October 7, 2024


Home Celebrity Is Someone in the Murdoch Camp Giving Stories to “Succession”? This Week’s…


This week, the Murdochs and the Roys have come perilously close to each other.

In his excellent piece in Vanity Fair, Gabriel Sherman writes about Rupert Murdoch — his short marriage to Jerry Hall, his two week engagement to Ann Leslie Smith, multiple hospitalizations and illnesses. Sherman also reveals that eldest son Lachlan has had mental health issues.

At the same time, in this Sunday’s coming episode, the now dead Logan Roy’s reputation is sullied as his surviving staff recommends explaining his will and subsequent board decisions by claiming Logan had physical and mental issues of his own (He didn’t.)

Plus, the news about Lachlan makes him seem more and more like Kendall Roy, Jeremy Strong’s nuanced second oldest child, who’s had more than his share of problems. Kendall reveals that he’s used a therapist for help.

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Sherman says there was actually a clause in the Hall divorce preventing her from giving the “Succession” writers any plot ideas. The British press speculated this year that James Murdoch has been the one feeding “Succession: ideas about his family.

Of course, all of “Succession” could just be lucky guesses by writer Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, who has put two and two together from public knowledge. But the line between fiction and non fiction has always been blurred. Shakespeare based all his plays and characters on existing people and situations. Paul McCartney knows where to find Penny Lane. And so on.

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Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn’t so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of “Only the Strong Survive,” a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.