Dear Alec Baldwin, L.A. Ain’t For You

Yes, The Purplish Light of Southern California Does Wonders for Aging Movie Stars. But If You’re Trying to Escape New York, You’re Coming to the Wrong Place.

Dear Alec Baldwin,

Let me be the first to welcome you to the great state of California.

I know you haven’t arrived yet. But, in a piece published in New York magazine that made headlines across the country, you made it plain that after years of being terrorized by Manhattan’s media and increasingly nosy public, you’re done with living and working in New York City, where you were once so popular that you toyed with running for mayor. Your next destination: Los Angeles, where you believe you can be free to be …

Why I Worship a Forgotten Starlet

The Hollywood Obsession That Changed My Life

Perhaps you’ve heard of Ann Dvorak. She made headlines in early 1932 with a coveted role in Scarface, a film produced by Howard Hughes. Reporters called the 19-year-old actress “Hollywood’s …

My Life as Barack Obama

For an Actor, Impersonating the President Is an Exciting Gig, and an Unexpected Gift

Celebrity impersonators get a lot of strange press. They get blamed for crimes, sometimes falsely. In L.A., there have been recent stories about cop impersonators. Does this mean that the …

TMZ’s Charles Latibeaudiere

A Bronx Native Embraces Los Angeles (Just Don’t Tell the Folks in New York)

Charles Latibeaudiere is co-executive producer of TMZ and a co-host of TMZ’s television show. Before participating in a panel on infotainment and journalism, he talked about his dream TMZ scoop, …

You Can’t Fight Infotainment

Journalists Figure Out The Brave New World of Celebrity, Politics, and the Internet

Joe Mathews, Zócalo California editor and author of The People’s Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger And the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy, learned about the perils entertainment culture can hold for political journalists …

The Giving Back Fund’s Marc Pollick

A Small-Town Guy Stuck in the Big City

Marc Pollick is the president and founder of The Giving Back Fund, which manages foundations for a number of celebrities. Before participating in a panel on whether celebrities help Haiti, …