Late Friday afternoon, our colleagues at FishbowlNY and their West Coast cousins alerted us to an item on the New York magazine Vulture blog about some potential plagiarism by Joe Eszterhas, “the legendarily outrageous and well-paid screenwriter of Basic Instinct, Showgirls, and Flashdance.” Specifically, the item suggests that many of the quotations about Paddy Chayefsky‘s life and career that appear in Eszterhas’ The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood appear to have been lifted, without acknowledgment, from Mad as Hell, a 13-year-old biography of Chayefsky by Shaun Considine.
“By the generally accepted rules of attribution in book publishing,” say the Vultures, “most writers and editors would agree that Considine deserves credit for the years of research and interviews he conducted with Chayefsky, his family, and dozens of colleagues.” Then again, some might see the casual approach to attribution as perfectly reasonable for a pop book that’s hardly being presented to the world as an academic tome. Either way, the only recognition of other people’s research Eszterhas offers is a reference to “the diabolical wit and wisdom of the players quoted in this book, some captured by me and some by others.” Which raises the question: Are there any other books that Eszterhas might have gone through with a highlighter? We shall see…
*Yes, the reference is slightly obscure if you’re not in showbiz; for that matter, we recognize that Eszterhaus (whose photo comes from Getty Images by way of Vulture) has probably upgraded to a laptop by now.