Edgar Vincent Durling (1893–1957), usually known as E. V. Durling, was one of the first journalists to cover the Hollywood motion picture industry and later became a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist in the United States, with his column "On the Side". [1]
Durling was born in Manhattan, New York City, on July 24, 1893, and moved to Brooklyn with his family at the age of seven. He attended Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts, where he played baseball and football, and graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He began work as a journalist while still at Wesleyan, as a correspondent for the Springfield Republican in Massachusetts. He was the Pacific Coast correspondent of the New York Morning Telegraph from 1915 to 1918, thus becoming one of the first Hollywood reporters. He was in the Coast Guard during World War I, then worked for the New York Evening Globe and the New York Herald. In 1924 he left journalism to head the writing department of a Hollywood comedy studio. [1] In 1925 he was general manager of the Fine Arts Motion Picture Company. [2]
He returned to journalism in 1931 as a columnist on the Los Angeles Express and then moved to the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News, [1] where his column was called "Town Talk." He moved to the Los Angeles Times on February 16, 1936; his new column, "On the Side" (on the left side of the first page of the local section) was welcomed as a "whimsical, good-natured and slyly philosophical outlook on life." [3] He left the Times in November 1939 when he received an offer from King Features Syndicate to write for national distribution. [1] [4]
Durling died in New York City on September 13, 1957, at the age of sixty-four. He was survived by his wife, Joan Marie Durling. [1]
A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially in a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are written in a light, informal style, and relate opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities from show business, politicians, professional sports stars, and other wealthy people or public figures. Some gossip columnists broadcast segments on radio and television.
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles area city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the nation and the largest in the Western United States with a print circulation of 118,760. It has 500,000 online subscribers, the fifth-largest among U.S. newspapers. Owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by California Times, the paper has won over 40 Pulitzer Prizes since its founding.
Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen was an American gangster based in Los Angeles and boss of the Cohen crime family during the mid-20th century.
Peter Benton Bart is an American journalist and film producer, writing a column for Deadline Hollywood since 2015. He is best known for his lengthy tenure (1989–2009) as the editor in chief of Variety, an entertainment-trade magazine.
Hy Gardner was an American entertainment reporter and syndicated columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, host of Hy Gardner Calling, The Hy Gardner Show, and Celebrity Party, and an original celebrity panelist on the first incarnation of To Tell the Truth, along with Ralph Bellamy, Polly Bergen, Kitty Carlisle and host Bud Collyer. In 1957, Gardner also appeared on the show made up as a clown along with guest-challenger Paul Jung. Gardner also played himself in the 1963 movie The Girl Hunters with writer/friend Mickey Spillane, who included Gardner in several of his Mike Hammer novels.
John Miller is an American journalist and police official. From 1983 to 1994, he was a local journalist in New York City, before serving as the NYPD's chief spokesman from 1994 to 1995.
Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in news related to labor unions. At the height of his career, his column on labor union issues was syndicated to 356 newspapers in the United States. In an incident which made national headlines for almost a year, a gangster threw sulfuric acid in his face on a public street in New York City on April 5, 1956, causing his permanent blindness.
Flora Lewis was an American journalist.
Sheilah Graham was a British-born, nationally syndicated American gossip columnist during Hollywood's "Golden Age". In her youth, she had been a showgirl and a freelance writer for Fleet Street in London. These early experiences would converge in her career in Hollywood, which spanned nearly four decades, as a successful columnist and author.
Aileen Mehle, known by the pen name Suzy or Suzy Knickerbocker, was an American society columnist, active in journalism for over fifty years. Her column was syndicated to 100 newspapers and read by over 30 million people.
Michael A. Hiltzik is an American columnist, reporter and author who has written extensively for the Los Angeles Times. In 1999, he won a beat reporting Pulitzer Prize for co-writing a series of articles about corruption in the music industry with Chuck Philips. He won two Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.
Harry C. Carr (1877–1936) was an American reporter, editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. In 1934 he was given an honorable mention by a Pulitzer Prize committee on awards. When he died of a heart attack aged 58, his funeral was attended by more than a thousand people.
Henry Lee Shippey, who wrote under the name Lee Shippey, was an American author and journalist whose romance with a French woman during World War I caused a sensation in the United States as a "famous war triangle." Shippey later wrote a popular column in the Los Angeles Times for 22 years.
Matt Weinstock (1903–1970) was a managing editor of the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News and a columnist for three Los Angeles, California, newspapers for 33 years.
Jane Isbell was an American actress who appeared in smaller roles in some major films produced during Hollywood's Golden Era in the 1930s-1940s.
Sidney Skolsky was an American writer best known as a Hollywood gossip columnist. He ranked with Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons as the premier Hollywood gossip columnists of the first three decades of the sound picture era.
Marion Clyde McCarroll (1891-1977) was a writer and journalist. McCarroll was the first woman issued a press pass by the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. She attained the press pass during the 1920s while writing for The Commercial, a daily business newspaper. McCarroll also penned the "Advice for the Lovelorn, a nationally syndicated column, after she inherited it from Dorothy Dix.
Edward Arnold Harris was an American journalist. He was a longtime reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1946.
