Gossip columnist 1930s through the 1950s, the two best-known - and competing - Hollywood gossip columnists were Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Well-timed leaks about a star's purported romantic adventures helped the studios to create and sustain the public's interest in the studios' star actors. As well, the movie studios' publicity agents acted as unnamed "well-informed inside sources" who provided misinformation and rumors to counteract whispers about celebrity secrets — such as homosexuality or an out-of-wedlock child — that could have severely damaged not only the reputation of the movie star in question, but the movie star's box office viability. Having fallen
Joyce Haber Joyce Haber Joyce Haber (1931–1993) was an American gossip columnist who worked for the "Los Angeles Times". Haber was one of Hollywood's last powerful gossip columnists who "were capable of canonizing a film or destroying a star". She took over the old job of famed Hedda Hopper. Haber left the "Times" in 1976 to write a roman a clef titled "The Users". It was her only novel, rose to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List, and was made into a tele-film with the same name. Haber was instrumental in an FBI black-op that directly led to the