Local News in Brief : Rivers Suit Names Writer
Ben Stein, a Richard Nixon speech writer who served Gerald Ford in the White House, has been tagged by his former newspaper as the writer of a pen-name article targeted in a $50-million libel suit by comedian Joan Rivers.
Rivers and her publicist indicated earlier this week that they would file suit as soon as they confirmed the true name of “Bert Hacker,” who wrote the piece for the December issue of Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine. Rivers said she would pay a $5,000 bounty to whoever identified the writer.
Stein was identified as the author Friday by Los Angeles Herald Examiner columnist Mitchell Fink. Stein was once a columnist for the paper.
The Gentlemen’s Quarterly article quoted Rivers as saying that her late husband, Edgar Rosenberg, had turned maniacal and was driving her insane before his August death from a drug overdose.
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