Since Jonny Whiteside wasn't alive prior to 1960, all he can do is take the old issues of Confidential, Hush Hush and Whisper at face value. What he doesn't know (or foolishly omitted from his biography of Johnnie Ray), is that the reputation of those magazines sank from smutty to fraudulent in 1957.  You don't get that in Whiteside's book.  He does provide a bibliography in the back with citations of this 1955 Hush Hush issue or that one about Johnnie Ray's alleged homosexuality. In spring of '57 a group of actors led by Robert Mitchum sued Hollywood Research, Inc., the company that published most of the scandal sheets, for libel.  The group included Dorothy Dandridge and Maureen O'Hara. So many stars sued these magazines that two Los Angeles district attorneys (Clarence Linn and William Ritzi) decided in June 1957 to prosecute Hollywood Research, Inc. for conspiracy to commit criminal libel and three other felonies. Naturally, the DA's office wanted as many stars as possible to testify, but only two responded to subpoenas:  Dandridge and O'Hara. Right now as we speak Maureen O'Hara's memoirs are hot in bookstores with a cogent account of the fraud in Confidential.  Dandridge died in 1965 but not before testifying in the Confidential criminal trial that Confidential editors were either stupid or fraudulent.  The Los Angeles Mirror News ran a picture of Dandridge testifying in the Hall of Justice in its September 4, 1957 edition.  It was the only one of six Los Angeles newspapers to run a photograph of the Negro actress. On the stand Dorothy Dandridge scored a 1955 Confidential story that claimed she had made love with a white man in the woods of Lake Tahoe, Nevada in 1950.  That violated Jim Crow laws, and the African Americans who broke those laws did it so they could get jobs and buy groceries, not so they could have sex in the woods.  If Lake Tahoe police had caught Dandridge outside of her hotel outside of an automobile, then she would have met the same fate as Rosa Parks. The trial ended in a mistrial, but Judge Herbert Walker (nicknamed the phumpfer by newspaper reporters because his enunciation was poor) ordered Hollywood Research, Inc. to cease and desist from making up and printing stories about entertainers.  A second trial in December 1957 resulted in a $5,000 fine for Confidential and same for Whisper. These magaazines are the ones that supposedly damaged Johnnie Ray's reputation in the United States.  But we'll never know if they did because starting in 1957 anyone who cited Confidential, Hush Hush, Whisper, etc. as a reliable source was a person without friends.  And you need friends to work in the entertainment business (even as an executive who ruins careers).

What he doesn't know (or foolishly omitted from his biography of Johnnie Ray), is that the reputation of those magazines sank from smutty to fraudulent in 1957.  You don't get that in Whiteside's book.  He does provide a bibliography in the back with citations of this 1955 Hush Hush issue or that one about Johnnie Ray's alleged homosexuality. The bibliography lists close to 3 dozen books, and 5 1/2 pages worth of articles

Hey Scarlotti,I guess the flags will all be flying outside your house tommorrow (30th) right? ROGER FORD

Hey Scarlotti,I guess the flags will all be flying outside your house tommorrow (30th) right? You know it!  March 30th is tantamount to a national holiday in Scarlottiland. It's still a good 7 hours away in San Diego, but here's a great big (slightly early) HAPPY 91st BIRTHDAY to FRANKIE LAINE!!!

others. Including the following friends of Johnnie who lived to read the book and told Mr. Whiteside they hated it:

... that Johnnie believed and kept secret a far - fetched story about his girlfriend getting murdered in connection with the JFK assassination, A JFK-related conspiracy theory???  What was Johnnie thinking???   Anyway, Whiteside doesn't say that Johnnie kept it secret