Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. 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. In the English-speaking world, the law of defamation traditionally distinguishes between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both.
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".
Elda Furry, known professionally as Hedda Hopper, was an American gossip columnist and actress. At the height of her influence in the 1940s, over 35 million people read her columns.
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines, its title another word for screenplay. It was founded in Chicago in 1911. Under early editors, Julian Johnson and James R. Quirk, in style and reach it became a pacesetter for fan magazines. In 1921, Photoplay established what is considered the first significant annual movie award. For most of its run, it was published by Macfadden Publications. The magazine ceased publication in 1980.
Louella Rose Oettinger, known professionally as Louella Parsons, was an American gossip columnist and a screenwriter. 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. Columns are sometimes written by a composite or a team, appearing under a pseudonym, or a brand name. Columnists typically write daily or weekly columns. Some columns are later collected and reprinted in book form.
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.
The Lot is an American comedy-drama television series that aired for two seasons on AMC from 1999 to 2001. It profiled the fictional studio Sylver Screen Pictures during the 1930s and the pursuits of its classic stars. The show was met with neither popular nor critical success but Jeffrey Tambor, Rue McClanahan, Linda Cardellini and Michael York all had notable recurring roles.
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.
The Best of Everything is a 1959 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco from a screenplay by Edith Sommer and Mann Rubin, based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Rona Jaffe. It stars Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd, Suzy Parker, Martha Hyer, Diane Baker, Brian Aherne, Robert Evans, Louis Jourdan, and Joan Crawford. The film follows the professional careers and private lives of three women who share a small apartment in New York City and work together at a paperback publishing firm. Alfred Newman wrote the musical score, the last under his longtime contract as 20th Century-Fox's musical director.
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.
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.
Dema Harshbarger was an American businesswoman, concert promoter, and talent manager.
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.
Dorothy Manners was an American gossip columnist and actress who wrote the celebrity news column Hollywood for King Features Syndicate from 1965 to 1977. She took over the column from Louella Parsons, for whom she had worked as an assistant for 30 years.
