Alec Baldwin, whose impersonations of Donald Trump have skewered the thin-skinned US president for the amusement of Saturday Night Live audiences for months now, has proved to have a weak spot: poor editing.
The 59-year-old actor has attacked his publisher HarperCollins, accusing the editors of poor proofreading. In his first post on a Facebook page set up to promote his new autobiography, Nevertheless, he claimed the published edition “contains SEVERAL typos and errors which I was more than a little surprised to see”.
Declaring he would use the Facebook page – originally set up to showcase material that did not make the final edit of the book – as an index of corrections and amendments to the text to bring it in line with his original intent, the 30 Rock star wrote: “The editors at HarperCollins were, I imagine, too busy to do a proper and forensic edit of the material.”
As his first amendment, he offers a clarification to his statement in the memoir that when he wrote in the book that he was “in love” with his female co-stars Megan Mullally, Kate McKinnon and Tina Fey, he was referring to his passion for their talent. The celebrity added: “As a happily married man who wants to stay that way (ahem), I wanted to clarify that.”
Though the actor’s publisher HarperCollins360 declined to comment about the outburst, Baldwin’s fans were forgiving. “The author is not responsible for typos and grammatical errors, folks,” wrote Myra Lawrence, after a slew of critical comments from pro-Trump posters who used Baldwin’s statement as a chance to attack the actor. Lawrence added: “That’s why you hire an editor. Clearly, they did not provide the service for which they were paid.”
Diane Jordan, who published a children’s book five years ago, sympathised with Baldwin. “I was mortified by the editing that did not occur. It is almost impossible to edit a work you have written and rewritten so many times,” she wrote.
Not all the comments were so supportive. YA novelist and producer Jeff Rivera told Baldwin to look closer to home for a culprit. “Having worked with major publishers, they make authors sign off on every single comma change they make in their copyedit before they go to press,” he posted. “So you or someone from your team (whoever reviewed the final draft) did not do their job. Blame them, not the book publisher.”
Despite the typos and errors, the book received decent reviews on release last week. Writing in the Guardian, Fiona Sturges praised Nevertheless for its charm and candour, although after noting a litany of moans about directors, fellow stars and slights, she added: “There’s a moment where, while discussing a series to be fronted by Baldwin, a producer on the cable and satellite network MSNBC puts her finger over her mouth in a shushing motion and says to him, ‘Stop complaining.’ Exactly, you think.”
