Here's is a copy of an e-mail that I sent to Mr. E. J. Fleming, the person who foisted this terrible book on the American public while charging them 25 bucks apiece for it.
Dear Mr. Fleming,
I am writing to you concerning one of the most egregious instances of bad reporting that I have ever witnessed in my entire lifetime of buying and reading non-fiction books about Hollywood actors and films. Your book "Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites" is what I'm talking about here. I will give you very specific examples of what I mean by `bad reporting.' I could also say that it just lack of any kind of research at all on your part, since the facts in your book could be confirmed or rejected by just a little bit of research.
On page 56, "Tour 4: The Sunset Strip" in a section about John Belushi, you write (and I quote verbatim): `...Belushi...was able to turn his popularity into roles in movies such as "Animal House" (1979), "Blues Brothers" (1981) and "Neighbors" (1977).' (Unquote)
Not one of those movies was released in the year you specified and you incorrectly titled one of the films (it's 'THE Blues Brothers'). Here are the facts about those films and their release years: "Animal House" (1978), "The Blues Brothers" (1980) and "Neighbors" (1981).
On that same page, you write these ignorant words about actor Sal Mineo (again, I quote verbatim from your book):
`...Sal Mineo starred in "The Rose Tattoo" (1951) [and] "West Side Story" (1952)' (Unquote)
Mr. Fleming, I don't even know what to think of a film reference book that makes these kind of terribly obvious errors concerning the subjects of their expertise. It's shocking, actually. Did you know that "The Rose Tattoo" starred Burt Lancaster and was released in 1955? Did you also know that Sal Mineo was nowhere near "West Side Story" (that means he wasn't in the movie; I think that you're mistaking him for Richard Beymer, sadly) and that film was released in 1961, was actually the Oscar winner for Best Picture of 1961, which any self-proclaiming film fan, like yourself, should know. Later in the same article about Sal Mineo, you write (again, quoting verbatim): `Mineo's...career was on the skids and he was relegated to roles like a nameless monkey in 1972's `Planet of the Apes"' (Unquote)
Wow. As anybody who knows ANYTHING about film in the latter part of the 20th century knows, "Planet of the Apes" was released in 1968 and Sal Mineo wasn't in that film. He was, however, in the second sequel to that film, which was released in 1971 and was called "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" and he played a character with a name; it was Milo. Crazy how many inaccuracies you can fit into one small paragraph. I'm astounded.
This is as far as I got with your book. My jaw was hanging slack with incredulity at the lameness of your pathetically researched book. I felt sick that I had actually spent money on it, MY hard-earned money. Listen, I had already found other inaccuracies with release years in your book before I got to page 56 but the ineptitude of that page, THAT was the breaking point for me. I threw it down on the ground in disgust and went no further. Your book is no doubt riddled with false information and sloppy research. God knows if your addresses are incorrect or if you got other facts wrong; I'm sure that you did. You give books like this a really bad name. I'd like a refund. Quickly, please.
Yes, I hated it. I expect a refund soon.
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