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Jazz Journalism
Jazz journalism was a term applied to American sensational newspapers in the 1920s. Focused on entertainment, celebrities, sports, scandal and crime, the style was a New York phenomenon, practiced primarily by three new tabloid-size daily newspapers in a fight for circulation. Convenient for readers on subways, the small-format papers were designed to display large page one photographs and headlines for newsstand sales. The tabloids' popularity was controversial, but also influenced the city's and nation's more traditional media, especially when columnist Walter Winchell became popular both in print and on the air. Jazz journalism was a sensationalist style of news that matched its era, the rebellious Roaring Twenties, a dramatic change from the somber news of World War I. The new tabloid newspapers featured provocative headlines and photographs, and stories about entertainment celebrities, sex scandals, and murder trials. History The beginning of jazz journalism was Joseph Medil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and columnist for New York Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloids. He rose to national celebrity in the 1930s with Hearst Communications, Hearst newspaper chain syndication and a popular radio program. He was known for an innovative style of gossipy staccato news briefs, jokes and Jazz Age slang. Biographer Neal Gabler claimed that his popularity and influence "turned journalism into a form of entertainment". He uncovered both Infotainment#Journalism, hard news and embarrassing stories about famous people by exploiting his exceptionally wide circle of contacts, first in the entertainment world and the Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition era underworld, then in law enforcement and politics. He was known for trading gossip, sometimes in re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Composograph
Composograph refers to a forerunner method of photo manipulation and is a retouched photographic collage popularized by publisher and physical culture advocate Bernarr Macfadden in his ''New York Evening Graphic'' in 1924. The ''Graphic'' was dubbed "The ''Porno-Graphic''" by critics of the timeHunt, William R. ''Body Love: The Amazing Career of Bernarr Macfadden''. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1989: 135. and has been called "one of the low points in the history of American journalism".Yagoda, Ben. "The True Story of Bernarr Macfadden." ''American Heritage'' 33.1 (December 1981). Exploitative and mendacious, in its short life (it closed operations in 1932) the ''Graphic'' defined "tabloid journalism" and launched the careers of Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell, who developed the modern gossip column there. Film director Sam Fuller worked for the ''Evening Graphic'' as a crime reporter. "Composographic" images were literally cut and pasted togethe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Culture
240px, The "classic quintet": Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis">Tommy_Potter.html" ;"title="Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter">Charlie Parker, Tommy Potter, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach performing at Three Deuces in New York City. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb (August 1947), Library of Congress. Hipster or hepcat, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jazz, in particular bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster subculture adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following features: dress, slang, use of cannabis and other recreational drugs, relaxed attitude, sarcastic humble or self-imposed poverty, and relaxed sexual mores. History The words ''hep'' and ''hip'' are of uncertain origin, with numerous competing theories being proposed. In the early days of jazz, musicians were using the ''hep'' variant to describe anybody who was "in the know" about an emerging, mostly African-American subcultu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper (born Elda Furry; May 2, 1885February 1, 1966) was an American gossip columnist and actress. At the height of her influence in the 1940s, her readership was 35 million. A strong supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings, Hopper named suspected communists and was a major proponent of the Hollywood blacklist. Hopper continued to write gossip until the end of her life, her work appearing in many magazines and later on radio. She had an extended feud with another gossip columnist, arch-rival Louella Parsons. Early life Hopper was born Elda Furry in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Margaret ( née Miller; 1856–1941) and David Furry, a butcher, both members of the German Baptist Brethren. Her family was of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. The family moved to Altoona when Elda was three. Career Acting She eventually ran away to New York City and began her career in the chorus on the Broadway stage. Hopper was not succes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons (born Louella Rose Oettinger; August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972) was an American movie columnist and a screenwriter. She was retained by William Randolph Hearst because she had championed Hearst's mistress Marion Davies and subsequently became an influential figure in Hollywood. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide. She remained the unchallenged “Queen of Hollywood gossip” until the arrival of the flamboyant Hedda Hopper, with whom she feuded for years. Early life Louella Parsons was born Louella Rose Oettinger in Freeport, Illinois, the daughter of Helen (Stine) and Joshua Oettinger. Her father was of German Jewish descent, as was her maternal grandfather, while her maternal grandmother, Jeanette Wilcox, was of Irish origin. During her childhood, her parents attended an Episcopal church. She had two brothers, Edwin and Fred, and a sister, Rae. In 1890, her widowed mother married John H. Edwards. They lived i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the ''New York Daily News'' and the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. He was the creator and host of the television variety program ''The Toast of the Town'', which in 1955 was renamed ''The Ed Sullivan Show''. Broadcast from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history. "It was, by almost any measure, the last great American TV show," said television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories." Sullivan was a broadcasting pioneer during the early years of American television. As critic David Bianculli wrote, "Before MTV, Sullivan presented rock acts. Before Bravo, he presented jazz and classical music and theater. Before the Comedy Channel, even before there was ''The Tonight Show'', Sullivan discovered, anoint ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sing Sing Prison
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about north of New York City on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2004. The name "Sing Sing" was derived from the Sintsink Native American tribe from whom the land was purchased in 1685, and was formerly the name of the village. In 1970, the prison's name was changed to the Ossining Correctional Facility, but it reverted to its original name in 1985. There are plans to convert the original 1825 cell block into a period museum.Village looks to create Sing Sing museum, May 22, 2007. Earthtimes.org http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/65218.html The prison property is bisected by the Metro-North Railroad' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Snyder
Ruth Brown Snyder (March 27, 1895 – January 12, 1928) was an American murderer. Her execution in the electric chair at New York's Sing Sing Prison in 1928 for the murder of her husband, Albert Snyder, was recorded in a highly publicized photograph. Murder of Albert Snyder Ruth Brown Snyder was a homemaker from Queens who began an affair in 1925 with Henry Judd Gray, a married corset salesman. She began to plan the murder of her husband Albert, enlisting Gray's help, but he was reluctant. Some claim that Ruth's distaste for her husband apparently began when he insisted on hanging a picture of his late fiancée, Jessie Guischard, on the wall of their first home and named his boat after her. Guischard, whom Albert described to Ruth as "the finest woman I have ever met", had been dead for 10 years. However, others have noted that Albert Snyder was emotionally and physically abusive, blaming Ruth for the birth of a daughter rather than a son, demanding a perfectly maintained home, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enrico Caruso
Enrico Caruso (, , ; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyrical tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made 247 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star. Biography Early life Enrico Caruso came from a poor but not destitute background. Born in Naples in the via Santi Giovanni e Paolo n° 7 on 25 February 1873, he was baptised the next day in the adjacent Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. His parents originally came from Piedimonte d'Alife (now called Piedimonte Matese), in the Province of Caserta in Campania, Southern Italy. Caruso was the third of seven children and one of only three to survive infancy. There is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife or, in exceptional cases, enter Heaven alive. Heaven is often described as a "highest place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to hell or the Underworld or the "low places" and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply divine will. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a ''world to come''. Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, heaven is considered a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolph Valentino
Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred in several well-known silent films including '' The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,'' '' The Sheik,'' '' Blood and Sand,'' ''The Eagle'', and ''The Son of the Sheik.'' Valentino was a sex symbol of the 1920s, known in Hollywood as the "Latin Lover" (a title invented for him by Hollywood moguls), the "Great Lover", or simply Valentino. His early death at the age of 31 caused mass hysteria among his fans, further cementing his place in early cinematic history as a cultural film icon. Early life Childhood and emigration Valentino was born in Castellaneta, Apulia, and named Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella. Birth name: Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi. His father, Giovanni Antonio Giusep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tabloid Journalism
Tabloid journalism is a popular style of largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatized and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false), which takes its name from the tabloid newspaper format: a small-sized newspaper also known as half broadsheet. The size became associated with sensationalism, and ''tabloid journalism'' replaced the earlier label of ''yellow journalism'' and ''scandal sheets''. Not all newspapers associated with tabloid journalism are tabloid size, and not all tabloid-size newspapers engage in tabloid journalism; in particular, since around the year 2000 many broadsheet newspapers converted to the more compact tabloid format. In some cases, celebrities have successfully sued for libel, demonstrating that tabloid stories have defamed them. Publications engaging in tabloid journalism are known as rag newspapers or simply rags. Tabloid journalism has changed over the last decade to more online platforms that seek to target and engage youth consu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
