Chicana Ways - Aletta

AnyBody's Concerns 6 (2003)
Zelle is trying to play Mata Hari now.
Yes, exactly. Well, she did. She said Mrs Lady MacLeod is what
she liked to call herself of all the things she liked to call
herself. And she said, "Mata Hari can do things Lady MacLeod
never could," is something she said which I thought was really
interesting.
Mrs Gorsky is not just a fictional character either?
No, she's a woman who really lived. I took her basic story.
Her name is Judith Coplon. She's still alive and she lives in
Brooklyn. I was basically sent letters by her husband and her
lawyer saying, "please don't write about her because she's
suffered so much." Cause she was kept under house arrest more
or less in Brooklyn for eighteen years because they didn't
rescind her terms of bail. Terms of bail are very rigorous. It
is like being under house arrest. So that happened to her from
1950 to 1968/69. And actually I have friends in New York who
know her quite well and she always said she never did spy. The
whole story of Heidi is the bit I made up. In fact, Heidi is
based on a woman I know who was in jail for fifteen years and
has just got out a few years ago, for conspiracy against the
American government. And I think in the production of the play
I'd want to include this documentary element. Cause I think
it's important and find a way of including it.
Diane Samuels on novel writing
http://www.genderforum.uni-koeln.de/anybody/interview_samuels.html (22 van 34)31-3-2005 18:22:16