The real Joanne Herring and Charlies Wilson'sWar

Telegraph:

'That bit was just so ridiculous," says Joanne Herring, the wheeler-dealing Texan multi-millionaire played by Julia Roberts in the acclaimed movie Charlie Wilson's War. "The truth is, I've never had a double martini in my life."

This particular "ridiculous" bit comes early in the film when Herring hosts a cocktail party for the great and the good - and the weird - in her Houston mansion to raise money for the mujahideen locked in battle against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) has been invited along to the bash, and no sooner has he charged his glass than Herring has persuaded him to go upstairs and inspect her boudoir - not that Wilson needs much persuasion.

The next scene shows Wilson enjoying a restorative bath after completing his inspection, while Herring, his sexual predator, touches up her make-up before rejoining guests downstairs for another round of cocktails and canapés.

"The idea that I - a southern girl who never curses and might only occasionally have a glass of wine - would take a man to bed in the middle of hosting one of my own parties is just crazy," says Herring. "But that scene was out of my control and there was nothing I could do about it."

Not that she didn't try. In fact, she hired a top American lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, to exert pressure on the film's veteran Hollywood director, Mike Nichols, and managed to secure a compromise of sorts. "He agreed to cut out all the swearing from me as long as I went along with the rest of it. I wasn't too happy but had to accept that Hollywood is Hollywood and that's the way they like it. They wanted hanky-panky and so that's what they got. Anyone who knows me will realise that I don't behave like that."

...


The story is really very interesting giving details of her life and loves. She was always something of a character in Houston. I was never in her crowd but knew some who were and they always seem to smile when the mentioned her name. You will learn more about her in this story than you will in the movie and it is just as fascinating.

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