Memo Pad: Deadwood Piece Killed
DEADWOOD PIECE KILLED: In the oddest footnote yet to The New York Times' post-Jayson Blair/Judith Miller credibility saga, editors at the Times Magazine recently scrapped a piece by author J.T. LeRoy over concerns he may not exist.
LeRoy was first commissioned by the Times to write about Disneyland Paris for the Sept. 25 edition of T: Travel Magazine. After the story was published, his editors encouraged him to keep writing for the section. LeRoy proposed a piece on "Deadwood," the gritty HBO western, and what he called the "Deadwood" state of mind. He pointed to Vera Wang's spring collection - which was inspired by the series - and increased tourism travel to Deadwood, S.D.
Since LeRoy was also working with the show's creators to write an episode for the third season, he had unique access and perspective. The Times accepted the pitch, and agreed to pay him $2,700 for the story, plus expenses. To illustrate the story, models were photographed in "Deadwood" costumes on the show's set. LeRoy turned in a draft and subsequent revisions requested by his editor.
As LeRoy, or the person playing him, told WWD by phone from the "Deadwood" set earlier this week, "Everything was as agreed."
Then came Stephen Beachy's article in New York magazine, which revived an old debate about whether LeRoy is an actual person - a 24-year-old former truck-stop hustler from West Virginia - or a fictional identity created by an eccentric woman named Laura Albert, who also goes by Emily Frasier and Speedie.
While Beachy allowed for the possibility that there is an actual J.T. LeRoy, The Washington Post's David Segal picked up on the story and wrote, "[LeRoy] appears to be one of the great literary hoaxes of our day, and it fooled a whole lot of people as well as the media, including The New York Times, which last year ran a lengthy profile of LeRoy." Segal went on to say, "Getting through this might take more than novocaine over at [the Times]. Not only did the newspaper profile LeRoy, the travel magazine also recently ran a story by LeRoy about a trip to Euro Disney."