After reports that even Judith Regan had turned him down, and despite widespread speculation that he was too infirm to get any serious offers from conglomerate publishers, Deep Throat has signed a book deal — with an independent publisher, according to a late-breaking New York Times report by Edward Wyatt. “Universal Pictures and PublicAffairs have agreed to pay close to $1 million to buy the film and book rights to the life story of W. Mark Felt,” says Wyatt. PublicAffairs publisher Peter Osnos said “the book would be published next spring and would combine Mr. Felt’s recollections about his life and his relationship with Mr. Woodward with material written by John O’Connor, the lawyer who wrote the Vanity Fair article” that broke the story. Universal, meanwhile, acquired film rights “for development by Playtone, the production company owned by the actor Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman.”