Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Proofreading Cloris Leachman's Autobiography

Among the last books I proofread at Kensington Books was actress Cloris Leachman's autobiography called Cloris, which was actually ghostwritten by her husband, George Englund, who predeceased her. (Ms. Leachman recently died at age 94.) It was the first and only celebrity autobiography I ever proofread.

She was in her 80s at the time (this would be around late 2008 or early 2009) and I guess because of her age, she misremembered certain things. Whenever there was a factual error, I pointed it out on the galley proof. The one error I remember correcting was the one where she said she replaced June Lockhart as the mother on the television series Lassie. Actually, it was the other way around, it was Lockhart who replaced her.

While visiting the Countee Cullen branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem, about two or three years later, I found a copy of Cloris on the shelf in the Biography section. Skimming through the book, I couldn't find that particular error. Maybe they deleted it from the finished book. Or maybe the correction was there and I couldn't find it among the thousands of words because I couldn't remember the page it appeared on. Unfortunately, I neglected to photocopy those pages for future reference. Anyway, I might try to track the book down and do a careful page by page search for that correction.

No comments:

Post a Comment