Speaker 1: You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion advised. On the evening of November fifth, nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, Florence Cotts got ready for bed as usual,
Speaker 1: a thirty seven year old secretary living on Quiet Wearing
Speaker 1: Avenue in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. Cotts put her curlers in,
Speaker 1: slipped under the covers, and turned off the lights. It
Speaker 1: was a Friday, so maybe she even planned to sleep
Speaker 1: in the next day, but she wouldn't get the chance.
Speaker 1: In the middle of the night, Florence's door exploded inward
Speaker 1: in a shower of wood and glass. Before she could react,
Speaker 1: a group of men rushed in. A blinding light flashed
Speaker 1: in her face. Florence huddled in her bed, paralyzed by
Speaker 1: fear and then nothing. She heard one of the men yell,
Speaker 1: we've got the wrong place. They turned around and ran
Speaker 1: out through her kitchen, breaking glasses and leaving a mess.
Speaker 1: Once she was certain they were gone, Florence called the police,
Speaker 1: who couldn't make heads or tails of the event. It
Speaker 1: must have been an attempted burglary. An officer told the
Speaker 1: terrified woman she was lucky to have escaped unhurt, and
Speaker 1: because she hadn't seen any of the men's faces blinded
Speaker 1: by the bright lights they'd shown, there wasn't much for
Speaker 1: the police to go on. The case wasn't likely to
Speaker 1: get solved. Florence learned she would just have to live
Speaker 1: with the fear. But less than a year later, a
Speaker 1: shocking break in the case arrived from an unusual source
Speaker 1: a tabloid magazine. In September nineteen fifty five, Confidential magazine,
Speaker 1: the tops celebrity scandal sheet in the country, published a
Speaker 1: story about the break in at Florence Cott's apartment. It
Speaker 1: might seem like a strange story for a celebrity magazine
Speaker 1: to care about, but Confidential had good reason. The men
Speaker 1: who had broken into Florence's apartment that night, the article claimed,
Speaker 1: were none other than Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio. In
Speaker 1: the article titled the Real Reason for Marilyn Monroe's Divorce,
Speaker 1: Confidential explained how the famous singer and the Yankee star
Speaker 1: had come to be there. Florence Cotts, it turned out,
Speaker 1: lived in the same small apartment building as one of
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe's friends, an actress named Sheila Stewart, Joe DiMaggio,
Speaker 1: still reeling from his in Monroe's divorce, had become convinced
Speaker 1: that Monroe was using Stuart's apartment to meet with the
Speaker 1: man he thought Monroe had left him for. Acting on
Speaker 1: information from the private investigator he'd hired and likely fueled
Speaker 1: by more than a few drinks, DiMaggio had enlisted some friends,
Speaker 1: including Sinatra, to help him catchman Row in the act.
Speaker 1: It was a sloppy plan, and it had unsurprisingly gone
Speaker 1: very wrong. Instead of going into Sheila Stuart's apartment on
Speaker 1: the second floor, the group had broken into the first
Speaker 1: floor home of Florence Cotts. So Florence finally got some
Speaker 1: answers about what had happened to her that night, and
Speaker 1: she eventually got some reparations. She sued DiMaggio, Sinatra, and
Speaker 1: the other men and got a settlement. But the story
Speaker 1: of the Wrong Door Raid, as it came to be known,
Speaker 1: was far from over because California officials had some questions
Speaker 1: about how Confidential magazine had gotten their story. In February
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, California State Senator Fred Graft held a
Speaker 1: series of hearings to determine if Confidential had gotten the
Speaker 1: story by paying off a private investigator. You might be
Speaker 1: wondering why would a state legislature care where a scandal
Speaker 1: magazine got its stories from. Well, Confidential Magazine wasn't just
Speaker 1: any scandal magazine. It was one of the most powerful
Speaker 1: publications in the country, with a reader base in the
Speaker 1: millions and the ability to ruin a star's career with
Speaker 1: a few carefully worded sentences. People all across America worried
Speaker 1: that Confidential's salacious content would corrupt the country's youth. In California,
Speaker 1: politicians and entertainment executives worried that its shocking stories would
Speaker 1: destroy the lucrative movie industry, and so by nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: the studios and the government were lo looking for ways
Speaker 1: to take the magazine down. The state Senate hearings into
Speaker 1: the Wrong Door Raids story were only the first step.
Speaker 1: Three months later, in May nineteen fifty seven, a grand
Speaker 1: jury convened by the ambitious California Attorney General Pat Brown,
Speaker 1: indicted Confidential, along with several key employees and partner businesses, on,
Speaker 1: among other things, charges of conspiracy to commit criminal libel
Speaker 1: and conspiracy to publish obscene and indecent material For years,
Speaker 1: Confidential had held Hollywood hostage, using a network of informants
Speaker 1: to dig up dirt on America's biggest celebrities. But now
Speaker 1: Hollywood was fighting back with the assistance of the government.
Speaker 1: The ensuing trial would put the right of freedom of
Speaker 1: the press into question because Confidential stories were nasty, no doubt,
Speaker 1: but the magazine would claim they were all true, and
Speaker 1: could publishing the truth, no matter how indecent, ever be
Speaker 1: a crime. Americans were about to find out. Welcome to
Speaker 1: History on trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This week
Speaker 1: the State of California v. Confidential. Confidentials creator and publisher
Speaker 1: Robert Harrison was no stranger to scandal. After coming up
Speaker 1: as a reporter for the New York Gossip Rags, Harrison
Speaker 1: had gone into business for himself, creating a number of
Speaker 1: so called girly magazines, publications filled with images of scantily
Speaker 1: clad women. Harrison was a hands on magazine executive, regularly
Speaker 1: acting as a photographer for his magazines and sometimes even
Speaker 1: posing in photos himself. He was also an ambitious man.
Speaker 1: When his girly magazines failed to make ends meet, Harrison
Speaker 1: began casting around for a new, more profitable concept, and
Speaker 1: he found it on television. Throughout nineteen fifty and nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one, a Senate committee led by Senator estes Ki
Speaker 1: Fauver investigated the state of organized crime in America in
Speaker 1: a series of hearings that were broadcast live on television.
Speaker 1: Americans were glued to their TV screens as a procession
Speaker 1: of mobsters testified in front of the committee. The March
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one hearing in New York attracted an estimated
Speaker 1: thirty million viewers. Harrison was also inspired by the Confidential
Speaker 1: series of books, which came out between nineteen forty eight
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty two and profiled different American cities New
Speaker 1: York Confidential, Chicago Confidential, and so on. The Confidential series
Speaker 1: claimed to reveal what was really happening in these cities.
Speaker 1: The books shocked their readers with depictions of crime, sex,
Speaker 1: and debauchery happening allegedly in the heart of every city.
Speaker 1: They had a distinct point of view, As historian and
Speaker 1: law professor Samantha Barbis puts it in her book on
Speaker 1: the magazine Confidential Confidential, the Confidential books were racist, sexist, homophobic,
Speaker 1: and largely false. They were also best sellers. Seeing the
Speaker 1: public interest in the Key Father hearings and the Confidential books,
Speaker 1: Harrison had a realization the American people craved this kind
Speaker 1: of content, the story behind the story, a glimpse into
Speaker 1: the private lives of public figures and the dirty underbelly
Speaker 1: of modern life. Thus Confidential Magazine was born. The first
Speaker 1: issue of Confidential, which hit newsstands in September nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: set the tone for what was to come. The cover,
Speaker 1: printed in lurid, eye catching blue, yellow and red, featured
Speaker 1: giant headlines that leapt from the page. Photographs were grainy,
Speaker 1: blown up, and unflattering, and like that of its namesake
Speaker 1: book series, the magazine's content was sleazy, shocking, and bigoted.
Speaker 1: This type of magazine focused on expose's and gossip were
Speaker 1: often called scandal magazines. Confidential wasn't the only scandal magazine
Speaker 1: on the market, so Robert Harrison had to find a
Speaker 1: way to set it apart plan a lie. If his
Speaker 1: reporters couldn't find juicy enough stories, they could just make
Speaker 1: up better ones. Early issues of Confidential featured completely invented
Speaker 1: tales of sex and crime, bolstered up by posed or
Speaker 1: composite photos. But even Bonker's creations like a mob barun
Speaker 1: grave robbing ring couldn't boost the magazine's circulation. Harrison needed
Speaker 1: a new angle. In the summer of nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: he found it. In the August issue, Confidential ran an
Speaker 1: article about the relationship between Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe,
Speaker 1: who were then dating. The piece, called why Joe DiMaggio
Speaker 1: Is Striking out with Marilyn Monroe, alleged that Monroe's mentor,
Speaker 1: the seventy six year old co founder of twentieth Century Fox,
Speaker 1: Joe Shank, was interfering in the relationship, either out of
Speaker 1: concern for Monroe's career or because Shank was sleeping with
Speaker 1: Monroe himself. The magazine heavily implied it was the latter,
Speaker 1: and Americans ate it up. Confidential circulation doubled overnight. Harrison
Speaker 1: knew he was onto something. If people liked reading about
Speaker 1: the secret lives of mobsters, they loved reading about the
Speaker 1: secret lives of movie stars. Throughout the rest of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three and nineteen fifty four, Confidential increasingly focused its
Speaker 1: coverage on Hollywood. We've got to have more Hollywood stories.
Speaker 1: Harrison told his staff, the hotter, the better. A decade earlier,
Speaker 1: it would have been impossible for a magazine like Confidential
Speaker 1: to get the kind of Hollywood stories they wanted. For
Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century, Hollywood had been
Speaker 1: tightly managed by the movie studios. Studios controlled every step
Speaker 1: of the film business, from production to distribution, and they
Speaker 1: controlled the lives and images of their contracted stars with
Speaker 1: the same iron fist. The only way for journalists to
Speaker 1: get access to stars was to play along with the
Speaker 1: studios and to produce the kind of positive coverage they wanted.
Speaker 1: But by the nineteen fifties, the studio system was crumbling.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty eight, Supreme Court decision United States v.
Speaker 1: Paramount Pay Pictures, Inc. Had ruled that the studios held
Speaker 1: an unfair monopoly. Studios were forced to give up control
Speaker 1: over many aspects of the business, dealing them a serious
Speaker 1: financial blow. At the same time, the rise of television
Speaker 1: had decreased movie attendance. As the studios lost power, their
Speaker 1: threats to blackball journalists who didn't cover stars in the
Speaker 1: right way lost weight, and the stars who were used
Speaker 1: to the studios covering up their bad behavior were suddenly
Speaker 1: very exposed. The gossip cup was running over, and Confidential
Speaker 1: was ready to catch every last drop. Harrison began coordinating
Speaker 1: a network of informants across Los Angeles. Everyone from sex
Speaker 1: workers to police officers to studio employees, and even movie
Speaker 1: stars themselves soon learned that Confidential would pay well for
Speaker 1: good dirt. Confidential paid nannies to spy on employer's wressers
Speaker 1: to listen in on client conversations, and waiters to remember
Speaker 1: who wait with whom to get their stories. Confidential equipped
Speaker 1: its sources with all sorts of spy gadgets, including bugs
Speaker 1: to tap phone lines and watches that held hidden recorders.
Speaker 1: Harrison's niece, Marjorie Meade and her husband Fred eventually moved
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles and established a company called Hollywood Research, Inc.
Speaker 1: Which coordinated and organized the information coming in from tipsters.
Speaker 1: Harrison had correctly gauged the public's interest in Hollywood Gossip.
Speaker 1: By nineteen fifty five, the magazine's circulation was close to
Speaker 1: four million. Most copies were passed along to additional readers,
Speaker 1: and estimated four readers per copy, putting Confidential's readership at
Speaker 1: close to sixteen million people, or one in every ten Americans.
Speaker 1: With that kind of audience came great power. Confidential stories
Speaker 1: could make or break a star's career. A March nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five story about an alleged interracial romance between the
Speaker 1: white actress Ava Gardner and the black singer dancer Sammy
Speaker 1: Davis Junior led to Gardner's films being boycotted and banned
Speaker 1: in parts of the country. Two months later, a story
Speaker 1: about the actor Rory Calhoun's criminal past and how he
Speaker 1: had turned his life around thanks to religion earned Calhoun
Speaker 1: eight thousand fan letters and completely revitalized his career. As
Speaker 1: Confidential's influence grew, the movie studios increasingly came to view
Speaker 1: the magazine as a threat. The studios were more vulnerable
Speaker 1: than ever. Their profits were down and their audiences were straying.
Speaker 1: People also thought Hollywood was corrupting the country's morals. The
Speaker 1: studios even faced a Senate inquiry into whether movies could
Speaker 1: be tied to a rise in juvenile delinquency. The last
Speaker 1: thing Hollywood needed was a magazine digging up all of
Speaker 1: the industry's buried bodies. In the mid nineteen fifties, the
Speaker 1: studios decided to fight back and they were prepared to
Speaker 1: fight dirty. In the summer of nineteen fifty five, studio
Speaker 1: publicity heads met in secret at the Beverly Hills Hotel
Speaker 1: to discuss the Confidential problem. Shortly after the meeting, one
Speaker 1: of the publicists traveled to New York to meet with
Speaker 1: Confidential editors. Wouldn't it be better for everyone, he asked
Speaker 1: the editors if the magazine focused on athletes, or politicians,
Speaker 1: or really anyone besides Hollywood stars. Confidential editors laughed him
Speaker 1: out of the office. This straightforward approach having failed, the
Speaker 1: publicists moved on to something more cloak and dagger. Enlisting
Speaker 1: movie producers and an actress to help them, The publicists
Speaker 1: cooked up an elaborate trap for Confidential. The team planted
Speaker 1: gossip about the actress, backing up their story with witnesses.
Speaker 1: They made sure the story eventually got to Confidential via
Speaker 1: a chain of tipsters. When Confidential sent a private investigator
Speaker 1: to look into the story, everything seemed to check out.
Speaker 1: But had Confidential run it, they would have been vulnerable
Speaker 1: to an enormous libel suit because the story the publicists
Speaker 1: had planted was entirely, verifiably false. At the last minute,
Speaker 1: though the magazine had doubts and killed the story. The
Speaker 1: studios were foiled again. If they couldn't control Confidential, the
Speaker 1: studios decided maybe they could control the flow of information
Speaker 1: out of Hollywood. Each of the six largest studios agreed
Speaker 1: to contribute to a fund which would pay for private
Speaker 1: security force to monitor star's behaviors and interfere with Confidential's
Speaker 1: information gathering network. But the studios eventually balked, fearing that
Speaker 1: Confidential would discover their plans and attack. A plan to
Speaker 1: blacklist anyone thought to be a Confidential informant was abandoned.
Speaker 1: For similar reasons, Celebrities, sick of having their dirty laundry
Speaker 1: aired in the magazine's pages, wanted the studios to fight harder.
Speaker 1: Many stars felt powerless on their own. They had the
Speaker 1: option to file libel suits against Confidential. Yes, but there
Speaker 1: were a number of reasons not to. First, a suit
Speaker 1: could draw attention to the very thing that the stars
Speaker 1: hoped to keep hidden. Filing a suit would only give
Speaker 1: Confidential the publicity they want, said Marlon Brando, and maybe
Speaker 1: I'd get an award of eight cents. There was also
Speaker 1: the that a suit would provoke Confidential into spilling even
Speaker 1: more information about the star. It was well known that
Speaker 1: Confidential often published only parts of the stories they received
Speaker 1: from tipsters, holding on to the most damaging titbits as
Speaker 1: insurance against legal action. And finally, there was the problem
Speaker 1: of jurisdiction. Confidential was a New York based company. Most
Speaker 1: of the stars it wrote about lived in California and
Speaker 1: filed their rare libel suits against the magazine in that state,
Speaker 1: suits that judges quickly dismissed, saying that California did not
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction over a New York company. The New York
Speaker 1: courts were notoriously backed up, and filing there might have
Speaker 1: meant a year's long wait to be heard. As stars
Speaker 1: considered how best to deal with Confidential, the studios escalated
Speaker 1: their battle to the federal level. In August nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: several studio heads reached out to Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield
Speaker 1: with a bold request. They wanted the Post Office to
Speaker 1: revoke Confidential's mailing privileges. One movie producer was alleged to
Speaker 1: have told Summerfield, unless they take away Harrison's mailing privileges,
Speaker 1: this industry is done. For Summerfield, who saw obscenity as
Speaker 1: one of the gravest threats to American society. Had his
Speaker 1: own reasons for disliking Confidential. On August twenty seventh, he
Speaker 1: issued a withhold from dispatch order on the November issue
Speaker 1: of Confidential. Under the order's terms, no issue of Confidential
Speaker 1: could be mailed without first being reviewed by the Post
Speaker 1: Office and being found free of improper content. The determination
Speaker 1: of whether content was or was not improper was entirely
Speaker 1: up to the Post Office. Harrison responded by filing suit
Speaker 1: against Summerfield, and a judge eventually ruled in the magazine's favor,
Speaker 1: saying that the Post Office was violating the magazine's right
Speaker 1: to do process by threatening to ban it with no notices,
Speaker 1: charges or hearings. Confidential had won again. The fight with
Speaker 1: the Post Office had even raised the magazine's profile and
Speaker 1: with that, its circulation. But a raised profile also brought
Speaker 1: unwanted scrutiny. The studio executives were not alone in their
Speaker 1: concerns about Confidential. Segments of the American public were worried
Speaker 1: about the effect scandal magazines might have on the nation's morals.
Speaker 1: To some, these magazines seem to represent everything wrong with
Speaker 1: the country. As one Californian told the newspaper, quote, all
Speaker 1: scandal magazines should be taken off the market. They are
Speaker 1: a menace to society. They caring nothing but trash, and
Speaker 1: that is no good for our youth. Scandal magazines weren't
Speaker 1: the only target for criticism. Many Americans worried about the
Speaker 1: effect of any reading materials that freely discussed hot button
Speaker 1: topics like sex, violence, and race. Throughout the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: many communities set up review boards which determined if publications
Speaker 1: were inappropriate. If they were found to be so, local distributors,
Speaker 1: including booksellers, newsstands, and libraries were strongly encouraged not to
Speaker 1: carry these items under the vague threat of legal action.
Speaker 1: What about freedom of the press, you might ask. Here's
Speaker 1: one magazine writing on that very question in nineteen fifty seven. Quote,
Speaker 1: the framers of the Constitution never meant the First Amendment
Speaker 1: to protect filth peddlers who poisoned minds. And this magazine
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one to take this position. Many journalists
Speaker 1: and publications believed that scandal magazines like Confidential were not
Speaker 1: entitled to the same legal protections as more traditional publications.
Speaker 1: They feared that aligning themselves with scandal magazines could end
Speaker 1: up damaging their own rights. Back in Hollywood, the studios
Speaker 1: sent that the tide of public opinion might be turning
Speaker 1: their way. In October nineteen fifty six, when Harrison appeared
Speaker 1: on The Tonight Show to defend Scandal Magazine's the audience
Speaker 1: booed him it was time for the studios to strike.
Speaker 1: In December nineteen fifty six, MGM released Slander, a movie
Speaker 1: about an unscrupulous scandal magazine publisher unfairly ruining the life
Speaker 1: of a well meaning actor. The movie was melodramatic, it
Speaker 1: ends with the publisher's mother killing him, disgusted by what
Speaker 1: her son has become, and flopped at the box office,
Speaker 1: but its heavy handed message did not go unnoticed. Slander
Speaker 1: quote reeks with the motion picture industry's long pent up
Speaker 1: sense of vengeance, wrote Texas's Amarillo Globe. Harrison responded in
Speaker 1: a typically cheeky fashion, hiring models to picket the movie
Speaker 1: outside a Broadway theater holding signs that read Slander is
Speaker 1: unfair to Confidential. But the studios weren't done there, though
Speaker 1: their attempt to get Confidential through the post office had failed,
Speaker 1: they now recognized the power of governmental attacks on the magazine.
Speaker 1: In January nineteen fifty seven, the California State Senate formed
Speaker 1: a committee to investigate the practices of private detectives in
Speaker 1: the state. Or at least that was the committee's alleged purpose.
Speaker 1: In reality, the committee had been formed at the behest
Speaker 1: of the studios and planned to look into how Confidential
Speaker 1: got its stories. This was the committee mentioned in the
Speaker 1: prologue that looked into the wrong door raid at Florence
Speaker 1: Cott's apartment. The committee's investigation eventually fizzled out in March,
Speaker 1: with lead Senator Fred Kraft declaring that though the magazines
Speaker 1: were a quote national disgrace, the field is beyond this
Speaker 1: scope of a single state legislature. But the state's war
Speaker 1: on Confidential was far from over. California Attorney General Pat
Speaker 1: Brown announced that his office, in tandem with the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles County District Attorney, would now be pursuing charges against Confidential.
Speaker 1: Brown said his decision was motivated by a desire to
Speaker 1: protect children from the magazine. He also claimed that Confidential
Speaker 1: Quote caused divorces and broken homes and led to blackmail,
Speaker 1: but behind the scenes, the studios were again pulling the strings.
Speaker 1: Brown was pursuing a run for governor, and the film
Speaker 1: industry had made it clear to him that they would
Speaker 1: look favorably upon a candidate who supported their crusade against Confidential.
Speaker 1: In May nineteen fifty seven, Brown and Los Angeles County
Speaker 1: District Attorney William McKesson convened a grand jury to look
Speaker 1: into Confidential. On May fifteenth, the grand jury indicted Confidential
Speaker 1: members of its staff, its printer and distributor, and its
Speaker 1: sister Magaze Whisper on four charges, including conspiracy to commit
Speaker 1: criminal libel and conspiracy to publish obscene and indecent material.
Speaker 1: Robert Harrison addressed the charges directly in an editorial and Confidential,
Speaker 1: this magazine is under assault in the California courts. Harrison wrote,
Speaker 1: this is a determined effort initiated by a segment of
Speaker 1: the motion picture industry to get this magazine. He positioned
Speaker 1: the Confidential as a brave truth teller, a publication unafraid
Speaker 1: to reveal to the American people what the elite did
Speaker 1: not want them to know. Is an American jury going
Speaker 1: to get us for daring to tell that truth? Harrison asked,
Speaker 1: we don't believe so his assumptions would soon be put
Speaker 1: to the test. Confidential's trial was scheduled to begin in August.
Speaker 1: It almost ended before it started, though, because it seemed
Speaker 1: that both sides had lost their appetite for the fight.
Speaker 1: Throughout the summer, Harrison's lawyers had been issuing subpoenas for celebrities.
Speaker 1: Most stars had managed to avoid the summons, flipping out
Speaker 1: of back entrances, heading to Las Vegas, even leaving the country,
Speaker 1: but some hadn't. Dean Martin, Launa Turner, and Gary Cooper
Speaker 1: were among those who had received subpoenas. Studio executives panicked.
Speaker 1: The last thing they wanted was for their biggest box
Speaker 1: office draws to have to confirm or deny their sins
Speaker 1: under oath. Arthur Crowley, the high powered Los Angeles lawyer
Speaker 1: running the defense, knew just what he was doing. I
Speaker 1: want to make it clear that the reputations of many
Speaker 1: persons will suffer if this case goes to trial, because
Speaker 1: we are going to offer the truth as a defense,
Speaker 1: he stated. Studio executives heard Crowley's message loud and clear,
Speaker 1: and they started to have second thoughts about the trial.
Speaker 1: George Murphy head of the Motion Picture Industry Council, approached
Speaker 1: the prosecutors and urged them to reach a compromise. The
Speaker 1: defense was receptive. Harrison knew that this trial, no matter
Speaker 1: the outcome, would be enormously expensive, so the two sides
Speaker 1: came to an agreement. Confidential would stop focusing on celebrities
Speaker 1: in exchange for some of the charges being decided by
Speaker 1: a judge and others being dropped. But Judge Herbert Walker
Speaker 1: rejected the deal. The state had brought charges for good reason,
Speaker 1: he said, and this compromise didn't do enough to address
Speaker 1: those charges. The trial would proceed. Stars and Confidential executives
Speaker 1: alike held their breath. No matter who won the case,
Speaker 1: everyone knew scandal was sure to ensue. On August second,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, the trial began at the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Superior Court. Robert Harrison wasn't there. In fact, only two
Speaker 1: of the people charged and the grand jury indictment were present.
Speaker 1: All summer, Confidential's lawyers had been battling to prevent the
Speaker 1: extradition of their clients from New York, and they had succeeded.
Speaker 1: The face of Confidential at the defense table would not
Speaker 1: be its infamous publisher Harrison, but his niece Marjorie Need
Speaker 1: and her husband Fred. Marjorie and Fred had flown back
Speaker 1: into Los Angeles in May to surrender, and Marjorie, decked
Speaker 1: out in furs and diamonds, had asked reporters, then, don't
Speaker 1: you think this whole thing has a little to do
Speaker 1: with destruction of freedom of the press? Now she sat
Speaker 1: quietly in the courtroom, her dyed red curls and large eyes,
Speaker 1: drawing admiring looks. The prosecutors, William Ritzy and Clarence Lynne,
Speaker 1: presented quite a contrast to the glamorous Meads. Ritzy, a
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney, and Lynn, an Assistant Attorney General,
Speaker 1: were both serious religious men. Lynn taught Sunday school back
Speaker 1: home in San Francisco, and they weren't letting the spotlight
Speaker 1: dazzle them. Though the trial had largely come about due
Speaker 1: to political pressure, Ritzy and Lynn were confident that the
Speaker 1: law was on their side. One of their first jobs
Speaker 1: was making the connection between the meds and confidential clear,
Speaker 1: given that the Meads were the only defendants present. That
Speaker 1: connection came, the prosecutors claimed, through a company called Hollywood Research,
Speaker 1: This was the Los Angeles business that organized and followed
Speaker 1: up on informants tips and sent them back to Confidential.
Speaker 1: The magazine had long claimed that Hollywood Research was a
Speaker 1: completely independent organization. This was part of their strategy of
Speaker 1: claiming to have no corporate presence in California, thus making
Speaker 1: it harder for stars to sue them. But the prosecution
Speaker 1: thought otherwise, and they had good reason to think so,
Speaker 1: because Hollywood Research had been run by none other than
Speaker 1: Marjorie Mead. The prosecution took several steps during their case
Speaker 1: to prove their point, submitting phone records that showed a
Speaker 1: huge volume of calls between the Confidential office and the
Speaker 1: Hollywood Researching Office. They also brought out a witness, Paul Gregory,
Speaker 1: who claimed that Marjorie Mead had extorted him over keeping
Speaker 1: a story out of Confidential. Gregory's testimony had provided a
Speaker 1: dramatic moment. As he testified about Marjorie, she began to sob,
Speaker 1: and once the jury left the room, she collapsed entirely furious.
Speaker 1: Her husband, Fred had stalked over to the prosecution table
Speaker 1: and slamming his fist down, yelled at prosecutor Ritzy, you
Speaker 1: must want to win this case pretty bad by putting
Speaker 1: that lying character on the stand, Ritzy was unfazed. The
Speaker 1: defense would later provide records proving that Meade could not
Speaker 1: have been with Gregory when he claimed she had the
Speaker 1: biggest scores for The prosecution's argument about the California Confidential
Speaker 1: connection actually came during Fred Mead's own testimony. He revealed
Speaker 1: that Harrison had been the one to suggest that he
Speaker 1: and Marjorie get into the gossip business. Harrison had even
Speaker 1: given them money to get started on cross Ritzy got
Speaker 1: need to admit that Marjorie's brother was the company's vice president,
Speaker 1: and that the supposedly independent Hollywood Research had only ever
Speaker 1: sold information to two magazines, Confidential and its sister magazine, Whisper.
Speaker 1: Whatever the exact nature of the relationship between Hollywood Research
Speaker 1: and Confidential Engine, true prosecutors were right. Hollywood Research had
Speaker 1: been set up by the magazine. It was clear from
Speaker 1: the testimony that the Needs were involved in this business
Speaker 1: up to their necks, and in the course of this business,
Speaker 1: the Needs and the rest of the Confidential crew, the
Speaker 1: prosecutors claimed, had conspired to commit obscenity and libel. The
Speaker 1: prosecutors now set out to prove these charges. First up
Speaker 1: the question of obscenity. What is obscene material. That's a
Speaker 1: hard question to answer, a question that even the law
Speaker 1: struggles with, because what makes something obscene is often subjective
Speaker 1: in California law. At the time, material was obscene if
Speaker 1: quote it has a substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt
Speaker 1: its readers by inciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desire.
Speaker 1: In other words, if it turned people on. The magazine
Speaker 1: had been charged with not just the publication of obscene material,
Speaker 1: but also the conspiracy to publish it, meaning that two
Speaker 1: or more people had arranged knowingly to commit the crime.
Speaker 1: So now Ritzie and Lynne had to prove not only
Speaker 1: that Confidential had published obscene material, but also that they
Speaker 1: had knowingly done so. The prosecution argued that Confidential had
Speaker 1: done just that. They brought Ronnie Quillen, a sex worker
Speaker 1: and frequent Confidential tipster, to the stand. Quillen testified that
Speaker 1: Harrison had wanted stories quote primarily dealing with the sexual
Speaker 1: activities of celebrities, and that he'd made it clear that quote,
Speaker 1: the more lewde and lascivious the story, the more colorful
Speaker 1: the magazine, But the defense rebutted that notion, claiming that
Speaker 1: the magazine had always been careful not to cross the
Speaker 1: line into obscenity, and how had they defined that line.
Speaker 1: Daniel Ross, one of the magazine's lawyers, explained that he
Speaker 1: and Robert Harrison had compared the magazine to others published material.
Speaker 1: To prove Ross's point, proudly, the defense attorney submitted into
Speaker 1: evidence a whole stack of books which Ross claimed to
Speaker 1: have used to learn what the public found acceptable in
Speaker 1: terms of obscenity. The stack included best sellers like John
Speaker 1: Steinbeck's East of Eden and Grace Mettalius's Peyton Place. Whether
Speaker 1: or not these books made senses benchmarks for obscenity, and
Speaker 1: more importantly, whether or not Confidential had ended up publishing
Speaker 1: obscene content despite these precautions would be up for the
Speaker 1: jury to decide. The next charge was libel. The state
Speaker 1: had again gone with a conspiracy charge, so they would
Speaker 1: have to prove two things. That the magazine had published
Speaker 1: afammatory material and that it had done so with intent,
Speaker 1: Because the magazine was charged not with civil libel but
Speaker 1: with criminal libel, a little used charge that basically doesn't
Speaker 1: exist today, the burden of proving whether or not the
Speaker 1: stories were true fell to the magazine. Prosecutor Clarence Lynn
Speaker 1: had said when the charges were announced that he didn't
Speaker 1: think the magazine would be able to prove that their
Speaker 1: stories were true. Like many people, he seemed to assume
Speaker 1: that Confidential was sloppy in their standards, publishing anything, no
Speaker 1: matter how questionable, as long as it sounded good. But
Speaker 1: in that assumption, Lynn was very wrong. Though Confidential had
Speaker 1: started out by publishing made up stories, once they graduated
Speaker 1: into the world of Hollywood gossip, Robert Harrison had wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that Confidential was legally safeguarded. When the
Speaker 1: magazine decided to move forward with a tip, private investigators
Speaker 1: were hired to double check the information. We have to
Speaker 1: have the exact type, exact date, everything documented just in case,
Speaker 1: Harrison said. Then the magazine's lawyers would prepare affidavits for
Speaker 1: their sources to sign, which read quote, I swich that
Speaker 1: all the events described in the above story are true
Speaker 1: and that I was a participant in these events. Based
Speaker 1: on these affidavits, confidentials writers would then put together a piece,
Speaker 1: but the legal review wasn't over yet. Lawyers would now
Speaker 1: check over every word of a story, often demanding rewrites
Speaker 1: or deletions. Their oversight was so intensive, one reporter said
Speaker 1: that he once requested a disclaimer that an article was
Speaker 1: an attorney's work, not his own. Writers quickly learned that
Speaker 1: the best approach was to imply conclusions, not state them outright,
Speaker 1: in order to protect themselves from liability. Confidential, the testimony suggested,
Speaker 1: was very, very careful with the truth, but two of
Speaker 1: the trials most eye catching witnesses would reveal that Confidential's
Speaker 1: fact checking process was not infallible. Hollywood's fears about stars
Speaker 1: being called by the defense hadn't materialized. Defense lawyer Arthur
Speaker 1: Crowley didn't want to risk being bound by the testimony
Speaker 1: of witnesses who might perjure themselves to protect their reputations. However,
Speaker 1: there were some stars who wanted to testify. Their names
Speaker 1: were Maureen O'Hara and Dorothy Dandridge. O'Hara, an actress, came
Speaker 1: to court to respond to a March nineteen fifty seven
Speaker 1: article titled quote it was the hottest show in town
Speaker 1: when Maureen O'Hara cuddled in Row thirty five. The article
Speaker 1: alleged that O'Hara had had a sexual encounter with a
Speaker 1: lover in the back row of Grammin's Chinese Theater in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. O'Hara vehemently denied it, and she had proved
Speaker 1: to back up her denials. On the same day that
Speaker 1: Confidential claims she was getting busy in Los Angeles, O'Hara's
Speaker 1: passport showed that she had been in London. Dorothy Dandridge,
Speaker 1: a singer actress, also testified. Confidential had published an article
Speaker 1: called only the Birds and the Bees Saw What Dorothy
Speaker 1: Dandridge Did in the Woods, claiming that Dandridge had had
Speaker 1: sex with a man in the woods near a resort
Speaker 1: in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Now, Dandridge appeared on the stand,
Speaker 1: stating for the court that what Confidential claimed could never
Speaker 1: have happened. Dandridge was black, and the man the story
Speaker 1: alleged she had had sex with was white. During the
Speaker 1: period in which she had been in Lake Tahoe, Dandridge explained,
Speaker 1: racial prejudices there had not only precluded her from interacting
Speaker 1: with white people, but also from walking freely around the
Speaker 1: resort grounds. She couldn't have even gone into the woods,
Speaker 1: let alone met a white man there, so Confidential was
Speaker 1: not infallible. But had they meant to defame the subjects
Speaker 1: of their articles. Opinions on that varied. One disgruntled former
Speaker 1: reporter testified that he had wanted to hear those he
Speaker 1: wrote about, while others claimed that they were just reporting
Speaker 1: facts like any other news publication. The real blame for
Speaker 1: any damage done, when witness said, lay with the movie studios,
Speaker 1: who did not enforce the moral clauses in their stars contracts. Again,
Speaker 1: it would be up to the jury to decide. In
Speaker 1: closing arguments, the prosecution doubled down on their themes. They
Speaker 1: pointed out the familial and financial bonds between Confidential and
Speaker 1: Hollywood Research. They argued that Confidential had no motive for
Speaker 1: exposing scandal other than financial gain. They railed against the
Speaker 1: low morals of the magazine. Look at them, shouted William Ritzy,
Speaker 1: pointing his finger at Marjorie and Fred Mead. They are
Speaker 1: the self appointed purveyors of filth and gossip in the
Speaker 1: United States. For the defense, Crowley fought back, Oh, was
Speaker 1: Confidential so much different, so much worse than any other publication?
Speaker 1: He asked, what about girly magazines with their erotic content.
Speaker 1: Why wasn't the government pursuing them unlike those magazines, Crowley continued,
Speaker 1: confidential is accepted by the community. It is sold over
Speaker 1: the counter, not under the counter. And then he brought
Speaker 1: up another point, one that had nearly gotten lost amongst
Speaker 1: the discussion of celebrities and gossip and smut, the issue
Speaker 1: of free speech. The prosecution wants to indulge in censorship,
Speaker 1: to do your thinking for you. Who is the prosecutor
Speaker 1: to tell you what you can and can't read? He asked,
Speaker 1: If you find my client's guilty, Crowley told the jury,
Speaker 1: you will be taking a precious piece of liberty. Would
Speaker 1: this plea be enough? After more than a month of
Speaker 1: testimony and nearly thirty witnesses, the trial ended and the
Speaker 1: decision was left in the jury's hands. Soon it became
Speaker 1: clear that it would not be a quick deliberation. One
Speaker 1: day passed, and then another, and then another. The jury
Speaker 1: returned to the courtroom to ask Judge Walker some clarifying questions.
Speaker 1: They left again. Things were getting heated amongst the jury.
Speaker 1: At one point marshals had to step in. Several jurors
Speaker 1: had allegedly threatened to throw another juror out of the window. Finally,
Speaker 1: after a then record breaking fourteen days of deliberation, the
Speaker 1: jury returned to the courtroom on October first, but they
Speaker 1: still had no verdict. They were hopelessly stuck, they told
Speaker 1: Judge Walker, and could not reach a unanimous verdict. Reluctantly,
Speaker 1: he declared a mistrial. Later, it would emerge that the
Speaker 1: jurors had voted seven to five in favor of conviction
Speaker 1: on the charge of conspiracy to commit criminal libel and
Speaker 1: eight to four on conspiracy to publish obscenity. Now the
Speaker 1: government had the option to retry Confidential, but did they
Speaker 1: want to publicly? California Attorney General Pat Brown was quick
Speaker 1: to declare his desire for a retrial, but privately he
Speaker 1: wanted the whole thing to be over and done with,
Speaker 1: and so did the studios who had first urged him
Speaker 1: to take the case. The trial had been expensive and exhausting.
Speaker 1: He wrote to Prosecutor Clarence Lynn on October ninth and
Speaker 1: urged him to settle the case with Confidential. Publicly, Robert
Speaker 1: Harrison was thrilled by the trial's outcome. He threw a
Speaker 1: lavish dinner to celebrate Arthur Crowley in New York City
Speaker 1: and hired a violin player to serenade him privately. Was terrified.
Speaker 1: The first trial had cost him an estimated three and
Speaker 1: a half million dollars in legal fees in today's money.
Speaker 1: He was worried that another trial would ruin him and
Speaker 1: perhaps even land his niece Marjorie in jail. So when
Speaker 1: the prosecutors reached out to discuss a deal, Harrison was receptive.
Speaker 1: The lawyers got to work hammering out terms. Meanwhile, Pat
Speaker 1: Brown announced his run for governor. He was elected less
Speaker 1: than a year later and served two terms. On November twelfth,
Speaker 1: Judge Burton Noble approved a proposed deal between California and Confidential.
Speaker 1: The terms were simple. The state would drop all charges
Speaker 1: except the count of conspiracy to publish obscenity. A judge
Speaker 1: would determine the magazine's guilt on this charge based on
Speaker 1: the grand jury and trial transcripts. In exchange for the
Speaker 1: reduced charges, Confidential agreed to stop publishing exposes about celebrities.
Speaker 1: They also agreed to take out ads publicly announcing this
Speaker 1: change in editorial direction. In December, Judge Noble found Confidential
Speaker 1: and her sister magazine whisper guilty of conspiring to publish obscenity.
Speaker 1: Each magazine was fined five thousand dollars. Where were the
Speaker 1: studios in all of this? During the trial, Now aware
Speaker 1: that taking the legal route ran the risk of unwelcome exposure,
Speaker 1: the studios had created another internal anti scandal magazine committee members,
Speaker 1: including a politically ambitious actor named Ronald Reagan, brainstormed measures
Speaker 1: to fight Confidential and its cronies. In mid October, they
Speaker 1: announced a campaign to root out magazine informants. We will
Speaker 1: organize effective opposition to fight these people, writers, said one
Speaker 1: committee member. But their efforts proved unnecessary because though Confidential
Speaker 1: had made it through the trial, they had not come
Speaker 1: out of the battle unscathed. In the spring of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, the magazine revealed its new approach to readers.
Speaker 1: We're quitting the area of private affairs for the arena
Speaker 1: of public affairs. Read the announcement. If wiseacres say we've
Speaker 1: retreated from the bedroom, we'll say, yes, that's true. From
Speaker 1: now on, we'll search the thoroughfares of the globe for
Speaker 1: stories of public interest. These so called public interest stories
Speaker 1: including gems like what's wrong with the oil burner in
Speaker 1: the White House Basement and Penicillin Can Save Your Life.
Speaker 1: Unsurprisingly failed to interest the public at all. Circulation numbers
Speaker 1: collapsed after three issues of the new Confidential. Robert Harrison
Speaker 1: had had enough. He wanted a magazine that drew attention,
Speaker 1: that started conversations, and most of all, that made money.
Speaker 1: Under their restrictions placed by the California Deal, Confidential could
Speaker 1: no longer be that magazine. Plus Harrison was now facing
Speaker 1: a number of celebrity libel lawsuits. He announced that he
Speaker 1: was selling the magazine. The new publisher tried to revive interest,
Speaker 1: but couldn't find an audience. The magazine steadily lost readership
Speaker 1: and eventually folded. Many people saw Confidential's collapse as a
Speaker 1: victory for American morality. One newspaper editorial put it like this,
Speaker 1: these magazines still may not be fit for most living rooms,
Speaker 1: but it is generally agreed that they are not quite
Speaker 1: so bad as they were before. The heavy expenses of
Speaker 1: the trial appear to have made the publishers and editors
Speaker 1: of Confidential and her scandalous sisters more conscious of their responsibilities.
Speaker 1: But other observers were concerned about the potential chilling effects
Speaker 1: of the trial, the journalist Maurice Solitau expressed these fears
Speaker 1: governmental power has been used to alter the editorial content
Speaker 1: of a national magazine. It has been shown that the
Speaker 1: cost of defending such a charge is so expensive that
Speaker 1: by merely threatening an indefinite series of prosecutions, any publication
Speaker 1: can be put to death. Regardless of one's personal opinion
Speaker 1: of Confidential, many may regard the use of the judicial
Speaker 1: power to muzzle a magazine any magazine, as an act
Speaker 1: discouraging freedom and controversy. Fortunately, Zlatao's views were not immediately realized.
Speaker 1: In the decade after the Confidential trial, the American public
Speaker 1: and the judicial system seemed to lose their appetite for censorship.
Speaker 1: Many of the local and state level literature review boards
Speaker 1: which served as de facto censorship organizations, disbanded, usually due
Speaker 1: to court rulings against them, but censorship has never fully
Speaker 1: vanied from our landscape. Recently, the country has seen a
Speaker 1: rise in community efforts to ban or censor books from
Speaker 1: public and school libraries. The American Library Association reported in
Speaker 1: September twenty twenty three that the first eight months of
Speaker 1: that year contained the highest number of book challenges since
Speaker 1: it began recording the data in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: the number of book challenges had already nearly doubled between
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two. Unlike Confidential, which
Speaker 1: was invested in reinforcing racist, homophobic, and sexist stereotypes, most
Speaker 1: of the publications being challenged today are those that explore
Speaker 1: or are supportive of gender, racial, and sexual diversity. But
Speaker 1: the question at the heart of all these challenges has
Speaker 1: remained the same. Who chooses what the public gets to read?
Speaker 1: The American Library Associations Deborah Caldwell Stone is a statement
Speaker 1: about book challenges. Said quote, to allow a group of people,
Speaker 1: or any individual, no matter how powerful or allowed, to
Speaker 1: become the decision maker about what books we can read
Speaker 1: or whether libraries exist, is to place all of our
Speaker 1: rights and liberties in jeopardy, Or, as Arthur Crowley put
Speaker 1: it in the Confidential Trial, who is the prosecutor to
Speaker 1: tell you what you can and can't read? There are
Speaker 1: some lighter parallels between Confidential and today too. Though Confidential
Speaker 1: itself may not have lasted long, it set the tone
Speaker 1: for nearly all of the celebrity gossip we consume today.
Speaker 1: Before Confidential and other scandal magazines like it. Hollywood stars
Speaker 1: had highly polished images. Confidential revealed the truth behind the glamour.
Speaker 1: Once the truth was out, there was no going back,
Speaker 1: and many stars decided that it was better to capitalize
Speaker 1: on the public's interest in their foibles than try to
Speaker 1: deny them. In nineteen sixty four, Robert Harrison was profiled
Speaker 1: in esquire Ma magazine and told the reporter quote, you
Speaker 1: couldn't put out a magazine like Confidential again because movie
Speaker 1: stars have started writing books about themselves. They tell all.
Speaker 1: No magazine can compete with that. Many magazines, of course,
Speaker 1: have tried. From confidentials Ashes Rose Publications has varied as
Speaker 1: The National Inquirer and People Magazine, as well as online
Speaker 1: gossip sites like TMZ and television programs like Entertainment Tonight.
Speaker 1: Robert Harrison, for all his quirks, knew what news sold,
Speaker 1: and as I sit here now telling the story of
Speaker 1: the hidden forces at work behind his magazine's trial, I
Speaker 1: can't help but think of some of his words. I
Speaker 1: sincerely believe the basic vehicle of the story behind the
Speaker 1: story will be here long after we are all dead.
Speaker 1: That's the story of California. V Confidential Stay with Me
Speaker 1: after the Break to learn more about the tragic rise
Speaker 1: and fall of one of the magazine's star writers, who
Speaker 1: embodied many of the nineteen fifties darkest trends. In the
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen fifty three, Robert Harrison was looking for
Speaker 1: a reporter to write a hit piece about one of
Speaker 1: his loudest critics, the New York Post editor James Wexler.
Speaker 1: None of his usual freelancers would do. Harrison wanted to
Speaker 1: highlight Wexler's youthful membership in the Young Communist League, and
Speaker 1: thus wanted a noted anti communist journalist to write the piece.
Speaker 1: So he reached out to the source of all things
Speaker 1: anti communists, the office of Senator Joe McCarthy. Three years earlier,
Speaker 1: McCarthy had made national news by declaring that he had
Speaker 1: a list of hundreds of Communists working at the State Department.
Speaker 1: Since then, he had ruthlessly and often baselessly accused hundreds
Speaker 1: more Americans of Communist sympathies, ruining reputations and lives with
Speaker 1: his hearings in the Senate. One of the main sources
Speaker 1: of information for these hearings was a prominent anti communist
Speaker 1: journalist named Howard Rushmore, who now worked for McCarthy. When
Speaker 1: Robert Harrison called McCarthy's office in the spring of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, it was with Rushmore that he wished to
Speaker 1: be connected. Rushmore had not always been an anti communist.
Speaker 1: In fact, he had once been a passionate communist. Born
Speaker 1: on July second, nineteen twelve, in Sheridan, Wyoming, Rushmore grew
Speaker 1: up in profound poverty. As a young reporter in Missouri,
Speaker 1: he had been radicalized by witnessing both terrible working conditions
Speaker 1: and the lynching of a young black man. Rushmore was
Speaker 1: desperate for a better world and admired the conviction with
Speaker 1: which communist organizations railed against injustice. By the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: he was prominent in the communist movement and served as
Speaker 1: film critic for the major communist newspaper, Daily Worker. But
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine, Rushmore had a catastrophic falling out
Speaker 1: with the Communist Party over his positive review of the
Speaker 1: film Gone with the Wind. Other Daily Worker employees accused
Speaker 1: him of being racist and of sympathizing with the Confederacy. Outraged,
Speaker 1: Rushmore left both the paper and the Party and decided
Speaker 1: to devote himself to destroying communism in America. His rise
Speaker 1: in the anti communist movement was just as swift as
Speaker 1: it had been in the communist movement. He was hired
Speaker 1: by the right wing journal American Newspaper and became the
Speaker 1: country's first full time reporter on the communist movement. By
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, With his anti communist expertise established, Rushmore
Speaker 1: became a popular witness for government investigations. He was a
Speaker 1: key witness in the House on American Activities Committees' hearings
Speaker 1: on communism in Hollywood. In nineteen fifty three, Senator McCarthy
Speaker 1: made Rushmore his research director. His power seemed limitless, but
Speaker 1: under the surface cracks were appearing. Rushmore was an alcoholic
Speaker 1: with violent tendencies. He had a prickly personality, a combative nature,
Speaker 1: and a condescending manner. He also had a tendency to
Speaker 1: fabricate evidence. Once, he had claimed to have an FBI
Speaker 1: report showing that whe hundred and fifty government employees in
Speaker 1: Washington State were Soviet spies. When the FBI asked him
Speaker 1: to produce this report, he gave them a letter he
Speaker 1: himself had written, and he would eventually lose his job
Speaker 1: with McCarthy after it was revealed that he was using
Speaker 1: private testimony from the Scent hearings for his articles in
Speaker 1: The Journal American. After agreeing to write that first article
Speaker 1: for Confidential onn Wexler, Rushmore had contributed occasionally to the magazine,
Speaker 1: writing mainly anti communist expose is Like the Strange Death
Speaker 1: of J. Robert Oppenheimer's Red Sweetheart. Rushmore thought the tabloid
Speaker 1: business was beneath him, but when and the Journal American
Speaker 1: fired him in nineteen fifty four over personality and pay disputes,
Speaker 1: he came to Confidential full time. Eventually, Rushmore became Confidential's
Speaker 1: chief editor. His main passion was exposes of stars for
Speaker 1: communist leanings or homosexuality, but he'd chafed against Harrison's requirements
Speaker 1: that he also report on what Rushmore saw as a
Speaker 1: less consequential celebrity gossip. In turn, Harrison was annoyed by
Speaker 1: Rushmore's obsessive focus on politics. By nineteen fifty five, the
Speaker 1: two men had fallen out, and Rushmore left the magazine
Speaker 1: that September under less than amicable terms, though Confidential gave
Speaker 1: him severan's pay and promised to assume liability for any
Speaker 1: libel suits on articles published under his watch, as he
Speaker 1: had done with the Communist Party. Rushmore became determined to
Speaker 1: destroy the organization he felt spurned by. He took his
Speaker 1: severance pay and bought a plane ticket to California, where
Speaker 1: he met up with an A. Turneri, who was representing several
Speaker 1: celebrities in suits against the magazine. He would eventually testify
Speaker 1: at Pat Brown's grand jury hearings, where his testimony that
Speaker 1: quote some of the stories are true and some have
Speaker 1: nothing to back them up at all, would go a
Speaker 1: long way towards convincing the grand jury to bring an
Speaker 1: indictment against Confidential. At the trial, Rushmore testified for the prosecution,
Speaker 1: continuing his assault on the magazine. When Arthur Crowley pressed
Speaker 1: Rushmore on cross about his goals in writing for Confidential,
Speaker 1: asking did you have this specific intention yourself to injure someone?
Speaker 1: The lawyer clearly expected a no, but Rushmore shocked Crowley
Speaker 1: in the courtroom by replying, I certainly did. Though Rushmore
Speaker 1: seemingly got what he wanted with the destruction of Confidential,
Speaker 1: the trial also ruined him. This was the second time
Speaker 1: he had publicly turned against an organization that had employed him,
Speaker 1: and no one could trust him anymore. THEO. Willson, who
Speaker 1: reported on the trial for the New York Daily News,
Speaker 1: called Rushmore quote a professional turncoat on the skids. He
Speaker 1: was unemployable, unlikable, and sinking ever deeper into the bottle.
Speaker 1: When prosecutor Clarence Lynn approached Rushmore in the fall of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven about testifying in a potential confidential retrial,
Speaker 1: he found a broken man, he told me. Lynn said
Speaker 1: that he thought he had been ruined by his activities
Speaker 1: in the Confidential trial. Much of Rushmore's anger ended up
Speaker 1: being channeled against his wife, Francis, who he physically abused.
Speaker 1: On January third, nineteen fifty eight, the worst happened. Rushmore
Speaker 1: killed Francis and then himself in a taxi in New
Speaker 1: York City. Robert Harrison received the news in another taxi
Speaker 1: on his way home from the airport. The driver asked
Speaker 1: him if he'd heard the news that the publisher of
Speaker 1: Confidential had just shot himself. Harrison, who was actually the
Speaker 1: publisher of Confidential, was baffled. Howard Rushmore's story is a
Speaker 1: sad and sordid one, but his journey also tells us
Speaker 1: so much about the country he lived in. As a
Speaker 1: young man, he witnessed terrible things and hoped for a
Speaker 1: better world. When he could not achieve that, he set
Speaker 1: out to watch the world burn. He wrote the progressive
Speaker 1: wave of the nineteen thirties, rallied behind nationalist causes in
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, and played on fears during the Red
Speaker 1: Scare in the nineteen fifties. He recognized the country's interest
Speaker 1: in celebrities, and he made money off of it, but
Speaker 1: it sickened him too. He was a mess of contradictions,
Speaker 1: a difficult man, and despite his protests that Confidential was
Speaker 1: beneath him, there is probably no better avatar for the
Speaker 1: magazine's potent brand of scandal. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: History on Trial. The main sources for this episode were
Speaker 1: Samantha Barbas's book Confidential Confidential, The Inside Story of Hollywood's
Speaker 1: notorious scandal magazine and Henry E. Scott's book Shocking True
Speaker 1: Story The Rise and Fall of Confidential, America's most scandalous
Speaker 1: scandal magazine. For a full bibliography, as well as a
Speaker 1: transcript of this episode with citations, please visit History on
Speaker 1: Trial podcast dot com. History on Trial is written and
Speaker 1: hosted by me Mira Hayward. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Trevor Young and
Speaker 1: executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward.
Speaker 1: Learn more about the show at History on Trial podcast
Speaker 1: dot com and follow us on Instagram at History on
Speaker 1: Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History on Trial. Find
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.