Hollywoodland | Nov 14 2018 |
Confidential sinks its teeth into the juiciest celebrity secrets.
Confidential magazine had two distinct periods in its life—the fanged version and the de-fanged version, with the tooth pulling done courtesy of a series of defamation lawsuits that made publisher Robert Harrison think twice about harassing celebrities. This example published this month in 1955 is all fangs. The magazine was printing five million copies of each issue and Harrison was like a vampire in a blood fever, hurting anyone who came within reach, using an extensive network spies from coast to coast and overseas to out celebs' most intimate secrets.
In this issue editors blatantly call singer Johnnie Ray a gay predator, spinning a tale about him drunkenly pounding on doors in a swanky London hotel looking for a man—any man—to satisfy his needs. The magazine also implies that Mae West hooked up with boxer Chalky White, who was nearly thirty years her junior—and black. It tells readers about Edith Piaf living during her youth in a brothel, a fact which is well known today but which wasn't back then.
The list goes on—who was caught in whose bedroom, who shook down who for money, who ingested what substances, all splashed across Confidential's trademark blue and red pages. Other celebs who appear include Julie London, Jack Webb, Gregg Sherwood, and—of course—Elizabeth Taylor. Had we been around in 1955 we're sure we would have been on the side of privacy rights for these stars, but today we can read all this guilt-free because none of it can harm anyone anymore. Forty panels of images below, and lots more Confidential here.
The list goes on—who was caught in whose bedroom, who shook down who for money, who ingested what substances, all splashed across Confidential's trademark blue and red pages. Other celebs who appear include Julie London, Jack Webb, Gregg Sherwood, and—of course—Elizabeth Taylor. Had we been around in 1955 we're sure we would have been on the side of privacy rights for these stars, but today we can read all this guilt-free because none of it can harm anyone anymore. Forty panels of images below, and lots more Confidential here.
LondonConfidentialKay SpreckelsClark GableGregg SherwoodHorace DodgePorfirio RubirosaElizabeth Taylor. Michael WildingVerena DaleMae WestAlbert WhiteEdith PaifJohnnie RayPaul DouglasEstes KefauverJack WebbDorothy TownsJulie LondonBobby TroupTerry MooreMona FreemanConrad HiltonNicky HiltonGloria De HavenJeff ChandlerLinda ChristianDizzy DeanDean MartinJerry LewisMaria GiacomaGeorge Rafttabloid
Intl. Notebook | Sep 30 2018 |
U.S. magazine offers its vision of the world.
Model and singer Corky Crowley stars on this September 1948 cover of See magazine, a publication that came out of New York City and fell squarely into the Life and Look category. We picked this up years ago in the U.S. and never got around to posting it because its large format and the resultant necessity to scan pages in halves and join them in Photoshop deterred us. But we finally had a few spare hours we opted not to spend on a local terrace sipping white wine, and today you have the result.
Inside this monster mag you get photo features, celebs, politics, travel and more. Probably the most interesting feature is the one detailing the transformation of a French typist into a high society dame. It was done as a promotional feature by the magazine Point de Vue and they called it “Cinderella for a Day.” For this installment they chose a woman named Juliet Latifa, who they coiffed, dressed, sent to the swankiest Parisian nightspots, hooked up with the celeb set, then sent packing at the end of the night just like in the fairy tale.
The final photo caption sums it up: “Her 24 hour dream ended, drab normalcy not unexpectedly overtakes Cinderella, but unforgettable memories will serve to bolster her occasionally slipping morale.” Wow—belittle much, See editors? In any case, the photos of Latifa's night out are nice. We wish we could scan all the shots in the magazine but there are more than a hundred and we just don't have that kind of stamina. We managed about twenty pages divided into thirty plus panels featuring Latifa, Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Ingrid Bergman dressed in armor for her role in Joan of Arc, and more.