Grace
Grace asked Martin Turnbull:

I loved your first book, and just started the second book. Did you have to get any sort of permission from descendants or estate holders to use people like George Cukor, All Nazimova, and Tallulah Bankhead as supporting characters? I'm currently writing a historical fiction story featuring a 30s actress as one of the main characters and I wanted to make sure all my legal ducks were in a row. Thanks!

Martin Turnbull Hi Grace, I'm glad to hear you liked the first book enough to get the second. There's lots more where that came from!

As to your question...no I didn't contact the descendents or estate holders before using them as supporting characters. I did a bit of reading about that and the general consensus seemed to be that descendents and estate holders only tend to get jumpy if you portray these people in a poor light, or in a way that would severely damage their image or reputation. In my books, I don't have them doing anything that (a) is out of character and (b) hasn't already been talked about in their autobiography or in any (decent) biography - i.e. isn't already well documented.

Feel free to contact me via my website if you want to talk about this some more. Your project has been intrigued! http://www.martinturnbull.com/contact...

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