Can You Ever Forgive Me?

“In 1991, celebrity biographer and multidirectional crank Lee Israel found herself desperate, between projects, unable to get her calls returned, alone with her cats and behind on her rent. Then she hit on a moneymaking idea that also scratched her literary itch: Across nearly two years, with the help of a barfly accomplice, she carefully forged 400-odd letters presumably written by her literary and show business idols, Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich and Fanny Brice among them.

The scam worked until it didn’t.”

- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune