Though Lee Israel's "Kilgallen" biography was well-received upon its release and remains the wellspring for conjecture over the last hours of Dorothy Kilgallen's life and the exact nature of her death, there is reason to believe that Israel's own integrity when it comes to separating fact from fiction might well be called into question.
As noted by The New York Times, Israel was a respected journalist and biographer at the time of the release of her Kilgallen biography, but her career unraveled within a few years when her unofficial biography of Estée Lauder was rush-released to undercut Lauder's official memoir, leading to a critical savaging. Somewhat surprisingly, Israel then became an out-and-out literary forger, who stole letters from famous figures such as Ernest Hemingway and Noël Coward from public libraries and replaced them with homemade versions, so she could sell the originals to autograph collectors. Later, she created her own letters, imitating the writing style of writers and celebrities. Mark Shaw is adamant that Lee Israel's research into the death of Kilgallen is watertight, and that despite her career as a thief and forger the arguments she makes in the epilogue of "Kilgallen" are credible. However, Israel's cynical second "career" invariably casts doubt on the claims regarding the death of Kilgallen in her biography.
Experts, meanwhile, have claimed that the theory Kilgallen was murdered has been "thoroughly debunked," according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, while Skeptic magazine notes that even among JFK conspiracy theorists Kilgallen's death is a fringe topic, and that "no one serious" believes she the target of an assassination herself.
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