Hollywood Goes to War

The stars are coming out to sue the National Enquirer

Tucked among the usual news of miracle diets and life after death in the Oct. 18, 1977, National Enquirer was an intriguing report from the world of show business: "Ed McMahon abruptly knocked over his chair and bumped into tables at a Rome restaurant as he made a mad scramble for the door. Ready Eddie wanted to introduce himself to a stunning 6-foot 2-inch black model, Ajita Wilson, who was about to leave."

The only trouble, McMahon later insisted, was that he had not been in Rome in four years. He demanded a retraction but instead got sizzled again in a subsequent issue: "Big Ed McMahon is looking younger following a restful vacation in Europe--the Tonight Show announcer secretly treated himself to a facial snip-and-tuck on the trip." Completely false, McMahon complained. After that salvo, he filed a $2.5 million libel suit against the tabloid. Says he: "The suit is really a statement: Enough is enough. How many more lies are they going to print about [entertainers]? Somebody has got to be responsible."

Other show-biz personalities are reaching the same conclusion. Phil Silvers and Paul Lynde sued late last year, and Carol Burnett, Shirley Jones and Rory Calhoun have libel actions pending. For years Hollywood pressagents have played footsie with the Enquirer; some even stooped to passing along dirt about stars. Their aim: favorable publicity for their own clients. Marty Ingels, Jones' husband and co-plaintiff, was a frequent Enquirer source. But now Ingels seems eager to foment an uprising against this tawdry symbiosis: "I want to attract other victims out of the closet."

The flurry of lawsuits comes at a time when the Enquirer is trying to recapture lost gusto. The paper abandoned its notorious I-Ate-My-Baby emphasis on gore and shock years ago, mainly to become salable at food stores and other family shopping haunts (the Enquirer boasts that it is now in every U.S. supermarket). After CBS's 60 Minutes ran a scorching story in 1976 questioning Enquirer reporting methods, the paper set up an elaborate research and fact-checking staff, now numbering 22, at its Lantana, Fla., headquarters. Among its rules: gossip items require two independent sources, and all interviews must be recorded on tape so quotes can be verified.

Meanwhile, the competition was coming on strong: the Star, a tabloid launched in 1974 by Australian Publisher Rupert Murdoch, came up with a smart new design, four-color printing and a $6 million advertising blitz. The Star's circulation rose from 1 million to 3 million while the Enquirer dropped from a peak of 5.9 million in 1978 to 5 million. Enquirer Owner and Publisher Generoso Pope Jr. belatedly introduced color printing last year and reportedly got the word out to staffers to put the old pizazz back into their stories. Recalls a former reporter: "He reminded the editors about the importance of being accurate, but everyone knew he couldn't stand the research department."

The result is a breathless blend of thrills ("Murder by Cancer--A Bizarre Plot That Killed 2 and Doomed 3 Others"), chills ("CHiPs Star Erik Estrada: I Left My Body After My Motorcycle Crash") and practical, if occasionally farfetched, advice ("Secret of Lifelong Youth Discovered, Claims Scientist"). Most celebrities get good-guy treatment--young actors on the rise and show-biz legends like Bob Hope are particular favorites --but the paper is always on the lookout for a sharp edge. Burnett, whose lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next month, disputes an article that had her arguing loudly with Henry Kissinger in a Washington restaurant, then giggling when she knocked a glass of wine over another diner. Says her attorney, Barry Langsberg: "She was in the restaurant and so was Kissinger, and they were introduced by a mutual friend. But somebody just made up the rest of the story."

Reporters at the Enquirer are generously paid: some start at $35,000, and the paper's 5,000 part-time correspondents receive up to $500 for a cover tip and $1,000 for a cover photo. In return, they are expected to bring in stories that other journalists cannot or will not touch. Says Sue Reilly, a PEOPLE magazine reporter in Los Angeles who worked four months at the Enquirer: "When I told them I wouldn't stake out Ali MacGraw's kid's school for a story, an editor told me, 'We bought you, so shut up.'"

The pressure to produce has led some Enquirer staffers to misrepresent themselves or their publication to gain access to people or places. One reporter tried to pass herself off as a tourist with a broken-down car when she went to see Warren Beatty in late 1978, hoping to find out if he planned to marry Diane Keaton. (He was not fooled and refused to answer her questions.) More invidious are the payoffs that have long been a part of gossip journalism. Typically, a bartender or maitre d' will be paid $25 to $50 for a story tip, and a publicity agent or someone else in the know will get a couple of hundred dollars for confirmation. Says Paul Corkery, a former Enquirer reporter and now an editor at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner: "One thing I liked is that it is the last refuge of scoundrels. You do anything to get the story."

The Enquirer's checkers attempt to be especially careful about medical and technical subjects, but even in these areas there is a temptation not to research a choice tale to death. Last month the paper reported: "A young woman was apparently made pregnant by a flying bullet --which tore off the testicle of a Civil War soldier and then passed through her abdomen!" Many celebrity stories are also difficult to verify. Admits Chief of Research Ruth Annan: "Gossip is gossip." Critics argue that at the Enquirer, getting sources is just a matter of finding some informant to say what the paper wants to hear. "It's worth a lawsuit just to find out who the insider is," says Lynde, who is suing the paper for reporting last fall that excessive drinking had caused him to collapse and that he was forced off the television show Hollywood Squares (Lynde says he quit to pursue other options).

The Enquirer maintains that it has not lost a major lawsuit in the three years since the research department was set up. "We can't afford to touch an iffy story," says Dick Allison, assistant to the president. "If it doesn't pass the lawyers, we don't run it." Adds an Enquirer freelancer: "Ninety percent of our stories are true. They may be defamatory, but they're accurate."

Win or lose, the entertainers suing the Enquirer say they want to make the paper less sensational and thus less destructive. Back in the 1950s, lawsuits by Actor Robert Mitchum and Heiress Doris Duke helped force Confidential magazine to stop printing its unsupportable exposes; circulation plunged from 4.1 million to 300,000, and the scandal sheet folded. A similar collapse by the Enquirer is highly improbable, but the celebrities feel it is time to make a stand, Says Calhoun, who charges that the paper erred last September in reporting that he had cancer: "It's such a tacky little rag the wonder of it is that anyone takes it seriously. [But] it appears you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to destroy careers, lives and reputations."

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