Dish (52 page)

Richard Stolley, who had paved the way for celebrity journalism to enter the mainstream, had long retired from being an editor, and was spending much of his time lecturing crowds about the evils of gossip. “I think gossip can be the enemy of civilization,” he told a group of journalists in 1998. “I think the dissemination of cruel, mean-spirited information which is fundamentally disturbing to a human being, to his family, to his friends is a blow to civilized society.”

There will always be a complicated dance among the public, the media, and the rich and famous and powerful. Celebrities, whether politicians or movie stars, crave certain types of controlled publicity but detest uninvited airings of their foibles and excesses. The media, which profit by selling celebrity, require both access to the celebrated and the freedom to publish unflattering details of their private lives if that serves either a journalistic
or commercial purpose. The public, for its part, is indisputably titillated by celebrity gossip but also disapproves of the media for the invasion of privacy required to provide them with the gossip it finds so fascinating.

The tensions within this triangular relationship can never be overcome more than temporarily. Any attempt at voluntary restraint by the media will always be undone by some shameless outsider, from
Confidential’s
Robert Harrison to the
Enquirer’s
Gene Pope to Internet maverick Matt Drudge, who believes that society at large, and his own bank account, is best served by placing no limits on what the public has a right to know. Whenever the “legitimate” media swears off gossip, another medium comes along to fill the void.

And by 1999, that medium was clearly the Internet. That year Matt Drudge, who had once preached that journalists should not earn too much money, was making more then $4,000 a day (or more than $1 million a year) from his column, according to a well-placed source. In addition to launching his own Fox TV talk show, he ditched his beat-up Geo Metro and bought a Porsche. He angrily left his talk show in late 1999, after Fox officials refused to let him show a photo of a fetus on air. He had, he declared, been “spoiled” by the freedom of the Internet. “The Internet,” Drudge insisted in his talk to the Washington Press Club, “is going to save the news business.”

It may not save the news business, but it had certainly rescued Druge from a life of obscurity. It had also given new life—for better or worse—to gossip. By killing certain stories and editing or cutting others, the power of the establishment media to control what information reached the public had been virtually extinguished by the Internet. And that, rather than the fear of yet another lurid scandal, may have been what made the mainstream journalists at the Press Club shudder when Drudge, in conclusion, declared, “Let the future begin.”

A note on sources:
In the course of reporting this book, I conducted hundreds of interviews, recorded transcripts from scores of television shows, and read hundreds of books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles. As it would be too daunting a task to name all the sources consulted, I have listed the most important books, articles, and television shows in the bibliography. Some sources were especially essential to the reporting; I have listed those in the chapter notes.

Matthew Drudge’s address before the National Press Club, 2 June 1998. Also author’s interview with Doug Harbrecht, 23 April 1999.

For an account of the penny press, see Andie Tucher,
Froth and Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in America’s First Mass Medium.
Also see Frederick Allen, “Up from Humbug,”
Columbia Journalism Review.

For a fascinating history of the gossip and society in America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Nicholas Lemann, “Confidence Games.” See also Mitchell Stephens,
A History of News.

For the definitive account of Winchell’s power and influence, see Neal Gabler,
Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity.
For further discussions
of Winchell, see also Lehman and Herman Klurfeld,
Winchell: His Life and Times.

I interviewed a number of people who know or knew Matthew Drudge, including Dan Mathews and David Cohen. Other sources consulted for this chapter include Howard Kurtz, “It’s Ten Past Monica, America. Do You Know Where Matt Drudge Is?”; Janet Wiscombe, “What Hath the Web Wrought?”; Michael Finley, “Drudging up Change on the Internet”; Robert B. Gunnison, “Drudge Dredges Up the Dirt.” The notion that Drudge hacked into computers is based on reports from several sources as well as William Powers, “Punctured Franchise.”

The description of the courtroom setting and trial was taken from a variety of contemporary news accounts as reported in the
New York Post,
the New York
Daily News,
the
New York Times,
the New York
Mirror, Time,
and
Newsweek.
In addition, the author interviewed scandal magazine expert Alan Betrock and publisher Lyle Stuart.

Among the profiles of Harrison consulted were Tom Wolfe’s “Public Lives:
Confidential
Magazine. Reflections in Tranquility by the Former Owner, Robert Harrison, Who Managed to Get away with It”; Mike Wallace’s “The Man Behind
Confidential”;
a 1957 series on Harrison in the New York
Mirror.
Neal Gabler also discusses the relationship between Harrison and Winchell.

For more on Fred Otash, see his book
Investigation Hollywood!
See also Bill Davidson, “The Dick”; Howard J. Rutledge, “Gossipy Private Peeks at Celebrities’ Lives Start Magazine Bonanza.
Confidential’s
Racy Exposés Crack Newsstand Records.”

The material in this chapter is based on an interview with Mike Wallace as well as interviews with a number of people who work for him, many of whom asked not to be identified. See also Wallace’s autobiography,
Close Encounters;
the excellent Edward Klein, “Hidden Mike”;
Vanity Fair
and a collection of his early interviews, published in
Mike Wallace Asks.
In addition, these published sources were consulted: “Mike Wallace: In the Spotlight”; Marvin Barrett, “Turnabout on Mike Wallace,
Newsweek”;
the series on Mike Wallace in the
New York Post,
13–18 February 1957; William A. Coleman, “Mike Wallace’s Sunday Punch,”
Parade.
For Oliver Treyz’s visit to ABC, see Leonard Goldenson,
Beating the Odds.

Details of the
Enquirer’s
early years are based on a number of interviews with Generoso Pope Jr.’s son, Paul Pope, with John Miller’s son, John Miller
Jr., and with Igor Cassini. Also, an unpublished interview with Lois and Paul Pope by Noel Botham and Brian Hitch, provided to the author by Paul Pope.

Details of the Costello dinner are taken from a variety of newspaper accounts at the time of the hit, as well as Leonard Katz’s excellent
Uncle Frank: The Biography of Frank Costello.
Also see George Wolf with Joseph DiMona,
Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld,
and Kenneth Jackson,
The Encyclopedia of New York City.

For a biography of Generoso Pope Sr., see Philip Cannistraro’s
Italian Americans: New Perspectives in Italian Immigration and Ethnicity,
and Pope’s obit, “Generoso Pope, 59, Publisher, Is Dead,”
New York Times,
29 April 1950.

Details on the relationship between Roy Cohn and Pope are based on a number of interviews, but particularly one with his friend and biographer, Sidney Zion. See also Zion’s book,
The Autobiography of Roy Cohn,
as well as Nicholas Von Hoffman,
Citizen Cohn: The Life and Times of Roy Cohn
and Roy Cohn,
A Fool for a Client.

For a rousing account of the early years at the
National Enquirer,
see George Bernard,
Inside the National Enquirer: Confessions of an Undercover Reporter.
See also Reginald Potterton, “I Cut Out Her Heart & Stomped on It!,”
Playboy.

Other important printed sources for this chapter include William R. Amlong, “Pope: The High Priest of Lowbrow,”
Tropic;
“Goodbye to Gore,”
Time;
and Sid Kirchheimer’s “Enquiring Minds Want to Know the Man Behind the
National Enquirer,” Fort Lauderdale News Sun-Sentinel.
See also Kent A. MacDougall’s “Going Straight: The National Enquirer Finds Gore Doesn’t Pay but Reassurance Does,”
Wall Street Journal.

Information in this chapter came from interviews with Benjamin Bradlee, Igor Cassini, Lawrence J. Quirk, and Sidney Zion. I also consulted the Dorothy Kilgallen collection at the New York Public Library.

Among the most startling accounts of Ben Bradlee’s relationship with the Kennedys is in his own words in
Conversations with Kennedy
and in
A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.

J. Edgar Hoover being a source for Winchell is documented in several places, but see especially Anthony Summers,
Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover;
Zion,
The Autobiography of Roy Cohn,
and Herman Klurfeld,
Winchell: His Life and Times.

For further details of Kennedy’s manipulation of the press, see Klurfeld; Thomas C. Reeves,
A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy;
Wesley O. Hagood,
Presidential Sex;
Earl Wilson,
Show Business Laid Bare;
Sidney Skolsky,
Don’t Get Me Wrong—I Love Hollywood;
Lee Israel,
Kilgallen;
and Lawrence J. Quirk’s
The Kennedys in Hollywood.

For more information about the Cassini episode, see Peter Maas, “Boswell of the Jet Set,”
Saturday Evening Post;
Cassini’s “Personal Lives: When the Sweet Life Turns Sour; A Farewell to Scandal,”
Esquire;
and “Igor Cassini Indicted as Failing to Register as Trujillo Agent,”
New York Times,
9 February 1963.

For biographical information on Fred Otash, see Anthony Cook, “The Man Who Bugged Marilyn Monroe,” GQ; Bill Davidson’s “The Dick,”
Los Angeles
magazine; Otash’s
Investigation Hollywood!
and his obituary by Myrna Oliver, “Fred Otash, Colorful Hollywood Private Eye and Author,”
Los Angeles Times.
The account of Otash’s bugging of the Kennedys was taken from a variety of sources, including Robert Welkos and Ted Rohrlich, “Marilyn Monroe Mystery Persists,”
L.A. Times.
A similar account is in Anthony Summers,
Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe.
See also James Spada,
Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets.

I conducted interviews with a number of people who dealt with the subjects, including Dan Shaw, Patricia Bosworth, Eleanor Lambert, John Springer, and Mimi Strong. Published sources consulted include Paul O’Neil, “The Little Queen that Hollywood Deserved,”
Life
; George Eell,
Hedda and Louella;
and Richard Lemon and Mary Ann Norbom’s “The Warrior Queens of Gossip,”
People.
Several of Sheila Graham’s books, particularly
Hollywood Revisited;
Lawrence Laurent, “Telling Tales: Still Rewarding,”
Newsday;
Nikki Finke, “Miss Rona Ready for Another Run at TV,”
Los Angeles Times;
Tom Shales, “Some Enchanted Rona: The Woman Who Made TV Safe for Hollywood Gab,”
Washington Post;
John Hallowell, “Miss Rona Barrett Gossips,”
New York Times;
and Joanne Wasserman, “Miss Rona’s Snit Over Barbara Plums,”
New York Post.
The dishiest source of information on Rona Barrett is probably her autobiography,
Miss Rona.

This chapter is based mosdy on interviews with current and former
National Enquirer
employees who wish to remain anonymous. In addition, some printed sources were used. Among those that were particularly helpful are an account of working at the
Enquirer
by P. J. Corkery, “Exclusive! Inside the
National Enquirer,” Rolling Stone;
Jim Hogshire,
Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient! An Insider’s Look at Supermarket Tabloids;
and an account by then
-Enquirer
writer George Bernard,
Inside the National Enquirer: Confessions of an Undercover Reporter.

Other sources consulted include David Lamb, “Into the Realm of Tabloids,”
Los Angeles Times;
Beth Ann Krier, “When the
National Enquirer
Pounces, Sales Jump—And So Do Its Critics,”
L.A. Times;
Matt Spetalnick, “Tabloids Create Strange, Wacky World on Florida’s East Coast,” Reuters; John A. Byrne, “Slugging It Out in the Supermarkets,”
Forbes;
Isadore Barmash, “Enquirer Promoting New Image,”
New York Times;
Rudy Maxa, “This Reporter Rifles Garbage,”
Washington Post;
Elizabeth Peer and William Schmidt, “Up From Smut,”
Newsweek;
and James Lardner, “Can 17,000,000 Readers Be Wrong? Life on a Journalist’s Funny Farm,”
Washington Post.

In addition to an interview with Mike Wallace, this chapter is based on interviews with dozens of current and former employees of 60
Minutes,
all of whom wished to remain anonymous. A number of published sources were consulted as well, including Mark Hertsgaard’s excellent “The 60 Minute Man,”
Rolling Stone,
30 May 1991, and a follow-up by Carol Lloyd, “A Feel for a Good Story,”
Salon.
See also Edward Klein, “Hidden Mike,”
Vanity Fair,
Richard Zoglin, “What Makes ‘60 Minutes’ Tick,”
New York Times;
John O’Connor, “Still the Best of TV’s ‘News Magazines,’ ”
N.Y. Times;
Peter Bart, “Seer of ‘60 Minutes,’ ”
Variety;
Donovan Moore, “60 Minutes … tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick …”
Rolling Stones;
Les Brown, “How ‘60 Minutes’ Stumbled into Prime Time,”
N.Y. Times.
A number of books were consulted for information on Mike Wallace and the history of 60
Minutes,
particularly Wallace’s
Close Encounters
and Don Hewitt’s
Minute by Minute.
See also Robert Metz,
CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye;
Barbara Matusow’s
The Evening Stars: The Making of the Network News Anchor.