When the OG gossip rag acquired into sizzling water for its tales on the love lives of Liberace, Maureen O’Hara and different stars, legal professional Arthur Crowley got here to its protection in a prison libel case that captivated America.
Some 65 years in the past, lengthy earlier than TMZ turned the web right into a minefield of superstar gossip and dangerous conduct, Confidential journal traded within the sordid lives of the wealthy and well-known.
Launched in December 1952, the quarterly rapidly caught on with readers who couldn’t resist tales like “Why Liberace’s Theme Tune Ought to Be ‘Mad In regards to the Boy!’ ” and “Robert Mitchum … The Nude Who Got here to Dinner!” By 1957, fed-up stars enlisted California State Lawyer Common Pat Brown to intervene. Throughout Brown’s investigation, a grand jury heard from witnesses like Maureen O’Hara, Mae West and Liberace himself — and returned an indictment on conspiracy to publish prison libel; conspiracy to publish obscene materials; and conspiracy to disseminate info in violation of California’s enterprise code (for working advertisements for “male rejuvenation” and abortion).
For the trial, Confidential writer Robert Harrison employed famed protection legal professional Arthur Crowley. Crowley pledged to subpoena 200 celebrities and grill them about their private lives, sending studio heads into conniptions and stars fleeing the state. (Lana Turner was served her subpoena at LAX.) What adopted was considered one of Hollywood’s most sensational trials. (An instance: Ronnie Quillan, an escort Confidential coined “the Dirty Dove,” described being paid $1,500 for her story about assembly Desi Arnaz in a Palm Springs cocktail lounge and going again to his resort room.) After a record-long 14-day deliberation, the jury emerged break up 7 to five and a mistrial was declared. By 1958, Harrison introduced the journal was “quitting the realm of personal affairs for the sector of public affairs.”
Circulation plummeted from 5 million to 200,000, and in Might 1958, he offered the publication for $25,000. Harrison died at 73 in 1978, the identical yr the ultimate concern of a a lot tamer Confidential hit newsstands. In the meantime, Crowley went on to symbolize Lana Turner, Robert Evans and different boldface names in custody and divorce circumstances, and died in 2010 at 85.
This story first appeared within the March 30 concern of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.