Free Republic

Long before the murder, the girls and a role in “The Godfather,” Gianni Russo was a 13-year-old with a bum arm. Freshly sprung from Bellevue’s polio ward, he ditched his neglectful parents to sleep on flour sacks in the back of a Little Italy bakery and sell pens in front of the Waldorf-Astoria. It was 1956 and one of his regular customers was mob boss Frank Costello. The don would throw Russo a fiver and rub the boy’s withered shoulder for luck. After a few months of that, Russo objected to being touched. Costello respected the kid’s gumption — and...

One would like to think that Olivia de Havilland, the last remaining cast member from “Gone With the Wind” and, indeed, the last remaining female star from Hollywood’s Golden Age, had a vibrant lunch among friends at her Paris residence to celebrate her 100th birthday on Friday, July 1. “She’s gone through life collecting friends,” film critic and author Donald Spoto, a good friend who often lunches with de Havilland, said during a visit to San Francisco in 2013. “She’ll talk about her films if you ask her, but she never turns the spotlight on herself. She’s much more interested...

Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, but she still excites the public so much that her chest X-ray sold for $45,000. She's the subject of 1,000 books, the inspiration for Macy's new fashion collection, and an omnipresent icon who outstrips any living star. So why did the media ignore the stunning new evidence tying Bobby Kennedy to her death?