Yes, you heard it right. This is not identity THEFT.
It’s done for Celebrities, who willingly pay a lot of money to professional writers on condition they remain anonymous.
They’re called “Ghosts”.
You would be forgiven if you thought that the best-selling book “Fatherhood” was written by Bill Cosby. You’d be wrong. It was written by Ralph Schoenstein. He was quite a guy.
He also wrote “Time Flies” for Bill, published in 1988. And he wrote “Here’s Johnny!” for Ed McMahon, published just last year, and which Ed is busy promoting on the usual circuit as we speak.
The thing is, if you bought any of these books, you would not find his name appearing anywhere. I guess that does add a premium to his take-home, because otherwise he’d be a lesser paid “co-writer”.
Autobiographies make big money for their celebrity subjects for very little work, they just have to sit still for a few hours, as though having their portraits painted, and mouth off.
As for Ralph, sorry to report that he died last week. Perhaps his headstone will remain blank too.