Army Archerd
© AFP/Getty Images/FileLOS ANGELES (AFP) - Archerd, 83, began writing "Just For Variety" for the daily trade publication in 1953, imparting daily titbits from Tinseltown insiders including the 1985 revelation that screen star Rock Hudson had AIDS.
The writer will pen is last regular column, always prefaced by the greeting "Good Morning," on September 1, but will continue contributing to Variety, the magazine said.
"Archerd will concentrate on writing his memoirs," the magazine said in an announcement posted at the bottom of his column.
"However, he will continue to contribute to Daily Variety by covering news and industry events," it added of Archerd who is seen in Hollywood as a member of the celebrity community rather than an outsider.
Archer's "three-dot" dispatches have become a staple on page two of the trade paper, offering readers pithy but very gentle insights into the inner workings of the entertainment business and its leading players.
But the heyday of Hollywood gossip columnists, once a powerful sector of the Fourth Estate when the likes of Hedda Hopper and her arch-rival Louella Parsons ruled the business, is long past.
Only a handful, including Archerd and New York-based Liz Smith, 82, still exist in a generation where the purveying of gossip items has shifted from being the domain of a handful of insiders to an lucrative new tabloid industry personified by People magazine and the National Inquirer.
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