About James Bacon

By the time journalist James Bacon arrived in Hollywood, he’d traded cigars with Winston Churchill and downed drinks with members of Al Capone’s gang.

Movie stars wouldn’t intimidate him.

It was Hollywood’s Golden Era and Bacon was ready.

His employer, the Associated Press, the largest news-gathering entity in the world, needed his elegant writing style and tough reporting skills to enliven its coverage of the world’s entertainment capital.

Bacon arrived from his former base, Chicago, with Humphrey Bogart’s private phone number in his pocket. Charlie Butterworth, who had acted with Bogart on Broadway, had provided it, telling Bacon to look up his old friend.

Bogie so enjoyed his afternoon with the young reporter, he invited him back for drinks with a few friends—Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, among others of his elite circle. His host dubbed

Bacon an “honorary mouse” in the celebrated Rat Pack.

That first Hollywood story launched a career of more than 40 years as Hollywood columnist and reporter, first for the Associated Press and then for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

Hollywood was his beat. But when a major news story erupted Bacon was on it— from dodging bullets during Los Angeles’ Watts Riots to covering six U.S. presidents. He partied with a young Senator John F. Kennedy during his earlier Hollywood visits.

When reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes went missing, object of a world wide search, Bacon established that he was alive. He was the only reporter who could identify Hughes’ voice from a lone telephone call. In earlier years, Bacon explained, he’d “heard too much” from Hughes.

Bacon dallied with Marilyn Monroe, matched drinks with John Wayne and was first at hand for the triumphs and tragedies of Elizabeth Taylor’s lifetime.

He spotted the early talents of Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. Sophia Loren gave Bacon a heads up on an emerging movie star in Italian Spaghetti Westerns, Clint Eastwood, then unknown in the U.S.

From Las Vegas’ earliest beginnings as a mob-dominated gambling capital, it was part of Bacon’s beat. Showrooms were more intimate in those days. The famed singers and great comedians were closer at hand. After hours, Bacon shared drinks with Frank Sinatra and pals Dean Martin,Sammy Davis and Joey Bishop. He traded jokes with the comics Milton Berle, Danny Thomas, Red Skelton and Shecky Greene. Late nights were in the Lounge, waiting to be insulted by a new comic, Don Rickles.

Bacon traveled the world with Bob Hope when he entertained the troops, including a Christmas visit to Viet Nam. He accompanied Sinatra to sold out performances before

Egypt’s pyramids and to what became a singalong with 30,000 fans in Rio’s Maracana soccer stadium.

Then there was Winston Churchill. Bacon was still in his twenties when the AP assigned him to cover the historic World War II meeting between the British Prime Minister and President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt at Roosevelt’s Hyde Park home.

As Bacon told it: “When Churchill spotted me smoking a cheap White Owl cigar he told me to get rid of it and handed me one of his very expensive stogies. I smoked it. I should have kept it. It would have made a great souvenir.”

James Bacon wrote two best-selling memoirs,”Hollywood Is A Four Letter Town” and

“Made In Hollywood.” At comedian Jackie Gleason’s request, and with his cooperation, he wrote his longtime friend’s biography “How Sweet It Is,” also a best seller. All three books are being published for the first time as E-Books and in large paperback format.