Edwards' mistress' bizarre past: born "Lisa Druck", subject of a Jay McInerney n

[bijou]

npincus  (1000+ posts)       Sun Aug-10-08 10:20 AM
Original message
Edwards' mistress' bizarre past: born "Lisa Druck", subject of a Jay McInerney novel...
 Advertisements [?]OK, if you are sick of threads on this subject, turn back and/or HIDE away.

Rielle Hunter is certainly a strange duck in my opinion; she has certainly led a colorful life. The contrast in personality/character between (my opinion again) this flaky, New Age lingo-spouting, rather intellecutally shallow person and the dignified Mrs. Edwards couldn't be greater.




http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1170494.html

As Lisa Druck, she was a Florida girl from the time she was born in Fort Lauderdale until she left in 1984, after spending less than two years enrolled at the University of Tampa. By 1987, she had ended up in the hard-partying New York circle of novelist Jay McInerney.

McInerney, whose books portrayed the cocaine-fueled atmosphere of New York City in the 1980s, based his third novel, "Story of My Life," on his time with Druck and their friends. One character, Alison Poole, was specifically modeled after her, McInerney said in a 2005 magazine article. He said that she had "intrigued and appalled" him.

The story, in Breathe Magazine, was primarily a transcript of a discussion between Hunter and McInerney following their reunion in Manhattan that year.

"For me you're a little bit frozen in time, a little bit Alison Poole, the 21-year-old party girl in that book who runs around New York going to nightclubs, doing drugs, and abusing credit cards," McInerney said.

She replies that she did a lot of drugs, but adds that she was struck by her character's "need for truth."

"That's definitely a theme in my life -- seeker of truth," she tells him.

Hunter tells him that she left New York to move to Los Angeles to become an actress and to get away from the drug scene in New York. She said she got off drugs in California with the help of a healer.

<snip>

She tried her hand at writing, churning out scripts for potential TV, film or stage projects with such titles as "Jupiter, Where Are You?", "So Very Virgo," "Reality Reels," "It's All About Uranus," "S- Happens: The Never Ending Search for the Perfect Diaper" and "Needy Nellie." None of the titles, which are listed in the property settlement order in the Hunters' 1999 divorce case, are in the authoritative Internet Movie Data Base.

BerryBush  (1000+ posts)       Sun Aug-10-08 10:37 AM
Response to Original message
6. Just to make things even more bizarre
 Edited on Sun Aug-10-08 10:38 AM by BerryBush
it should be noted that another of McInerney's fellow Brat Pack novelists, Bret Easton Ellis, picked up the Alison Poole character and inserted her into his novels American Psycho and Glamorama. (Patrick Bateman, the sick killer in the former, rapes her but decides for some reason not to kill her.)

Article about it here: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/08/allow_bret_easton_ellis_to_int.html

Divernan (1000+ posts)       Sun Aug-10-08 10:56 AM
Response to Original message
13. Rielle threatens: "someday the truth about her (Elizabeth) will come out."
 Also, she and McInerny pitch a tv series about "women who help men get out of failing marriages by having affairs with them." I personally think that Edwards is controlling this whacky lady by promising to marry her, "eventually", i.e., when Elizabeth dies. Clearly, he is continuing contact with her.

www.newsweek.com/id/151783

Some excerpts from the Newsweek article:
"By this point, we were each well into our second glass of wine. "So tell me," I asked, "what do you think of Elizabeth Edwards?" "I've only met her once," Rielle said. "She does not give off good energy. She didn't make eye contact with me." In NEWSWEEK, I wrote a short story about how Edwards had brought this rather unorthodox woman, whom he'd met in a bar, into his campaign to make videos that showed off his unseen side—a less slick, packaged Edwards. We ran it in the PERISCOPE section under the headline EDWARDS UNTUCKED. I didn't mention Rielle's belief in Edwards's potential to be Gandhi or her distaste for Elizabeth. I wanted to keep her as a source.

When I next saw Rielle weeks later, she told me that she'd been fired by the Edwards campaign. She seemed perfectly cheerful about it, but she proceeded to tell me a tale of woe—how the campaign hadn't understood her, how they'd ruined the Webisodes, how they'd impeded her vision and how Edwards himself had failed to defend her. The chief villain in this saga was Elizabeth Edwards. "Someday," Rielle said, "the truth about her is going to come out."

By then, I had decided that Rielle was a less than reliable source. I continued to see her, but more out of curiosity than a belief that I was going to learn much about Edwards from her. I liked Rielle. I let her do my astrological chart. I began to feel a little like the nun in that old joke who complains about receiving a three-hour obscene phone call …Why didn't I just hang up?

But I didn't. I stayed in touch with Rielle for months. At lunch at the Soho House in late spring of '07, Rielle told me that she and novelist Jay McInerney were working on a "genius" idea for a television show about women who help men get out of failing marriages by having affairs with them. She said they wanted to pitch this idea to Darren Star, creator of "Melrose Place" and "Sex and the City." At lunch early that summer, I asked Rielle if she was dating anyone. She answered simply, "I'm in love." I asked, "Who with?" "I can't tell you," she said, "but maybe someday we'll all be friends."


 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3769836


Some interesting stuff about the lovely Rielle. 

[BannedFromDU]

     Basicaly, "Rielle" or whatever is one of those refugees from the 80's, who couldn't get enough blow or enough of the nightlife. Go rent one of those mid-80's beach-themed teen exploitation movies, and she'll at least be an extra in all of them.

     I liked her better when she was called "Tawny Kitaen."

[DixieBelle]

Wow. I can't wait until she decides to burn John and tell all. Even if she's whacked.

[BannedFromDU]

Wow. I can't wait until she decides to burn John and tell all. Even if she's whacked.

     "Um, like, I totally met John at this cool bar we both hang out at. He had his collar flipped up and this awesome tan,
and he just ordered a Foster's in the can. I was drinking a Bartle's & Jaymes and was eyeing this totally cool Porsche
911 in the parking lot. When he flashed the key fob, I saw it was his, so I thought, 'wow, the stars are like totally lined up
for me to meet him. I mean, there was even a Whitesnake song playing on the jukebox!' So I..."

     "Uh, Riellee, I think you're remembering another time in your life...sounds like the Eighties."

     "Oh, am I? Sorry. Oh, now I remember: I offered him a BJ and he said OK. The rest is basically history."

[RightCoast]

Hunter tells him that she left New York to move to Los Angeles to become an actress and to get away from the drug scene

 


Yup, no drugs in LA - good call there.

[Chris_]

Um, this claim that a character was based on her... is this like LOVE STORY being based on Al and Tipper?

[Chris_]

Wow. I can't wait until she decides to burn John and tell all. Even if she's whacked.

     "Um, like, I totally met John at this cool bar we both hang out at. He had his collar flipped up and this awesome tan,
and he just ordered a Foster's in the can. I was drinking a Bartle's & Jaymes and was eyeing this totally cool Porsche
911 in the parking lot. When he flashed the key fob, I saw it was his, so I thought, 'wow, the stars are like totally lined up
for me to meet him. I mean, there was even a Whitesnake song playing on the jukebox!' So I..."

     "Uh, Riellee, I think you're remembering another time in your life...sounds like the Eighties."

     "Oh, am I? Sorry. Oh, now I remember: I offered him a BJ and he said OK. The rest is basically history."