While some of you may be shocked to know that there was a time before TMZ and its ilk existed, Henry E. Scott's new book, Shocking True Story: The Rise and fall of Confidenital, "America's Most Scandalous Scandal Magazine," provides direct proof that our paparazzi-prone times are nothing new. Confidential, a magazine at times so salacious my grandfather took to hiding it under his Barcalounger, was a brief, not-so-shining shooting star in the already-dying world of magazines in the mid to late '50s. Founded by girlie mag publisher Robert Harrison, the mag's circulation soared with stories such as "Does Desi Really Love Lucy?" "What Makes Ava Gardner Run for Sammy Davis, Jr?" and "The Real Reason for Marilyn Monroe's Divorce." Confidential skated right up to the goal on most of these stories, but declined to put the puck in the net just to save itself from the possible penalties.
The magazine's main courses on its menu were rumor and innuendo, and by 1955 or so, some issues of the bi-monthly gossip rag were selling over 3 million copies, almost all on newsstands in this great land of ours. Who would want their postman to know they were getting home delivery? But Hollywood soon sat up and took notice, and stars such as June Allyson (who Confidential alleged slept around on hubby Dick Powell), and Maureen O'Hara (the red-headed temptress who was alleged by the mag to have been in flagrante in the back row of Grauman's Chinese Theatre), started to grouse and even sue. O'Hara won a libel lawsuit against the mag which marked the beginning of the end. The movie industry got the California politicos to ban the magazine in the state. Harrison resorted to an uneasy peace with Hollywood, and Confidential ended up telling consumer-oriented horror stories, before he sold the mag and it died a withering death.
Scott's book is a bit schizophrenic. It presents excerpts from some of Confidential's more famous stories and then tells the story behind them, all the while continuing a running history of the mag. I'm not sure of a better way to set this type of book up, but to me this rather slim volume (194 pages minus notes and index, with BIG text) seemed awkward reading (not to mention the photos included, whose captions pretty much mirrored the text below). The wonderful dustjacket, a collage of headlines from the covers of the magazine, promises a lot more than the book delivers. The excerpt thing is a lousy way of presenting the magazine, but I understand these still might be sensitive stories to the estates of the stars involved. And I would loved to have seen a color section of Confidential covers...the red, yellow, and black color pallet so perfectly summed up that repressed yet dangerous era of American history, the 1950s. Shocking True Story does have a shocking ending, what with the almost-sad tale of Howard Rushmore, the magazine's Commie-baiting editor and his ultimate demise (if Rushmore hadn't been such a giant--literally--douchebag, it would be sad). But Scott's book ultimately doesn't deliver the kind of rat-a-tat, gutter-dwelling story the history of Confidential deserves. It's "just the facts, m'am" approach is fine, but not very sordid.
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