Mailer, the Next Generation

The late Norman Mailer never shied from self-promotion; he called one of his books “Advertisements for Myself.” So it’s not totally surprising that his youngest child, former High Times Editor John Buffalo Mailer 29, announced while his father was being waked in Provincetown that the younger Mailer has acquired the film rights to dad’s first and most famous novel, “The Naked and the Dead.” John Buffalo Mailer, a playwright and sometimes actor who was named one of People Magazine’s 50 Sexiest People in 2002, has written a screenplay and financing is being sought. The novel was first brought to the screen by the faltering RKO and Raoul Walsh in 1958 with a cast that included Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson and Joey Bishop. “One of the worst movies I ever saw,” Mailer told me in a 1986 interview.