Confidential magazine, Dick Powell & June Allyson, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford

In March 1937, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America expressed alarm at the number of candid shots being used in magazines and newspapers. While studio photographers were required to have their work approved by the organization’s Advertising Advisory Council, the same rules did not apply to photographers shooting on assignment. Modern Screen was again the subject of controversy, with its August 1937 issue, when it featured Joan Blondell in various stages of undress. The magazine had hired its own photographer, Frank Muto, to take the photographs and had not submitted them for studio approval. Modern Screen editor from 1935 to 1939, Regina Cannon was advised that “We shall take steps to prevent the recurrence of such an incident. If it is to be the policy of your magazine to publish such pictures, it will be impossible to cooperate with either your writers or photographers.” According to Variety, Shirley Temple was the subject of the most space given to female stars in the fan magazines in 1935. She also beat out Clark Gable, who came first in the male division. 

Runners-up in the female field were Joan Crawford, Claudette Colbert, Ginger Rogers, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, and Marlene Dietrich. Trailing Gable were Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Dick Powell, Franchot Tone, Nelson Eddy, William Powell, and John Boles. Of approximately 2500 established players, only 330 were found on the covers, in full-page photographs and feature stories in the fan magazines. In 1935, Variety surveyed twelve publications: Photoplay, Picture Play, Silver Screen, Screenland, Motion Picture, Classic, Screen Play, Screen Book, Hollywood, Movie Mirror, and Modern Screen. Of the 132 covers represented by these magazines, Claudette Colbert was seen on ten; Shirley Temple on nine; Ginger Rogers on eight; Carole Lombard and Jean Harlow on seven; Janet Gaynor, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, and Ruby Keeler on six; Miriam Hopkins, Mae West, Greta Garbo, and Katharine Hepburn on four; Kay Francis, Dolores Del Rio, Alice Faye, Ann Sothern, Marion Davies, Bette Davis, and Loretta Young on three; Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Stuart, Virginia Bruce, Merle Oberon, Jeanette MacDonald, Margaret Sullavan, Joan Bennett, Grace Moore, and Ann Harding on two; and Irene Dunne, Lillian Harvey, Anna Sten, Madge Evans, Mary Carlisle, and Elizabeth Allen on one. There were no male stars on any of these magazine covers. 

In 1948, it was reported that there were currently only eight “absolutely safe” cover girls: June Allyson, Ingrid Bergman, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Betty Grable, June Haver, and Esther Williams. The only “safe” male stars were Dick Powell and Alan Ladd, whose presence on a fan magazine cover would not reduce its newsstand sales by as much as twenty percent. Within a matter of a few years, several of the “absolutely safe” cover girls would be tinged by scandal, most notably Ingrid Bergman, Rita Hayworth, and Lana Turner. If the fan magazines were limited by studio control as to what they might openly discuss, to what extent could they indulge in innuendo? There were obviously certain key words and phrases used by gossip columnists and fan magazine writers that went far beyond the dictionary definition. An “engagement” between two players generally implied that sexual intercourse had taken place, particularly if the actress in question was someone like Lana Turner, exuding sexuality. An actress having “her appendix removed” usually meant that she was having an abortion. 

Flair magazine reported that the fan magazines in 1950 represented a multimillion dollar business. In his 1950 report on audience research, Leo A. Handel noted that thirty percent of audience members at the New York opening of a major production had read of the film in a movie magazine. In 1952, John Danz, president of the Sterling Theatres in Oregon, Washington, and California, stated that “Movie magazines are the ‘Dun and Bradstreet’ rating on movie stars, and invaluable to the exhibitor.” Earl Hudson, president of the Detroit United Theatres, claimed “Fan magazines helped make Van Johnson a movie star. Marlon Brando and Shelley Winters quickly became new favorites through youthful theatre audiences." In October 1955 at a luncheon of studio publicity directors in Beverly Hills, Irving S. Manheimer, president of Macfadden Publications, publisher of Photoplay and others, claimed that fan magazine sales now totaled more than 8.5 million copies per issue, a substantial increase over five years earlier. There was also a recognition that the fan magazine readership, while still devoutly female, was decreasing in age. More teenagers were reading fan magazines than were their mothers. Seventeen magazine had begun periodicals such as Sheilah Graham’s Hollywood Romances, earlier titled Hollywood Romances. 

Issues of these fan magazines from 1953 and 1957 had one thing in common—Elizabeth Taylor. For the next two decades, Taylor was one actress guaranteed a fan magazine cover because her image and her love affairs assured the magazines of an avid readership. Liz Taylor was on the cover of Sheilah Graham’s Hollywood Yearbook in 1953 and again in 1955, and she appeared on the cover of the September 1957 issue of Hear Hollywood, a decidedly odd fan magazine that provided its readers with a phonograph recording of some of its printed interviews. In 1958, Dell published a fan magazine, a one-off titled 'Liz and Mike'. Modern Screen featured Elizabeth Taylor on the cover in July 1958, with husband Mike Todd and the promise of an article titled “The Most Tender and Tragic Love Story of Our Time.” She was featured again in October 1958 and in December 1958, with a composite of her, Eddie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds. 

Ironically, the 1959 breakup of Reynolds’ marriage to Fisher and his leaving her for Elizabeth Taylor helped ensure Reynolds appearance on the covers of countless fan magazines. “They’re running out of stills of Debbie,” reported Ezra Goodman. “They are taking old black-and-white pictures and tinting them for color. Debbie sells books. It’s a horrible thing they call reader identification.” Marilyn Monroe should have dominated fan magazine covers in the 1950s, but there were only an estimated seventy-five, beginning with Silver Screen in February 1952. Monroe’s first Photoplay article was “Make It for Keeps,” which dates from July 1951. Fan magazine editors could be quite demanding in terms of what they expected from a Monroe story, even if the writer was Hedda Hopper, and Monroe was volatile. 

Confidential magazine was founded in 1952 by Robert Harrison (1904–1978), who had worked for the New York Graphic and for the Quigley Publishing Company (responsible for the Motion Picture Herald). Harrison knew what a publisher could get away with and what the film industry wanted kept under wraps. The initial print run of 150,000 would eventually rise to 4.6 million. Confidential was to out a number of Hollywood celebrities, with damning stories on Lizabeth Scott, Marlene Dietrich, Dan Dailey, Tab Hunter, Sal Mineo, etc. In July 1957, it explained to its readers “Why Liberace’s Theme Song Should Be Mad about the Boy.” If nothing else, Confidential was decidedly more sleazy that any of the fan magazines of the period on offer, with stories such as “Why Sinatra Is the Tarzan of the Boudoir” (May 1956), “Joan Crawford’s Back Street Romance with a Bartender” (January 1957), and “Louella Parsons: Hollywood Hatchet Woman” (April 1959). However, it was the lawsuits that eventually forced Harrison’s sale of Confidential in July 1958, and the new owner, Hy Steirman, tried to keep away from Hollywood gossip. In reality, the magazine was about to be overcome by a new publication, the National Inquirer. Both Confidential and its founder died in the same year, 1978. At least one famous gossip columnist had ties to Confidential. Mike Connolly provided it with material he could not use in his column in The Hollywood Reporter. —"Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers" (2010) by Anthony Slide

Dean Martin possessed both wiles and wisdom beyond his years. But the wisdom served by those wiles was an annihilating wisdom. It was the wisdom of the old ways, a wisdom through which the seductions of reason and love and truth would in their seasons emerge and then, wither and die. The sum of Dino’s instincts had to do with the old ways, those ways that were like a wall, ways that kept the world lontano, as the mafiosi would say: distant, wisely at bay. That was how he liked it: lontano, like the flickering images on the theater screen, in the dark. Those close to him could sense it: He was there, but he was not really there; the glint in his eye was disarming, so captivating and so chilling at once, like lantern-light gleaming on nighttime sea: the tiny soft twinkling so gaily inviting, then illuminating, a vast unseen cold blackness beneath and beyond. The secret in its depth seemed to be the most horrible secret of all: that there was no secret, no mystery other than that which resides, not as a puzzle to be solved or a revelation to be discovered, but as blank immanence, an emptiness itself. An ex-prizefighter and ex-cardsharp, Martin had been laboring in a steel mill when he began singing nights and weekends in small clubs. 

After he teamed up with frenetic comedian Jerry Lewis in 1946, he assumed the role of a handsome, not-so-bright straight man. 'The Dago is lousy, but the little Jew is great,' were Sinatra first impressions of the duo. In 1962 Hedda Hopper would warn in her Los Angeles Times column: “The unions are taking a dim view of Dean Martin’s walkout from Something’s Got to Give,” citing a union official as saying, “Dean’s putting people out of work at a time when we are all faced with unemployment.” Mickey Cohen, a mobster who “got kind of friendly with him,” said that “Dean would’ve been in the rackets if he didn’t have a beautiful voice. He probably would’ve ended up a gambling boss somewhere. I’d say Dean had the perfect makeup to be a racket guy, although he is a little too lackadaisical, if you know what I mean.” Packaged romance was Dean’s racket. The traits he shared with the Fischettis – that lontananza, that dark self-serving ego – were never far beneath the surface of whatever spell he meant to cast. Whatever talent he had, that darkness beneath the spell, was immanent and intractable.

I chalk it up to the emergence of “mob culture,” the age of mass entertainment that Henry James foresaw as the coming “reign of mediocrity.” At 14, Dean Martin was helping his pals, the Rizzo brothers, run bootleg whiskey during Prohibition. Dean’s dealings with various gangsters gives the expression “mob culture” an intriguing double meaning. Martin’s relations with certain celebrated underworld characters were more cordial than cozy--he would occasionally perform freebies to help launch a mob-funded club or casino. He earned $200,000 a picture loafing in Hollywood, doing Matt Helm movies and dozens of bad films. The lousy pictures, the tasteless TV shows--they all made good money. In the late ‘60s, Dino was making $15 million a year. Dino also performed freebies to help out gangster pals like Sam Giancana and Johnny Rosselli. By the 1970s, having gone through three wives and dozens of girlfriends, Dino had become the ultimate hack celebrity, showing up at show-biz TV roasts, adrift in a fog of Percodan and Scotch. In all those tawdry ‘60s sex comedies Dean Martin would become the personification of tastelessness itself. In the end, the modern audiences often find themselves exasperated and unable to connect with Dean Martin and the worst aspects of the Rat Pack he personified. Eyeballing the world’s most impersonal celebrity, they find themselves chilled by his offensive indifference. ―Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams (1992) by Nick Tosches

June Allyson's name is included in The Rat Pack's list of conquests (Rat Pack Confidential by Shawn Levy), presumably by Peter Lawford, who had a huge crush on Allyson. Joe Naar recalls one night that Peter had drunk heavily and boasted of his dalliance with June Allyson. Maybe Sinatra was jealous? Lawford asked, which a skeptical Sinatra denied. Dean Martin allegedly had received a letter from Allyson and he had written a telegram that read: "June, I'm still tingling", and wondering if Dick Powell bored her. Sinatra, having admired Powell's singing prowess as a crooner, said to Martin to shut up. One of Martin's reasons to try to bed Allyson might have been jealousy of Powell's talent. June first had met Dean Martin when he was appearing at Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom’s with Jerry Lewis. June became a regular ringsider at the club. And then she accompanied Dean when he moved from Hollywood to a nightery in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas natives weren’t as blase as they were cracked up to be. As one gossip columnist itemed it, “Dean Martin and June Allyson are having a ball in Las Vegas where they’re spinning faster than the roulette wheels.” 

Dick Powell did a lot of hollering when Confidential magazine echoed the rumors of an affair between Allyson and Martin, saying: "What can you do when a pack of lies appears about your wife? I was told legally that to sue [Confidential magazine] for libel is just blowing up a lot of wind. This is a job for the government." And the betting around Hollywood was two to one that Junie would be given her divorce papers. But it never happened. Powell may have been sore but he wasn’t sore enough to call the whole thing off. Just what he had to say to Junie when she returned from her Vegas adventure must have been quite a storm. Specially because Powell's lifestyle was the opposite of Martin's. A good friend met Dick Powell outside Hollywood’s Brown Derby and politely inquired: “How’s June?” “You mean Stupid?” Powell snapped, visibly angry. “I don’t know how Stupid is. Ask me another question.” Whilst, Martin resumed his list of conquests, including his improbable dalliance with Rita Hayworth. Supposedly, Peter Lawford was jealous of Martin, because he also had hit on Allyson a year before. 

According to actor Jackie Cooper, Lawford was obsessed with Allyson and was bold when both were reunited at Cooper's house. Cooper said he saw Lawford kissing a reluctant Allyson, while Allyson had Powell pick her up so it looked like she was just visiting Cooper and his wife. According to Lawford, Allyson had led him on only to finally rebuke him. Lawford said to Cooper: "Whenever the Powells had a party, I would assist with a girlfriend". Lawford said it was hard for him not try to kiss Allyson. Their failed romance soon appeared in gossip columns. Then the MGM bosses forbade Lawford to make a trip to New York because Allyson was going to be there at the same time. According to James Spada, this one-sided romance was over before it had a chance to thrive, ending with ill feelings on both sides. “There was word out that Peter might have been homosexual because he knew Van Johnson,” said UCLA football player Joe Naar. “Van Johnson may well have been gay, but Peter couldn’t have been more heterosexual. All we did was chase ladies in those days. He was dating Janet Leigh during The Red Danube and was after June Allyson like a madman.” 

In 1961, Gloria Pall met Dick Powell when he was living separated from June Allyson for a while, after his wife had asked for a divorce. Gloria said they dated occasionally and he helped pick out her sign for her real estate office on the Sunset Strip. In her memoir Cameo Girl of the 50's (1993) published by Showgirl Press, Gloria said Powell was always polite and attentive with her. Gloria wanted him to help finance her real estate Lavender R.E office on Sunset Strip. She said they had an intimate connection but apparently he wouldn't go to bed with her. Powell helped her stack up funds, since she needed 10,000$ to open her office. A sign outside her lavender-colored office read: "Call Pall." Her friendship with Powell ended when she found out he had returned to his wife June Allyson. Gloria Pall had previously dated Robert Mitchum, James Garner, and Elvis Presley. ―Sources: Inside Story magazine (1952), June Allyson: Her Life and Career (2023) by Peter Shelley, The Peter Lawford Story: Life with the Kennedys, Marilyn Monroe and the Rat Pack (2015) by Patricia Lawford Stewart