In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America\'s first celebrity Scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars\' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail.
She frequently offers commentary on issues related to celebrity gossip and freedom of the press to the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Gu.
She is an expert on Hollywood and journalism history, as well as media law, and is the author of Movie Crazy, The First Lady of Hollywood, Laws of Image, and Newsworthy.
About the Author: Samantha Barbas is a professional historian and law professor.
Confidential\'s success marked the end of an era of hush-hush--of secrets, closets, and sexual taboos--and the beginning of our age of tell-all exposure.
It shifted reporting on celebrities from an enterprise of concealment and make-believe to one that was more frank, bawdy, and true.
It transformed Americas from innocents to more sophisticated, worldly people, wise to the phony and constructed nature of celebrity.
With its bold red-yellow-and-blue covers, screaming headlines, and tawdry stories, Confidential exploded the candy-coated image of movie stars that Hollywood and the press had sold to the public.
This is Confidential\'s story, detailing how the Magazine revolutionized celebrity culture and American society in the 1950s and beyond.
The state of California, prodded by the film studios, prosecuted Harrison for obscenity and criminal libel, culminating in a famous, star-studded Los Angeles trial.
Eventually the stars fought back, filing multimillion-dollar libel suits against the magazine.
Confidential became the bestselling Magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post.
Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out scandalous facts about the stars, including sexual affairs, drug use, and sexual orientation, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities\' carefully constructed images and built a media empire.
In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America\'s first celebrity Scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars\' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail
