Defamation, at a first approximation, is any form of communication that can injure a third party's reputation. This can include all modes of human-understandable communications: gestures, images, signs, words. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. For a communication to be considered defamatory, it must be conveyed to someone other than the defamed. Depending on the permanence or transience of the communication medium, defamation may be distinguished between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both. The exact definition of defamation and related acts, as well as the ways they are dealt with, can vary greatly between countries and jurisdictions; for example, whether they constitute crimes or not, to what extent insults and opinions are included in addition to allegations of facts, to what extent proving the alleged facts is a valid defence.
Walter Winchell was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and columnist for New York tabloids. He rose to national celebrity in the 1930s with Hearst newspaper chain syndication and a popular radio program. He was known for an innovative style of gossipy staccato news briefs, jokes, and Jazz Age slang. Biographer Neal Gabler claimed that his popularity and influence "turned journalism into a form of entertainment".
Hedda Hopper was an American gossip columnist and actress. At the height of her influence in the 1940s, her readership was 35 million. A strong supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings, Hopper named suspected communists and was a major proponent of the Hollywood blacklist. Hopper continued to write gossip until the end of her life, her work appearing in many magazines and later on radio. She had an extended feud with another gossip columnist, arch-rival Louella Parsons.
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded Motion Picture Story, a magazine also directed at fans. For most of its run, Photoplay was published by Macfadden Publications. In 1921 Photoplay established what is considered the first significant annual movie award. The magazine ceased publication in 1980.
Louella Parsons was an American gossip columnist and a screenwriter. She was retained by William Randolph Hearst because she had championed Hearst's mistress Marion Davies and subsequently became an influential figure in Hollywood. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide.
A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the form of a short essay by a specific writer who offers a personal point of view. In some instances, a column has been written by a composite or a team, appearing under a pseudonym, or a brand name. Some columnists appear on a daily or weekly basis and later reprint the same material in book collections.
A gossip magazine, also referred to as a tabloid magazine, is a magazine that features scandalous stories about the personal lives of celebrities and other well-known individuals. In North America, this genre of magazine flourished in the 1950s and early 1960s. The title Confidential, founded in 1952, boasted a monthly circulation in excess of ten million, and it had many competitors, with names such as Whisper, Dare, Suppressed, The Lowdown, Hush-Hush, and Uncensored. These magazines included more lurid and explicit content than did the popular newspaper gossip columns of the time, including tales of celebrity infidelity, arrests, and drug use.
A fan magazine is a commercially written and published magazine intended for the amusement of fans of the popular culture subject matter that it covers. It is distinguished from a scholarly, literary or trade magazine on the one hand, by the target audience of its contents, and from a fanzine on the other, by the commercial and for-profit nature of its production and distribution. Scholarly works on popular culture and fandoms do not always make this terminological distinction clear. In some relevant works, fanzines are called "fan magazines", possibly because the term "fanzine" is seen as slang.
Jimmie Fidler was an American columnist, journalist and radio and television personality. He wrote a Hollywood gossip column and was sometimes billed as Jimmy Fidler.
Jazz journalism was a term applied to American sensational newspapers in the 1920s. Focused on entertainment, celebrities, sports, scandal and crime, the style was a New York phenomenon, practiced primarily by three new tabloid-size daily newspapers in a fight for circulation. Convenient for readers on subways, the small-format papers were designed to display large page one photographs and headlines for newsstand sales. The tabloids' popularity was controversial, but also influenced the city's and nation's more traditional media, especially when columnist Walter Winchell became popular both in print and on the air.
Harvey Earl Wilson was an American journalist, gossip columnist, and author, perhaps best known for his 6-day a week nationally syndicated newspaper column, It Happened Last Night.
Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as the Statute of Gloucester in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). The law of libel emerged during the reign of James I (1603–1625) under Attorney General Edward Coke who started a series of libel prosecutions. Scholars frequently attribute strict English defamation law to James I's outlawing of duelling. From that time, both the criminal and civil remedies have been found in full operation.
Hollywood Hotel is a 1937 American romantic musical comedy film, directed by Busby Berkeley, starring Dick Powell, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Hugh Herbert, Ted Healy, Glenda Farrell and Johnnie Davis, featuring Alan Mowbray and Mabel Todd, and with Allyn Joslyn, Grant Mitchell and Edgar Kennedy.
May Mann, born May Vasta Randall, was a Hollywood columnist and freelance writer. She wrote a syndicated column about Hollywood gossip and wrote articles on celebrities for fan magazines. Her "Going Hollywood" column was syndicated to 400 newspapers, and contributed to movie magazines Movie Mirror, Silver Screen, Movie Teen, Screenland, and Photoplay. Her columns often featured photos of herself with the celebrity she profiled. She befriended several celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and wrote books about Elvis Presley, Clark Gable, and Jayne Mansfield. She was known as "Hollywood Date Girl" since she wrote about parties that she attended with Hollywood celebrities.
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.
The Corpse Came C.O.D. is a 1947 American comedy mystery film directed by Henry Levin, produced by Samuel Bischoff and starring George Brent, Joan Blondell and Adele Jergens. The comedic mystery is notable for featuring cameos by Hollywood gossip columnists appearing as themselves: Harrison Carroll, Jimmy Fidler, George Fisher, Hedda Hopper, Erskine Johnson, Louella Parsons, and Sidney Skolsky. The movie is based on a novel by columnist Jimmy Starr, who also appears in the movie. The title makes reference to the practice of cash on delivery. It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Harrison Carroll was a Hollywood gossip columnist who worked at the Los Angeles Herald-Express, and whom John Wayne credited with being not only a mentor to him but helping him come up with a moniker to replace his birth name Marion Morrison. He was born in Waco, Texas at the turn of the twentieth century. After graduating from Waco High School, Carroll attended the Rice Institute before moving on to Columbia University, where he took his bachelor of arts degree in 1922. That same year, he moved to Los Angeles, California and began working as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times for $25 a week.
Erskine Johnson was a Hollywood gossip columnist who worked for the Hearst newspaper chain and appeared on the radio and in motion pictures.
Hollywood Hotel is an American radio program that was broadcast in the 1930s. It featured Hollywood stars in dramatized versions of then-current movies and "helped to make Hollywood an origination point for major radio programs." Radio historian John Dunning called the program, sponsored by Campbell Soup Company, "the most glamorous show of its time." The program was the inspiration for the 1937 Warner Brothers movie of the same title, which featured Louella Parsons as herself.
Harriet Oettinger Parsons was an American film producer, actress, director, and magazine writer; one of the few female producers in the United States at the time. Her mother was famed gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
