy !req
966. I mean, is it- h-has it turned out
as well as you'd expected?Copy !req
967. - Th-The deal?
- Are you going to tell the whole truth?Copy !req
968. Yes. Absolutely.Copy !req
969. - Yeah.
- In fact the title is The Book About the Book.Copy !req
970. In two years, Cliff, you are going to write
“The Book About the book About the Book.”Copy !req
971. Gentlemen, was that
the real voice of Clifford Irving?Copy !req
972. Well, Irving's real voice as a writer...Copy !req
973. he may well have found now
in his new book.Copy !req
974. The new title is What Really Happened.Copy !req
975. I want to paint my own paintings.Copy !req
976. I want the right uniquely...Copy !req
977. and exclusively of my work.Copy !req
978. And Elmyr?
Will there ever be another book about him?Copy !req
979. He's told so many stories about himself...Copy !req
980. - always telling this story to that one and'
another story to that one. - Uh, I'd don't -Copy !req
981. He's lived always on the run.Copy !req
982. I, uh, stayed ultimately
12 years in the United States.Copy !req
983. Which he spent there illegally,
since he only had a three-month visa.Copy !req
984. I lived very simply.
I lived, uh, on my own paintings.Copy !req
985. I sold them for $10, $15.Copy !req
986. My own canvases. And then sometimes
when I had absolutely no money...Copy !req
987. I was completely broke,
I made a Modigliani drawing.Copy !req
988. I took 'em to one of the big dealers
around Beverly Hills.Copy !req
989. It never happened
that I didn't sell them.Copy !req
990. I always sold them.Copy !req
991. One reason he was able to get away
with what he was doing...Copy !req
992. for - for 22 years,
selling fakes all over the world...Copy !req
993. all over the United States...Copy !req
994. was the existence of something new
in the art world.Copy !req
995. And that was the art market.Copy !req
996. It enabled him to live from day to day...Copy !req
997. from painting to painting,
from fake to fake...Copy !req
998. from - from con man to con man,
from crook to crook...Copy !req
999. and from town to town.Copy !req
1000. Who knows? What is it?
What - What makes you travel?Copy !req
1001. You want a change of landscape.
You want to meet new people.Copy !req
1002. You want to meet new faces.Copy !req
1003. You think you'll meet somebody more attractive
in the next town as you met there.Copy !req
1004. You never know. Why?
Why people travel. Do you know?Copy !req
1005. Because the F.B.l. And the police
in four different states were on his tail.Copy !req
1006. - But, uh -
- And he had to be one jump ahead of them.Copy !req
1007. He had to whip off to Mexico and then
up to Canada, and then back to New York.Copy !req
1008. And then when he heard that the police
were knocking on his door in Miami Beach...Copy !req
1009. he had to scuttle out of town
on a Greyhound bus to Texas.Copy !req
1010. Hit hard by Torborg,
but right to third baseman, Aurelio Rodriguez.Copy !req
1011. After one hop,
the ball really flattened out for him.Copy !req
1012. Then, finally, on a distant island...Copy !req
1013. he did find a home.Copy !req
1014. He doesn't own it, remember,
but it's a splendid villa...Copy !req
1015. with a fine view of the village...Copy !req
1016. and the village jail.Copy !req
1017. To be in jail here is probably, I would say -Copy !req
1018. here is better than somewhere else.Copy !req
1019. - But a jail is a jail. Let's face it.
- Moment of truth.Copy !req
1020. He's talking about the time
they took him down...Copy !req
1021. out of that villa, which he doesn't own,
and put him into prison.Copy !req
1022. Let me show you that again.Copy !req
1023. To be in jail here is probably, I would say -Copy !req
1024. here is better than somewhere else.Copy !req
1025. But a jail is a jail. Let's face it.Copy !req
1026. Hemingway wrote a great short story...Copy !req
1027. about an old bullfighter
called “The Undefeated.”Copy !req
1028. Well, all the heroes aren't in the bullring.Copy !req
1029. Here's our hero, our ex-jailbird...Copy !req
1030. flying high above his troubles.Copy !req
1031. Watch the quick recovery.Copy !req
1032. That was quite a disgusting person.Copy !req
1033. He looks disgusting too, doesn't he?Copy !req
1034. He was, again, a German...Copy !req
1035. whose main preoccupation
was his mustache.Copy !req
1036. He kept doing nothing
but touching his mustache.Copy !req
1037. He just kept on curling and curling
and curling his mustache.Copy !req
1038. These other drawings are made
during the time I was in prison.Copy !req
1039. In the very end,
the judge himself thanked me...Copy !req
1040. and he declared that
I'm a very generous and a very kind person.Copy !req
1041. Now that he's out of prison,
what will he do?Copy !req
1042. He'll give a party. Another party.Copy !req
1043. Elmyr, how do you mean
you were not in prison?Copy !req
1044. Because I wasn't a prisoner
in the full sense of word.Copy !req
1045. I was not imprisoned. I was interned.Copy !req
1046. - She's a great friend of mine.Copy !req
1047. She's a great friend of mine
She was very sweet and kind to me.Copy !req
1048. When I was in prison,
she came to see me every day.Copy !req
1049. Most of the days of the week.Copy !req
1050. Jean-Pierre Ramon.
I had a Spanish-Polish prince...Copy !req
1051. Charles-Touriski Bourbon,
who's a cousin german...Copy !req
1052. of the next king of Spain,
Juan Carlos, who came every day.Copy !req
1053. I had every day coming in Nina.Copy !req
1054. Nina, that morsel plucked...Copy !req
1055. from our name-dropper's
list of prison visitors...Copy !req
1056. is the Baroness Van Pallandt.Copy !req
1057. She was a witness against Irving.Copy !req
1058. It seems he couldn't have had a secret
rendezvous with Howard Hughes in Mexico...Copy !req
1059. because he spent every minute
there with the baroness.Copy !req
1060. She used to be a famous folk singer,
and now she's famous again.Copy !req
1061. Many other ladies
flitted across the front pages.Copy !req
1062. No, our cameras
never got close to them.Copy !req
1063. But Oja Kodar was something else.Copy !req
1064. - Uh, Miss Kodar— The newspapers
have been calling you the Hungarian connection.Copy !req
1065. Because of my connection with Irving?Copy !req
1066. This is from the tape of a recent interview.Copy !req
1067. - There's quite a list.
- Indeed.Copy !req
1068. - If only half of all that is true, I wonder how he ever
got away to his typewriter. - Well, Miss Kodar.Copy !req
1069. - You wouldn't say that forgery's a crime?
- And the experts?Copy !req
1070. As long as there are fakers,
I guess there'll have to be experts.Copy !req
1071. But if there weren't any experts...Copy !req
1072. would there be any fakers?Copy !req
1073. A friend - another friend -Copy !req
1074. once showed a Picasso to Picasso...Copy !req
1075. who said, no, it was a fake.Copy !req
1076. The same friend brought him,
from yet another source...Copy !req
1077. another would-be Picasso,
and Picasso said that, too, was a fake.Copy !req
1078. Then yet another from another source.
“Also fake,” said Picasso.Copy !req
1079. “But, Pablo, ” said his friend...Copy !req
1080. “I watched you paint that with my own eyes.”Copy !req
1081. Said Picasso,
“I can paint false Picassos as well as anybody.”Copy !req
1082. I'm not excusing myself.
I'm not trying to make an excuse.Copy !req
1083. I'm trying to explain
a psychological situation...Copy !req
1084. and a human weakness.Copy !req
1085. He's not in jail today
for basically two reasons.Copy !req
1086. A court case would bring such
publicity upon the an' world...Copy !req
1087. that any art dealer who took the stand
would automatically become suspect.Copy !req
1088. The other reason he's not in jail is because...Copy !req
1089. the French police have explained to me
that in order to jail him in France...Copy !req
1090. they would have to have two witnesses...Copy !req
1091. who saw him doing the paintings...Copy !req
1092. who saw him signing the paintings...Copy !req
1093. as Vlamincks or Derains or Picassos.Copy !req
1094. The signatures were put on...Copy !req
1095. much later than the paintings were painted.Copy !req
1096. I never signed any painting anyway.Copy !req
1097. That's a very important matter.Copy !req
1098. No, I never signed any of them.Copy !req
1099. No. Never did. No.Copy !req
1100. Never did.Copy !req
1101. Of course they were signed.Copy !req
1102. Well, whoever did sign them...Copy !req
1103. his paintings are in
so many great collections...Copy !req
1104. that surely it must be said of Elmyr...Copy !req
1105. that he has achieved
a certain immortality...Copy !req
1106. under various other signatures.Copy !req
1107. If you - you hang them in a museum
or your collection of great paintings- . .Copy !req
1108. And if they hang long enough there,
they become real.Copy !req
1109. Now, this has been standing here for centuries.Copy !req
1110. The premiere work of man, perhaps,
in the whole Western world.Copy !req
1111. And it's without a signature.Copy !req
1112. Chartres.Copy !req
1113. A celebration to God's glory
and to the dignity of man.Copy !req
1114. Well, all that's left,
most artists seem to feel these days...Copy !req
1115. is man.Copy !req
1116. Naked.Copy !req
1117. Poor, forked radish.Copy !req
1118. There aren't any celebrations.Copy !req
1119. Ours, the scientists keep telling us...Copy !req
1120. is a universe which is disposable.Copy !req
1121. You know, it might be
just this one anonymous glory...Copy !req
1122. of all things -Copy !req
1123. this rich stone forest...Copy !req
1124. this epic chant, this gaiety...Copy !req
1125. this grand chairing shout of affirmation...Copy !req
1126. which we choose...Copy !req
1127. when all our cities are dust...Copy !req
1128. to stand intact...Copy !req
1129. to mark where we have been...Copy !req
1130. to testify to what we had it in us...Copy !req
1131. to accomplish.Copy !req
1132. Our works in stone, in paint,
in print are spared -Copy !req
1133. some of them for a few decades,
or a millennium or two -Copy !req
1134. but everything must finally fall in war...Copy !req
1135. or wear away into
the ultimate and universal ash.Copy !req
1136. The triumphs and the frauds...Copy !req
1137. the treasures and the fakes.Copy !req
1138. A fact of life.Copy !req
1139. We're going to die.Copy !req
1140. “Be of good heart”...Copy !req
1141. cry the dead artists out of the living past.Copy !req
1142. “Our songs...Copy !req
1143. “will all be silenced.Copy !req
1144. “Bu! what of it?Copy !req
1145. Go on singing.”Copy !req
1146. Maybe a man's name...Copy !req
1147. doesn't matter...Copy !req
1148. all that much.Copy !req
1149. And now, at last, we come to Oja.Copy !req
1150. For this true story,
and with her kind collaboration...Copy !req
1151. we offer now - well, you might call it
a reenactment of recent history.Copy !req
1152. As we told you at the start,
she comes into this only at the end.Copy !req
1153. And that's where we've left her,
for the end.Copy !req
1154. And as for coincidence -Copy !req
1155. Just for instance,
I give you Oja's grandfather.Copy !req
1156. Oh, no.Copy !req
1157. No, let's take him back
for a while and save him for later.Copy !req
1158. The mixture's rich enough as it is.Copy !req
1159. Oja, as far as I know...Copy !req
1160. never breathed a word
about him to any of us.Copy !req
1161. She comes into this
when she herself came to the attention of -Copy !req
1162. well, who else, but the first genius
among all the artists of our age.Copy !req
1163. The most celebrated,
certainly the wealthiest painter...Copy !req
1164. in 6,000 years.Copy !req
1165. Well, Picasso is the biggest phenomenon
of our time.Copy !req
1166. It never existed that a painter was able...Copy !req
1167. with one movement of his hand -Copy !req
1168. what necessarily didn't involve
more than 10 seconds -Copy !req
1169. that movement of the hand...Copy !req
1170. transformed in gold.Copy !req
1171. Not even John D. Rockefeller
was able to do that.Copy !req
1172. His estate has been valued at...Copy !req
1173. $750 million.Copy !req
1174. Oja turned him into a girl watcher.Copy !req
1175. This happened not so very long ago...Copy !req
1176. when Picasso, for reasons of his own...Copy !req
1177. went to paint for a while
in the little village of Toussaint.Copy !req
1178. Oja was there too, on her holidays.Copy !req
1179. And she had a friend with her,
a boy named Olaf...Copy !req
1180. from somewhere
in the Viking country.Copy !req
1181. M:Copy !req
1182. In his homeland,
up there in the frozen north...Copy !req
1183. Olaf had been infected rather imperfectly...Copy !req
1184. with a taste for
the classic jazz of New Orleans...Copy !req
1185. and his researches in this area
took place under Picasso's window...Copy !req
1186. where morning and night
he practiced the trombone.Copy !req
1187. N'Copy !req
1188. Olaf's trombone commenced early...Copy !req
1189. finished late...Copy !req
1190. and nearly drove Picasso
out of his skull.Copy !req
1191. And then - then there was
another distraction.Copy !req
1192. Far more disturbing.Copy !req
1193. Oja.Copy !req
1194. Oja in the morning,
on her way to the beach.Copy !req
1195. Oja at 10:00,
coming back for the suntan lotion.Copy !req
1196. To the beach again...Copy !req
1197. and back once more
at noon for lunch.Copy !req
1198. In that climate,
after lunch one takes a siesta.Copy !req
1199. Not Oja.
And not Picasso either.Copy !req
1200. Cocktail time.Copy !req
1201. Dinnertime.Copy !req
1202. Anytime.Copy !req
1203. Oja on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...Copy !req
1204. and all through the week.Copy !req
1205. Week after week.Copy !req
1206. Oja checking on the trombone.Copy !req
1207. Oja escaping from it.Copy !req
1208. But no escaping for Picasso.Copy !req
1209. Was he tempted?Copy !req
1210. Perhaps he was... inspired.Copy !req
1211. I can't tell you
what happened in there.Copy !req
1212. But Picasso was a fast worker,
by which -Copy !req
1213. I mean to say, you understand, that...Copy !req
1214. the results of this encounter
were, to say the least of it...Copy !req
1215. extremely fruitful.Copy !req
1216. Figs sweetened on the trees.Copy !req
1217. Grapes burst into ripeness
on the vines.Copy !req
1218. And 22 - 22 -Copy !req
1219. large portraits of Miss Oja Kodar...Copy !req
1220. were born under that virile brush.Copy !req
1221. Money. We've heard Elmyr on that subject.Copy !req
1222. Well, Picasso didn't make all that bread...Copy !req
1223. by casting any crumbs of it on the waters,
or feeding it to the birds...Copy !req
1224. or giving away any pictures to his models.Copy !req
1225. But Oja laid down conditions.
She put a price...Copy !req
1226. on the sunshine.Copy !req
1227. To give it up, he had to give something to her.
And this is true, you know.Copy !req
1228. What she exacted from Picasso
was no less than this:Copy !req
1229. All those pictures - all 22 of them -Copy !req
1230. were to be hers, outright.Copy !req
1231. Her property. Oja's very own
to pick up and carry away...Copy !req
1232. which is just exactly
what she did with them.Copy !req
1233. The lot. Let's call it the loot.Copy !req
1234. She got away with it all.Copy !req
1235. Well, no wonder she's rich, you'll say.Copy !req
1236. - But wait, there's more to this.Copy !req
1237. Just now, Paris is fogbound.Copy !req
1238. Just then -
and this is important to our story -Copy !req
1239. there was another sort of paralysis.Copy !req
1240. Uh, Paris was suffering from August.Copy !req
1241. This happens every year.Copy !req
1242. It shuts down, closes up...Copy !req
1243. and this is the time when an invader
could take the country by telephone...Copy !req
1244. if he could get somebody to answer it.Copy !req
1245. And this is the time, of all time...Copy !req
1246. when, down there in Toussaint...Copy !req
1247. Picasso, opening his morning newspaper...Copy !req
1248. read that in a little-known art gallery in Paris...Copy !req
1249. there had been opened
to the public an exposition...Copy !req
1250. of the works of Pablo Picasso!Copy !req
1251. - A I this, a species of atomic blast...Copy !req
1252. stormed out of the Riviera!Copy !req
1253. In the American hemisphere...Copy !req
1254. we give our bigger tornadoes...Copy !req
1255. names like Ethel, Mary Lou and Dolores.Copy !req
1256. Well, what shook
the South of France that day...Copy !req
1257. should've been called “Pablo.”Copy !req
1258. Booking a seat
on the first available plane...Copy !req
1259. the storm now moved toward Paris.Copy !req
1260. And there wasn't any improvement
in the atmospheric conditions...Copy !req
1261. at the airport when another newspaper
came to the artist's furious attention.Copy !req
1262. “Picasso,” said the headline...Copy !req
1263. “has been born again.”Copy !req
1264. Critics were hailing the freshness,
the force, the fecundity.Copy !req
1265. But who cared? Not Picasso.Copy !req
1266. No. There'd been
a very clear understanding.Copy !req
1267. None of those portraits
were ever to be sold.Copy !req
1268. Oja'd get rich,
but not a penny's profit for Pablo.Copy !req
1269. There are witnesses who swear
that an aureole of blue flame...Copy !req
1270. sizzled about that noble head...Copy !req
1271. as the great painter
burst into the picture gallery.Copy !req
1272. What is remembered -
what will never be forgotten -Copy !req
1273. is the terrible incandescence...Copy !req
1274. of Picasso's rage.Copy !req
1275. And then there came a sudden...Copy !req
1276. and quite remarkable change.Copy !req
1277. Those famous staring eyes...Copy !req
1278. now stared as eyes
have never stared before.Copy !req
1279. From picture to picture they traveled.Copy !req
1280. All 22 of them...Copy !req
1281. recognizing...Copy !req
1282. DONG.Copy !req
1283. Not one single canvas...Copy !req
1284. in that whole collection...Copy !req
1285. had been painted by Picasso.Copy !req
1286. And there she was...Copy !req
1287. standing beside him.Copy !req
1288. You told him about your...Copy !req
1289. grandfather...Copy !req
1290. that he was dying.Copy !req
1291. - He didn't even know he existed.
- Nobody did.Copy !req
1292. The greatest of all the art forgers...Copy !req
1293. remained always a legend,
mentioned only in whispers.Copy !req
1294. Oja, tell us what you did with Picasso.Copy !req
1295. I just took him by the hand
and led him out...Copy !req
1296. and put him in my little car.Copy !req
1297. And drove him to your
grandfather's secret studio?Copy !req
1298. This is true, you know.
What's amazing is that he went with her.Copy !req
1299. Here are some pictures.
These are the last I took of him.Copy !req
1300. And the first to be made public, hmm?Copy !req
1301. He was never photographed,
except in the family.Copy !req
1302. - He was very careful about that.
- That's why he was never caught.Copy !req
1303. You know, I never thought to ask Elmyr about him.
After all, they're both Hungarians.Copy !req
1304. There are many great painters in the Renaissance,
but only one da Vinci.Copy !req
1305. The point being,
that among great art forgers...Copy !req
1306. your grandfather is the da Vinci?Copy !req
1307. One of his da Vinci's is so famous
I don't dare to name it.Copy !req
1308. Giving him credit is as tough
as nailing him for the crime.Copy !req
1309. - Crime?
- Well...Copy !req
1310. he painted every last one
of those phony Picassos of you.Copy !req
1311. For every last one of which
Picasso was very highly praised.Copy !req
1312. But not, to put it mildly, highly pleased. You
must have known you couldn't get away with it.Copy !req
1313. I got to meet Picasso.Copy !req
1314. So, here they are,
the world's best and least known geniuses.Copy !req
1315. My grandfather was very glad to see him.Copy !req
1316. “Picasso”...Copy !req
1317. said her grandfather...Copy !req
1318. “I've been painting you for years.Copy !req
1319. All the great Picasso periods.”Copy !req
1320. I'm not trying too hard
for the Hungarian accent...Copy !req
1321. - but I think that's how it Went.
- Oh, yes.Copy !req
1322. “This girl,” said Picasso,
“claims that you're dying.”Copy !req
1323. “A dying art forger,” he said,
“is still an art forger.”Copy !req
1324. Well, you tell us what Picasso said.Copy !req
1325. He called us both a couple of crooks.Copy !req
1326. “Oja, ” said your grandfather,
“is quite as honest...Copy !req
1327. “as anyone that young, that beautiful...Copy !req
1328. and that Hungarian has any need to be.”Copy !req
1329. “She's stolen my pictures,” said Picasso.Copy !req
1330. “She made you a gift, señor.
She gave you a whole summer.”Copy !req
1331. “It's not more than the price of 22 Picassos.
And where, for God's sake, are they now?”Copy !req
1332. “Pablo -Copy !req
1333. “May I call you Pablo?Copy !req
1334. “No.Copy !req
1335. “Well, señor...Copy !req
1336. “it seems that in
my son-in-law's new little art gallery...Copy !req
1337. “there are 22 paintings,
every one of which has been acclaimed...Copy !req
1338. “as a masterpiece.Copy !req
1339. At least, that's the best critical opinion.”Copy !req
1340. “The best critical opinion
is a load of horse manure. ”Copy !req
1341. Or words to that effect.Copy !req
1342. “How perfectly we agree on that, señor.Copy !req
1343. “But you have
so little reason to be bitter.Copy !req
1344. “ls there a man in all the world
who doesn't know your name?Copy !req
1345. And who in all the world knows mine?”Copy !req
1346. “You're one of those that use
so many names that you forget your own!”Copy !req
1347. “I, señor, am not one...Copy !req
1348. “of anything.Copy !req
1349. “Like you, I am unique.Copy !req
1350. “You've seen my my Cézanne
at the Metropolitan?Copy !req
1351. “Is that just a forgery, my friend?Copy !req
1352. Is it not also a painting?”Copy !req
1353. Now, you tell us
what Picasso had to say to that.Copy !req
1354. Something dirty in Spanish, I think.Copy !req
1355. He did accuse
your grandfather of arrogance.Copy !req
1356. Arrogance? A man who never in his life
signed his own name to a picture.Copy !req
1357. What could be more modest than that?Copy !req
1358. “It's true that when you think
of those great Rembrandts” -Copy !req
1359. - Chicago has five of them. Important ones.
- “And London.Copy !req
1360. “Why, just those two
small Tintorettos in Brazil.Copy !req
1361. - “And Tokyo.
- The big one.Copy !req
1362. In Cincinnati. Did all the Goyas
and most of the Grecos.”Copy !req
1363. And the Monet.
And the Manet in Detroit.Copy !req
1364. “So, am I not then myself”...Copy !req
1365. said your grandfather,
“one of the great painters?Copy !req
1366. “No? No.Copy !req
1367. “Yet here you are, Picasso,
standing at the deathbed of a ghost.Copy !req
1368. “For all my life I've been a ghost.Copy !req
1369. “And for all time, the galleries and museums
will be haunted with my works.Copy !req
1370. “Do you think I should confess?
To what?Copy !req
1371. “Committing masterpieces?Copy !req
1372. “They'd all be torn down from the walls.
And what then would be left of me?Copy !req
1373. “But before I die,
I find I need something.Copy !req
1374. “To believe -Copy !req
1375. “I must believe...Copy !req
1376. “that art itself...Copy !req
1377. “is real.Copy !req
1378. If it is not, señor” -Copy !req
1379. Here, my grandfather
was interrupted by Picasso...Copy !req
1380. who asked him
to stop making speeches.Copy !req
1381. “We've only to settle the fate...Copy !req
1382. “of 22 large canvases...Copy !req
1383. “painted by me.Copy !req
1384. “Picasso, you move so easily...Copy !req
1385. “from one Picasso period to another...Copy !req
1386. “change like a-an actor...Copy !req
1387. “like an art forger yourself.Copy !req
1388. “Won't you give to me,
who admire you so much...Copy !req
1389. “a happy death?Copy !req
1390. “Can you not let me go
knowing that at last...Copy !req
1391. “I've managed to give something new...Copy !req
1392. “to the world?Copy !req
1393. “One whole Picasso period.Copy !req
1394. Would you give me this?”Copy !req
1395. “Give me my pictures,” said Picasso.Copy !req
1396. “Give me back my 22 paintings.”Copy !req
1397. “Ah,” said your grandfather.
“That is impossible.Copy !req
1398. I have burnt them.”Copy !req
1399. - Well, good-bye, Picasso.Copy !req
1400. Time for a confession?Copy !req
1401. - Time to go.
- Good night, Oja.Copy !req
1402. That's her real name, you know.Copy !req
1403. Oja. Oja Kodar.Copy !req
1404. I don't think that young gentleman's
a trombone player...Copy !req
1405. but Oja's grandfather was Hungarian.Copy !req
1406. - Did he paint any pictures?
- Never in his life.Copy !req
1407. Ladies and gentlemen,
we did use Oja's grandfather...Copy !req
1408. to lend verisimilitude to
the reenactment of this story.Copy !req
1409. But is “reenactment” really the word?Copy !req
1410. What I mean is,
with a story this hard to believe...Copy !req
1411. reenactment isn't easy.Copy !req
1412. - Right, François?
- Right.Copy !req
1413. At the very beginning, I - of all this -
I did make you a promise.Copy !req
1414. Remember? I did promise...Copy !req
1415. that for one hour
I'd tell you only the truth.Copy !req
1416. That hour, ladies and gentlemen, is over.Copy !req
1417. For the past 17 minutes,
I've been lying my head off.Copy !req
1418. The truth -
and please forgive us for it -Copy !req
1419. is that we've been forging an art story.Copy !req
1420. As a charlatan, of course,
my job was to try to make it real...Copy !req
1421. not that reality
has anything to do with it.Copy !req
1422. Reality? It's the toothbrush...Copy !req
1423. waiting at home for you in its glass.Copy !req
1424. A bus ticket, a paycheck...Copy !req
1425. and the grave.Copy !req
1426. In the right mood, perhaps,
Elmyr has just as few regrets...Copy !req
1427. as I have to have been a charlatan.Copy !req
1428. But we're not so proud, either of us...Copy !req
1429. as to lay any superior claim. - .Copy !req
1430. To being very much worse
than the rest of you.Copy !req
1431. No, what we professional liars
hope to serve is truth.Copy !req
1432. I'm afraid the pompous word
for that is “art.”Copy !req
1433. Picasso himself said it.Copy !req
1434. “Art,” he said, “is a lie -Copy !req
1435. “a lie that makes us...Copy !req
1436. realize the truth.”Copy !req
1437. Oja's grandfather,
floating here in the air...Copy !req
1438. has no comment, which isn't surprising...Copy !req
1439. because he never existed.Copy !req
1440. To the memory of that great man
who will never cease to exist...Copy !req
1441. I offer my apologies...Copy !req
1442. and wish you all...Copy !req
1443. true and false...Copy !req
1444. a very pleasant good evening.Copy !req