I think Patricia Cornwell needs to sell a lot more of her books to Hollywood, because she is running out of money fast. At one point, her personal fortune was estimated to be about $100M. Now she is down to her final $13M. The thing is she and her wife spend money like crazy. $5M a year on private jets, you know, because first class is too shabby. Have you noticed the Beckhams have a ton of money and a bazillion kids, but rarely fly private because it sucks the money out of you so fast. They fly it only when someone else is paying. Patricia and her former business managers are involved in a lawsuit where she says they stole her money and they say she spent money like a drunken sailor. So far, their side seems to be making the best points. $500K a year just on HOA fees at Trump Tower. The $11M country estate in Massachusetts.
Job one: lose the 80's jacket. Offensive!!
ReplyDeleteBwahhahaha!
DeleteI love her books! I will NEVER are a movie where Angie is Scarpetta. And holy crap, never knew she liked the ladies.
ReplyDelete*see
DeleteAbsolutely agree with you. I've been reading Scarpetta for years and there is no way on Earth that Jolie could pull it off. Ever.
DeleteAngie could play crazy Carrie Grethren though lol
DeleteJennifer Lawrence as Lucy too. She's annoying enough.
DeleteMaybe MC Hammer could give her some financial advice.
ReplyDeleteDidn't she spend like $10m to try to prove Jack the Ripper was that painter dude?
ReplyDeleteAnd now Walter Sickert gets to laugh from the great beyond!
DeleteYes, him! Thanks Mari, I was too lazy to Google. :)
DeleteLola I have to admit to being pretty much able to come up with way more JTR info than you could ever want at the drop of a black silk top hat. I've been a Ripperologist since I was about 7, so I was interested in PC's ideas, until I read the book. Then watched her, well not so much back up her hypothesis as insist she was right no matter how many things couldn't fit with the facts.
DeletePeople who never have money and make it all of a sudden tend to be the worse when it comes to excess.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised none of her books have been made into movies.
ReplyDeleteThe books have been awful for the last eight years. They used to be great. Now she's phoning it in.
ReplyDeleteI agree with katie - I had to quit her books years ago. I wanted to punch the niece through the pages of my books.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it like to have money like that? That is so crazy.
How can you blow $87 million like that and not have a tailor?
ReplyDeleteMost football players are broke 5 years after they retire. People think the money will last forever and a few bad investments and poof! it's gone.
ReplyDeleteshe looks like meg ryan's old face there.
ReplyDeleteDave Ramsey needs to step in and give her some advice.
She looks like a melted version of the mom from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
ReplyDelete*Gasp* a mere $13mil!! How ever will they lead normal lives! Say it ain't so!
ReplyDeletePatricia Cornwell is gay, and she's also a Republican. Interesting.
ReplyDeleteYes, if this lady could amass a $100M fortune on books alone, imagine what she could make from movies and TV.
Wasn't the "wife" married to another FBI agent but messing with Patricia behind his back.Hubby got wind of it and tried to kill them both but was foiled.The story didn't get as much publicity as it should.
ReplyDeleteIt did on one of those broadcast crime shows. It was a twisty situation. Smh @ all of them.
DeleteI thought I was the only one who cared!! Wow, I am so happy. If Angie is Scarpetta I am not going to see the movies either. Angie could be the bitchy lawyer friend that Scarpetta's niece (Lucy) has the ongoing affair with. But that's it, no Scarpetta. Jodie Foster would have made a great Scarpetta, or Gillian Anderson or Mariska Hargitay.
ReplyDeleteShe could sell endless numbers of Scarpetta books bc there are millions of fans who are hooked. I hope she can get her spending under control.
I seriously thought it was a joke when I first heard she was even being considered for the role.
DeleteSpoiler alert! Bitchy lawyer friend killed off in latest book. I don't see Jolie as Scarpetta either, and would not go to the movie. Just as I have never watched an episode of "Bones" because they miscast Temperence Brennan.
DeleteAnd I thought I was the only person in the world who can't stand the niece.
@just curious - that was her relationship before she met her wife. Her wife is a psychiatrist at Harvard.
ReplyDelete@Just shit that sounds like a crazy story! She needs to make that into a screenplay or novel, make some money back.
ReplyDeleteI loved her books but gave up on them when she had Scarpetta make a rookie safety mistake (it's been so long I don't even remember which book, or exactly what happened). That was the closest I have ever come to throwing a book across the room. I am done, done, done with them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, she blew a wad on the Sickert thing. But $500K in HOA fees at Trump Towers?! That's madness / quite the racket.
And I read somewhere that she likes to gamble...I know some people who have worked with her ...yes on the private planes ...oddly she is not generous when gifting others, her Christmas gifts were tins of brownies...
ReplyDeleteHoly shit I googled it & that is one crazy story. I read the DM article & the one part said PC was passionately making love to her hand lol. The way she described Scarpetta, I always kinda pictured PC herself.
ReplyDeleteHer books used to be good, but at some point (don't remember which book exactly) she completely switched styles. The plots were still OK, but the people in the books shrank from rounded to completely flat. I've always thought she must have started using a ghost writer or something, to suddenly become so completely different. And awful.
ReplyDeleteObviously, she doesn't learn...
ReplyDeletehttp://nyti.ms/VakwMc
(long article from 15 years ago in which she had the same issues)
she's crazy. her first couple of books were just okay and the rest are just plain silly, IMO.
ReplyDelete@just curious
ReplyDeleteI also thought that Pauline and her now wife began their affair when Pauline was doing research at Quantico? (and when the agent and his wife were still together).
@just curious - that was her relationship before she met her wife. Her wife is a psychiatrist at Harvard.
ReplyDelete8:33 AM
___________________________________
Thx for clarifying.
LOL,wrecked one woman's marriage and moved on.
See,a woman can do anything a man can do ,good and bad.
I hope she makes her life into a book! It sounds as exciting as Jeanette Winterson's.
ReplyDelete@Syko
ReplyDeleteYes, I had forgotten that. Even more reason to have Angelina play the lawyer!!
I think she lost control of the movie rights to her books....
ReplyDeleteLongtime reader, first time poster.
ReplyDeleteI work in media and she came to promote a book a few years back. The day before she was due, the head of her "security detail" called to request a walk-through of the premises, and a floor map of the entire building, including all routes of egress. Also a full list of our employees, including names/addresses/SS numbers, etc. It was BANANAS--we had had Presidents, VPs and every known A+ celeb ever known in our building and no one--even Secret Service--had ever gone to the lengths her team did. She has incredible delusions of her own importance.
And I agree that her books' quality took a serious nosedive 8-10 years ago.
@JD Klein -- hoooooly cow. Delusions of grandeur, indeed!
ReplyDelete@Mari -- Longtime Ripperologist too! You may be interested to know that this exists: @WChapelRealTime: Follow the Whitechapel police investigations of 1888 from the perspective of the detectives, officers and Whitechapel residents. Created by @TheHistoryPress, East London · http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/
Pretty sure they are the same folks who did real-time Titanic last year--this one, I think, is set to start tweeting later this year. :)
I used to read her books as soon as they came out and enjoyed them. In the last couple of years I have found it hard to get through them, she spends so much time describing scenes, etc I just flip through it. I started to feel like she is just pumping them out to get money and not really putting the thought behind it like her earlier books (similar, in my opinion, to how Grisham and Danielle Steele went)
ReplyDeleteShe could be Meg Ryan's doppelganger! In a manish sort of way. Come on, nobody NEEDS to spend that type of money, unless maybe they're trying to keep a gold digger around. Get over yourself, go by a mcdonalds hamburger, go sit at the park or the beach, and realise that you don't have to be wiping your ass with 100's to be happy ladies! The best things in life are free.
ReplyDeleteWhat decade was this photo taken in? The clothes, the feathered mullet ... I'm dying. I guarantee she has a duck tail in the back LMAO.
ReplyDeletePoor baby, only 13 million? How will she ever survive? She might have to do horrid things like cook for herself and drive her own car.
ReplyDeleteFlying private blows through money as does owning multiple houses. A couple of mill for the house plus upkeep at another 100k a year.
sorry rosemary, but she is def NOT a republican! that's hilarious! in fact, one of patricia's first lesbo loves was the virginia atty. general mary sue terry. that woman is part of the va. democrat machine. it was the worst secret in richmond in the late 80s that mary sue terry and cornwell were lovers/gfs. patricia was always at mary sue's side for all the dem fundraisers. i know b/c i was a page in the va general assembly as a kid with family in the newspaper biz in richmond.
ReplyDeleteShe was raised next to Billy and Ruth Graham, considered them family, she has very close relationship with the Bush family, vacationing often with them in Kennebunkport, dedicated a book to Laura Bush, etc. Why someone thought it was odd that she's gay and might vote Republican is confusing. I know a huge number of gay u from my days working I politics, etc. She obviously isn't handling her money well, but the folks she is suing have all been in court for the same thing, well before PC came around.
DeleteThey seem so similar that sometimes I get Jodie Foster and PC confused. JF should totally play Scarpetta.
ReplyDeleteI tried reading her stuff years ago (pre-Scarpetta) and just couldn't get through it. The voicing of the cat's thoughts and opinions of her master pushed me over the edge. It was so amateurish that I felt embarrassed for her, and wondered how she ever got published.
ReplyDelete@Unknown - you're getting your lesbian authors mixed up. You're thinking of Rita Mae Brown, who's written a series of mysteries from her cats POV.
ReplyDeleteBTW, does anyone else remember hearing about Diane Sawyer having an affair with Cornwell years ago?
@MalibuBarbie I <3 both your comments.
DeleteMalibuBarbie, yes. Several articles out there about Sawyer and Cornwell
Delete@MISCH, that is very telling about her personality that she would blow through $80mil+ on her own lifestyle and give BROWNIES as gifts for other people. I mean, I like brownies, but they aren't the kind of thing you gift people when you've amassed a $100 million fortune!
ReplyDeleteAs for her jacket-I've noticed that some of the wealthiest people wear the worst clothes. Look at all the movie stars who make $$$ per film and consistently show up at premieres looking terrible.
I was just searching my kindle yesterday for her books. I am with everyone else in that my Mom and I would get her books as soon as they came out and I haven't read one in years because they got so bad. I was thinking of downloading one yesterday, but can't remember the last one I read. @ Kelly that is exactly what I thought about the last book I read that it just drug on and on with descriptions.
ReplyDeleteI also think she was diagnosed bi-polar a while back and she said that it is why she had a few years without new books.
I was always surprised that movies were never made. Jodie Foster is who I always thought should play her too (or Meg Ryan based on this picture)
She has had many personal and financial issues in her life since hitting it big. If I recall she was also involved in a very messy relationship that blew up and probably cost a bit to clean up.
ReplyDeleteHer books sell some to loyal readers but it's been a long time since she had a blockbuster like her early books.
It will take a lot of very successful books to make the kind of money she spends. Making films of her successful early books would probably be the way to make that kind of money but I kind of wonder if some of the technology she writes about has changed quite a bit since she wrote them. She was meticulous in her research about Scarpetta's work and I would think a lot of the science would have really developed in the past few years--so there would be some updating to do.
I have read all her early books and have met her at book signings and the booksellers convention a couple of times--she's quite intense and very intelligent.
Shecshould be making bank from selling creations for tv and movies but suspect she is incredibly difficult work with and Hollywood decided they didn't want another Clive Cussler situation. Plus most of her stories, while decent reads, have no more complexity then average CSI episode. Especially once remove over kill character traits and tendency to have other possessing critical info from the beginning but everyone's excessive distrust and inability to communicate drags out the share until the end. Also Lucy is the most annoying character ever created.
ReplyDeleteLearn from Annie Leibowitz's mistakes; if you spend as though you are printing it, it isn't going to last, no matter how much you are making. I've never read anything she's written but I know she was hugely popular. Haven't really heard anything about her in a long time.
ReplyDeleteThe stories about her sense of self-importance are both hilarious and really pathetic. Get over yourself Patricia.
Her husband was an English professor and she divorced him in 1989. I suspect that he either ghostwrote or extensively edited her books because they used to be quite good and now I can't read them. I hate the niece, I hate Marino and I hate Scarpetta. Isle of Dogs was probably the worst novel I have ever attempted to read. My friend who was also a Cornwell fan thought that her copy had possibly been misassembled at the publisher because it was so nonsensical.
ReplyDelete@JW -- very interesting. I think you're on to something.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was alone in my thinking about character development & the quality of the books. Benton coming back from the dead, Marino attempting to rape her, Lucy turning into the biggest b*tch...I don't know where she went astray but she did. The money spent has to involve some kind of gambling or something big, ree dic u lous!!!
ReplyDeleteWell, I've always said that wives and mistresses cost money (especially the pretty ones). Being a baller costs too (ask Jay-Z and Diddy). You need money to stay in the game. She needs to figure this out fast or start shedding dead weight.
ReplyDeleteI used to really enjoy her books. Read them all. 10 or more years ago I read one that was so bad, that I promptly ripped it in half (crosswise) upon finishing it -- to save anyone else from even trying to read it. Haven't read one since.
ReplyDeletePinky--I bet it was the same book I read, ha ha.
ReplyDelete