Legendary Hollywood reporter and former Notre Dame student, Jim Bacon passed away September 19th at the age of 96. Bacon's colorful career was the subject of a 1999 E! True Hollywood Story -- as he was quite a Hollywood character. During his 75-year career as a newspaperman, columnist and author, Bacon was a confidant of Marilyn Monroe, hung out with John Wayne, knocked back drinks with Frank Sinatra (photo of Bacon and Sinatra) and the Rat Pack, traded cigars with Winston Churchill and met eight U.S. presidents. He spent 23 years with AP, followed by 18 years at the Herald Examiner. Most recently, he wrote a weekly column, recalling memories from Hollywood’s glory days, for Beverly Hills 213, where his last column appeared June 6. He also authored three best-selling books:
“Hollywood Is a Four Letter Town,” “Made in Hollywood” and Jackie Gleason’s autobiography
“How Sweet It Is,” which he co-authored. Bacon belonged to an era when hard-drinking columnists mixed freely with Hollywood royalty.
In “Four Letter Town,” he claimed an affair with Marilyn Monroe. Pretending to be the coroner, he made his way through a police barricade to get Lana Turner’s first-hand account of the fatal stabbing of her lover Johnny Stompanato by her daughter Cheryl Crane. He accompanied Elizabeth Taylor’s physician to her home to break the news of the death of her third husband, Mike Todd, in a plane crash. Bacon also broke the story of John Wayne’s cancer, and he was the first to debunk Clifford Irving’s hoax,
“The Autobiography of Howard Hughes.”
LINK:
JIM BACON'S OBIT
