Samantha Barbas Livres

Samantha Barbas presents a long-overdue biography of the legendary civil liberties lawyer-a vital and contrary figure who both defended Ulysses and fawned over J. Edgar Hoover.

"In its landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court held that a public official must prove "actual malice" or reckless disregard of the truth in order to win a libel lawsuit. The case, which grew out of segregationists' attempts to quash reporting on the civil rights movement, revolutionized media reporting and public discourse in America. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, including the papers of the New York Times Company and leaders of the civil rights movement, this book tells the fascinating story of the legal issues and behind-the-scenes maneuvers that led to one of the most important First Amendment rulings in history-a ruling that is more critical and controversial than ever"--

" 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 Americans 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"-- Amazon.com

Hollywood celebrities feared her. William Randolph Hearst adored her. Between 1915 and 1960, Louella Parsons was America's premier movie gossip columnist and in her heyday commanded a following of more than forty million readers. This biography of Parsons tells the story of her reign over Hollywood during the studio era.