Judith Regan
Encyclopedia
Judith Regan is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 editor, producer, book publisher and television and radio talk show host. She is the mother of a son and a daughter and lives in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

.

Early life

She was born on August 17, 1953. Regan grew up in Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Fitchburg, Massachusetts
Fitchburg is the third largest city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,318 at the 2010 census. Fitchburg is home to Fitchburg State University as well as 17 public and private elementary and high schools.- History :...

, and Bay Shore, Long Island and later graduated from Bay Shore High School
Bay Shore High School
Bay Shore High School is a public high school located in Bay Shore, New York. The school serves about 1,900 students in grades 9 to 12. It is part of Bay Shore Schools...

 in 1971. She attended Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

, receiving her degree in English and Art History
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

 in 1975. She went on to study Art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an undergraduate and graduate college located in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the visual arts. It is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in partnership with Tufts University...

 and voice with a Juilliard School of Music instructor. In 1977, she was recruited by The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer
The National Enquirer is an American supermarket tabloid now published by American Media Inc . Founded in 1926, the tabloid has gone through a variety of changes over the years....

while working at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

's Institute of Politics
Harvard Institute of Politics
Harvard Institute of Politics was created to serve as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy and inspire Harvard students into careers in politics and public service, much as President Kennedy was inspired during his days as a student at Harvard. The IOP also brings together the academic...

.

Television and publishing career

In the early 1980s, Regan wrote for and edited a number of publications and produced
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...

 for a number of television shows. In the mid-1980s, she signed a major six-figure deal with Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...

 for a two-book deal, including a study of the history of the American family. She later canceled the contract to stay home with her young son, who had suffered a devastating head injury
Head injury
Head injury refers to trauma of the head. This may or may not include injury to the brain. However, the terms traumatic brain injury and head injury are often used interchangeably in medical literature....

 after being hit by a drunken driver. Simon & Schuster then offered her a job as an editor
Editor
The term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...

 and she agreed if she could work from home while caring for her son.

Publishing Success

While at Simon & Schuster, Regan discovered and edited authors such as Wally Lamb
Wally Lamb
Wally Lamb is an American author known as the writer of the novels She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, both of which were selected for Oprah's Book Club.Lamb was born in Norwich, Connecticut...

, Walter Kirn
Walter Kirn
Walter Kirn is an American novelist, literary critic, and essayist. His latest book is the 2009 memoir Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever.-Overview:...

, and Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as McJob and...

 as novelists in addition to working with a wide range of authors from Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

 to Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...

. New York Magazine wrote,"Judith is, hands down, the most successful editor in the book business; not only has she sold millions of pallets of books, but she's put a decided spin on the culture, too (she almost single-handedly moved Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern off of the radio and out into the mass market, but she isn't just Rush and Howard; her oeuvre includes O.J. prosecutor Christopher Darden, Gen-Xer Douglas Coupland, Oprah novelist Wally Lamb, and diet-category-killer The Zone). She is said to be responsible for a king's ransom of the HarperCollins bottom line." Judith also had her own imprint, ReganBooks, at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins.

Fox News Television Talk Show Host

From 1994 to 2004, Regan hosted a number of talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....

s, including her own Judith Regan Tonight
Fox News Channel programming
Fox News Channel presents a variety of programming with up to 17 hours of live programming per day. Most of the programs are broadcast from Fox News headquarters in New York City in their street-side studio on Sixth Avenue in the west extension of Rockefeller Center...

, a weekend talk show on the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...

.

Regan Books

Regan's first acquisition was an unknown first-time novelist named Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...

, author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel published in 1995 written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, its sequels, and the...

. The book went on to sell over 10 million copies.

Additional books she created, art directed, marketed, edited and produced include Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is a novel by Gregory Maguire, retelling the tale of Cinderella through the eyes of one of her "ugly stepsisters." In 2002, the book was adapted into a TV movie of the same name, directed by Gavin Millar.-Plot:...

and Son of a Witch
Son of a Witch
Son of a Witch is a fantasy novel written by Gregory Maguire. The book is Maguire’s fifth revisionist story and the second set in the land of Oz originally conceived by L. Frank Baum. It is a sequel to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West...

, also by Gregory Maguire; Stupid White Men
Stupid White Men
Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! is a book by Michael Moore published in 2001. Although the publishers were convinced it would be rejected by the American reading public after the September 11, 2001 attacks, it spent 50 consecutive weeks on the New York...

by Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

; Private Parts
Private Parts (book)
Private Parts is the first autobiography of American radio presenter Howard Stern. Released on October 7, 1993 by Simon & Schuster, it is the fastest-selling book in the company's history. It was later adapted into a film in 1997 starring Stern and his radio show staff as themselves...

and Miss America
Miss America (book)
Miss America is the second book by American radio and media personality Howard Stern. Released on November 7, 1995 by ReganBooks, it became the fastest-selling title in the publisher's history...

by Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

; The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists is a non-fictional book written by investigative reporter Neil Strauss as a chronicle of his journey and encounters in the seduction community.The book was featured on the New York Times Bestseller List for two months after its release in...

by Neil Strauss
Neil Strauss
Neil Darrow Strauss , also known by the pen names Style and Chris Powles, is an American and Kittitian author, journalist and ghostwriter...

; and Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee
Robert McKee
Robert McKee, born 1941, is a creative writing instructor who is widely known for his popular "Story Seminar", which he developed when he was a professor at the University of Southern California. McKee is the author of a "screenwriters' bible" called Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the...

, Shabby Chic
Shabby chic
Shabby chic is a form of interior design where furniture and furnishings are either chosen for their age and signs of wear and tear or new items are distressed to achieve the appearance of an antique...

by Rachel Ashweell, and The Paris Apartment by Claudia Strasser,

O.J. Simpson book

In 2006, Fox announced that Regan had interviewed Simpson for over 4 hours and had achieved what the prosecutors and law enforcement had failed to do: she got O.J. Simpson to confess on camera and on paper. The confession would air on the Fox network and Regan would publish O.J. Simpson's book, If I Did It
If I Did It
If I Did It is a book by O. J. Simpson, in which he puts forth a hypothetical description of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Simpson was tried and acquitted of the murders in a criminal trial but later found financially liable in a civil trial...

.


After harsh criticism, News Corporation announced that it was canceling its publication and an interview with Simpson that was to air on the Fox Network.

The Mickey Mantle Novel

On December 14, 2006, the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

reported that ReganBooks would publish a "fictional biography" of New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...

 legend Mickey Mantle
Mickey Mantle
Mickey Charles Mantle was an American professional baseball player. Mantle is regarded by many to be the greatest switch hitter of all time, and one of the greatest players in baseball history. Mantle was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.Mantle was noted for his hitting...

 titled 7: The Mickey Mantle Novel written by sportswriter Peter Golenbock
Peter Golenbock
Peter Golenbock is a sports journalist and author. He is best known for the 1975 book Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949–1964 about the Yankees of that era...

, who had previously written The Bronx Zoo with Yankee relief pitcher
Relief pitcher
A relief pitcher or reliever is a baseball or softball pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed due to injury, ineffectiveness, fatigue, ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as being substituted by a pinch hitter...

 Sparky Lyle
Sparky Lyle
Albert Walter "Sparky" Lyle is an American former left-handed relief pitcher who spent sixteen seasons in Major League Baseball . He was a closer from 1969 to 1977, first for the Boston Red Sox and then the New York Yankees. A three-time All-Star, he won the American League Cy Young Award in 1977...

. The book was controversial because it describes Mantle having an affair with Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

 while she was dating Joe DiMaggio
Joe DiMaggio
Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio , nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper," was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak , a record that still stands...

. Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 journalism professor and pop culture expert, Bob Thompson, claimed what Golenbock wrote "has a long literary tradition."

Dismissal from HarperCollins

On December 15, 2006, Regan was fired from HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

, over alleged "anti-Semitic" comments. Regan sued News Corporation and News Corporation retracted the claim, apologized to Regan, and paid her an eight-figure settlement." This charge was completely fabricated" according to Regan's lawsuit. News Corporation then retracted the claim.

"After carefully considering the matter, we accept Ms. Regan's position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Ms. Regan is not anti-Semitic," News Corp. said. (AP Hillel Italie January 25 2007) It was reported that she had tapes that confirmed her position. The tapes of the conversation with a HarperCollins lawyer Mark Jackson have not been released. The staff at ReganBooks
ReganBooks
ReganBooks was an American bestselling imprint or division of HarperCollins book publishing house , headed by editor and publisher Judith Regan, started in 1994 and ended in late 2006. During its existence, Regan was called, by LA Weekly, "the world's most successful publisher". The division...

 were reassigned within the HarperCollins General Book Group. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

reported that "a stunned Ms. Regan was confronted by security guard
Security guard
A security guard is a person who is paid to protect property, assets, or people. Security guards are usually privately and formally employed personnel...

s who arrived with boxes and ordered her to leave." A temporary assistant who worked for less than one week also heard the conversation and claimed that Regan never made any anti-Semitic statement.

Lawsuit

In November 2007, Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against News Corporation protesting her dismissal. Her allegations include that she was ordered to lie to federal investigators to protect Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....

's bid for president
Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign, 2008
Rudy Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign began following the formation of the Draft Giuliani movement in October 2005. The next year, Giuliani opened an exploratory committee and formally announced in February 2007 that he was actively seeking the presidential nomination of the Republican...

, as his promotions of Bernard Kerik
Rudy Giuliani promotions of Bernard Kerik
Rudy Giuliani, as mayor of the City of New York, promoted the career of Bernard Kerik on several occasions. Critics have charged that Giuliani showed consistently poor judgment in doing so.-History of promotions:...

 were likely to become a burden on the presumed future campaign. According to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, "The assertion that the News Corporation has sought to protect Mr. Giuliani appears in the opening page of the filing. The document later revisits aspects of the assertion."

In January 2008, the defamation lawsuit was settled on terms described as confidential and equitable. It was reported the News Corporation paid Regan a sum between 10 and 30 million dollars. In a joint statement, News Corp conceded that Regan had not uttered anti-Semitic statements and that Regan was not anti-Semitic.

In February 2011, another lawsuit revealed that Roger Ailes
Roger Ailes
Roger Eugene Ailes is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W...

, head of Fox News, was the News Corporation person who told her to lie to federal prosecutors.

In popular culture

The middle segment in a 2006 episode of The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...

has correspondent John Oliver
John Oliver (comedian)
John Oliver is a British stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He is best known for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, for which he won an Emmy in 2009. He also plays a recurring character, Professor Ian Duncan, on the television series Community...

 "covering" an Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian convention regarded by many people as a Holocaust-denying
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...

 convention. Oliver explains that some former Nazis in attendance have "written" a book called If We Did It, before asking "Oh, Judith Regan. Is there anything you WON'T publish?"

A 2007, season 17 episode of Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...

titled "Murder Book" (episode 387–1716) features a character (Serena Darby) who is based loosely on Regan.

In a 2005, season 4 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Criminal Intent is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it was also primarily produced. Created and produced by Dick Wolf and René Balcer, the series premiered on September 30, 2001, as the second spin-off of Wolf's successful crime drama...

called "My Good Name
My Good Name
"My Good Name" is a fourth season episode of the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.-Synopsis:In this episode, Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the murder of a hospital maintenance worker, and it soon becomes obvious the body has been moved.At first, Goren and Eames take heat from...

", the media adviser to a Bernie Kerik-like character takes a phone call from a woman named "Judith" -- modeled after Regan.

In 2006, she was parodied
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 in a sketch
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...

 on season 12 episode #1207 of the television show, MADtv
MADtv
MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...

. In the sketch, two actors appear, one playing her and another playing O.J. Simpson.

In 2010, Regan appears as a client on season 4 of Bravo TV
Bravo TV
Bravo TV may refer to:* Bravo , U.S. cable TV channel owned by NBCUniversal* Bravo , former British television channel owned by Living TV Group, a subsidiary of British Sky Broadcasting...

's reality show, Millionaire Matchmaker
Millionaire Matchmaker
Millionaire Matchmaker is a television series produced by Bravo and presented by Patti Stanger. Stanger founded the Beverly Hills-based "Millionaire's Club" in 2000 to cater to wealthy men looking for partners...

.

Radio show

Regan hosts a general interest talk radio
Talk radio
Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often feature interviews with a number of different guests. Talk radio typically includes an element of listener participation, usually by broadcasting live...

 show on Sirius and XM Satellite Radio.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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