Big Successful Hollywood Cover Ups

[Exapno_Mapcase]

In a quick glance, everything you said was wrong.

You cannot libel somebody with the truth in the U.S. Truth is an absolute defense.

Malice plays no role at all, *unless * what is said is *not * true. If you say something about an individual that is not true, the law separates comments which are not true but are unknowingly so from comments which the person knew to be untrue at the time of utterance. That’s where malice enters. Not that what is said is bad, but that what is said is knowingly untrue.

Even so, it is difficult to libel a public figure in this country. You can say just about anything you like about a politician, even a known lie, and be protected most of the time. That’s a protection given by the First Amendment. Celebrities can win cases in which publications printed information they knew or should have known was false and defamatory. Few of these cases ever go to court, however. Almost all are settled.

And that’s the reality. Court cases are so expensive, get dragged out over so long a time, and can throw so much more dirt on you that almost nobody ever goes to court, even when the truth is a factor. You settle out of court. Their lawyers are more expensive than your lawyers, an they can afford the fees better than you can.

Also, you cannot defame someone with a photo. By definition, unless the photo was doctored in some way, a photo is a true record of an event. An upskirt photo may be illegal in some places (it’s not in many states), it may be an invasion of privacy, but it is not defamatory in any way, no matter how malicious your intent is.

If you get Liberace’s story in any way and it’s true, you have an absolute defense in court. It doesn’t matter how you get it, even through illegal means. (You can be prosecuted separately for those acts, but they have nothing to do with the defamation suit.) Your defense is most certainly, “it’s true.” “The public needs to know” is the definition of what is *not * a defense.

Sorry, but in law everything is pretty much the exact opposite of what you stated.

[RealityChuck]

The Liberace case was tried in the UK, where libel laws are different. However, the columnist (William Connor, who wrote under the pen name of “Cassandra”), had no actual evidence to back up what he said in the column:

@Cassandra

He is the summit of sex - the pinnacle of masculine, feminine, and neuter. Everything that he, she and it can ever want.

I spoke to sad but kindly men on this newspaper who have met every celebrity coming from America for the past 30 years. They say that this deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love has had the biggest reception and impact on London since Charlie Chaplin arrived at the same station, Waterloo, on September 12,1921.

Note he never said Liberace was gay, but Liberace claimed that the description (“fruit-flavored, mincing”) implied he was and thus defamed him. Cassandra could not use the truth as a defense because he had no access to the truth. Liberace testified under oath he was not a homosexual and that he never engaged in homosexual practices. Cassandra could produce no witness to contradict him (it’s even possible the Liberace wasn’t lying and that he was still deeply closeted and had not come out even to himself).

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

@Robot Arm

Bobby Darin believed that Jack Nicholson was his sister?

<SLAPS with a Wet Trout>Robot Arm </SLAPS>

[Annie-Xmas]

@Exapno Mapcase

In a quick glance, everything you said was wrong.

You cannot libel somebody with the truth in the U.S. Truth is an absolute defense.

<snip>

Sorry, but in law everything is pretty much the exact opposite of what you stated.

Thank you Exapno. I recently read about the Carol Burnett libel case against National Equirer, and I was wondering how I could remember it so wrong.

Austrailan stage star Jason Donovan sued a paper who printed he was gay, claiming it damaged his career because he isn’t. He won the case, but lost his theatre career. Claiming that being gay ruins your stage career does not endure you to the theatre community.

[Campion]

@Krokodil

IANAL, but I did study journalism. I even practice it now and then.

“Malice” is the key word here. Truth doesn’t rule out libel if malice is present. If I took an upskirt photo of (a clearly recognizable) you without your knowledge and splashed it across the web, “Those are provably Annie Xmas’s panties” would not cut it as a defense. There’s no legitimate way I could get that particular photo, and posting it on the web is a clearly malicious act.

Thank you to Exapno Mapcase for correcting this error.

Note that “malice” in a legal sense does not mean “malicious” in the common, man-on-the-street sense (instead, it means “intentional” – such that acting with malice means acting with intent to do wrong). And note that under the scenario posted by Krokodil, while a tort may have been committed (one of the privacy torts, likely), it isn’t “libel” because libel is generally defined (in the US) as an “untrue” statement.

[Otto]

In addition to the various corrections to US libel law that have already been offered, I wanted to point out that the actual malice standard was not formulated until 1964, with the US Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.

[B_A_Bay]

@RealityChuck

I know that homosexuality if off limits according to the OP, but in general, there were quite a few Hollywood stars who were gay – unabiguously – and whose orientation was kept quiet during their lives. Most obvious were Noel Coward and Charles Laughton (revealed by his wife, Elsa Lanchester, after his death; she decided to stay with him even after he admitted it).

But one reason why homosexuality in Hollywood is hard to prove is that it was always covered up. Often it was known within the Hollywood community, but not by the public at large.

I remember reading this and that’s why I excluded it, specifically because of this. Marureen O’Hara and others have explicity denied he was.

That’s why unless the person admits it, you can’t really prove anything with homosexuality. It’s really a self-perception.

But thanks for the stuff so far, it’s interesing.

I just think in today’s world with cell phones and Internet and hacking and stuff it’d be hard to keep an abortion or a pregnancy a secret.

[Moirai]

You think? Didn’t Nicole Kidman have at least one miscarriage that was unknown to the general public until her divorce from Tom Cruise?

[Moirai]

Here’s another idea- maybe the average Joe or Jane didn’t care. So much was common knowledge in LA that if anybody wanted to find things out, they probably could have.

I used to work with an old gal whose husband was a nightclub singer back in Hollywood’s heyday. She would go to the clubs to watch him sing, and met lots of the celebs who were on the scene. She told me a story about John Wayne once, where he was sitting at a club with Raymond Burr and at least one other not-closeted gay actor. Charlotte was horrified and asked El during the break what on earth that nice Mr Wayne was doing there with “those boys.”

[Princhester]

@B_A_Bay

But I was wondering in the past have celebrities or famous people been successful at covering things up like abortions, pregnancy, daughters passed off as nieces and no one knowing.

Well, if they were successful at covering it up, then by definition no one here is going to be able to tell you about it, are they?

[sqweels]

@alphaboi867

Joan first named her daughter “Joan Crawford, Jr.”, but quickly changed it to Christina.

We could have a whole thread on why it is that a female “Jr.” sounds so odd and unheard-of to us.