Norman Mailer dies

Pulitzer Prize winning author, actor, director and personality Normal Mailer has died at age 84 from kidney failure.

Mailer’s many works and accomplishments are well known, but less known is the fact that Mailer played Harry Houdini in the avant guard film Cremaster 2 (1999).

Mailer also wrote the bestseller The Executioners Song, the story of murderer Gary Gilmore who claimed he was an illegitimate descendant of Harry Houdini. Much was made of the Gilmore-Houdini connection when the book was first released in 1979.