# Confidential Confidential: The Inside Story of Hollywood's Notorious Scandal Magazine - Hardcover

by **Samantha Barbas** (Author)

In the 1950s, _Confidential_ magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out scandalous facts about the stars, including sexual affairs, drug use, and sexual orientation, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. _Confidential_ became the bestselling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing _Time_, _Life_, and the _Saturday Evening Post_. Eventually the stars fought back, filing multimillion-dollar libel suits against the magazine. The state of California, prodded by the film studios, prosecuted Harrison for obscenity and criminal libel, culminating in a famous, star-studded Los Angeles trial.  
This is _Confidential_'s story, detailing how the magazine revolutionized celebrity culture and American society in the 1950s and beyond. With its bold red-yellow-and-blue covers, screaming headlines, and tawdry stories, _Confidential_ exploded the candy-coated image of movie stars that Hollywood and the press had sold to the public. It transformed Americas from innocents to more sophisticated, worldly people, wise to the phony and constructed nature of celebrity. It shifted reporting on celebrities from an enterprise of concealment and make-believe to one that was more frank, bawdy, and _true_. _Confidential_'s success marked the end of an era of _hush-hush_\--of secrets, closets, and sexual taboos--and the beginning of our age of tell-all exposure.

### Author Biography

**Samantha Barbas** is a professional historian and law professor. She is an expert on Hollywood and journalism history, as well as media law, and is the author of _Movie Crazy_, _The First Lady of Hollywood_, _Laws of Image_, and _Newsworthy_. She frequently offers commentary on issues related to celebrity gossip and freedom of the press to the _New York Times_, _USA Today_, the _Wall Street Journal_, the _Washington Post_, the _Guardian_, and the _Associated Press_.

**Number of Pages:** 368

**Dimensions:** 1.1 x 9.1 x 6.1 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** September 04, 2018

## Details

- **Price:** 27.99 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 27.99 USD | In stock |

## Images

- Confidential Confidential: The Inside Story of Hollywood's Notorious Scandal Magazine - Hardcover

---

> Source: [Smart supply deals](https://smartsupplydeals.com/products/confidential-confidential-the-inside-story-of-hollywoods-notorious-scandal-magazine-hardcover)
> Updated: 2026-07-23