Malice in Wonderland (1985 film) Malice in Wonderland (1985 film) Malice in Wonderland is a 1985 American made-for-television biographical film based on the 1972 novel "Hedda and Louella: A Dual Biography of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons" by George Eells. Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Alexander, it tells the based-on-real-life stories of powerful Hollywood gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, once friends and later rivals. The film premiered on CBS on 12 May 1985. The film was a ratings success gaining an 18.3 rating equaling to 15,536,700 households tuning in its original air date. "Malice in Wonderland" was released on Region 1 DVD on
Gossip columnist printed falsehoods about a celebrity with “reckless disregard” for the truth. A celebrity suing a newspaper for libel must now prove that the paper published the falsehood with actual malice, or with deliberate knowledge that the statement was both incorrect and defamatory. Moreover, the court ruled that only factual misrepresentation is libel, not expression of opinion. Thus if a gossip columnist writes that they “...think that Celebrity X is an idiot,” the columnist does not face a risk of being sued for libel. On the other hand, if the columnist invents an allegation that “...Celebrity X is a wife beater,”