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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Joe Christ, Senator Bob Packwood's Sex Diaries, a photo-tribute to 69ing, super-masochist Bob Flanagan, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Cost/Revs of Rudy Giuliani, on the porn set wtih John Wayne Bobbit, a hardcore pictorial of sex with Asian girls, slave fashion, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Robert Schneck, confessions of a phone sex girl, a hardcore pictorial of farm porn, a trip to The Vault, sex instruction videos, Strap-On-Sally, and much more! ... Read more

Product Description
SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Charles Pinion, chicks with dicks, public bathrooms and glory holes, Wigstock, big boob videos, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Danny Hellman of Pat Buchanan, a feature on Pat Buchanan with Al Goldstein (complete with fake porn photos of Pat, of course), a story of sex with a woman and her TWO DAUGHTERS, anal videos and equipment, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Danny Hellman, meat fetish fiction, gay cartoons, the Skin Crawl fetish boutique, black videos, and much more! ... Read more

Product Description
SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by BILL WARD, a couple of extra pages of Bill Ward art inside, strip-club ripoffs, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Robert Schneck, sex in Japan, Hillbilly sex cartoons, porn star Madison on stage, squirting videos, B&D videos, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Art Baxter, Part 2 of a photo-interview with Debi Diamond, confessions of a sleazy bartender, bondage videos, and much more! ... Read more

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SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Danny Hellman of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, Howard Stern's book notes (satire, with faked photos), being a male sex slave, a trip to Fallen Angels, public nudity videos, S&M videos, and much more! ... Read more

Product Description
SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Art Baxter, erotic fiction (with hardcore photos) by Angel Camp, Michael Jackson jokes complete with faked photos, sex stories, and much more! ... Read more

Product Description
SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Art Baxter, sex predictions for the future (with genuine faked photos!), a Burt & Irma cartoon, fetish videos, and much more! ... Read more

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Humphrey Bogart said of Confidential: “Everybody reads it but they say the cook brought it into the house” . . . Tom Wolfe called it “the most scandalous scandal magazine in the history of the world” . . . Time defined it as “a cheesecake of innuendo, detraction, and plain smut . . . dig up one sensational ‘fact,’ embroider it for 1,500 to 2,000 words. If the subject thinks of suing, he may quickly realize that the fact is true, even if the embroidery is not.”
 
Here is the never-before-told tale of Confidential magazine, America’s first tabloid, which forever changed our notion of privacy, our image of ourselves, and the practice of journalism in America.
 
The magazine came out every two months, was printed on pulp paper, and cost a quarter. Its pages were filled with racy stories, sex scandals, and political exposés. It offered advice about the dangers of cigarettes and advocated various medical remedies. Its circulation, at the height of its popularity, was three million. It was first published in 1952 and took the country by storm.
 
Readers loved its lurid red-and-yellow covers; its sensational stories filled with innuendo and titillating details; its articles that went far beyond most movie magazines, like Photoplay and Modern Screen, and told the real stories such trade publications as Variety and the Hollywood Reporter couldn’t, since they, and the movie magazines, were financially dependent on—or controlled by—the Hollywood studios.
 
In Confidential’s pages, homespun America was revealed as it really was: our most sacrosanct movie stars and heroes were exposed as wife beaters (Bing Crosby), homosexuals (Rock Hudson and Liberace), neglectful mothers (Rita Hayworth), sex obsessives (June Allyson, the cutie with the page boy and Peter Pan collar), mistresses of the rich and dangerous (Kim Novak, lover of Ramfis Trujillo, playboy son of the Dominican Republic dictator). 
 
Confidential’s alliterative headlines told of tawny temptresses (black women passing for white), pinko partisans (liberals), lisping lads (homosexuals) . . . and promised its readers what the newspapers wouldn’t
reveal: “The Real Reason for Marilyn Monroe’s Divorce” . . . How “James Dean Knew He Had a Date with Death” . . . The magazine’s style, success, and methods ultimately gave birth to the National Enquirer, Star, People, E!, Access Hollywood, and TMZ . . . 
 
We see the two men at the magazine’s center: its founder and owner, Robert Harrison, a Lithuanian Jew from New York’s Lower East Side who wrote for The New York Graphic and published a string of girlie magazines, including Titter, Wink, and Flirt (Bogart called the magazine’s founder and owner the King of Leer) . . . and Confidential ’s most important editor: Howard Rushmore, small-town boy from a Wyoming homestead; passionate ideologue; former member of the Communist Party who wrote for the Daily Worker, renounced his party affiliation, and became a virulent Red-hunter; close pal of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and expert witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, naming the names of actors and writers Rushmore claimed had been Communists and fellow travelers.
 
Henry Scott writes the story of two men, who out of their radically different pasts and conflicting obsessions, combined to make the magazine the perfect confluence of explosive ingredients that reflected the America of its time, as the country struggled to reconcile Hollywood’s blissful fantasy of American life with the daunting nightmare of the nuclear age . . .


From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
A Q&A with Author Henry E. Scott

Question: Shocking True Story is a full, behind-the-scenes look at the original scandal magazine that started it all--Confidential. You first came to this story, as you share in your acknowledgements, through another title, James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential. How did that book start everything, and where did it take you?

Henry E. Scott: I picked up James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential at an airport bookstore before boarding a flight several years ago from New York City to Istanbul. I was so captivated by Ellroy's book that I spent my first two days holed up in my hotel, finishing L.A. Confidential, before venturing out to explore exotic Istanbul. When I got back to New York, the one thing I wanted to know more about was Confidential magazine, which had a small supporting role in Ellroy’s tale. To my amazement, I couldn’t find a book about Confidential. I couldn’t imagine anything more fun than writing one.

Customer Reviews (10)

Any general library will find it eye-catching and a fun lend
Shocking True Story: The Rise and Fall of Confidential, "America's Most Scandalous Scandal Magazine" provides the true story behind the scenes of Confidential, studying the social and political impact of the scandal magazine and its major challenges. From private eyes and informants paid by the magazine to lawyers and investigators who worked to vet the articles, this colorful expose comes packed with vintage black and white photos throughout. Any general library will find it eye-catching and a fun lend.

The `Confidential' History
Shocking True Story, by Henry E. Scott

Henry E. Scott is a former journalist from North Carolina and is now a media consultant. [Advertising?] This book lists its 25 chapters in `Contents', pictures in `Illustrations', page references in `Notes', and has an `Index' and `Bibliography'. The `Acknowledgments' tell how the reading of James Ellroy's `L.A. Confidential' inspired him to write this fast-reading book of 189 pages. [I wonder what was left out given its five years of weekly publishing?] This tells what interested America in the mid-1950s. Some readers can contrast this book to the current weeklies used to amuse and distract America today. What has changed? People like to read about the scandals that make them feel superior to the rich and famous, and know the politicians in Washington and state capitals are just as bad (if not publicized). At times a governor or congressman is caught. Most people don't know these scandals in government go back to the early days when Alexander Hamilton was caught using Treasury funds to pay off the husband of his girlfriend. Censorship bans this and other facts from the Official History taught in schoolbooks. "A pack of tricks played upon the dead?"

`Confidential' was published in New York city, the publishing, advertising, and media capital of America. It was an adult publication unavailable to teenagers and kept off the magazine racks in stores. These chapters provide a summary by example. Hollywood was then in decline, national magazines still prosperous, and television on its way to become the main market for corporate advertising. Will anyone do to the corporate media what `Confidential' did to Hollywood? Imagine if a film star then was caught with Oxycontin and Viagra like a famous radio personality! Are the stars of TV different in moral character from 1950s Hollywood?

Robert Harrison protected against libel suits by fact-checking and sworn affidavits, and also by printing less than they knew (p.40). Accuracy was the selling point, most stories were true. [How does that compare to the gossip on `talk radio'?] There's a reason scandal magazines usually avoid politicians: they can lose their second-class postal permits (p.65). The stories were mostly true, they often hinted or suggested without actually stating a fact (p.71). `Confidential' warned its readers about filter cigarettes and other consumer products (Chapter 12). Remember Clark Gable (Chapter 13)? Are there special powers in a cold cereal (Chapter 20)? Are the scandal magazines "a national disgrace" (p.158)? California prosecuted them for libel and obscenity (Chapter 23). Would the anonymous informants be exposed (p.172)? Howard Rushmore revealed the secrets (p.173), some lost their jobs (p.176). Hollywood organized to fight scandal magazines (p.183). This court case damaged `Confidential' financially (p.187). A settlement was negotiated so there would be no more exposés of movie stars. People stopped buying the magazine and Harrison sold it (p.188). Howard Rushmore killed his wife and himself in a taxi cab.

`Confidential' was the first national scandal magazine. There were others, but they were local weeklies: "Minnesota Rag" by Fred Friendly, a fictional weekly in "The Case of the Velvet Claws". They would find stories and could gain advertising dollars from people who would expect the stories would be suppressed. [Don't your local newspapers do this?] Around 1967 the nation's grocery stores began carrying the current weeklies. Most people don't know that the press freedom we take for granted today only existed since the 1950s. This would be a better book if it contained more material from that magazine, and included some of its advertising. Upton Sinclair's "The Brass Check" tells about the muckraking magazines from the early 20th century. What if a former member of the CIA used a loan from one of New York's Five Families to start a national scandal weekly? Could they put it in all the nation's grocery stores as a distraction from economics and politics?

Thought Provoking
A fascinating study of how an eccentric publisher lifted the veil and revealed the truth behind some of Hollywood's beloved stars in the 50s."Confidential" ruthlessly ended Hollywood's ability to sustain the false images it created.The battle between "Confidential" and Hollywood was epic and its impact continues to be felt.Its impossible to read this book without reflecting on current scandals."Confidential" was eventually defeated but it emboldened others to follow its lead into a new age of journalism which cannot be stopped.

True But No Longer Shocking
With today's stars fighting for time on the TV talk show couches to capitalize on the skeletons they've unleashed from their own closets, hard to believe there was once a time when celebs cowered over the innocuous tidbits that for several years made Confidential the most notorious magazine in the country. But practically anyone remotely interested in celebrity journalism history and/or Hollywood pop culture of the Fifties is already well aware of the mag's lurid backstory, which was actually a lot more interesting than most of its "exposes" (in reality, often little more than smarmily-worded anecdotes, many of them excerpted here).

Kenneth Anger handily recapped Confidential's history in Hollywood Babylon 35 years ago and in the years since there have been any number of magazine articles, chapters in Hollywood tell-alls and at least one other entire book mining the same subject. As such, this is a well-researched read for the presumably very few scandal mag buffs who've somehow never heard of Confidential. But the real audience for this book (schlock culture buffs who are already very familiar with Confidential's skanky past) is bound to be disappointed--despite his best efforts, author has come up empty while digging around for much significant new dirt on this famously sleazy rag.

An index, references, several rarely-seen photos of the principals and great cover design are a plus, though.

When gossip could kill
In the 1950s, Hollywood stars, politicians, and celebrity athletes who didn't display acceptable behavior could lose their careers. The main engine of this threat? Confidential Magazine. "Kick all the Communists out of Hollywood, kick out the homosexuals, enforce marital fidelity on both husbands and wives, and you won't have any scandal--and no scandal magazines," were some of the sanctimonious proclamations of this best selling magazine. The story of the men who ran it and the milieu they reported on is an amazing tale, especially now when many celebrities confess to their sexual indiscretions.

Hollywood studios of the era not only created stars, they protected them and propagated a wholly manufactured persona. Confidential was serving as a counter force to Hollywood's hegemony by letting readers know what the real people there were like, underneath all the glamor. Unfortunately, the the magazine itself was not immune from this world and its myriad scandals. Henry Scott's research reveals the shameful abuse of political power that targeted Confidential on criminal charges. The ambitious California Attorney General Pat Brown (Jerry Brown's father) conspired with Hollywood studios in their campaign against the magazine. There are no heroes in this book, only victimizers and victims.

Reviewed by Bruce Marshall ... Read more

Product Description
SCREW Magazine was the premier magazine of the sex industry. Founded by Al Goldstein in 1968, and published for 35 years, it pushed the limits of free speech covering sex, celebrities, porn stars, politics, and just about everything else, complete with explicit photos! Screw's covers were drawn by underground cartoonists and became famous in their own right. This issue features cover art by Danny Hellman of "Beavis & Butthead Menendez", a Beavis & Butthead Menendez cartoon inside, hanging out with fetish photographer Eric Kroll, Claudia Schiffer topless photos, voyeur videos, Mistress Kimbra Wood, and much more! ... Read more