Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-210) and index.

Time defined it as "a cheesecake of innuendo, detraction, and plain smut." 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. First published in 1952, its pages were filled with racy stories, sex scandals, and political exposés. In Confidential's pages, our most sacrosanct movie stars and heroes were exposed as wife beaters, homosexuals, neglectful mothers, sex obsessives, and mistresses of the rich and dangerous. Its founder and owner, a Lithuanian Jew from New York's Lower East Side who published a string of girlie magazines, and its editor, a former Communist Party member who renounced his party affiliation and became a virulent Red-hunter, combined to make the magazine the perfect confluence of explosive ingredients that reflected the America of its time.--From publisher description.