Robert Harrison

Early life

Born Max Harrison, the youngest child and only son of Benjamin Harrison (February 1868 – 1933) and Pauline (née Israelowitz) Harrison (July 1870 – June 1939), Lithuanian Jewish immigrants from then the Russian Empire. Max grew up in New York City, first in lower Manhattan and later the Bronx, with three sisters, who doted on "the baby" of the family. As a young child, Max decided to replace his birth name with "Robert." Early on, Robert appeared magnanimous, if only due to a tendency to quickly forget slights as he could be not bothered to focus on the negative. In school he did poorly at math but well at English. He wanted to write for a living. At the age of 12, he authored and published a travel guide to roadside inns, Harrison's Weekend Guide. After the printer refused to give Harrison his share of the profits, Harrison formed a belief that one could only trust family members, whom he would later employ in various publishing projects. But years later, his generous nature would lead him to make an exception at the height of his success with an ex-McCarthyite editor with deadly repercussions.

As a teen, Harrison attended Stuyvesant High School for two years before dropping out. He would later attend night classes at Columbia University.

Journalist

During the 1920s Harrison began his journalistic career as a copy boy for Bernarr McFadden's New York Evening Graphic, an ancestor of the supermarket tabloids that would emerge in the 1960s. Called the "Pornographic" by detractors for its emphasis on sex, crime and violence, it would provide many of the themes that Harrison would use as a publisher. Among his coworkers were a sportswriter, Ed Sullivan, and a crime reporter, Samuel Fuller. Harrison also met his future hero and mentor, Walter Winchell. At the Graphic, Harrison worked his way up to advertising space salesman. But before the paper failed in 1932, Harrison worked eight months as a reporter. One of his first stories was about a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl clad only in balloons. After the Graphic shutdown, Harrison sold song lyrics and returned to writing travel guides (for Cook's). His father, Benjamin Harrison, was a working-class coppersmith who scoffed at what he called "air business"—advertising and journalism—he wanted his son to become a carpenter. But Robert persisted after his father's death in 1933. In 1935 Harrison joined the editorial staff of the Motion Picture Herald, a film trade publication whose conservative Catholic owner, Martin Quigley, Sr., had close ties to the Hays Office. Quigley would himself author the decency guidelines with Jesuit Daniel A. Lord that became known as the "Hays Code." In 1935 Quigley in sent Harrison to the Hollywood offices of Quigley Publishing. There Harrison collected publicity photos of would-be actresses sent by agents. While in Hollywood, the idea of a magazine began to form.

Publisher

Cheesecake

Harrison returned to New York City. Having learned from Quigley what he could get away with legally, Harrison struck out on his own with a series of non-pornographic "cheesecake" magazines. His first was Beauty Parade (1941–1956), started in October 1941. It contained, as its subtitle suggests ("The World's Loveliest Girls"), pictures of attractive models who had the "girl-next-door" look. Beauty Parade also began the photo-story format that would be repeated by other Harrison publications. Using the facilities of Quigley Publishing surreptitiously at night, Harrison used the photos from his Hollywood visit to paste together his galleries. When he was caught and fired on Christmas Eve, 1941, his sisters Edith and Helen rallied around him and raised several thousand dollars in capital, $400 of it from his favorite niece, Marjorie, who would later become a central figure in his most famous enterprise.

Harrison's next magazine, Eyeful (1942–1955), was similar to Beauty Parade. The depicted women were still fully, or partially, clothed but were placed in more intimate positions. The models still had the girl-next-door look ("Glorifying the American Girl") and would feature a Wall Street secretary, Bettie Page, then supplementing her income for acting lessons. During this period Harrison hired Edythe Farrell from the National Police Gazette. Farrell, a psychology major from Hunter College, "introduced her new boss to Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis and the idea that whips and chains and spike heels would sell." Titter (1943–1955), which focused on sadomasochist themes—with women in bondage, handling whips or being spanked—began Harrison's move from "wholesome" looking models. Wink (1944–1955) also featured sadomasochist imagery, but contained a stronger element of fetishism. After World War II, Harrison created Flirt (1947–1955), which mainly featured fetishist photo-stories. Harrison was not beyond posing himself with the models, "playing everything from pith-helmeted white slaver to wife spanker." To enhance sales he used three leading Petty Girl-like artists of the day to do the covers: Peter Driben, Earl Moran (AKA Steffa) and Billy De Vorss.

The one Harrison men's magazine that differed from the Beauty Parade format was Whisper, started in April 1946. It began as a clone of Beauty Parade, but became more explicit, violent and blatantly sexual. In 1953, Harrison was arrested for staging a Whisper photo shoot at a New Jersey golf course. It starred Page as a prisoner being tortured by models dressed in skimpy Ku Klux Klan-like costumes. But the old format of suggested nudity and sex was not working in the 1950s as it did in the '40s. During the heyday of his cheesecake magazines, Harrison moved with his sister Helen from their two-bedroom apartment into a nine-bedroom suite at the Parc Vendôme. Harrison became a fixture on the New York nightclub scene and was portrayed as a playboy in society columns. He indulged in his trademark proclivity toward all things white—Cadillacs, tailored suits from Sulka (Amos Sulka & Company, a defunct maker of men's wear), cashmere polo coats and hats. He was often photographed in the company of Broadway or Hollywood starlets. But the circulation of his magazines declined in the post-war years. By early 1952 his accountant told him that he was broke. In addition to rival imitators, Harrison "could not compete with the new celebrity focused men's magazine, Playboy, whose first issue, released in 1953, featured a full color centerfold of Marilyn Monroe." But Harrison had an aversion to real nudity and never went the route of Playboy. Instead, he returned to his New York Graphic roots. Thus, Whisper would morph a third time in the 1950s to imitate the most audacious of Harrison's periodicals.

Confidential

Back in 1947, Harrison "mocked up a 'fact' magazine called Eyewitness," which was never published. Then in 1952, Harrison spent six months reworking the format of a new, similar magazine. He would later say: "I must have ripped that thing apart three times before I published it, and it still wasn't right." Supposedly inspired by Virginia Hill's testimony to the Kefauver Committee hearings, Harrison launched his tabloid-style gossip magazine: Confidential. As with the earlier New York Graphic, it concentrated on exposing the substance abuse habits, criminal records and hidden political and sexual preferences of celebrities. For example, the magazine alleged that June Allyson had extramarital affairs ("How Long Can Dick Powell Take It?"), that Johnnie Ray was a "drag queen" ("Is It True What They Say About Johnnie Ray?") and that Robert Mitchum was an exhibitionist ("Robert Mitchum...the Nude Who came to Dinner!") Apart from spreading gossip, Confidential combined the exposés with a conservative agenda especially targeted at those who sympathized with the left wing and in identifying those engaged in "miscegenation."

"The Confidential house style was laden with elaborate, pun-inflected alliteration and allowed stories to suggest, rather than state, the existence of scandal." But if Harrison had sworn affidavits or photographic/audio proof, the story would go beyond innuendo. Film historian Mary Desjardins described Confidential's editorial style as using "research methods and writing techniques that recycled old stories or created 'composite' facts as the basis of new ones." Robert Harrison himself described it thus: "Once we establish the star in the hay and that's documented, we can say anything we want and I think we make them a hell of a lot more interesting than they really are. What's a guy gonna do, sue us and admit he was in the hay with the dame, but claim he didn't do all the other things we dress the story with?" After the "facts" of an article were assembled, a staff of four would rewrite it several times to achieve Confidential's "toboggan ride" style: "racy and free of embroidery, keeps the reader on the edge of his seat." The final product would be read aloud at a staff meeting for euphony.

The first Confidential issue was dated December (released November) 1952 under the caption "The Lid Is Off!" Its circulation was 250,000 copies. But when the breakup of Marilyn Monroe's marriage to Joe DiMaggio was reported in the August 1953 issue ("Why Joe DiMaggio Is Striking Out with Marilyn Monroe!"), the circulation jumped to 800,000. The quarterly magazine then became bimonthly and was the fastest growing magazine in the U.S. at the time. Harrison would claim its circulation reached four million, and because every copy was estimated to be read by ten persons, it might have reached a fifth of the U.S. population.

Later years

Harrison's publicity stunt backfired. The deal with Brown became the effective end of Confidential and Whisper, as the magazines were no longer able to publish their usual scandalous stories. The magazines' one and only trial cost Harrison over $500,000—in addition to legal fees of $500,000 and a $5,000 fine for each magazine, Maureen O'Hara settled out-of-court for an undisclosed sum on July 1, 1958; Errol Flynn settled on July 8, 1958 for $15,000; and on July 16, 1958, Liberace settled for $40,000, an amount that the pianist might typically exceed with one or two performances. In addition the legal fees and settlements, Harrison gave the Meades $150,000 as a gift. He was still a multimillionaire.

But the Hollywood informant network was in shambles, mainly due to Howard Rushmore's courtroom revelations. Characteristically of Harrison, he bore no ill will toward Rushmore, who by 1957 was reduced to writing occasional articles on hunting for outdoors magazines. In December 1957, Rushmore chased his wife Frances and teenaged step-daughter Lynn out of their Manhattan home with a shotgun. While Frances was under psychiatric care since the East River incident, Howard himself was now under psychiatric care. On January 3, 1958, at 6:15 pm, a few days before Frances was scheduled to lead a junket of editors to Brazil, the Rushmores met in a final attempt at a reconciliation. An argument broke out between the couple and Frances left the lobby of their apartment building and hailed a taxi. Simultaneously, Howard entered the cab. As the two continued arguing, the cab raced to the 23rd Precinct at Third and 104th. They were only two blocks away when Frances screamed, "Oh my God!" Suddenly, three gunshots fired inside the cab. Rushmore had shot his wife in the right side of the head and neck then put the pistol to his temple and shot himself. Harrison himself heard about the murder-suicide when a taxicab picked him up at Idlewild Airport. The driver told Harrison that the publisher of Confidential just killed himself and his wife, momentarily confusing the unmarried Harrison. Later Harrison refused to believe the suicide narrative and thought Howard Rushmore was murdered. He remained loyal to Rushmore even after the California trial and the Rushmores' scandalous deaths.

The rights to Whisper and Confidential were sold off in May 1958. The buyer, Hy Steirman, further toned down the content of both magazines. But Harrison remained in publishing, if only as a pastime. In 1963 he started a much smaller magazine called Inside News (in which he authored "Who Really Killed Howard Rushmore?"), as well as one-shot publications like New York Confidential. Harrison continued to live in New York City during the next two decades under an assumed name, while plotting a comeback. But lacking the financial pressures that drove Harrison to create his previous magazines, he was essentially retired, living his remaining years at the Delmonico Hotel, at 59th Street and Park Avenue." Robert Harrison died in 1978 with his long-time mistress, Regi Ruta, at his side; that same year Confidential was shut down.