People in the News for July 24, 1997

Thursday, July 24, 1997 | 9:40 a.m.

Andrew Cunanan may be dead but His Story is still alive and potentially lucrative -- brace yourself for some serious press release. After all, this is America, where today's 60-point headline is tomorrow's hastily assembled, badly written, breathlessly titled, cheaply printed paperback quickie. First in line (so far): St. Martin's Press, which must have been in pounce mode since the minute Cunanan's name surfaced in the murder of Gianni Versace. The company has engaged Englishman Wensley Clarkson to hastily assemble and badly write a breathlessly titled Cunanan bio, "Death at Every Stop." It should be in bookstores by the end of August, on the markdown tables by mid-September, and completely faded from memory by next spring -- when journalist Maureen Orth's Cunanan book hits the stands. Orth, however, is no mere British hired pen. A respected correspondent for Vanity Fair, she's been working on a Cunanan story for two months. How close to the case has she been? In the hours preceding Versace's killing, Orth received a call saying "something big" would happen. Was her phone friend Cunanan himself? "I don't know," she says. There are undoubtedly many more Cunanan volumes by British hacks in the offing, but perhaps we'll wait for the Oliver Stone-produced cable miniseries.

Making more books

Even here in America, where today's celebrity pastime is tomorrow's large-format, ghostwritten, picture-heavy book -- Oprah cooks! Kathie Lee knits a potholder! -- some still come as a surprise. Imagine composing the jacket copy for this: Patrick Ewing's big book of art! It seems the New York Knicks center has more going for him than elbow-banging low-post moves and a soft outside jumper. "I talk about art all the time," he says. Oh, to be a fly on the locker-room wall during those post-game discussions of Carravagio! He'll distill his voluminous art-historical knowledge into a children's book about art (to be written with an art-instruction expert) that may even include a few of Ewing's own paintings. "I am a little realistic and a little abstract," Ewing says of his genre-transcending style. "I don't want to pigeonhole myself. I do whatever I feel." This is no passing fancy, either. "I always wanted to be an artist, ever since I was small," Ewing says. Wait -- he was small?

Jewell suit

Time for a little word association: We say, "Richard Jewell"; you say "umm ... uhh ... what?" We say, "Onetime Olympic Park bombing suspect"; you say "Oh, that Richard Jewell!" That Richard Jewell is still seething over that association that he's sicced his legal beagles on the press gang he believes tried and convicted him. Wednesday he sued the New York Post for $15 million, charging libel and defamation; this after already receiving settlements from NBC and CNN. The paper is accused of falsely depicting Jewell as a man with a questionable past and aberrant personality. Jewell also has a suit pending against the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It all sounds a little realistic and a little abstract; we can hardly wait for the hastily assembled, badly written, cheaply printed paperback.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets