Nicholas Hughes, son of the great American poet, Sylvia Plath, has taken his own life. According to Hughes' sister, Freida, the 47 year-old hung himself on March 16th in Alaska. Hughes had reportedly battled depression for years.

Half a decade after Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg declared their primacy, James Franco is about to begin production on "Howl," the story of Ginsberg and his obscenity trial over the film's titular poem. Walter Salles is still trying to kickstart a bigscreen version of Kerouac's "On the Road," though Salles' reps say it still doesn't have a start date. (Producer Francis Ford Coppola is used to waiting; he's held the book's feature rights since 1968.)  And the martini-soaked gray-flannel suit ad-racket drones of "Mad Men" are the epitome of what the Beats railed against.

And then there's Beat-era writer Herbert Gold, who was Ginsberg's lifelong friend and panned “On the Road” for the Nation in 1957. Says Gold, now 85: “I didn’t buy a lot of it."

A stroke of genius, this: The sole work of tragic genius and former hotel overseer Jack Torrance, best known for his portrayal by Jack Nicholson in "The Shining," has come to light. It's a slim work -- just 80 pages -- but it reflects a clarity of vision and single-minded concentration that's all but disappeared in today's Twitter-centric world.

The title? "All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy," of course.

"AWANPMJADB" is the brainchild of New York artist Phil Buehler, who tells Alison Flood, "If you're not a (Stanley) Kubrick or (Stephen) King fan, you might not even get it." Apparently, such people do exist and Buehler is engaged to one of them: "I finally showed her the movie, and she realized I wasn't really losing it," he said.

The book is available in both paperback ($8.95) and hardcover ($22.95) through publish-yourself outlet blurb.com, which also offers a free 15-page preview and, best, of all, this author bio on the back flap:

"John Daniel 'Jack' Torrance was formerly a prep school teacher before returning to writing. He died before his debut work, 'All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy,' was published." [Guardian -- thanks, Erin!] 

Today would have been the 83rd birthday of Sammy Davis, Jr., who was more than $7 million in debt when he died 18 years ago. How that happened is the story of Matt Birkbeck's "Deconstructing Sammy: Music, Money, Madness, and the Mob;" what follows are new developments in how, his children claim, his legacy was lost and why they may be able to reclaim it.

Two months before legendary entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. died from throat cancer in May 1990, his manager Shirley Rhodes and three others walked into his room at Cedar's Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, told bodyguard Brian Dellow to leave, and closed the door behind them.  When they emerged some ten minutes later, Brian walked in and saw his terminally ill employer staring aimlessly out the window.

"What was that about?" said Brian.

Sammy said it was nothing, but Brian knew otherwise.

Years later Brian, a former British intelligence officer, relayed that story during a lengthy interview I had with him in July 2007.

"What was that about?" I asked Brian.

"They changed Sammy’s will,” he said matter-of-factly.

That will, which was probated in August 1990, named Rhodes and Sammy’s Cleveland-based attorney John Climaco as co-executors of Sammy’s estate. It also gave rights to Sammy’s “name and likeness” to his troubled widow Altovise, while leaving no provisions for Sammy’s three children. 

Following Sammy’s death, Climaco and Rhodes oversaw the dismantling of the estate, selling Sammy’s Beverly Hills mansion and auctioning what was left of personal possessions that weren’t looted from his home before and after he died. In addition, nearly $4 million in insurance money disappeared.

But Sammy’s $5 million IRS tax bill – in part the result of a Climaco-created tax shelter the U.S. Tax Court ruled was fraudulent – remained, and the sale of the home and possessions failed to put a dent in the massive debt, which left the IRS no choice but to take ownership of Sammy’s name and likeness and declare his estate insolvent. 

Altovise ended up living in poverty in Pennsylvania while Sammy’s rich legacy never recovered. 

Today, because of the tax debt, the man who was arguably the greatest entertainer of the 20th Century remains a distant memory while the multi-million dollar estates of other dead legends, including Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, continue to thrive.

The story of Sammy’s tragic demise is told in my book, “Deconstructing Sammy,” which reports the numerous allegations by Brian Dellow and others close to Sammy of malfeasance and fraud perpetrated by his handlers, as well as the heroic efforts of a Pennsylvania attorney, Albert “Sonny” Murray, Jr., to right the wrongs that befell Sammy and his legacy.   

Murray, a former federal prosecutor who put E.F. Hutton out of business for check kiting in the 1980’s, subsequently spent seven years representing Altovise, ultimately settling Sammy’s debts, restoring his legacy, and getting Sammy his one and only Grammy Award (posthumously) in 2001. 

Unfortunately, even when fighting the good fight to restore a legend such as Sammy Davis Jr. to his rightful place in American culture, the care and respect shown by Murray counted little next to the forces that took Sammy’s legacy down in the first place, greed and more greed.

Altovise, wishing a return to her once glamorous life, replaced Murray in 2001 with managers whose only success was a Sammy Davis Jr. bobble-head doll. In the meantime, Murray’s IRS settlement was ignored, and Sammy’s estate again fell into tax hell, precluding once again any use of his name and likeness. 

But on the eve of what would have been Sammy’s 83rd birthday on Dec. 8, there is hope that Sammy could rise again.

The subtitle sounds like pure hyperbole -- "The Ultimate Gangster Movie and How it Changed America" -- but Ken Tucker makes a good case for it in his book "Scarface Nation," S. James Snyder reports. In 1983, Brian DePalma's film earned just $44 million and critical disdain. However, no less an authority than Snoop Dogg tells Tucker that "you can also use it the way businessmen use self-help books... 'Scarface' laid out everything a gangsta needed to know... but having a kind of morality." So why did Hollywood initially dismiss it? Writes Tucker,

"("Scarface" star) Steven Bauer repeated to me the famous anecdote about one major director's reaction: 'Marty Scorsese turned to me — he was sitting in front of me at the premiere — and he turned around and said, Steven, this is a magnificent film, but be prepared because Hollywood is going to hate this film, because it's about them.' [Producer Martin Bregman] concurred about the dim view his colleagues took of the film: 'Scorsese was right. Hollywood did hate it, hated it. We were looked at as though we were dragging filth into their living rooms.' "

Also: more than two million have downloaded "Say hello to my little friend!" as a ringtone. [Time]

New York Times
First deal: David O. Russell's book series, "Alienated", scheduled for publication in fall 2009. “It’s about having more control in the process,” said Rick Richter, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. “Typically publishers tend to stick their heads in the sand after the book hits Hollywood.” The publisher will also benefit if the books become video games, comic books or other properties.