He was described by Newsweek as "probably the most influential columnist inside the movie colony," the one writer "who gets the pick of trade items, the industry rumors, the policy and casting switches."
Actress and writer Shirley MacLaine devoted several pages in her first memoir, Don't Fall Off the Mountain (1970), to an incident in which she had marched into the offices of The Hollywood Reporter and punched Connolly in the mouth [REF].