Rance Blog Web Log Hollywood Rance's Blog - just who is the Hollywood mystery man?
Hollywood Mystery Man 'Rance' Has Internet Abuzz
Thu May 27
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - He skewers Hollywood and the cult of celebrity on an anonymous Web log that has spawned a cult following. He claims to be an A-list actor, writing under a pseudonym, but admits he may not be believed.
Who, exactly, is "Rance?"
Could he really be, as some believe, Owen Wilson (news), Ben Affleck (news), Jim Carrey (news) or even George Clooney (news)?
The answer may perhaps be found somewhere in the entries on his Weblog -- or "blog" -- which applies a trenchant wit and jaundiced insider's eye in chronicling the life of a Hollywood celebrity. Then again, it could all be a hoax.
Though Rance granted an interview with Reuters, he responded to questions only via email, using pseudonymous dead-end accounts for both himself and the reporter and never offering a glimpse into his real identity.
Asked if he was, in fact, a well-known actor, he responded: "Or a well-known actress perhaps. Just not Donald Trump."
In the blog's first-ever post last December, Rance introduced himself this way: "Suffice it to say I know what its like to see your picture on the magazine rack every now and again when you pay for groceries."
Rance's blog has since spawned a furious guessing game on the Internet and beyond, becoming a regular topic at Hollywood parties.
Xeni Jardin, a writer on the "Boing-Boing" blog, recently told her readers that Rance was rumored to be "Starsky and Hutch" star Owen Wilson, a claim that the actor's publicist has denied.
BEN AFFLECK? GEORGE CLOONEY? JIM CARREY?
The anonymous editor of Hollywood gossip site Defamer suggests it could be Ben Affleck -- a conjecture built around the supposed link between a cryptic quiz on Rance's blog and an Affleck tattoo.
Others have surmised that Rance is Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Benicio Del Toro (news) or Luke Wilson (news), Owen's brother. And one of Rance's readers recently sent him a comment that read simply: "You are, in fact, Matthew Perry (news). Game on?"
Meanwhile, a Defamer reader tried to unmask Rance by researching the term "Captain Hoof," which appears in the Web address. She came to the conclusion that he was a San Francisco man who worked at an ad agency and once ran a Web site with a similar name -- possibly dedicated to an imaginary horse.
The man, who no longer works for the agency, could not be contacted for this story.
For his part, Rance offers the electronic equivalent of a shrug to the endless chatter about his identity, saying that it was never his intention to play hide-and-seek with the world.
"The guessing game distracts from any message I might have," he told Reuters. "Then again, I'm not yet sure I have a message and in any case the amusement makes it all worth it. More than once I've seen items that upon first glance suggested the game might be up and I felt my stomach plummet."
Rance said he set up the Web site on a whim with help from a computer-savvy friend, seeing it as a "really good way to bitch about my job" without suffering any career repercussions. He chose the name "Rance" as a pun on "rants."
The diverse themes of the Web log revolve around pitch meetings and parties, the machinations of Hollywood at work and play and its fascination with sex and celebrity.
Rance loves shrimp and logic puzzles. He's tolerant of paparazzi but tough on gossips. He's bored by Shakespeare and the summer blockbuster "Troy" but admires Joan Rivers.
And through it all he's amused by life in Los Angeles -- the way a birthday party in the suburbs can turn into an unexpected meeting with a dominatrix and a late-night nude dip in the Chateau Marmont pool can be interrupted by an SUV crash on Sunset Boulevard.
"It is tough in L.," Rance says of the city. "The good news is there are Fatburgers."
Though he has received two "serious" proposals from people in publishing to turn his blog into a book, Rance said he has not yet pursued that idea, content for now to communicate to the outside world through the Internet.
"With no disrespect intended, media in general seldom if ever permits a person, be he actor or President, to present himself the way he would like -- and certainly not to the degree a blog does," Rance said.
"Still, there's a megabyte or two's worth of irony in my situation," he said.
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