Howard Strickling: The Former Journalist
Strickling was a former journalist who moved over to MGM publicity back in 1919. He controlled how the press reported on all of MGM’s stars and films (this was back in the day when studios basically owned their actors). Strickling was the guy who made sure that scandals didn’t make their way to the papers.
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Such a job typically meant that he had to give reporters different stories to print instead, so he gave them stories about other film stars as a means of misdirection. When Jean Harlow became pregnant from her affair with William Powell, Strickling made sure “Mrs. Jean Carpenter” entered Good Shepherd Hospital “to get some rest.” Only her private doctors and nurses entered room 826, where she had been treated for an “appendectomy.”