Showbiz411

Well, I should have written this two days ago when I knew it. But no one at Penguin called me back. Anyway, they’ve signed Damien Echols of the “West Memphis Three” to write a memoir which will be published in September 2012. Echols told me about it at the premiere of “Paradise Lost 3″ the other night but the Penguin people kept the story on ice. Oh well. Echols and his wife Laurie Davis are now in New Zealand, as I reported before, with director Peter Jackson. There’s talk that Jackson is giving Echols a small role in “The Hobbit” while the couple is there. Why not? After 17 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, Echols can have anything he wants. Echols has self published another book you can find on amazon.com from a few years ago. Comedian actress Margaret Cho was responsible for that one. Echols is not the only member of the West Memphis Three. There’s a fund to help the other guys, and they need it.  You can find it at http://www.wm3.org/

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.