Gossip Columnist and Editor Susan Mulcahy

Smith, who died Sunday, started her daily column for The New York Daily News in 1976. In 2000, she told Fresh Air: "I always held back from writing things that were intentionally hurtful."

The classic 1957 film about the gossip industry has been remastered and rereleased on DVD and Blu-Ray. Critic John Powers says the movie's Manhattan is a "seamy, deglamorized world in which small men destroy lives to make themselves big."

Walter Winchell was the man who legitimized gossip columns, tabloid news, and celebrity watching. He rose from a poor New York family to become one of the most read columnists, and eventually consulted with F.D.R. and Joe McCarthy. Writer Neal Gabler has written a biography about Winchell. "Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity" helps explain the man who was the source of our current celebrity-obsessed culture.