Sheilah Graham
American gossip columnist (1904–1988)
Sheilah Graham (born Lily Shiel; 15 September 1904 – 17 November 1988) was a British-born, internationally syndicated American gossip columnist during Hollywood's "Golden Age". In her youth, she had been a showgirl and a freelance writer for Fleet Street in London. These early experiences would converge in her career in Hollywood, which spanned nearly four decades, as a successful columnist and author.
Graham was also known for her relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, a relationship she played a significant role in immortalizing through a memoir she wrote together with Gerold Frank, Beloved Infidel, a bestseller that was made into a 1959 film starring Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr.
Early life
Graham was born Lily Shiel in Leeds, England, the youngest of Rebecca (Blashman) and Louis Shiel's eight children (two of whom died). Her parents were Ukrainian Jews. Her father, a tailor who had fled the pogroms, died of tuberculosis on a trip to Berlin while his daughter was still an infant. Her mother and the children moved to a basement flat in a Stepney Green slum in the East End of London. Rebecca, who spoke little English, struggled to provide for her family by cleaning public lavatories and was forced by these circumstances to place Lily in the Jews Hospital and Orphanage. Later, in her professional and social adult life, Sheilah Graham kept her Jewish background a secret, although eventually it became an open one.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7493182. VIAF identifies the subject as 76362563. The Library of Congress control number is n50034884. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1988 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sheilah Graham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.