Jimmie Fidler

Jimmie Fidler (August 26, 1898 – August 9, 1988) was an American columnist, journalist and radio and television personality. He wrote a Hollywood gossip column and was sometimes billed as Jimmy Fidler.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Fidler was a former Hollywood publicist who became a syndicated columnist with his "Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood" column in 187 outlets, including the New York Post and the Los Angeles Times. In 1933-34 his 15-minute NBC radio show, Hollywood on the Air, sponsored by Tangee lipstick, was broadcast from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. He was regarded in Hollywood as a genuine threat to gossip queen Louella Parsons, especially after he scooped her in November 1935 on a major story about Clark Gable, an incident so embarrassing to Parsons that she lied about it in her autobiography.

Fidler had brief experience in movies before he became a columnist. Winning first prize in a contest in Memphis, Tennessee, took him to Hollywood. Once there, he was an extra before he "worked his way to semi-important roles."

Fidler interviewed film personalities for the Hollywood segments of Fox Movietone News. Such was Fidler's influence that a negative comment by him could affect the box office drawing power of a star. According to Time, in January 1938 he was sued for libel by Constance Bennett for $250,000 after he reported she snubbed Patsy Kelly on a Hal Roach movie set and that studio workmen bought flowers for Kelly but none for Bennett. Fidler won the case, with the Judge ruling that remarks against a public character, even if false, are not libel if made without malice.

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