After nearly 100,000 copies of the Bush bio were distributed in the fall of 1999, the book was abruptly recalled by its publisher, St. Martin’s Press, when it was disclosed that the book’s author, syndicated columnist and writer J. H. Hatfield, had been convicted of trying to murder a former colleague. That seemed to be the death of the book as well; but then a little-known New York-based publisher, Soft Skull Press, resuscitated it in early 2000.
Husband-and-wife filmmaking team Suki Hawley and Mike Galinsky, whose company, Rumur Inc., has produced two feature films and more than 50 short-subject videos, tracked the attempts by Hatfield and Soft Skull publisher Sander Hicks to get the book out, and the tragic toll it took on the author. Hatfield was found dead last July in a motel room in Springdale, Ark., after overdosing on drugs in an apparent suicide.
The resulting documentary, “Horns and Halos,” opened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival last month and was the opening picture at this week’s Underground Film Festival in New York City. It travels next to Washington. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett spoke with codirector Suki Hawley about the film, and its shocking conclusion.
NEWSWEEK: Why did you do this documentary?
Suki Hawley: My husband and I were on a plane in 1999 coming back from the screening of our last project, “Radiation,” at a film festival in Thailand and we were reading the International Herald Tribune. Way in the back of the first section, on page A25, there was this little story about a book with some contentious allegations about George W. Bush that was being pulled by its publisher. It just stuck in our minds. That was the first time we’d heard about “Fortunate Son.” It seemed odd or too fortuitous for the Bush camp that the book was being pulled off the shelves. We were a little curious about it.
Then a couple days later, [Soft Skull publisher] Sander Hicks just happened to contact my husband because he was then working on an underground-culture Web site and Sander wanted to see if he could post some information on a new book he was publishing called “Fortunate Son.” We said, interesting, we just read about that, and we’d like to do a documentary about it.
What was your impression of Sander Hicks, who made it his mission to republish and distribute “Fortunate Son” when St. Martin’s backed out? What is he doing now?
We went over to meet him, and he came out right away with a statement: “We have a right to publish this book.” It was great; it was the first thing we shot. Within the first two seconds of meeting him, I was nudging my husband, Mike, and saying, This is great, we have a character. And I realized the story would unfold through someone, which is what you really want.
He is definitely a character. He has such great energy that it was sometimes all over the place, but it seemed like it would be a great opportunity for the book to get out through someone with this determination and drive and charisma. There were always all kinds of things going on with him. He was at the screening last night, and we stay in touch. He has taken time off from Soft Skull Press now to write a biography about Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove.
After speaking with the author James Hatfield, as well as a number of journalists who tried to verify some of his claims, what are your thoughts on the book’s allegations that President George W. Bush used cocaine?
I think the book is really well-written and it’s a great book. Even Pete Slover, the reporter we interviewed from the Dallas Morning News, said the book is a great compendium of all the information out there about Bush. But I don’t have an opinion on the alleged cocaine use. I think it is something we’ll never know. Hatfield said he had three different sources, and then he said that two of them are high up in the administration. But no one else has ever come forward.
What was your impression of Hatfield?
He was very complicated, just like everybody in the film. At first I was a little stand-offish and wasn’t sure how it would go. But then he is such a charming guy. He is a total Southern gentleman, he totally draws you in. There is this weird dichotomy of someone who is warm and draws you in and makes you feel comfortable, but then you think about his past-that was always in the back of my mind. In 1988, he was convicted of solicitation of capital murder in Dallas. Basically, he was convicted of hiring a hit man to try and kill someone-a former colleague. He says he was embroiled in a blackmail scheme. I don’t know.
Towards the end of the film, we did a really intense interview with him, where it becomes obvious that he is unraveling. We shot that a month before he died. [His death] still came as a complete surprise though.
Do you buy into the conspiracy theories that Hatfield was set up because it would be easy to discredit him and his book because of his own criminal past?
Once again, it’s really hard to judge the validity of that argument. Our main goal was not to be journalists and get all the facts and get to the bottom of this. Our goal was to examine the story and to present ideas that came up and let it gel and then let people decide for themselves what they thought. It doesn’t really matter what I think. Even now, some days I think one thing and on other days I think another thing.
Why the title “Horns and Halos”?
Everything and everyone involved were so complicated. No one was black or white, including Sander Hicks and even including the book. There were probably some things that should have been done differently with that book. Even if you look at St. Martin’s Press, which decided to pull the book off the shelves-I’m not sure that was a good decision. But then they’d also decided to publish it in the first place so you have to consider that, too.
What has the reaction been so far to the film?
I got so much satisfaction when we took it to the Rotterdam International Film Festival and showed it to three packed screenings with over 400 people at each screening. And a lot of people stayed for the question-and-answer session. Needless to say, this is a political group, and they like to talk about Bush. But the main thing that made me happy were the comments that the movie was very respectful and very human, and that it showed all the sides of the story, and it’s not exploitative of anyone. That made me really happy.
What was the biggest surprise for you during the filming?
Well, there’s an obvious one. We kept looking for an ending and it wasn’t apparent. From all sides, the book was not getting it’s chance to shine. When there was the lawsuit the second time for the new forward Sander had added, it was so difficult for the book to come out. It made it really hard to find an ending for the film because the book could not be distributed. Finally, we thought Bush’s inauguration would be the ending with Sander outside protesting. There was nothing definite until-well, I’m not sure we should talk about that.
Are copies of the book still available?
What’s your next project?
I just gave birth this week to a baby girl, Fiona, so that will keep me busy. There are also lots of things that we see in the newspaper all the time that we’re interested in looking at. It’s been great working in reality after doing two fiction features. It was very fulfilling to do a movie that has a life of its own, rather than something I thought of in my head. Truth is stranger than fiction. If you wrote some of this stuff down, you would think: no way, that wouldn’t happen. But it did.
