Hollywood (1941)

Why Hollywood Hates Jimmie Fidler [Continued from page 27] Brand and Birdwell shouted "liar" at Fidler with the entire industry swelling the roar. Brand said, "Fidler's statement ... is a deliberate attempt to distort facts as he so repeatedly does in reporting the Hollywood scene." Outspoken Howard Dietz, M-G-M's publicity director, said, "Fidler is a congenital liar and it would be going against his conscience to tell the truth. I make it a point never to mention or think about Fidler." Every last vestige of respect for him was gone in Hollywood. "Give Fidler enough rope and he'll hang himself," one producer once said. Now Hollywood feels that he has strung his noose. Today, in the almost unanimous opinion of the film colony, Fidler is the most despised— hated is too mild a word — man in Hollywood. Groups have sprung up calling themselves the "All Out" clubs. When Fidler walks in, they all walk out. Judy Garland and Dave Rose went out with him one evening, and the next day Judy's phone rang continually with calls from friends who bawled her out. The studios refuse to have anything to do with him and he is learning now what it means to get his news without studio help. He complained to a friend that he finds it difficult to get enough material to fill his column these days. He is a social leper in the town and the doors of Hollywood homes are closed to him. Errol Flynn, more hot-headed and contentious than the rest, couldn't contain himself when he saw Jimmie enter the Mocambo night club with his wife soon after his return from Washington. He strode to his table, muttered: "You should be run out of Hollywood," then slapped him. Fidler says that Flynn hit him when his back was turned and that it was because he didn't like what Jimmie had said about him in a column. Flynn says he was annoyed because of Fidler's utterances before the Senate. It doesn't matter. Night club brawls don't do Hollywood any good, nor do they settle arguments. The important thing is that Hollywood rallied around Flynn and said he had done something they all wanted to do. Right or wrong, he was lauded for felling the villain. As for Fidler, he says he doesn't care what Hollywood says about him. He is a rich man and brags that he has almost a half-million dollars and earns close to $125,000 a year — money reaped in the Hollywood vineyards. What Hollywood thinks of him apparently doesn't disturb him a bit. "As long," he says with typical swagger, "as long as they keep me on the front pages!" But those in the movie industry feel that Fidler's front page publicity will soon boil down to one word — "Exit!" ■ How Rita proved one cola tastes best . . . "THEY GAVE ME leading colas in plain paper cups," says Hollywood's Rita Hay worth. "And there was 50 much difference in taste — well, it didn't take me two seconds to pick my favorite I 'This is it!' I announced. " 'OKAY, SWEETHEART, you and the United States agree,' they told me. ' It's ROYAL CROWN Cola !' Winter and summer, it's my favorite pick-up now." (Only 50 for a big bottle that fills not one but two full glasses!) ROYAL CROWN REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. COLA PICK UP A CARTON . . . AND LET IT PICK YOU UP COPYRIGHT 1841, NEHI CORP. "Save With United States Defense Bonds and Stamps." 59