Tom Hanks has bought the rights to the book Charlie Wilson’s War.
More than a year after publication of the book Charlie Wilson’s War, the Washington lobbyist and former Texas congressman continues to ride the wave of interest in his story.
Last week, Wilson entertained Houstonians by the scores with the tale — from a distant diplomatic era — of his surreptitious arming of the Afghans in battle against the Russians.
In addition to speeches before several nonprofit groups, the popular Texan was the toast of a few private gatherings. A bonus for those audiences — Wilson’s insights into the current conflagrations in the region.
Mary and Evans Atwell invited 60 friends to the Bayou Club Wednesday night for dinner with Wilson and his wife of five years, Barbara. News to many at the dinner — Tom Hanks has bought movie rights to the book written by George Crile.
This is from Shelby Hodge’s gossip column, so the rest is about various Boldfaced Types (tm, Betsy Parrish) and the parties they attended. I just wanted to note that I have a copy of Charlie Wilson’s War on loan from Ginger and hope to read it in the near future.
I think my favorite Charlie Wilson story is told in one of Molly Ivins’ books. Wilson liked gadabouting in South America, and he stirred up his share of trouble along the way, to the point where his life was threatened by some politician or other. Wilson gave it no heed, but the threat made its way to his mother’s ears, and she panicked. After trying to reach him on the phone for a few days but failing – because he was off in South America again, of course – she finally called House Speaker Tip O’Neill. According to Wilson, the call he then got from O’Neill went like this: “I just spent an hour on the phone with your mother. I don’t HAVE an hour to spend on the phone with your mother. Get your ass back to Washington and stay there.”
I’ll definitely be interested in seeing the movie. It was a great read, and I think it has a lot of potential to be a great movie (although they could always ruin it with bad casting, etc.).
Wilson’s a great character, and I can see why Hanks would want to play him. The CIA lead would be pretty meaty too.
We went to Charlie Wilson’s panel at the Texas Book Fest last year, and he totally delivered, from the tales told to the wife he had with him. The guy’s been part of creating some awful stuff, no doubt, but he was just as charming as Molly Ivins said. I wonder how compelling his story will be to the non-Texans of the moviegoing world, though.
Hi, Can anyone advise the name of Charlie Wilson’s current lobbyhing firm? Thanks, RMT
I worked with Charlie on several of his campaigns, producing his TV commercials. I have many stories to tell, but I particularly remember one of this TV spots, which involved him throwing an AK-47 into the Neches River, as he vowed to keep the Russians off the shores of the U.S. Ha! To film the spot we loaded Charlie in a canoe with the AK-47 (empty of course) in the bottom of the boat as we traveled down the river to the film location. It ocurred to us that we made a strange sight for any backwoods East Texas resident we might come upon. I’m glad we didn’t get shot ourselves. Some of those folks are not too fond of outsiders traveling through their woods!
CONGRATULATIONS CHARLIE ON THE MOVIE. BUT, WHAT ABOUT ME? SINCE I WAS YOUR FAVORITE DEFENSE LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANT, AND DID MAKE THE BOOK, (REMEMBER THE USS SARATOGA) AND WAS IN PLAYBOY’S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN GOVERNMENT IN 1980, SHOULDN’T I PLAY MYSELF IN THE MOVIE AS WELL. YOU GO CHARLIE………….