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HEADLINE HAPPY by Florabel Muir

HEADLINE HAPPY

By

Pub Date: Nov. 6th, 1950
Publisher: Holt

Sex and sadism, gals and gangsters were molded into the author's news stories for New York and Los Angeles tabloids, and Miss Muir licks the dish with reminiscent gusto in her autobiography. All the savoring of the lurid and sensational that made the stories is intensified here -- paced by Miss Muir's relish in counting o'er her successes- wringing stories from reluctant celebrities, manufacturing stories from celebrated silences and keyhole interviews. There is the Charlie Chaplin-Joan Barry scoop in which the little mother is treated tenderly; the story of boyish Errol Flynn's endearing escapes; the carryings-on of Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel; and the famous diary of Mary Astor which Miss Muir procured (she does not tell how) for $300. Through all the author takes pride in relating how she swept down on her prey- just and unjust -- (she seems to admire the unjust more)- with one object in mind -- the story. Miss Muir for our money should have stood in the twenties when this type of degenerate journalism splattered on a public not yet surfeited with horrors.