Following World War II, Robert Harrison, a New York City publisher of men's magazines, decided to return to investigative journalism.

Though Harrison was more interested in Broadway and New York social life, his tenure at the Herald would bias the direction of the future Confidential toward Hollywood.

Using the facilities of Quigley Publishing surreptitiously at night, Harrison used publicity photos collected from a visit to the company's Hollywood offices to paste together his galleries.

"[9] Supposedly inspired by Virginia Hill's testimony to the Kefauver Committee hearings,[10] Harrison finally launched his tabloid-style gossip magazine: Confidential.

"[11] As with the earlier New York Graphic, it concentrated on exposing the substance abuse habits, criminal records and hidden political and sexual preferences of celebrities.

Film historian Mary Desjardins described Confidential's editorial style as using "research methods and writing techniques that recycled old stories or created 'composite' facts as the basis of new ones.

"[16] After the "facts" of an article were assembled, a staff of four (headed by associate editor Jay Breen) would rewrite it several times to achieve Confidential's "toboggan ride" style: "racy and free of embroidery, keeps the reader on the edge of his seat.

[19] Harrison would rent 4,000 square feet of office space at 1697 Broadway in New York City, but never had more than 15 staff members,[20] mostly family relations of whom the most important were his sisters Edith Tobias and Helen Studin.

[16] However, the informants could rise to the level of prominent Hollywood columnists such as Florabel Muir[25] and in some cases, all the way up to a producer such as Mike Todd[26] or even a studio head such as Harry Cohn.

Contrary to the popular legend that the magazine double-checked its facts before publishing its articles, as well as being vetted by Confidential's lawyers as "suit-proof," the later 1957 court case would show otherwise.

[28] Despite spending over $100,000 a year having a Manhattan law firm, "Becker, Ross, and Stone to vet each story,"[29] Harrison would still ignore the lawyers' warnings, as in the case of the article on Maureen O'Hara.

Though the editorial content was prepared in the New York offices, the magazine itself was printed in Chicago by an independent contractor (Kable Publishing of Mount Morris, Illinois).

By 1955, Confidential had reached a circulation of five million copies per issue with larger sales than Reader's Digest, Ladies' Home Journal, Look, The Saturday Evening Post, or Collier's.

Rushmore hoped to use Confidential as a new venue to expose communists, though he often had to settle for suspected Hollywood fellow travellers,[35] who were implied in stories to be sexual "deviates.

"[39] Beside Rushmore-authored pieces unmasking communists and homosexuals in Washington and Hollywood, he also wrote how-to articles on divorce and conducting extra-marital affairs, echoing his past relationships with his two wives.

John was taken to the head tough guy and recognized him—it was Fred Otash, a notorious ex-Los Angeles policeman turned private eye, Hollywood fixer, problem solver, leg breaker, a big mean Lebanese, looked like Joe McCarthy with muscle.

Or more typically, either Meade or an agent would visit the subject and present a copy as a "buy-back" proposal, or the story be held back for in exchange for information on other celebrities.

As the nation speculated that Rushmore was either kidnapped or murdered by communists,[50] he was discovered hiding under the name "H. Roberts" at the Hotel Finlen in Butte, Montana.

On Monday, September 5, 1955, Frances Rushmore jumped into the East River in a suicide attempt, but was rescued by an air terminal worker.

On March 7, 1956, Los Angeles Supreme Court judge Leon T. David quashed Lizabeth Scott's suit on grounds that the magazine was not published in California.

[58] In September 1956, Harrison generated front-page headlines around the world when he allegedly was shot in the shoulder during a safari in the Dominican Republic by Richard Weldy, a travel agency owner and former executive for Pan American Grace Airways.

[59] Harrison claimed to be searching for Paga Palo (Rhynchosia pyranzidalis)—a vine used to restore virility in males, which was the subject of a January 1957 Confidential article.

[60] The shooter, Weldy, variously described as a "jungle trapper and guide"[61] or "a big game hunter,"[62] purportedly harbored a grudge over a Confidential story about his ex-wife, Pilar Pallete, a Peruvian actress who was then married to John Wayne.

According to newspaper accounts, Weldy fled the scene, leaving Harrison to die alone in the jungle with his blonde girlfriend; the two were eventually rescued by either the Dominican Army or local police and boy scouts.

[64] During a television interview with Mike Wallace, Harrison fooled the CBS film crew into thinking that a birthmark on his back was the bullet wound.

But Harrison, seeing an opportunity of a lifetime for front-page headlines, wanted to avoid a trial in absentia and encouraged the Meades to return to Los Angeles with defense attorney Arthur Crowley to plead their case.

[69] Film industry executives, who previously tried to convince Pat Brown to charge Robert Harrison with conspiracy to publish criminal libel, now tried to backpedal for fear of adverse publicity from what would be "heralded by the press as the 'Trial of a Hundred Stars'.

O’Hara and Dandridge were the only actors who testified, and a daily newspaper called the Los Angeles Examiner ran a photograph of them shaking hands in a hallway of the courthouse.

[96] But lacking the financial pressures that drove Harrison to create his previous magazines, he was essentially retired, living his remaining years at "the Delmonico Hotel, at 59th Street and Park Avenue.

[4] Due to Confidential's success, competing magazines soon were created—Exclusive, Exposed, Hush-Hush, Inside, On The Q.T., Rave, Revealed, Side Street, The Lowdown, and Uncensored.