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
Richard Johnson (columnist) Richard Johnson (columnist) Richard Johnson is an American gossip columnist with the "New York Post"s Page Six column, which he edited for 25 years. Described by the "New York Times" as "a journalistic descendant of Walter Winchell", in 1994 he was ranked the #1 New York City gossip columnist by "New York" magazine in a list that also included Liz Smith, Michael Musto, and Cindy Adams. Johnson was raised in Greenwich Village, New York, the son of a magazine editor father and a mother who worked in public relations. He attended the University of Colorado, Boulder, and later Empire State