Confidential sinks its teeth into the juiciest celebrity secrets.
Confidential magazine had two distinct periods in its life—the fanged version and the de-fanged version, with the tooth pulling done courtesy of a series of defamation lawsuits that made publisher Robert Harrison think twice about harassing celebrities. This example published this month in 1955 is all fangs. The magazine was printing five million copies of each issue and Harrison was like a vampire in a blood fever, hurting anyone who came within reach, using an extensive network spies from coast to coast and overseas to out celebs' most intimate secrets. In this issue editors blatantly call singer Johnnie Ray a gay predator, spinning a tale about him drunkenly pounding on doors in a swanky London hotel looking for a man—any man—to satisfy his needs. The magazine also implies that Mae West hooked up with boxer Chalky White, who was nearly thirty years her junior—and black. It tells readers about Edith Piaf living during her youth in a brothel, a fact which is well known today but which wasn't back then.
The list goes on—who was caught in whose bedroom, who shook down who for money, who ingested what substances, all splashed across Confidential's trademark blue and red pages. Other celebs who appear include Julie London, Jack Webb, Gregg Sherwood, and—of course—Elizabeth Taylor. Had we been around in 1955 we're sure we would have been on the side of privacy rights for these stars, but today we can read all this guilt-free because none of it can harm anyone anymore. Forty panels of images below, and lots more Confidential here.
Sherwood be nice to enjoy the same good fortune she did. American actress Gregg Sherwood pretends to have been caught mid-change in her dressing room in this photo from around 1950. If you look up Sherwood anywhere on the internet you're almost as likely to see her described as a socialite. Though she had a reasonably active showbiz career and had appeared in movies, on stage, and in magazines, she gained her socialite status by marrying rich—in her case automotive heir Horace Dodge, Jr. At the time she was thirty and he was fifty-three. The couple indulged lavishly, appeared in the society pages, and generally lived the high life, but finally hit the rocks in 1961. Dodge initiated divorce proceedings but died in 1963 before the split became final. Because of this Sherwood inherited $11 million, which would be $85 million and change in today's money. We have a feeling she led an even more lavish lifestyle from that point forward, and really who would blame her? As her husband proved, you can't take it with you. We have another photo of Gregg we found inside a 1947 issue of Police Gazette, and you can see that here.
She won’t quit till she’s a star on Broadway. This issue of The National Police Gazette published this month in 1947 has a really nice cover starring a beaming Jean Palmer, billed here as a beautiful and promising songstress making her Broadway debut. We found nothing on her, so it’s possible that debut was a flop. Then again, it’s equally possible she took the Great White Way by storm. Since she was a Broadway performer, we bet there’s at least some info about her in New York City, but if it hasn’t been put online that info might as well be on the dark side of the Moon. We live in a state of semi-reality, all of us on our computers, with access only to what has been uploaded into the continuum. Anyway, if we ever run across any Palmer info, we’ll be sure to share it. The Gazette is filled with other personalities whose existence we were able to confirm, such as wrestler Mildred Burke, 1946 Mrs. America Beauty Pageant co-winners Connie Spradlin and Kay Kiefer, famed model/socialite Gregg Sherwood, and actresses Marilyn Maxwell, Angela Green, Mary Meade, and Marion Davis. All of those pages are below, along with a few others of interest. And to see our entire collection of Gazette covers and interiors, which is the most extensive on the internet, click its keyword at the bottom of this post.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1931—Nevada Approves Gambling
In the U.S., the state of Nevada passes a resolution allowing for legalized gambling. Unregulated gambling had been commonplace in the early Nevada mining towns, but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nationwide anti-gaming crusade. The leading proponents of re-legalization expected that gambling would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, gaming proved over time to be one of the least cyclical industries ever conceived. 1941—Tuskegee Airmen Take Flight
During World War II, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, aka the Tuskegee Airmen, is activated. The group is the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, and serves with distinction in Africa, Italy, Germany and other areas. In March 2007 the surviving airmen and the widows of those who had died received Congressional Gold Medals for their service. 1906—First Airplane Flight in Europe
Romanian designer Traian Vuia flies twelve meters outside Paris in a self-propelled airplane, taking off without the aid of tractors or cables, and thus becomes the first person to fly a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Because his craft was not a glider, and did not need to be pulled, catapulted or otherwise assisted, it is considered by some historians to be the first true airplane. 1965—Leonov Walks in Space
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft the Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes. At the end of that time Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter Voskhod's airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, was barely able to get back inside the capsule, and in so doing became the first person to complete a spacewalk. 1966—Missing Nuke Found
Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.
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