Categola

Sleaze, the National Pastime(Rating: 5)
I listened to the author interviewed in my car just on the way to the grocery, then waited in the checkout line browsing the latest "celebrity swimsuit disasters" issue of the Enquirer. Knocking down celebs has always been our true pastime, and although gossip now travels faster on the web than it did when Hollywood Confidential was being published, it still makes for good reading, as does this book. I always pick up old issues when I see them in flea markets. The author does us a service by sharing the story behind the rag. Buy.
Jim Linderman "Dull Tool Dim Bulb" and "Vintage Sleaze"

A Victim Of Its Own Success(Rating: 5)
While CONFIDENTIAL was not a textbook example of good journalism, it was pretty interesting for its time. A forerunner of today's tabloids, it was the first publication that bucked movie and personality magazines that saturated the newstands with 'happy' stories that were fashioned by the movie studios to promote their personalities in a very favorable light. One might say that Confidential's primary function was to buck the studios and tell the most salacious truths to a scandal hungry public willing to plunk down a quarter. During its heyday, Confidential managed to make a lot of $ while pandering to the public's baser instincts.
While the book's title is fairly ridiculous and implies a lot of silliness, the story of Confidential can be pretty serious at times. It came out of nowhere and exerted a lot of force against the movie studios. In its prime, it could decimate a career. It made celebrities and politicians squirm. At times, things got so bad that studios would sell out one celebrity to save another who was deemed more 'bankable'. Confidential played on the countries greatest fears (communism, homosexuality, promiscuity) and managed to do fairly well for a time until the magazine fell victim to its own meteoric success. Articles were published without verification of facts, stories were manufactured, and the victims began suing the magazine for libel.
The author Henry Scott has done a credible job in telling the story of Confidential's meteoric rise and rapid freefall. Rich in detail, I was amazed at the sheer number of potentially damaging stories published by Confidential that fell into oblivion almost as quickly as the magazine. Included in that eventual oblivion was publisher Robert Harrison who masterminded the magazine and Howard Rushmore its most influential editor.
This was a very interesting read. I'm glad Scott managed to assemble this story before it, like Confidential, was completely forgotten.

The start of America's obsession with celebrity culture(Rating: 4)
Before National Enquirer, Star, People, and other celebrity-driven tabloids there was the granddaddy of them all, Confidential. Purveying to the prurient nature in people with a mix of innuendo, lurid details, gossip, and splashy headlines, Confidential was THE dishy magazine to read in the 1940s through the 1960s. Scott traces the magazine's trajectory, from its rise in the postwar era of the early 1950s, its meteoric rise in the late 1950s as the studio system's power began to wane, and its inevitable wane in the 1960s as the countercultural revolution took hold, changing societal norms. At its peak the mere whiff that Confidential was about to publish an expose was enough to end careers. Initially the studios and stars were reluctant to fight back; Confidential had overnight changed the paradigm that existed where media served the studios and the stars, now the tables were turned. Along the way Confidential garnered major scoops, like Desi Arnez's affair that ended his marriage to Lucille Ball. The uncovered other stories such as Rock Hudson's and Tab Hunter's homosexuality; stories that wound up being buried as studios provided other equally salacious stories as sacrificial lambs to the power that was Confidential. As Scott points out, history has proven that many of the stories Confidential printed turned out to be true, proof of the undoing of the cozy relationship between the studios and the media that existed before that time.

But eventually Confidential got sloppy on its fact checking, and as it turned out, they could be bought off. Studios lost their fear of Confidential and stars started to contest stories as Confidential started to play fast and loose. Their conversion to Red-baiting at the height of the Cold War undoubtedly turned off some readers, while also garnering new fans. "Shocking True Story" winds up at times being just as dishy and gossipy as an old edition of Confidential and many of the stories explored here are ones that have been picked over in other biographies and elsewhere resulting in a "heard it all before" feel. While "Shocking True Story" will certainly have an appeal to certain audiences, it's not clear that it would have a very wide appeal. Certainly Confidential was the template for the many tabloid style newspapers and magazines that would follow in its wake and it would have been far more interesting had it explored how Confidential lead to its imitators and how little removed they are even today. A light and lively read, "Shocking True Story" unfortunately leaves as little impression as a week old "National Enquirer". Like a photograph from a bygone era, it's a nice glimpse back, but often with little depth.

Worth the Read(Rating: 4)
I found this book extremely interesting. I had never heard of the tabloid Confidential before and didn't know of it's influence on today's tabloids. This book is basically the story of the rise and fall of Confidential and its two founders. It's worth your time to read.