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away.”
    Stranger things still happened to the witnesses. In the days before the trial, many of
them
disappeared, too. Some left the state. One, actress Francesca de Scaffa, who was also a defendant and a source for
Confidential,
fled to Mexico, where she hid in the trunk of her white Jaguar while deportation officials were in hot pursuit. Two other witnesses who were expected to testify died under suspicious circumstances. Polly Gould, a woman detectivewho gathered scandalous—but unpublished—details about Joan Crawford’s sex life for
Confidential,
was found dead from an overdose of barbiturates. Police said it was an accident. A former featherweight boxer named Albert “Chalky” White, an ex-lover of Mae West who was the source of an article about the star’s “Open Door Policy,” was also found dead. He was drowned in his bathtub. Police said that that, too, was an accident. Insurance companies canceled
Confidential
staffers’ policies, deeming them “poor risks.” Otash and his detectives were able to subpoena only about one hundred stars. By this point, the once cocky Harrison had gotten nervous. He refused to go to California to be tried—fighting off several attempts by the prosecution to extradite him. The only defendants Brown’s office was able to haul into court were Harrison’s niece and her husband, Marjorie and Fred Meade, who ran the Los Angeles-based Hollywood Research, Inc., a small operation that gathered information for
Confidential.
The
Confidential
trial was held without Robert Harrison.
    Even without the key defendants and witnesses, the
Confidential
trial was a great show for scandal fans; that became obvious from the moment Ronnie Quillan was called to testify. A collective gasp rose from the courtroom as Quillan, wearing a form-fitting white dress and gold sling-back heels, was sworn in. She ran her fingers through her shoulder-length red hair and gave her occupation as “prostitute.” Ronnie Quillan was Hollywood’s most notorious madam. What’s more—she testified—she was also a paid informant for
Confidential.
“Mr. Harrison told me that he wanted stories concerning the activities of celebrities,” Quillan testified in a bored, world-weary voice. “The more lewd and lascivious, the more colorful for the magazine.” So Ronnie Quillan gave
Confidential
magazine the lowdown on television’s most adorable husband—Desi Arnaz.
    “Does Desi Really Love Lucy?”
Confidential
asked. “Arnaz is a Latin Lothario who loves Lucy
most
of the time but by no means
all
of the time,” the magazine reported. “He has, in fact, sprinkled his affections all over Los Angeles for a number of years. And quite a bit of it has been bestowed on vice dollies who were paid handsomely for loving Desi briefly but, presumably,as effectively as Lucy.”
Confidential
paid Quillan $1,200 for the information, she testified. She knew the story was true, she said, because she and two of her “girls” had serviced Arnaz. Arnaz angrily denied Quillan’s story, calling it “baloney,” adding, “I don’t remember meeting the lady.” Despite Arnaz’s denial, America was shocked. Los Angeles, which had never read the Arnaz story because of Brown’s ban of the magazine in California, was agog. The prosecutors had called Quillan as a witness against
Confidential
* because they hoped her revelations would prove that Robert Harrison ran a sleazy operation. The prostitute’s story turned out to be far more embarrassing to Arnaz and to Hollywood, however, than it was to
Confidential
magazine.
    Quillan was just the opening act. Actress Maureen O’Hara angrily testified that the article about her alleged “necking session” at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was inaccurate and libelous; O’Hara had the passport stamps to prove she was out of the country at the time the incident was supposed to have occurred. But
Confidential
produced three witnesses to the disputed event, including James Craig, the former