FINKE FILES: Chasing Hollywood’s Last Great Gossip…

Nikki Finke (credit: Twitter.com/NikkiFinke)Last month, my first book was published and I noted it was the culmination of my efforts to solely focus on covering the January 6 attack. With that project complete and the House select committee hearings coming to an end for now, it is time for me to broaden the focus of this newsletter. From here on out, I will be sharing stories about whatever’s on my mind. Things will probably get a little more weird. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s also going to be totally free for the time being and I will let you know well in advance if that is going to change. It’s kind of fitting that I transition from the story that has completely captivated me for the past 21 months by writing about one that obsessed me at the start of my career over a decade ago. In a past life, I was a Hollywood reporter and Nikki Finke was my white whale. Finke, who died last Sunday at the age of 68, was not a household name. However, for years the movie and television industry was captivated by her work. A former debutante from Long Island, Finke wrote stories and columns about Hollywood for a succession of newspapers and magazines. In 2006, she struck out on her own and launched Deadline, one of the first online news outlets dedicated to the business. Her embrace of the internet was visionary, but it wasn’t the only thing that made Finke essential reading for moguls, agents, actors, storytellers, and all those who aspired to join their ranks. Finke’s writing was absolutely vicious. She would skewer execs and stars alike. Finke was also a tenacious reporter who posted news quickly and relentlessly in an era when the concept of fast paced incremental scoops was still novel. Her site featured streams of exclusives and updates, which were often embellished with her signature, “TOLDJA!” She was a pioneer of web journalism, an industry that has always had a dark side. Finke’s work was no exception. As the great Richard Rushfield wrote in his Finke obituary at The Ankler, “she lied about things small … and things enormous.” Many of her lies and barbs were also in service to hidden agendas. Finke carried water for her best sources in her scoops and rants. As a young reporter in Hollywood, I wasn’t drawn to Finke because I cared about her take on each week’s box office or even for the juicier bits of gossip she published. Her life behind the scenes was a better show than anything on her site. Finke’s telephone tirades against rivals, sources, and even her own employees were the stuff of legend. Her reporting, wheeling, and dealing meant constantly working the phones where she would alternate between being extravagantly sweet or completely unhinged.Paradoxically, along with being known for losing her shit all over town, Finke had developed a reputation as a serious recluse. Almost no one in Hollywood had seen her in years — online or off. She was rumored to stay largely confined in an apartment on LA’s West Side. Even as she wrote every week, her own site only featured one decidedly soft focus portrait. Finke was the Hollywood equivalent of an unidentified flying object. A current photo of the infamous columnist would be an object of intense fascination and a major prize, to the point that Rushfield and the Hollywood blog Defamer once put out a four figure bounty for Finke’s picture. I found the whole thing irresistible. I moved out to the West Coast in mid 2010. It was the height of Finke’s power. She was one of the only great characters in an industry that had been sanitized by massive public relations machines and the reporters who parroted them. I was covering the business side of entertainment and Finke was one of its most important and esoteric figures. Along with being an inveterate media gossip, I can’t resist a chase. Obtaining a Finke’s photo became a mission for me from the moment I got to the West Coast. It was a goal that struck me as both irresistible and realistic. How hard could it be to snap a shot of one well-known woman living in the most …