Actors who write fiction – that would be a very short list (Ethan Hawke, anyone?). So we’re impressed by the good reviews that Molly Ringwald is attracting for her first novel, When It Happens to You. Younger readers should know that Ringwald was a big movie star back in the 1980s.Not a “very short” list, really. Off the top of my head I can think of Dirk Bogarde, Carol Drinkwater, Stephen Fry, Steve Martin, Barbara Ewing, Carrie Fisher, Robert Shaw, Julian Fellowes, Judy Cornwell and Richard E Grant. Emily Perkins started out as an actress; NZ actors Michael Galvin and Peter Feeney both had short stories published in 2000 in Boys’ Own Stories, a collection edited by Graeme Lay.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Actors who write fiction
The Waikato
Times’s weekend magazine runs books reviews and comment from – I’m
guessing, as Fairfax moves in mysterious ways – newspapers around the country.
Usually we get Philip Matthews’ column of Book News from the Press, which is a good thing.
Yesterday’s column had this item:
There must be loads more. Does crime novelist Mark
Billingham count? He is/was a stand-up comedian rather than a straight actor,
but that’s close enough for me. Even William Shatner has published novels – but
does he count he an actor?
Hugh Laurie, Michael Palin. Martin Amis was an extra in HIgh Wind in Jamaica (OK, he was about 12 at the time).
ReplyDeleteI think you will find Mark Billingham is not as good a writer as I am.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should say that, faux-RJ Ellory. I was about to update this post - when I say update, I mean tomorrow. Or tomorrrow's tomorrow. Or tomorrrow's tomorrow's tomorrow. There are more candidates.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know that this is not a pseudonym for the real thing?
ReplyDeleteStatCounter tracks all, reveals all.
ReplyDeleteCover blown. As Stella would say.
ReplyDeleteDame Stella, to you.
ReplyDelete