Entertainment Tonight & Jim Bellows
Entertainment Tonight has been in news a lot lately as Mary Hart leaves after 29 years. In many news stories, including this N.P.R. story, Hart is credited with discovering that there was news in entertainment.
The truth is that it was Jim Bellows was really the one who created a news focus for the entertainment show. (Prior to the 1990s, the show included investigative elements – different than the content today.) He was the one who hired Hart.
This is a quote from John Goldhammer: “John Bellows added his very special touch to every corner of Entertainment Tonight. He created an investigative team, establishing for the first time a truly unprecedented (and many times unwelcomed by ‘the biz’) dissection of problems inside the halls of the entertainment business. It is doubtful the series would have survived without his name, reputation, and skill brought to this new venture.”
As Bellows wrote in his book, The Last Editor, “Whether you are a TV show or a newspaper, you are still dealing with the same ingredient – news. I knew news.” (pg 252)
Prior to his tenure at E.T., he was a great supporter of women at the newspapers where he was an editor. In the 1960s, he was married to women’s page editor Maggie Savoy.
