--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> New York Post [Page Six] - February 24, 2006
>
> STARS BACKED JT BOOK FRAUD
>
> WINONA Ryder and other celebrity "intimates" of
> fictitious writer JT
> Leroy were part of the conspiracy that pulled off
> the biggest
> literary hoax this side of James Frey.
>
> Courtney Love, Rosario Dawson, Tatum O'Neal and
> Susan Dey all claimed
> they were friends of the made-up teen
> hooker-turned-bard. And Italian
> actress Asia Argento even once told PAGE SIX that
> she was having
> Leroy's baby.
>
> It seems clear now that at least Ryder and Argento
> always knew that
> "JT Leroy" was actually Savannah Knoop, a California
> woman who posed
> as the imaginary writer under wigs and oversize
> sunglasses at book
> readings, and that Leroy's prose was actually
> written by Laura Albert.
>
> Argento had reason to play along. She was hyping her
> movie "The Heart
> Is Deceitful Above All Things," which is based on
> the Leroy
> short-story collection and which hits theaters March
> 10.
>
> The film's red-faced producers recently had to
> rewrite their press
> releases once the hoax was exposed. Variety reports
> the pitch now
> describes the meandering mess of a movie - which
> stars Peter Fonda,
> Marilyn Manson and Michael Pitt - as "the back story
> of one character
> who rocked the world of literature, fashion, music
> and film without
> ever existing."
>
> No celeb was more complicit in the scheme than
> Ryder, who spun a tall
> tale to Steve Garbarino for his 2003 Vanity Fair
> piece, "The Divine
> JT Sisterhood," about how she befriended Leroy when
> he was a teenage
> street urchin right after her breakup with Johnny
> Depp.
>
> "I had two tickets to the opera, and I was, like, 'I
> don't want to go
> alone,' " Ryder said. "And then I saw this kid
> standing near the
> doors to the opera house, and he was trying to
> listen in. He was a
> total ragamuffin. So I said, 'Hey, I have this extra
> ticket. Do you
> want to go see the opera?' He was too young to be
> creepy. He said,
> 'Oh, my God! I really wanted to see this!' I think
> it was 'La Boheme.'
>
> "And he was crying throughout it. And I started
> crying for my own
> reasons, watching this beautiful kid so affected,
> someone his age
> grasping it. We went to this diner afterward and
> talked. I wanted to
> take care of him, have him move in, but he said he
> was heading back
> south. I fell in love with him. And I've been in
> love with him ever
> since."
>
> Ryder's rep declined to comment about her
> Oscar-worthy performance.
> ___________________________________
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