Jeff Maysh | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | British-American |
Occupations |
|
Website | www |
Jeff Maysh (born 30 March 1982, Nassau, Bahamas) is a British-American writer, author and journalist based in Hollywood, California, United States.
Maysh started his career at the British men's magazine Loaded . [1] He moved to America in 2010 to cover international crime, [1] for publications including The Atlantic magazine. [2]
As a correspondent for the BBC, Maysh became the first journalist to enter the notorious Korydallos prison, near Athens. [3] His profile of prisoner Vassilis Paleokostas, a Greek bank robber who escaped from the prison in a helicopter, twice, was published on the BBC News Magazine on 25 September 2014. [4] [5]
Maysh's story about Steve Davies, a mythical soccer fan who scored a goal for West Ham United, [6] was listed in the notable section of "Best American Sports Writing 2014", and voted number one in a poll of "greatest ever soccer stories". [7]
In May 2015, Paramount Pictures acquired the movie rights to Maysh's story "The Wedding Sting". According to a report in Variety , [8] bidding became "competitive" among Hollywood studios for the true account of a rural Michigan police department that trapped drug dealers with a fake wedding. The story was first published in The Atlantic magazinne. [9]
In 2016, Maysh won "Best Crime Reporting" and "Best Feature (over 1,000 words)" at the 58th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards. [10] Both awards recognised his story in Playboy magazine about a Michigan farmer who ran a $4 million smuggling operation involving counterfeit Pez dispensers. [11] [12]
Maysh's 2016 book Handsome Devil is about Victor Lustig, [13] while the following year's The Spy With No Name is about Erwin van Haarlem, a Czechoslovak spy. [14]
In 2018, Maysh published an 8,900-word article about a major fraud involving the McDonald's Monopoly promotion on The Daily Beast. [15] This story of a former police officer who stole $20 million in cash and prizes became the subject of a bidding war in Hollywood. [16] The sale of the movie rights to Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Twentieth Century Fox for $1 million was reported by The Hollywood Reporter as the highest fee ever paid for a single magazine article. [17]