“History is gossip but scandal is gossip made tedious by morality” said Oscar Wilde. Oscar wrote this before his own life was ruined by gossip, scandal and morality.

So this remark is applicable to Wilde’s era and onward (downward?) to our own time of Internet fire-flashes of snark.

And don’t we all always get up on our high horse when somebody is caught with their hand in the cookie jar – wicked, wicked! This is the thing all gossip columnists have to try hard to avoid – becoming a moralist. It’s so easy, you have the bully pulpit of a column, and suddenly you’re forgetting your own life and errors.

It’s hard to give a balanced view. I’ve tried and most of the time succeeded (I think!) but the temptation to go with the flow – Angelina Jolie is a black-widow spider, stealing hapless Brad from poor little Jennifer Aniston! – looms large. Of course, in my case it helps that I’ve been around a long time. I have tried to take the historical perspective. It’s just Liz-Eddie-Debbie dressed up for the new millennium.

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The other day, filmmaker Hart Perry asked me to participate in a coming documentary on the changing face of fame and celebrity culture, from the 1950s to the 2000s.

It will eventually air on VHI, the youth-oriented music channel. Naturally, being an icon of “youth,” I jumped at the opportunity to enlighten my fans.

Mr. Hart and his researchers are an intelligent bunch. Their questions were dauntingly long and full of literary allusions and references to psychologists, college studies, etc. And here I thought it was all going to be, “So, what’s Mariah Carey really like?”

Still, I thought it might amuse you if I told you some of Mr. Perry’s questions – the ones that didn’t require me to relive my college education! – and then my answers, as well as I remember them.

***

“Why didn’t gossip columnists print that Rock Hudson was gay?”

Because it was the 1950s, children. Nobody “outed” anybody back then. The short-lived but sensational Confidential magazine hinted luridly at things, but that was as far as it went. Homosexuality was simply not to be written about unless you were a figure of antiquity. Generally, reporters and the media were not out to destroy people. You had to go into the street and frighten the horses before a real scandal occurred. In Rock’s case, Confidential “settled” on an innuendo-laced story about another actor, instead of writing about Rock. Hudson then married to calm the waters, divorced when he’d had enough of that and remained Hollywood’s most eligible “bachelor” from then on until he contracted AIDS in the 1980s.


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“Do you know the movie ‘Ace in the Hole’ with Kirk Douglas, in which he plays a tabloid reporter milking a pseudo-event? Wouldn’t he be a hero today?”

No, he wouldn’t be a “hero” today. He’d be a network. He’d be no different than anybody else in mass media today. (Kirk’s character actually causes the death of the poor guy caught in the “event” – a cave collapse. No way a hero – even today.)

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The short version of the next question was, "How has the Internet changed celebrity culture?"

Drastically. But it has drastically altered ALL aspects of our lives. The instant nature of the net, of cell phones with cameras, of 24-hour cable news; these have drained our lives of the pleasure of anticipation on the one hand, while creating a frantic and stressful atmosphere on the other. In terms of celebrity, stars are now stripped totally of any mystery or glamour. And the newer ones don’t even know any different – constant intrusion, the expectation of exhibitionism is all they know. I can’t even begin to express the horror of reality shows and those people who are “stars” from that medium – Heidi and Spencer! I still don’t really know who they are, but I can’t escape the names.

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“Why didn’t the press report on Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy?”