Sunday morning I watched a TV interview / profile of Glenn Close. One of her most famous roles was as the seriously crazy book editor Alex Forrest in the movie Fatal Attraction.
During the interview, I learned that the movie's original ending was for Glenn's character to kill herself. This was changed, and now Glenn's character tries to kill her lover's wife. Glenn herself said in the interview that she fought against the changed ending, thinking that the original ending was a better fit for the character.
Fittingly enough, Sunday evening I read Gary Taylor's new book Luggage By Kroger
. This is the real-life story of Gary's involvement with Catherine Mehaffey Shelton, a Texas attorney associated with a distressingly long list of dead bodies.
Taylor tells a very entertaining (in a "glad-it's-not-me" fashion) story of his involvement with Mehaffey during 1979 and early 1980. Basically, Taylor was broke - he was using Kroger grocery sacks as luggage, hence the book's title - getting a divorce and working as a reporter for a Houston paper. There he met Mehaffey, prime suspect for the beating death of her boyfriend, George Tederos.
Apparently, nobody ever told Taylor "don't stick your dick into crazy." Well, he did, and on the 4 month anniversary of that event, Mehaffey put a bullet into Taylor's back. Obviously Taylor survived (and wrote an entertaining book about the experience) but what I found really interesting was the juxtaposition of Close's opinion and Taylor's reality. In short, obsessive people really do get violent.
Here's the thing - obsession of this type is not rational, and it's not love. It's about an irrational need to control others. To the obsessive person, failure is not a option. Thus, the level of violence and irrationality is escalated to the point of no return.
I'll have a more formal review of Luggage By Kroger later this week, but Taylor's book is a fascinating and entertaining look at obsession.
During the interview, I learned that the movie's original ending was for Glenn's character to kill herself. This was changed, and now Glenn's character tries to kill her lover's wife. Glenn herself said in the interview that she fought against the changed ending, thinking that the original ending was a better fit for the character.
Fittingly enough, Sunday evening I read Gary Taylor's new book Luggage By Kroger
Taylor tells a very entertaining (in a "glad-it's-not-me" fashion) story of his involvement with Mehaffey during 1979 and early 1980. Basically, Taylor was broke - he was using Kroger grocery sacks as luggage, hence the book's title - getting a divorce and working as a reporter for a Houston paper. There he met Mehaffey, prime suspect for the beating death of her boyfriend, George Tederos.
Apparently, nobody ever told Taylor "don't stick your dick into crazy." Well, he did, and on the 4 month anniversary of that event, Mehaffey put a bullet into Taylor's back. Obviously Taylor survived (and wrote an entertaining book about the experience) but what I found really interesting was the juxtaposition of Close's opinion and Taylor's reality. In short, obsessive people really do get violent.
Here's the thing - obsession of this type is not rational, and it's not love. It's about an irrational need to control others. To the obsessive person, failure is not a option. Thus, the level of violence and irrationality is escalated to the point of no return.
I'll have a more formal review of Luggage By Kroger later this week, but Taylor's book is a fascinating and entertaining look at obsession.