reduced to a misdemeanor, the California Bureau of Private Investigators and Adjusters revoked his license in 1965 citing evidence of “moral turpitude.” Edmund Brown, who had prosecuted Otash in the
Confidential
trial, was by then the Governor of California. He was also a close political ally of the Kennedys, having helped Jack win the California primary in 1960, and Otash was convinced that his license had been revoked on Brown’s orders and that the Governor was acting at the behest of Robert Kennedy. “That son-of-a-bitch Bobby Kennedy,” Otash claimed, “had been trying to get me for years.”
It was the end of Otash’s career as the world’s premiere gatherer of sleaze—he went on to become the head of security for the Hazel Bishop beauty salons and during the 1970s and 1980s was manager of the Hollywood Palladium. Otash died in 1992 at the age of seventy. His infamous tape of Marilyn Monroe, however, would surface nearly three decades after it was made and would help change the direction of tabloid television.
* Twenty-five years later, Seymour Hersch resurrected the Durie Malcolm story in his book The Dark Side of Camelot and declared it true.
* Apologists would later dismiss the self-censorship, arguing that until the tabloidization of the press in the late 1970s and 1980s politicians’ private lives were off limits. That is simply not the case. Throughout American history, politicians’ sex lives have been the subject of newspaper articles. The very first newspaper in America, Publik Occurrences Foreign and Abroad, reported in 1790 a rumor that the King of France was sleeping with his daughter-in-law. Thomas Jefferson’s affair with his slave, Sally Hemings, was first reported in the Richmond Record in 1802. When Andrew Jackson got married before his wife’s divorce was legal, the papers tormented him with stories about bigamy, and Grover Cleveland’s illegitimate child was so widely reported that it became the stuff of nursery rhymes.
* Oleg set up dates for patriarch Joe Kennedy; they met every Tuesday night at eight at the swank midtown Manhattan restaurant La Caravelle. “I would usually bring some lady friends—top models or society girls,” according to Oleg, “although, on several occasions, Joe did the honors and, believe me, he knew some real beauties.” Jack Kennedy had an affair with Oleg’s wife, Gene Tierney.
* Igor Cassini actually coined the phrase “Jet Set.” His predecessor, Maury Paul, had coined the phrase “Cafe Society.”
* If Cassini was paid for his services, he would have been required to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which was enacted to identify spies. Cassini has always maintained that he was never paid and, indeed, a check was never found.
* Confidential again took the opportunity to bash a gossip columnist. “The Truth About that Jet Set Suicide” claimed that Charlene Wrightsman killed herself over her husband’s infidelities.
* Lawford denied this account to the Los Angeles Times and offered to take a lie detector test. When the Times took him up on it, he declined. He died shortly thereafter.
6
the divas
In September 1964, Louella Parsons, the greatest Hollywood gossip columnist who ever lived, broke her hip. Louella had been feeble for a while both physically and mentally; but after she broke her hip, she never fully recovered. For a while she gallantly tried to continue writing her column, making the slow, painful trip from her bedroom down the hall to her office, but she never really wrote again, and the next year, at age eighty-three, the grand dame of gossip went into a Hollywood nursing home.
The dowager ruler of Hollywood had finally left her throne. “She was Queen of Hollywood,”
Life
magazine proclaimed, “the very embodiment of its hopes, its dreams, its fears and its responses … her home on Beverly Hill’s Maple Drive was the closest thing to Buckingham Palace the movie
Confidential
trial, was by then the Governor of California. He was also a close political ally of the Kennedys, having helped Jack win the California primary in 1960, and Otash was convinced that his license had been revoked on Brown’s orders and that the Governor was acting at the behest of Robert Kennedy. “That son-of-a-bitch Bobby Kennedy,” Otash claimed, “had been trying to get me for years.”
It was the end of Otash’s career as the world’s premiere gatherer of sleaze—he went on to become the head of security for the Hazel Bishop beauty salons and during the 1970s and 1980s was manager of the Hollywood Palladium. Otash died in 1992 at the age of seventy. His infamous tape of Marilyn Monroe, however, would surface nearly three decades after it was made and would help change the direction of tabloid television.
* Twenty-five years later, Seymour Hersch resurrected the Durie Malcolm story in his book The Dark Side of Camelot and declared it true.
* Apologists would later dismiss the self-censorship, arguing that until the tabloidization of the press in the late 1970s and 1980s politicians’ private lives were off limits. That is simply not the case. Throughout American history, politicians’ sex lives have been the subject of newspaper articles. The very first newspaper in America, Publik Occurrences Foreign and Abroad, reported in 1790 a rumor that the King of France was sleeping with his daughter-in-law. Thomas Jefferson’s affair with his slave, Sally Hemings, was first reported in the Richmond Record in 1802. When Andrew Jackson got married before his wife’s divorce was legal, the papers tormented him with stories about bigamy, and Grover Cleveland’s illegitimate child was so widely reported that it became the stuff of nursery rhymes.
* Oleg set up dates for patriarch Joe Kennedy; they met every Tuesday night at eight at the swank midtown Manhattan restaurant La Caravelle. “I would usually bring some lady friends—top models or society girls,” according to Oleg, “although, on several occasions, Joe did the honors and, believe me, he knew some real beauties.” Jack Kennedy had an affair with Oleg’s wife, Gene Tierney.
* Igor Cassini actually coined the phrase “Jet Set.” His predecessor, Maury Paul, had coined the phrase “Cafe Society.”
* If Cassini was paid for his services, he would have been required to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which was enacted to identify spies. Cassini has always maintained that he was never paid and, indeed, a check was never found.
* Confidential again took the opportunity to bash a gossip columnist. “The Truth About that Jet Set Suicide” claimed that Charlene Wrightsman killed herself over her husband’s infidelities.
* Lawford denied this account to the Los Angeles Times and offered to take a lie detector test. When the Times took him up on it, he declined. He died shortly thereafter.
6
the divas
In September 1964, Louella Parsons, the greatest Hollywood gossip columnist who ever lived, broke her hip. Louella had been feeble for a while both physically and mentally; but after she broke her hip, she never fully recovered. For a while she gallantly tried to continue writing her column, making the slow, painful trip from her bedroom down the hall to her office, but she never really wrote again, and the next year, at age eighty-three, the grand dame of gossip went into a Hollywood nursing home.
The dowager ruler of Hollywood had finally left her throne. “She was Queen of Hollywood,”
Life
magazine proclaimed, “the very embodiment of its hopes, its dreams, its fears and its responses … her home on Beverly Hill’s Maple Drive was the closest thing to Buckingham Palace the movie
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