Gossip Columnist Quotes

It’s more believable that a cop would get involved in solving these murders. I mean, you’re talking about writing a series. How believable is it that this Hollywood gossip columnist is going to keep stumbling on all these murders?

It must be depressing to have your sole purpose in the universe be pointing out other people's mistakes. Am I right, Internet trolls, gossip columnists, and clergymen?

What is meant by the term existentialism? Most people who use the word would be rather embarrassed if they had to explain it, since, now that the word is all the rage, even the work of a musician or painter is being called existentialist. A gossip columnist in Clartés signs himself The Existentialist, so that by this time the word has been so stretched and has taken on so broad a meaning, that it no longer means anything at all.

The stories told about him were endless and legion; were they not produced by the fertile brains of those gossip columnists who must daily dish up a ration of jokes, slanders, insinuations, sly digs for the anonymous multitude concerning whom nobody ever bothers to write anything?

Fortunately, painting me as some woman who couldn’t keep a husband sold more papers—for a longer period of time—than outing me. I’m not saying the gossip columnists printed what they knew to be a lie. I’m simply saying they were all too happy to believe the lie I was selling them. And of course, that’s the easiest lie to tell, one you know the other person desperately wants to be true.

of the story showed the four brain-destroyed women Linda Gail had shown me. The grainy transfer of the images to newsprint had made them even more macabre. The story had come off the wire in Los Angeles and was written by a gossip columnist who quoted other gossip columnists as the story’s source. The details were bizarre and prurient and unbelievable, in the way of stories from True Detective, Argosy, Saga, and Male, and because they were so unbelievable, the reader concluded they could not have been manufactured. I saw Roy’s name and Linda Gail’s and the director Jerry Fallon’s and Clara Wiseheart’s. The story was basically accurate; the prose was another matter. It was purple, full of erotic suggestion, cutesy about “love nests” and “romance in Mayheco.” But as tabloid reporting often does for no purpose other than to satisfy a lascivious readership, the article brought to light an injustice and criminal conspiracy that mainstream newspaper and radio would not have touched. In other words, the account was less one of fact than a hazy description of infidelity, a movie set that had turned into the Baths of Caracalla, a young starlet seduced by

Lady Whistledown always had all the latest on-dits, and unlike other columnists, she wasn’t hesitant about using people’s full names. Having decided last week, for example, that Kate didn’t look good in yellow, she wrote, clear as day: “The color yellow makes the dark-haired Miss Katharine Sheffield look like a singed daffodil.” Kate hadn’t minded the insult. She’d heard it said on more than one occasion that one could not consider oneself “arrived” until one had been insulted by Lady Whistledown. Even Edwina, who was a huge social success by anyone’s measure, had been jealous that Kate had been singled out for an insult. And even though Kate didn’t particularly want to be in London for a season, she figured that if she had to participate in the social whirl, she might as well not be a complete and utter failure. If getting insulted in a gossip column was to be her only sign of success, well then, so be it. Kate would take her triumphs where she may. Now when Penelope Featherington bragged about being likened to an overripe citrus fruit in her tangerine satin, Kate could wave her arm and sigh with great drama, “Yes, well, I am a singed daffodil.

And, so, what was it that elevated Rubi from dictator's son-in-law to movie star's husband to the sort of man who might capture the hand of the world's wealthiest heiress? Well, there was his native charm. People who knew him, even if only casually, even if they were predisposed to be suspicious or resentful of him, came away liking him. He picked up checks; he had courtly manners; he kept the party gay and lively; he was attentive to women but made men feel at ease; he was smoothly quick to rise from his chair when introduced, to open doors, to light a lady's cigarette ("I have the fastest cigarette lighter in the house," he once boasted): the quintessential chivalrous gent of manners. The encomia, if bland, were universal. "He's a very nice guy," swore gossip columnist Earl Wilson, who stayed with Rubi in Paris. ""I'm fond of him," said John Perona, owner of New York's El Morocco. "Rubi's got a nice personality and is completely masculine," attested a New York clubgoer. "He has a lot of men friends, which, I suppose, is unusual. Aly Khan, for instance, has few male friends. But everyone I know thinks Rubi is a good guy." "He is one of the nicest guys I know," declared that famed chum of famed playboys Peter Lawford. "A really charming man- witty, fun to be with, and a he-man." There were a few tricks to his trade. A society photographer judged him with a professional eye thus: "He can meet you for a minute and a month later remember you very well." An author who played polo with him put it this way: "He had a trick that never failed. When he spoke with someone, whether man or woman, it seemed as if the rest of the world had lost all interest for him. He could hang on the words of a woman or man who spoke only banalities as if the very future of the world- and his future, especially- depended on those words." But there was something deeper to his charm, something irresistible in particular when he turned it on women. It didn't reveal itself in photos, and not every woman was susceptible to it, but it was palpable and, when it worked, unforgettable. Hollywood dirt doyenne Hedda Hoppe declared, "A friend says he has the most perfect manners she has ever encountered. He wraps his charm around your shoulders like a Russian sable coat." Gossip columnist Shelia Graham was chary when invited to bring her eleven-year-old daughter to a lunch with Rubi in London, and her wariness was transmitted to the girl, who wiped her hand off on her dress after Rubi kissed it in a formal greeting; by the end of lunch, he had won the child over with his enthusiastic, spontaneous manner, full of compliments but never cloying. "All done effortlessly," Graham marveled. "He was probably a charming baby, I am sure that women rushed to coo over him in the cradle." Elsa Maxwell, yet another gossip, but also a society gadabout and hostess who claimed a key role in at least one of Rubi's famous liaisons, put it thus: "You expect Rubi to be a very dangerous young man who personifies the wolf. Instead, you meet someone who is so unbelievably charming and thoughtful that you are put off-guard before you know it." But charm would only take a man so far. Rubi was becoming and international legend not because he could fascinate a young girl but because he could intoxicate sophisticated women. p124

Gossip columnists patrol their mundane arena with the same sort of mysterious merit the advice-givers do. Plainly put, how does anyone become a gossip columnist? I can't simplify it down to a lower scale than that. Are there universities that offer courses in gossip writing? How about plain old Gossip 111? Are there that many literate people who could not write a gossip column? What then, qualifies the chosen few above the rest?

January 15: Fox holds a press party for Yves Montand, who has been cast (at Arthur Miller’s suggestion) to replace Gregory Peck in Let’s Make Love. Marilyn seems in better health and ready to work. Group photographs are taken of Miller, Simone Signoret (Montand’s wife), Montand, Marilyn, and Frankie Vaughan, a popular British singer, and Milton Berle, who also appears in Let’s Make Love. Marilyn is photographed with producer Buddy Adler, gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, and director George Cukor. Marilyn and Miller join Montand and Signoret for dinner. The couples occupy adjoining bungalows in the Beverly Hills Hotel.

February 14: Marilyn is photographed with Sidney Skolsky attending the wedding of gossip columnist Sheilah Graham, who appears in several two-shots with Marilyn.

February 22: Marilyn is photographed giving an interview to Elsa Maxwell, gossip columnist and professional hostess, at the Ambassador Hotel. Cecil Beaton photographs Marilyn in front of a Japanese wall hanging.

The reviews of Kentucky boosted Brennan to an even higher level in the Hollywood echelon. The Hollywood Reporter (December 15) summed up the sentiment of the time: “Walter Brennan, who has already carved a large niche for himself in the movie hall of fame, has himself a really grand and glorious triumph as a Kentucky gentleman and horse breeder. A real persona and thoroughly lovable one, he wraps up the picture neatly with his capable acting and beautiful characterization and is a tribute to the South. And Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons did not mind campaigning for Brennan, calling his performance a “standout” that “might well earn him an Academy Award.

January 24: Gossip columnist Earl Wilson interviews Marilyn at the Sherry-Netherlands Hotel, dubbing her “the Mmmmmmmm Girl.

We’ve got a games designer, a gossip columnist, a photographer. We’ve got finance and medical. And there’s me – a well-known influencer. All of these things hang together. But then there’s you.’ ‘She’s right,’ Brenda says, impressed by Tiggy now that she’s come out of her shell and made these deductions. Not such a pathetic little creature after all. ‘So where do you think you fit into this, Amelia?’ James says gently.

In the 1980s, New York journalists and gossip columnists discovered that Donald couldn’t distinguish between mockery and flattery and used his shamelessness to sell papers.

As I stood up to walk to the spin room I saw that it was different for this debate. We were surrounded by gossip columnists. I was interviewed by a reporter from Inside Edition. The campaign had become a reality television show.

Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper wrote after his testimony. “He is opposed to all forces that seek to curb or destroy individual liberty. ‘Our highest aim,’ said he, ‘should be the cultivation of freedom of the individual, for therein lies the highest dignity of man. Tyranny is tyranny, and whether it comes from right, left, or center, it’s evil.’”24

Despite being the heiress to a fortune built on diamond engagement rings, neither Elodie nor her older sister, Celeste, had ever married. The irony had not escaped the notice of gossip columnists over the decades.

Then, with great relish, Lyndon Johnson spun a Texas tale. It was his pièce de résistance, the crescendo of an expansive, four-hour performance. “When I got [Kennedy] in the Oval Office,” Johnson began, “and told him it would be ‘inadvisable’ for him to be on the ticket as the Vice President-nominee, his face changed, and he started to swallow. He looked sick. His adam’s apple bounded up and down like a yo-yo.” For effect, the president gulped, audibly, at the reporters. He mimicked Bobby’s “funny voice” and proceeded to tell, in lavish detail and with evident delight, his version of the meeting. Finally, LBJ ran down a list of possible running mates and explained the ways each would hurt his chances. “In other words,” recalled Folliard, “he would do better in the November election if he had no running mate. This left Wicker, Kiker and me baffled—and that is just what the man evidently wanted us to be.” Within days Johnson’s story was the talk of Washington. His portrait of RFK as a “stunned semi-idiot” left columnist Joseph Alsop and other Washington insiders feeling rather stunned themselves. It was not long before the gossip found its way to Bobby Kennedy, who stormed back to the White House and accused the president of mistruths and a violation of trust. I knew the meeting was taped, he said, but I never expected this. Wasn’t our talk a matter of confidence? Aren’t we honorable men? LBJ was unrepentant: I’ve revealed nothing, he assured Kennedy, gesturing wanly at an empty page in his appointment book. He promised to check his notes for any conversations that might have slipped his mind. Bobby stalked out, seething, and caught a plane to Hyannis Port. “He tells so many lies,” Kennedy said of Johnson the next week, echoing the words of George Reedy, “that he convinces himself after a while he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t recognize truth or falsehood.

Suetonius, the gossip columnist of ancient Rome, says that Caesar wrote to Cicero and other friends in a cipher in which the plaintext letters were replaced by letters standing three places further down the alphabet, D for a, E for b, etc.

I like to think of myself as an artist - one who adds a dash of fame, a touch of dirt, a pinch of stardust, and a moral to every little story I report. (Carlotta DuBois, Gossip Columnist)

I couldn’t rid myself of the uncomfortable feeling that someone had targeted me, someone bad, and it had not been Alison. It was easy to believe I had enemies. After all, I reported gossip, which did not always present others in their best light. (Carlotta DuBois, Gossip Columnist)

She had requested my presence for a reason, but I wasn’t certain if her intent was to warn me away from her family or warn me from my own actions and where they might take me. (Carlotta DuBois, Gossip Columnist)

By 1932 he was a vaudeville headliner. He was on Broadway as part of Earl Carroll’s Vanities when newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan invited him to appear on a radio interview and gossip show. At the time he had no great interest in the new medium, but he went on Sullivan’s quarter-hour show March 19, 1932, as a favor. His first words on the air were these: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, ‘Who cares?’ I am here tonight as a scenario writer. There is quite a lot of money in writing scenarios for the pictures. Well, there would be if I could sell one. That seems to be my only trouble right now, but I’m going back to pictures in about ten weeks. I’m going to be in a new film with Greta Garbo. They sent me the story last week. When the picture opens, I’m found dead in the bathroom.…