When New York Mirror Editor Jack Lait and his Nightclub Columnist Lee Mortimer brought out their untidy, slapdash book, U.S.A. Confidential, they quickly became targets of half a dozen libel suits (TIME, May 19, 1952), based on the character assassination that helped make the book a bestseller. Biggest and most important was brought by Dallas' Neiman-Marcus store, which sued for $7,400,000 because Lait and Mortimer had written: "Some Neiman models are call girls . . . and the Dallas fairy colony is composed of many Neiman dress and millinery designers." Crown Publishers Inc., which published U.S.A. Confidential, promptly decided that it...
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