# Cal York

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{{Short description|Pseudonym for Photoplay magazine editors}}
thumb|Example of the "Cal York" column in Photoplay magazine, 1928.
'''Cal York,''' an amalgam of California and New York, was a pseudonymous name used in the American film magazine [Photoplay](/source/Photoplay) that ran from 1911 to 1980. Popular entertainment scholar [Anthony Slide](/source/Anthony_Slide) considered it one of the most reliable voices in the old Hollywood gossip columns.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Slide |first=Anthony |title=Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers |chapter=Gossip, Scandal, and Innuendo |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |year=2010 |location=Jackson, Mississippi |pages=144}}</ref> York (presumably the editors) was the "columnist" for "Inside Stuff'',"'' and also a contributor to other parts of the magazine, including "Plays and Players."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Zimmerman |first=Tom |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2kcwp28 |title=The Queen of Technicolor: Maria Montez in Hollywood |date=2022 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |pages=178 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2kcwp28.8|jstor=j.ctv2kcwp28 }}</ref> Not every film scholar seems aware of the pseudonym, as many quote York without noting the meaning behind the name.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kotowski |first=Mariusz |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vkkpf |title=Pola Negri: Hollywood's First Femme Fatale |date=2014 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-4488-7 |pages=84|jstor=j.ctt5vkkpf }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2tsxkkn |title=Cinemas of Boyhood: Masculinity, Sexuality, Nationality |date=2021 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78920-993-8 |edition=1 |pages=156 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2tsxkkn.11|jstor=j.ctv2tsxkkn }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Griffin |first=Sean |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hj328 |title=What Dreams Were Made Of: Movie Stars of the 1940s |date=2011 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-4963-7 |pages=131, 134-135, 139|jstor=j.ctt5hj328 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Frymus |first=Agata |title=Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent Hollywood |date=2020 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |pages=75 |chapter=Vilma Bánky and Whiteness: ‘The Almost Perfect Anglo-Saxon Type, More English than the English'}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1b742g8 |title=Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon, Max Eastman, and Charlie Chaplin |date=2020 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-05292-6 |editor-last=Graham |editor-first=Cooper C. |pages=350 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1b742g8.11 |jstor=j.ctv1b742g8 |editor-last2=Irmscher |editor-first2=Christoph}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mahar |first=Karen Ward |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Y6IMGGiZfoC&dq=%22cal+york%22&pg=PA255 |title=Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood |date=2008-08-25 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=978-0-8018-9084-0 |location=Baltimore, Maryland |pages=248, 250, 252, 254-55, 259, 260, 263, 265}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Michael |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9tL7EAAAQBAJ&dq=%22cal+york%22&pg=PA130 |title=Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Film |date=18 December 2023 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-68682-3 |editor-last=Nikoloutsos |editor-first=Konstantinos P. |location=Netherlands |pages=130 |chapter='Hail! The Sign of the Cross': Industrial Campaigns and Commanding Performances in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Cleopatra (1934)}}</ref> Slide notes that the surname York once morphed to Yorke, assuming a typo, but it may also have been an inside joke.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Slide |first=Anthony |title=Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers |date=2010 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |pages=50-51, 62-63 |chapter=James R. Quirk and Photoplay}}</ref> He adds that toward the end of the magazine's life West Coast editor Richard Cuskelly<ref>{{cite web |title=Actor Austin Pendleton and reporters Richard Cuskelly, Jim Bacon,... |url=https://www.gettyimages.ca/detail/news-photo/actor-austin-pendleton-and-reporters-richard-cuskelly-jim-news-photo/480841407 |website=Getty Images |first=Michael |last=Ochs |access-date=5 November 2025 |language=en-us |date=24 March 2014}}</ref> wrote as Cal York.<ref name=":1" /> By the 1970s ''Photoplay'' was still using the old name, but Slide considered it an echo of the past.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Slide |first=Anthony |title=Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of Star Makers, Fabricators, and Gossip Mongers |date=2010 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |location=Jackson, Mississippi |pages=218 |chapter=The People Generation}}</ref>

There was also a character named Cal York in the 1955 American drama [Toughest Man Alive](/source/Toughest_Man_Alive), and it may have been a wink to the long-running character.

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:York, Cal}}
Category:American magazine editors
Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers
Category:Gossip columnists

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Cal York](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_York) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_York?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.