Joyce Haber (December 28, 1930 â July 29, 1993) was one of Hollywood's last powerful gossip columnists, "capable of canonizing a film or destroying a star". An American, she worked for the Los Angeles Times starting in 1968, succeeding Hedda Hopper, who died in 1966.
In 1970, as retaliation for American actress Jean Seberg's public support of the Black Panther Party, Haber agreed to plant an unfounded rumour in her column that Seberg's pregnancy resulted from a liaison with a leader of the Black Panthers. Seberg's premature infant daughter died two days after birth and thereafter suffered from depression, which ultimately led to her suicide in 1979.
Haber left the Times in 1976 to write a roman a clef titled The Users. It was her only novel, rose to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List, and was made into a tele-film with the same name.
Haber was married to television producer Douglas S. Cramer from 1966âÂÂ1972. Together they had two children, Douglas S. Cramer III and Courtney Cramer.
In 1994 (after Haber's death), Cramer attempted to produce The Last Great Dish, a two-act play about their marriage, but never got it off the ground.
On July 29, 1993, Haber died of kidney and liver failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, having been admitted a couple weeks prior. She was 62 years old at the time.