END OF AN ERA: JIM BACON GETS TRIMMED

In a feud worthy of the fabled Hollywood he writes about, Herald-Examiner star columnist James Bacon has been fired after 17 years--told to clear out by the end of the year.

“They said it was for budgetary reasons, but that’s a crock,” Bacon told Outtakes.

Bacon, 71, who will celebrate 50 years as a newspaperman next year, blames “new management” and specifically exec editor Stan Cloud for his demise. Bacon claims that Cloud is friendly with photographer Stan Tretick, reportedly the boyfriend of Kitty Kelley, author of a notorious biography of Liz Taylor and a controversial one upcoming on Frank Sinatra, a longtime chum of Bacon. Bacon has steadfastly ignored Kelley in his columns. According to Bacon, Cloud printed a volatile Tretick letter critical of Bacon and his free-lance-writer wife, Doris, in the Her-Ex in August, 1984--escalating a complicated feud.

Cloud seemed flabbergasted by Bacon’s scenario. He said he was acquainted with Tretick when the two worked for Time magazine, but hadn’t heard from the photographer for seven years when Tretick’s letter came to the Herald. “The long and short of it is that Stan, Kitty Kelley and Jim’s wife had nothing to do with (Bacon’s firing),” Cloud said. “It was purely an internal matter having nothing to do with anyone outside this building.”

Bacon is the last of an era, milking Tinseltown memories for his thrice-weekly column. “He’s almost an institution in his own right,” a Her-Ex insider told Outtakes. “He’s thought of affectionately here. The general feeling among staffers (about his firing) is outrage.”

Bacon says he isn’t fighting the dismissal. His biobook of Jackie Gleason, “How Sweet It Is,” is on the shelves and, he said, he is “deep into other book projects. . . . A writer’s never unemployed if he’s got a pencil and paper.”