The weekend is over and I know we’re all wondering the same thing… how did the opening of the Edinburgh International Book Festival go?!?!
Well, The Times can tell you all about it. Lurking amidst their report was this interesting tidbit:
Actor Dominic West was also spotted and Ian McDiarmid, who played the Emperor in Star Wars, appeared playing the part of Frank Sinatra in an event with Andrew O’Hagan. O’Hagan, who was also accompanied on stage by Suzanne Bertish and Andrew Hawley, announced that a film adaptation of his book, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe, will shortly go into production starring George Clooney as Frank Sinatra and Angelina Jolie as Marilyn Monroe. It is not yet known who will be playing Maf the dog.
Emperor Sinatra? Man, someone get a clip of that up on youtube, please. So what’s the story with this book? Quoth Amazon:
In November 1960, Frank Sinatra gave Marilyn Monroe a dog. His name was Mafia Honey, or Maf for short. He had an instinct for celebrity. For politics. For psychoanalysis. For literature. For interior decoration. For Liver Treat with a side order of National Biscuits.
Maf was with Marilyn for the last two years of her life, first in New York, where she mixed with everyone who was anyone—the art dealer Leo Castelli, Lee Strasberg and the Actor’s Studio crowd, Upper West Side émigrés—then back to Los Angeles. She took him to meet President Kennedy and to Hollywood restaurants, department stores, and interviews. To Mexico, for her divorce. With style, brilliance, and panache, Andrew O’Hagan has drawn an altogether original portrait of the woman behind the icon, and the dog behind the woman.
Exciting famous events re-told through the eyes of a pet, huh? I hope Maf helps Marilyn invent bifocals.* The book doesn’t hit shelves until this December. If this film does indeed happen Jolie will join the growing Monroe hog-pile along with Noami Watts and Michelle Williams.
* Sorry, Ben and Me joke.
