Ever since I wrote a column about gangsters I’ve known, I’ve received many requests to write more about them. Coincidently, a new book about Al Capone has hit the market. “Get Capone,” by Chicago author Jonathan Eig, is one of the best I’ve read. It would make a great miniseries, rivaling one of my favorites, “The Sopranos.”
With the demise of Prohibition and its huge illegal profits from bootlegging, crime bosses were looking for a new frontier. They found it in the parched sands of Las Vegas. Nevada had legalized gambling. And the mob moved in. More >

The death of June Havoc took me back 90 years. That’s when I saw her vaudeville act in my home town of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
You know it was small time when an act played Lock Haven. The vaudeville circuit was the Gus Sun Time, most obscure of all vaudeville circuits. You couldn’t boo the girls in the act with June because they kept waving American flags all the time. This was during World War I and you didn’t boo the flag.

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I just caught up with the film “Public Enemy” in which Johnny Depp did a great job portraying 1930s gangster John Dillinger.
I should know. In 1935, when I was a sophomore at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, I boarded a trolley car at the school and rode to the end of the line. It was diagonally across the street from the First National Bank. Just as I arrived, the bank was surrounded by police cars. More >

As the year 2009 winds down, I look back on my 61 years covering Hollywood and reminisce about some of my favorite performers and my most memorable experiences.
I guess my favorite actors were Cary Grant and “Duke” Wayne, Cary for his charm and “Duke” for rugged individualism. More >

Traditionally, autumn is the time when car dealers show new models. Barbara Stanwyck bought a new Cadillac. It is also the time when Catholic parishes have festivals to raise money for their churches. Barbara told the dealer to park the car in her driveway with the keys in it. It would be safe, she said, because her husband Frank Faye would be home. More >

With Halloween pranks and practical jokes approaching, here are a few with a Hollywood twist. I once inadvertently pulled a practical joke on David Niven, after a long lunch at Club 21, the famous New York restaurant which had once been a speakeasy. I was in New York to check on the filming of the first “Pink Panther” film in which Niven had a co-starring role with Peter Sellers. More >

If you grew up on classic horror movies, you must be as baffled and appalled as I am by the recent avalanche of films, TV shows and airplane-terminal beach books about lovesick vampires turning into goony-eyed romance-novel sweethearts who buy their daily blood supply at Walgreens. To Hillary Clinton, it may take a village, but to what remains of the American countryside gone to hell in Stake Land, all it takes is a stake through the heart. Despite the violence and mayhem, I actually liked this one More >

AN OLD VETERAN: Alice Cooper is warning the young ones to behave themselves or risk ruining their careers with drink and drugs. The music veteran enjoyed the rock and roll lifestyle to the fullest when he was in the spotlight. He says, “It was fun in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but those days are gone More >

James Bacon, who spent six decades chronicling the exploits of Hollywood’s biggest stars, died recently in his home at the age of 96.

The Beverly Hills [213] columnist, author and reporter began his career at The Associated Press in the 1940s, where he was a reporter for 23 years before becoming a columnist for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

He was widely known for his intimate access to the most famous people on the planet, including John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe. He loved to mention often that he has also met eight U.S. presidents.

“They just trusted him,” family friend Stan Rosenfield told the Associate Press. “If you look at the people he was friendly with — Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor — these were people who didn’t always have friendly relationships with the press.”

Bacon often drank and partied with his famous subjects, unimaginable in today’s paparazzi and gossip world. For instance, in a recent column for [213], Bacon told a story about his experience in a film. He wrote:

“I was cast in the film Ice Palace with Richard Burton. We were drinking Scotch in his hotel room in Point Barrow, Alaska. We needed more ice cubes for our whiskey.

“Richard opened the door and shouted down to the hotel clerk, ‘We need more ice.’

“At that very moment, an iceberg floated by a seaside room and smashed the window in Richard’s room.

“Richard walked over to the door and again yelled down to the desk clerk, ‘This is ridiculous. But thanks anyhow.’”

The secret to Bacon’s success may be best summed up by Clint Eastwood, who once said, “Jim always made you feel like...he was a pal looking to hang out. “

After spending 18 years at the Herald Examiner, Bacon went on to write the best-sellers: ‘’Made in Hollywood”, “Hollywood Is a Four Letter Town,” and co-authored Jackie Gleason’s autobiography “How Sweet It Is.”

Bacon also appeared in numerous films, generally in walk-on cameos. For example, Bacon appeared in all five films in the ‘Planet of the Apes’ series (the only actor to do so). In the only ‘Ape’ film in which he was credited, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, he played a human, General Faulkner.

Bacon was born James Richard Hughes Bacon on May 12, 1914 in Buffalo, New York. He attended the University of Notre Dame from 1933–1936, dropping out during his senior year in order to help his parents, who had recently lost their home in a flood. He earned his degree in journalism in 1943 from Syracuse University and then served in the Navy during World War II. He joined the Los Angeles bureau of the AP in 1948.

Since he began writing for Beverly Hills [213] in 1996, he never once missed a deadline. Working with him and his wife Doris was a huge pleasure for the staff, and he will be sorely missed.

Bacon is survived by his wife of 44 years, the former Doris Klein; their children James B. Bacon of Granada Hills, Calif., Thomas C. Bacon of Manhattan Beach, Calif., and Margaret Bacon Smith of L.A.; two children from his first marriage, Roger Bacon and Kathleen Brooks, both of Ventura, Calif.; 15 grandchildren; seven great grandchildren; and a sister, Patricia Wilt of Lock Haven, Pa.