Sidney Skolsky Sidney Skolsky Sidney Skolsky (2 May 1905 – 3 May 1983) was an American writer best known as a Hollywood gossip columnist. He ranked with Hedda Hopper (with whom he shared a birthday) and Louella Parsons as the premier Hollywood gossip columnists of the first three decades of the sound picture era. A radio personality in addition to having his own syndicated newspaper column, Skolsky also was a screenwriter and movie producer who occasionally acted in the radio and in the movies. Skolsky claimed to be the person who gave the nickname "Oscar" to the Academy Award and was credited
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,”