I'm a Ghost....
Fifteen-plus years in Berlin have taught me how to remain invisible.
BERLIN (February 3, 2025) — Fifteen years ago this month, I was invited to a private party celebrating the Berlinale (Film Festival) opening of a very good Roman Polanski film, “The Ghost Writer,” based upon a 2007 novel by Robert Harris, The Ghost.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor, and Kim Cattrall, The Ghost Writer was shot in Berlin and other parts of Germany, standing-in for Martha’s Vinyard (USA) and London. Ewan McGregor played the professional "ghost," working for the British prime minister (Brosnan), whose life in international politics was itself, well, kind of “spooky.”
I was told that Ewan McGregor was at this party. I didn’t meet him. I did have fun there, though, casually introducing myself to film-crew, friends and extras:
“I’m a ghost-writer in Washington, DC.”
This was actually true, back then. American clients — government agencies and NGOs — hired me to compose texts in first person;
paid me to put words into the mouths of CEOs, directors, executives and (once or twice) even other writers. I was paid pretty well to be “well-published” — and yet remain invisible….